Dreams, Memories & Keys

Chapter 8 - Progress

A Sabbath supper of take-out Chinese food was casual in the extreme. All the young men present at the Abernathy's house joined Greg, welcoming in the Sabbath with their prayers. The women joined in at the appropriate places then everyone sat down to enjoy their meal. Aside from that, the fact that it was the start of the Sabbath was virtually ignored in favor of continuing to talk about their dreams.

"How much do you think it matters that we are starting to remember new people?" Megan asked their collective group as she helped herself to a pair of chopsticks in the center of the table and began trying to use them to feed herself from on the food on her plate.

The cartons they originally served themselves from now stood in the center of the dining room table, making it easier to distribute second helpings.

"It could be that the new people will have some new clues," Xavier suggested.

"Of course, that would only be helpful if some of them remember our first life," Adam remarked.

"You never know. It might be useful to know more about our other lives too," Jessie suggested.

"Like what?" Lindsey asked. "We already know that in our life in the 1600s, the one when we all lived in the Stone Village, almost everyone started out in England, and left due to religious persecution. We all escaped through a safe house and sanctuary known as the Master's House. It was run by a master woodworker known as Simeon Angel, and his family."

"We know it was mostly underground, physically located in an old mine, and that Megan and me used to live there, along with a particular sect of nuns, a few Jewish people, a bunch of midgets including our half-sister, and our parents. We think Simeon Angel was our father," Adam added.

"Little people," Megan corrected.

"Whatever," Adam said dismissively. "The point is we know our half-sister Misty, who came back as Melody in her last life, was one of them. She was an adult, far older than us, but physically she was the size of a child. She died when the sanctuary was attacked by the king's soldiers, which is what made our Papa realize some of our people needed a safer place to live. So, he talked to Bishop Aldermann, who lived there, and he talked to his brother, Brother Redd, and together they talked the Abbey in Ireland into agreeing to accept us out of Christian charity. Except they wouldn't let us live at the abbey because we were Jews."

"But they did give us some land on the other side of the river from the local village where we could live. That's where we built Stone Village," Xavier took up the story next.

"We built houses made of stone blocks, arranged in a rectangle. From the outside it looked like a city block. But behind them was a roughly circular or oval yard or common area we all shared," Bert added.

"There was a lot of space out in that yard," Phebe remembered.

"It was a lot bigger than the sort of yards we have these days though," Oliver remarked.

"Yes. It was big enough for each household to have a vegetable garden," Dori recalled.

"Some had pens for sheep," Todd remembered.

"And we had a chicken coop," Bert added.

"Which you made out of stone, from the scraps left over from building our houses," Xavier recalled.

"It had a solid stone wall at the back, and a sort of ledge, which we expanded to create a stage and added steps to the side," Adam described.

"Hen Theater," Jessie supplied.

Everyone nodded.

"There were also walls built for protection between the houses that didn't touch, enclosing the circle entirely, with gates at each end," Phebe remembered.