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     Ginger, the seamstress, said, “It was amazing.  I was looking in a shop window and saw the brief outfits, called shorts and halter tops, and decided to go in and see how they were made.

     “The lady inside asked if she could help me and I said I would like to learn how to make clothes like that.  She asked if I sewed and I said yes, that I had made what I was wearing.

     “She
looked at the hem of my skirt
, and at the seams,
and told me to follow her in the back.  There were two girls in the back working
.

 
   
The
re were three sewing
machines and she asked me if I wanted to try one.  She was so nice and spent time showing me how to use it.
  It was more complicated than ours, Ashley.

     “She told me to try making some of the clothes like I had seen in the window.  I had so much material in my skirt I decided to use it to make one of those outfits and make one for myself
.
 

     “May was her name, and she came back later and saw what I had done.  I was wearing the one I made for myself.” 

     She got up and walked around the room.  She had made a pair of shorts and a halter top out of the fine silk material that Sandra, our weaver had made.

     Ginger had strawberry blond hair and green eyes.  She was tall and thin and looked like a model
.  She was beautiful.

     She continued, “May told me that I could work there.  I showed her my card and told her I wanted very much to make clothes in her shop.  I will start tomorrow.”

     “How much are you going to make?” I asked.

     “I will make thirty five dollars a week.  I told her about you, Sandra, and she wants to buy some of your material.  I start tomorrow and you can come w
ith me and bring some of your material to show her.

     “She said she is also looking for a model.  It’s a lady who wears the clothes in a show at the country club.  And all the ladies there buy them.

     “Marion, do you want to go see if she will take you as a model?”

     Marion looked at Rory and he said, “It’s up to you, honey.  I
t
will give us more money.”

     “I want to try this,” Marion said.  “I’ll go with you and Sandra.  I’m so excited.”

    
“Wow, three jobs in one shop,” I said.  “I am going down tomorrow to see about a waitress job in the night club we went to today and our band might be able to play there on the regular band’s night off.  Who else has jobs or the prospect of a job?”

    
I
t
was surprising how many of us had jobs after just one try.  Some of the jobs were low pay like dishwashers in restaurants and maids in some of the hotels.

     “You know, if we can put our salaries together, we could get a car to share, maybe a van.  Some of us will need to get a driver’s license.  I could get a license first then teach all of you to drive.”

CHAPTER 34

    
Three months later we all had jobs and were looking at used vans.  We had put our money in a container made by Pud.  It was a square basket with a lid that she had woven out of straw she and the other children had picked and dried.

     We had so little living expenses that we were able to save most of our salaries.  Joe and his band were getting more and more gigs as more people heard of them.

     Their songs were so different from anything anyone had heard and word had gotten around and one night while they were entertaining, a record company executive had come to hear them, without their knowledge.

     His name was Mr. Miser and he wanted to sign them with his company
, Miser Records,
right away.  They would have to fly to Nashville to make some records but they would make good money.

     Joe was so excited, “will you come with me, Ashley?”

     “No, I can’t, Joe, I have to work.  It’s not like before.  I can’t just go and do anything I want to do with you whenever I want.”

     “Oh, I never thought about that.  I’m a little scared though.”

      “You’ll do fine, Joe.  You’re going to have a good time.  Maybe you
’ll even get to meet Elvis Pres
ley.”

     Joe’s band was called Joe’s Band and they were almost an overnight success.  They made a lot of money and we soon had several cars to share among us folks from Cave City.

     I held several meetings and warned everyone about the pitfalls of getting too materialistic.  We agree
d
among ourselves to keep things simple and to use any excess to help others.

     I soon joined Sandy, Marion, and Ginger in the garment business and we eventually opened our own shop.

     As the months went by it became time for school to start and the cave provided us with past records for the children and we were able to enroll them in school.

     We still lived a very simple lifestyle and it didn’t look like that was going to change.  We were each happy within ourselves and had everything we needed.

     During the fifties in Florida, the stores closed on Sundays.  We were all home and for some reason I had the urge to go down the hill.

     I asked Joe if he wanted to go with me and he said no.  It surprised me.  He had always wanted to go wherever I did
.  I couldn’t shake the feeling to go down the hill.

      I decided to go on down the hill by myself and that was when I found out why there was a dark passage between the entrance of the cave and the city.

     When I got to the center of
the passage, I stopped and listened.  I thought I heard someone whisper, but when I stopped I didn’t hear it.

     I stood there with my eyes closed and suddenly I was within myself.  I don’t know how else to describe it.  I lost all track of who, when, or where I was.

     To say that I felt total peace would be a gross understatement.  I felt almost like I was floating
but it was better than floating until suddenly it felt like I was dropped onto the floor of the passageway.

     I opened my eyes and saw a light similar to the one I had seen when I died before.  My thoughts were moving very fast all of a sudden and I began to get bits and pieces of messages.

     I didn’t know how long I had been in the passage when I heard Joe calling me.  I collapsed in his arms and he carried me back to our house.

     When I came to, our house was filled with concerned people, all trying to see me.  “What happened in there,” Joe asked.

      I pulled myself up to a sitting position
and realized I felt better than I had ever felt, “It was a lot of messages but I was getting them too fast and I got overwhelmed.”

      Marion knelt down beside me, “What happened to your hair?”

     I felt my head expecting to be bald or something and it felt silkier than before but that was all.

    “It’s the most beautiful gold I’ve ever seen
,” she said, stroking it.

      I got up and looked in the mirror. We had gotten one when Joe got his first paycheck.  My hair was a red/gold many shades lighter than it had been, as if I had been in the sun.

CHAPTER 35

     We were eating lunch together outside, later,
when
all of a sudden
the walls of the city started moving away from us.

     Where the walls met the ground, were then pulled loose causing the walls to become part of the ceiling.  So that instead of a dome-like structure, it was a flat structure above our heads and we were outside.

     The flat surface
then rose up higher and higher and I noticed the old dwellings that had been tucked underneath were hanging down from tendons all the way around the flat thing that now looked more like a thin membrane.

     It soon took on the semi-spherical shape it had before so that it resembled a jellyfish and made the same swimming motion as it had to move us from place to place.

     We watched until it was out of sight and I g
ot a sense that it was at peace,
that it had brought us to where we were meant to be and somehow I felt that we were meant to make sure that mankind didn’t screw things up this time around.

     I felt like the messages I had gotten in the passageway meant that we were supposed to have learned from WWII and that mankind didn’t learn the first time around.

     I didn’t know how one woman like me was supposed to make a difference but I was going to trust that it would come to me at each opportunity.

     When we looked at our houses, they had been made into regular houses like we were supposed to fit in
with the rest of society
.  We now had the tools to live and I felt like our group, at least, would do what we were supposed to do.

     Our houses were still in the same place in relationship to each other and were still the same pretty colors but they contained the basics.  If we wanted extras we had to earn them.

     We no longer had gardens.  We would have to replant.  We were on the outskirts of St. Augustine still and I wondered whose land we were on.
  There was a dirt road that lead to State Road 16, and that lead into St. Augustine.  We now had enough cars to share.

     We had wondered why everyone’s hair had turned normal colors when we had landed here and now we knew.  We were on our own.  We were supposed to blend in.

     This was also why it had been so easy for us to get jobs and enroll the kids in school.  This was apparently our final destina
tion, for now anyway.  Who knew
after we all died again.

     Some of the children had wandered off and I warned everyone to keep up with their kids, that they would no longer be protected unless we protected them ourselves.

    
As soon as the children had been found, Rory called a meeting.  We looked around and someone suggested we sit on the ground under the large Live Oak trees that grew so plentiful in St. Augustine.

     “I’m worried about our children, now that we’re on our own,” Rory began.  “Marion and I waited so long to have children and we want to make sure our
s
and everyone else’s
are safe.

     “How can we
be sure they are safe, Ashley?”

     “We can’t be completely sure they will always be safe.  We
have been protected before
but now we have to protect them as best we can. 

     “We’re going to have to also make sure our kids understand the need for us to protect them, without scaring them. 

     “I suggest that some of the women who haven’t gotten jobs yet be the baby sitters for the children while we are at work and while the older kids are in school.

     “Will this be too much work for you?”  I asked of the women.  “I know right now you are already doing all the cooking.
”

     Regina, one of the women who had been a former Charles Manson follower raised her hand.  She was a plump good natured woman
and had stated she would rather stay at home and cook than to find a job.  We had each been giving her money to cook so she would have money to spend when she went into town.

     “I have really enjoyed doing the cooking and staying at home and I have also spent a lot of time with the children.  We go on picnics and swim together in the pond and so on.

     “I, for one would be glad to watch the children also.  I can’t speak for the others, of course.”

     “I suggest we build a fence around this area so the little ones don’t wander very far off,” Joe said.

    
“We don’t own this land,” I reminded everyone but I don’t think they understood.  Where and when they had come from no one owned the land and I wished it was that way here.  The American Indians had said the same thing years ago.

     “I’ll go down to the courthouse tomorrow morning and find out who owns this land and if we can buy it. 

     “Whoever owns it may make us remove ourselves and our houses or they might even be able to take possession of our houses.”

    
“Ashley, are you telling us we may lose our houses?” Robert asked.

     “It’s possible, but don’t worry about it until I check on it.  We are taking up a large area here.  We have over one hundred houses after all so we might be on more than one person’s land.”

CHAPTER 36

     The courthouse was downtown and I asked at the information desk just inside where I would find out about who owns a piece of property.  He directed me to the property appraiser’s office and a woman named Cindy, a cute little woman with blond hair and pale blue eyes, helped me get the information I needed.

     When I left there I drove
to our shop on Orange Street.  Business was slow today.  “Why don’t we close the shop and go out to lunch.  I have some information I want to tell you about the property we’re on.”