Aurator, The (3 page)

4. The Meeting
 

After cleaning up my mess, and myself as well, I wrote a note to my husband apologizing for the lack of dishes, writing that I needed to go out tonight and I would explain later. I placed a stack of paper plates alongside plastic forks on the counter, considering they would need some way to eat dinner.

Aaron had agreed to meet me at a nearby cafe. I wasn’t sure what I was walking into and felt horrible for not telling my husband where I was going. If this person actually had answers then I wanted them… didn’t I? I wasn’t sure how he could have the answers or know what was going on in my head, the things that I saw, that I dreamed.

I started to panic. Was I going to meet some crazy guy who noticed a woman in a store on the verge of a nervous breakdown and saw an opportunity? Maybe he was just very perceptive. I got into my car and tried to distract myself with other random thoughts and with the things around me. As I shifted my car from second to third gear smoothly, I chuckled, thinking about learning to drive a stick shift when I was sixteen. Life seemed so much simpler then. But even that didn’t seem to help, as my mind flashed to the classroom scene from high school and I could feel my heart take a sudden gallop forward. I tried to shake it off.
Think of something else,
Megan
.

I turned into the parking lot of the cafe, not really remembering how I got there. After parking I took a minute to collect myself. I got out and looked into the cafe. There were a lot of people in there… safe.

I walked in and glanced around. There was a woman behind the counter… white aura… good, I’ll talk to her. What do I say,
Hey, have you seen some guy come in with a red aura?
Instead I told her I was meeting someone and would just take a look around. As I scanned the tables I saw a blur of white, black, gray. Then in the back corner I saw it, a red glow, like a beacon in the middle of an ocean. Our eyes met and he smiled at me. His eyes seemed warm and inviting, and a little curious.

I made my way across the room, noticing cold blasts or warm waves hitting me as I walked through the room. As I had noticed earlier, the cold corresponded with the darker auras and the warmth with the lighter. I had never “felt” so many auras before. As I got to the table, he stood, still smiling, and motioned for me to sit.

“I’m glad you called,” he said as I tried to size up this strange red aura. Oddly, I noticed as I sat down that there was no temperature change around him.

“You said you know what I
see
?” I left it at that. I had a sudden surge of confidence that it was all a mistake. This guy didn’t know anything. He couldn’t know what I had to deal with, and I was nuts to come meet him.

“How long have you seen light and dark auras?” he asked.

“What do you mean light and dark?” Better to seem aloof. I wanted to know what
he
knew.

He smiled, seeming to sense my hesitation. “Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way. Forgive me, but seeing you really piqued my curiosity. You probably want some proof to be sure you can talk openly with me.”

Okay, he’s good. “Go on.”

“Again, my name is Aaron. I’m an Aurator, just like you. I can see light and dark auras around individuals. Simply put, light is good and dark is, well… not so good.”

I could feel my heart speeding and my breath quickening. I had a sudden urge to run out of the building, but an intense curiosity kept me here.

He continued, “I have dreams that show me…
things
and I connect them to the aura and… well,” he leaned toward me and lowered his voice, “I fix it.” He leaned back and smiled again, acting like he sensed my anxiety.

I swallowed loudly and tried to steady my voice. “What does this have to do with me?”

He looked as if he knew my doubts. “Do you see my red aura?”

My breath caught. “Yes.”

He smiled wider, again leaned forward, and said in such a hushed voice that I had to concentrate to hear him, “I see your red aura too.”

My head was spinning. My words came out so fast I could barely keep up, “What do you mean? I don’t have… I mean I’ve never seen… everyone else has… but me… no.” I put my hands over my face and tried to fight the spinning.

“It’s okay, I can’t see my own either. It’s the only aura we can’t see.” I’d never thought about this before. Of course I had never considered that I actually
had
an aura that could or couldn’t be seen. Far less that I simply couldn’t see it for myself.

“Why?” I asked.

“We’re not exactly sure. But none of us can. There may…”

“Wait,” I cut him off. “Us? How many of you are there?”

“How many of
us
are there,” he corrected me. “Not many.” He shook his head, “Not enough.”

“Enough for what?” I didn’t feel like I was getting information very quickly from this man.

“To take care of the
others.
” He stared at me as if waiting for a reaction. I didn’t have one.

“Who are the others?” I asked. His eyebrows furrowed at this question and he looked deep into my eyes as if trying to dig for information.

“Others who are completing
their
purpose
,” Aaron said carefully without answering me.

Now I was confused. Not only was I sitting in a cafe with a complete stranger, someone whose sanity I was starting to question along with my own, but now he’s speaking in some sort of code.

“What’s a
purpose
?” I glared back into his eyes.

He sat back in his chair, his face going white, his eyes wide with surprise.

“What?” I asked.

“I’m not sure what to say. I think I’ve already assumed too much.” He shook his head as if trying to discount something.

I was losing my patience. “You’re the one who asked me here. If you know something that is going to save my sanity, I need to know what it is. Or… if you’re just some lunatic, then I’m calling the police.”

He put his hand up as if asking me to wait. Taking a deep breath he asked, “Have you had a dream that has come true… in a way? Saw victims of a crime?”

Now it was my turn to sit back. I took a deep breath. “Yes, why?”

“When?” he asked.

“When I was sixteen in high school.” I tried to shake the memory out of my head.

His eyes were wide and he was breathing fast. “What happened?”

I decided to take a leap of faith and began to tell him about my experiences, my vision of the kids at school and how I had found the bloody scene afterward. As my story unfolded, Aaron’s expression grew more and more confused. When I ended, he was shaking his head in disbelief, and I found myself beginning to wonder if I had been right to confide in him.

“That’s impossible,” Aaron finally struggled to say. “I don’t understand how this could have happened.”

“Now I’ve told you enough, I want some answers,” I said under my breath to him. You
clearly
know something, or
think
you know something about me that I don’t.”

“I do.”

“Well?”

He took a couple of deep breaths and then began telling me more than I ever wanted to know.

“I’m an Aurator. I’m designed at my most basic genetic structure to right the wrongs in this world. I have dreams or visions that show me people who are going to be victims… unnecessarily. Then I connect those visions with an aura… the essence around the person who
will
be
responsible for these crimes. When I see the aura of my purpose, the visions show like a slide show around the person. It is clear to me in that moment that I have the right person. I then eliminate them to protect the potential victims.”

It’s settled, I thought, this guy is crazier than me.

He continued, “I’ve run into others of our kind, but never one like you. First off, our purpose usually does not begin for us until well into our twenties when our psyche is strong enough to handle it. Second, we don’t develop the red aura until we’ve completed our first purpose, something you say you haven’t done yet. And third, there has never been a woman.” He looked at me, waiting for a reaction.

I paused, thinking about which of the points I wanted to clarify. “What do you mean completed our first purpose?”

“Elimination of the person.”

“Elimination? You mean
kill
?” I asked, almost shocking myself with the bluntness. I looked around to be sure no one was listening.

He paused, thinking over his response, “Yes, that’s one way to look at it.”

I snickered sarcastically, “Is the person’s heart beating when you’re done? I’m a nurse. If it’s not beating, that’s called DEAD.” I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation.

He grimaced, “Well then, I guess I would have to agree.”

“So what does that make me?” I raised one eyebrow at him.

“One of us… I think.”

“What do you mean
you
think
?”

“I’m not sure I’m the right person to answer your questions,” he said. This was becoming maddening and I was losing patience.

One thing I knew for sure. I am a nurse. I save people, I don’t kill them. On this point I was perfectly clear.

“If you can’t answer questions about me, can you tell me more about you? Why do you do it?” Keep him talking was all I could think to do in the moment.

“Well… I don’t just
do
it. I’m born this way. It’s hard to explain.”

“Try,” I said curtly.

He took another breath, “Do you believe in creation or evolution?”

My eyes widened. I hadn’t expected this question. “I was raised in the Catholic Church, so, creation to a point. However, as a nurse, being science-based I also believe in evolution. Why?”

“That’s good. The truth is that it’s both. Life is a delicate balance between creation and evolution. We are all fragile threads of DNA teetering on the fence between these two truths. Created by one and being changed by the other. Mistakes happen. Our DNA change relative to evolution or environment, maybe both, we’re not sure. But like everything in life, when there is an action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

I was pretty sure I wasn’t breathing.

He took a drink of his water and continued. “While some people change and do bad things, we change to counter this. We like to think of ourselves as God’s clean-up crew, not that God makes mistakes. It’s just that we can help keep the balance and effect change, positively, for many people.”

I found myself flashing back to church, to the priest who had been molesting boys. I remembered that the only thing I got out of the Bible was that those thin pages, when torn out, wadded up, and sucked on for an appropriate amount of time made the best spit wads. Shaking my head, I said, “This is hocus-pocus, fiction. This doesn’t really happen.”

“It does, and you are a part of it. Although,” he paused and looked curiously at me again, “I’m honestly not sure how.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, like I said, there’s never been a woman. Additionally, you shouldn’t have a red aura if you haven’t yet, as you say,
killed
someone. I’m not sure what to make of it.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’ve heard just about enough. How do I find out why I have this red aura you’re talking about, since you don’t know?”

“We need to talk to Max.”

“Who’s Max?”

“Well, Max has been around a lot longer than I have. He’s our local historian.”

Okay, I thought, I’ll bite. “How long does this go back?”

“Centuries.” He turned away and shook his head. There was a hint of sadness in his face. I pressed on.

“So, if I am who you say I am, do I have a choice?”

“What do you mean by choice?” he asked.

“Can I choose not to complete a
purpose
?”

His eyebrows furrowed, “I don’t know if anyone’s tried.”

“What was it like for you?”

He thought about this for a moment. “It was 1974, and I was twenty-two. While in college, I was living in the Noe Valley area of San Francisco. I loved that area, so diverse and so many beautiful views of the city. It was during this time that I had my first vision. The images in my vision, which was more like a dream to me at the time, were so vivid, and the terrifying depictions of blood and death… well… they shook me to my core. What was worse was the pain I felt once I woke up, and I had to spend the whole day in bed. It was the next day while I was walking around that I suddenly noticed everyone had these lights around them. Different shades of white light and others with a dark shadow-like cloak. It was the early ’70s, and while I had done my fair share of drugs in the late ’60s, I hadn’t done any for a while. I thought I was having some sort of flashback. However, over the next few days the lights kept getting stronger, and eventually I felt temperature changes around the lights.”