Sweet Buddha’s belly!
“Henry Peter?” Libby repeated, then put it together. “Wait, Hash Pants is Doug’s brother, and his name is Henry Peter?”
Ida looked at her as if she’d sprouted rutabagas out of her ears. “Yes, you didn’t think Hash Pants was his real name, did you?”
She shrugged.
Ida released another rolling belly laugh. “We’re a little weird in Rickety Rock, but not weird enough to name a baby Hash Pants.”
“My friend Harper will be so disappointed,” she mused. “Wow, I can’t get over all the coincidences.”
Ida’s expression grew serious. “It’s not a coincidence that you and I have connected, Libby, or should I say reconnected.”
“It’s not?” she asked, not following.
“A swallowtail butterfly in Tibet told me it was time to return. That was the instant the ripple of the intention had begun to play out.”
Libby mustered a smile. There was a lot to unpack with that statement.
“A butterfly told you to come back to Colorado?” she pressed, needing a little clarification.
“A butterfly told me it was time to return to you. It was time for our paths to cross again.”
There she was with the again business.
“Why would our paths need to cross?”
Ida went to her bag and removed a small box with for Libby written in her mother’s hand.
Libby swallowed past the emotion in her throat. She hadn’t seen the box in years. “Where did you get that?”
“It was in my apartment. It had fallen off the top shelf in the closet and was wedged against the back wall.” Ida reached out and stroked her cheek. The woman’s touch was soothing, like a tactile lullaby. “Libby, you are so very much like her.”
“Like who?” Libby rasped, but she didn’t have to ask. She knew the answer.
“Your lovely mother, Aurora.”
Libby took a step back and studied the studio as that sense of déjà vu unearthed a cascade of memories. Her gaze bounced from Ida to the view out the large windows. She stared at the playground and could picture the twelve-year-old version of herself standing among the children. “You were the teacher—the instructor who taught the stretching class for women going through chemotherapy.”
“Yes, that was me.”
She inhaled a shaky breath. “Did you know I was living in your apartment?”
Ida gifted her with a warm grin. “I didn’t know it was you until I returned and spoke with my nephew. I’d had minimal contact with the outside world during my time in Tibet. When the taxi dropped me off, it was dark, but I should have recognized your energy, your rage. I brushed off the feeling. Whoever you were, I figured you were angry at being booted from your apartment. I gave you the stone because I felt awful for you.”
Something wasn’t adding up.
“How would you have recognized my rage?”
“When your mother started coming to class, she was a ball of anger. Rage had taken hold of her and disrupted her chi. That aura was something else, I tell you. But of course, she would be furious. She didn’t want to leave you, your brothers, and your father. Our stretching class was much more than touching your toes. She and I connected on a spiritual level. I saw a light in your mother, an intuitive quality I believe you share with her.”
“Yes,” Libby answered, blown away by the revelation. “My mom had a sixth sense about things, and we could both read auras.”
“I helped her craft an intention so she could depart this world peacefully, knowing that you, your brothers, and your father would be okay—that you could carry on,” Ida explained. “I gave her an aquamarine stone to dispel her rage and allow healing to take hold.”
It made sense.
Her mother’s aura had changed after she started attending the classes. Not that her mother had ever been cross or cruel. That wasn’t her way. But the hopeless vibrations had stopped once she’d started coming here.
She’d never put together that the instructor had given her mother that gift.
And then she felt a pull, an energy.
The box.
She removed the lid, and there it was. The blue-green stone she recalled seeing her mother slip into her pocket. The stone her mother had removed from the box and pressed into her hand minutes before she’d taken her last breath. The stone she’d clutched as she promised her mother she’d watch out for the twins.
She ran her finger across its smooth surface. “After my mom passed, I never took a second to process the loss. I turned my attention to my brothers and my dad. I can’t believe I’d forgotten about the stone.”
“It didn’t forget about you,” Ida said gently, then gestured for them to sit on two yoga mats spread on the ground.
She sat cross-legged, grateful to ground herself. She’d never felt like this.
Lost but found.
Anxious yet at peace.
“When I arrived back in Denver, and my nephew told me your name, I knew this was your mother intervening. This was her energy and her intention transforming into action. You might have felt alone after your mother died, but you weren’t. The ripples of Aurora’s intention have always been with you. That intense energy of a mother’s love cannot go unchecked.”
Libby nodded, unable to speak.
“Your mother’s energy is infused in your aura. I’m sure you’ve sensed it.”
“It’s blue-violet,” she answered, but Ida frowned.
“No, dear, it’s indigo. There’s quite a difference.”
“Indigo,” Libby whispered. It had never dawned on her to see the colors as one.
“While blue denotes contentment and peacefulness and violet shows us power, indigo takes elements from both colors to create something new. Indigo is the shade of those who seek truth, who aspire to enlighten others and guide others. Your psychic glow is your truth. Indigo is the color of deep devotion—devotion to loved ones and to their life’s work. Your mother and I used these qualities to craft her intention.”
“Do you remember the intention?” Libby asked.
Ida closed her eyes and exhaled an even breath. “Aurora wanted her family to embrace love, care for each other, and follow their hearts. She wanted you all to picture your family’s happy times and hold them in your heart.”
Picture a time when you were truly happy. Hold that feeling in your chest, close to your heart.
“Wow,” she said, wonder coating the word. “My mother never told me this was her intention.”
“Had she told you about this solemn wish, it might have colored your view of yourself. She understood that there was a path, and it was yours alone to discover.”
Libby brushed a tear from her cheek.
“And then,” Ida continued, “when Maud called and told me a Libby Lamb was part of the group renting the old Victorian on the hill, I understood why that butterfly told me it was time to come home. Since that day, I’ve been keeping tabs on you.”
“From Maud and Bob? I thought I sensed a connection to them. It must have been you.”
“Yes, Maud and Bob had quite a bit to say about you and Erasmus. But I must say, I learned a lot from the internet. It’s come a long way in ten years.”