Page 35 of The Stolen Star

everything.”

  But Natalie immediately interrupted her:

  “I don’t like fortune telling.”

  “But you don’t need to, she can cure you of any illness, tell you all about your character, who your enemies and who your friends are. But the most important thing is that she understands everything about Karma. I happened to have your photo with me and you know she said an awful lot of interesting things about you. Go to see her - you won't be sorry."

  The girlfriend continued to nag Natalie saying:

  “Well, what’s so bad about it? And alternative, non-traditional medicine is very much in fashion now.”

  On hearing about the non-traditional medicine Natalie began to get interested and decided to learn a little about the healing methods employed. Natalie already knew quite a lot about these things herself. The psychic healer turned out to be really quite an expert in many areas of folk medicine. The fact that she appeared to be a Christian also caused Natalie to drop her guard, and her room was full of icons and candles that burned throughout the so-called session.

  Then the Wise Old Man pressed the red button and Natalie saw that the woman had a completely transparent pink coverlet in her hands.

  “And here is an interesting question, which you have never had the courage to ask regarding your family relationships," said the woman waving her hands over Natalie's head and lowered the coverlet over her face like a veil. “Now everything will go absolutely perfectly for you, you could say that you will experience nothing but perfect harmony."

  Natalie left the wonder worker in a great mood; she wanted to sing out loud everything seemed so rosy. Natalie shuddered when she observed the scene: It had turned out that the wonder working healer and her so-called friend were one and the same person.

  “Is it possible to put this right?” Natalie asked quietly.

  “Everything is fine with you. Don’t you remember the island? And the tree hollow?”

  “Yes, yes of course,” said Natalie nodding her head.

  “These are now just sad memories. The coverlet has disappeared.”

  Sophia had come across a similar type of girlfriend. One of them had been a close friend of a man who liked to call himself a bio-energy expert. Their friendship was purely pragmatic and based on the mutual favours that they did for each other. One day he asked this girlfriend:

  “Find me a young girl or woman with a strong and healthy energy field."

  “What? You know you’re not so wonderful looking these days you know.” the girlfriend noted spitefully.

  "You are so naïve. My energy field is absolutely unique or have you forgotten already how I came to your aid after your numerous split ups?”

  “I thought you had other energy donors.” It has to be said that she was fairly clever and resourceful.

  “Well I can sort myself out, and if I draw upon this energy then it will be from a very reliable source.”

  “Okay, okay, I believe you…"

  “There is a young woman although you could call her a girl who is suitable for your purposes. She has one very important fault – she is kind and trusting."

  “That is great.”

  “But she is also clever.”

  “Ah, that’s not so great. Well, give me her contact details, her internet details will probably be better, a chance acquaintance will arouse less suspicion."

  And thus Sophia soon found that she had a new internet acquaintance. They talked about this and that. In addition to a bouquet of compliments the most interesting thing was the impression that he seemed to know her so well: her tastes, her habits and he seemed to second guess many things about her life. Sophia thought to herself, he seems too good to be true, what does he really want? And at that very moment her girlfriend rang:

  “How are things? What’s news?"

  Sophia confided to her that someone had insinuated himself into her life. And the girlfriend asked lots of detailed questions so that she might give lots of good "friendly" advice.

  “I think that he sounds like a most unusual and interesting person."

  Sophia joked:

  “He seems to be some sort of sorcerer; he knows everything in advance and is offering to share his experience with me.”

  “Well that’s great. You’ll learn something new. Oh, how I envy you, I never have anything interesting happening to me."

  At that time Sophia's mother was staying with her in Sofia and Sophia told her all about these strange conversations. Mama warned her:

  “I don’t suppose he offered to teach you how to ride a broomstick?”

  And they both fell about laughing. Very soon the “sorcerer” set his dark energy to work. He began to fly off the handle for no reason often talking complete nonsense and even making strange complaints that their conversations were having a bad effect on him.

  “After speaking to you yesterday I fell ill and my eye became swollen.”

  “What?”

  “No, no I was only joking.”

  “Well go and jokes like that with someone else.”

  Sophia began to avoid having any contact with him. But the sorcerer instigated a terror campaign against her. With the help of Sophia’s girlfriend he found out her telephone number and began to ring her ceaselessly. Sometimes he would be pleasant then; once again, he would start spouting complete and utter nonsense.

  “Sophia he’s shaking all the positive energy out of you", one of her other friends advised her.

  And Sophia decided to break off all contact with him forever. And then everything came out into the open. It was the behaviour of her girlfriend that was the most upsetting thing. Why had she decided to betray her in this way? Sophia had considered her a much better person than this.

  Sophia had more than enough on her plate what with Michael and all the housework. And on top of that she had the job of finding and buying a flat. Alexander had left for Britain under his new job contract and she had had to do everything herself. Quite unexpectedly everything worked out and Sophia bought a wonderful flat with money to spare. However, it was a great deal of worry and bother. Sophia had had to organise all the building and repair work all on her own. But everything turned out swimmingly which just goes to show that miracles can happen in this life! Thank God! Sophia got everything done: she completed the repair of the flat, bought furniture and finally flew to England with Michael to join Alexander.

  In this way she managed to keep herself at a safe distance from the poisonous arrows being fired at her by the Satanists who had been persecuting her family.

  However, Natalie and Mama remained under fire from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (although it’s more fashionable to put everything down to karma these days). Natalie began to experience problems at work. She had been working in her firm for over ten years and had become a respected member of the team. The material rewards weren’t great but she had gathered a good team of employees around her and she enjoyed being their manager. Then suddenly she began to be given additional responsibilities and more and more petty checks and so on. It was then that Natalie looked at the Wise Old Man.

  He nodded his head at her and the Natalie overheard the telephone conversation of a "well-wisher", who was pretending to stand up for her but was evidently making hints and threats about her. Then there was another secret call: giving orders to “let the dogs lose” on Natalie. At first Natalie couldn’t imagine who this traitor might be. And then Sophia and the Wise Old Man heard her laugh out loud.

  “Of course, of course," she said to herself, "how did I not guess straight away?"

  After numerous attacks made by the “traitor”, Natalie gave up fighting, handed in her resignation and left. As she used to say in her student days:

  "It was hurtful, annoying… but not the end of the world!”

  In order not to stagnate Natalie became a whirlwind of activity: she made new friends and acquaintan
ces, sent off her CV everywhere and to everyone and of course, she read and read and read. But amongst the wonderful contemporary classics Mama noticed an extremely suspicious looking essay. She was very surprised and asked Natalie:

  “What are you reading this for?”

  “What’s the big deal; it’s just literature for spiritual development.

  “Natalie, this isn’t literature but some sort of surrogate masquerading as literature.”

  “Okay, Mama, I have to admit that the fantasies and personal theories of these authors don’t interest me, I just didn’t notice it.

  “Well, that’s fine then.”

  Natalie seemed to get one call after another. One day Mama picked up the phone when Natalie wasn’t at home and a voice hurriedly spoke to her on the other end of the line mistaking her for Natalie.

  “Come along there will a lot of interesting things going on. Our teacher is the source of the most amazing knowledge.”

  Mama wondered for a long time – what sort of teacher this could be? Then she asked Natalie. But she told her that it all must just have been a wrong number. And Mama understood that Natalie had decided not to tell her about this affair knowing her opinion about such things.

  Jesus one day said to a woman in the crowd:

  “Your faith has saved you.”

  So Mama waited and hoped that this distraction would just disappear of its own accord as the saying goes: mosquitoes only bite when the time is right. And in accordance with God’s laws evil returns to its initiator like a boomerang to its thrower.

  The
Halyna Franko's Novels