Lily walked down the main street of the village in Alinora, past people laughing and shouting and having fun. She walked past the festival and down to the last house. It was on the left, and set far back from the road. The front yard was wild with tall grass and wildflowers. She walked the stepping stones to the front door and knocked.

Caleb had found her a sort of counselor in Alinora. She was a seer actually. A wise woman. When she opened the door, Lily was startled. The woman was not what she had expected. She had expected someone old and gray-haired. But there was a beautiful young blond woman standing there.

“Lily,” the woman said kindly.

“You know my name?” Lily asked.

“Yes, I’ve been expecting you,” the blond woman said.

Lily was surprised. Caleb had not spoken to the woman, not that Lily knew of. “Someone told you I was coming?” Lily asked.

“Oh, no,” the blond woman said. “I feel things before they happen.” She stepped aside. “Please, come inside.”

Lily walked past her into the house. It was not like Lily and Caleb’s cabin. It was full of things. Books, furniture, blankets, cloaks, tea cups, coasters, rugs on the floor. It just looked very lived in. Lily glanced over at the woman. She could be barely more than a teenager. Thin, beautiful, with long curly blond hair pulled back into a gold colored thin headband. She wore a long flowing white dress, with a few wispy layers to it. It had blue flowers or birds or something sewn to the hems of her sleeves and skirt. With a delicate blue and gold rope as a belt.

“You look too young to even live alone,” Lily said. Something about Alinora made her always want to speak the truth, no matter how awkward.

The woman laughed. “None of us here are what we appear to be are we?” she said. “My name is Sasha. Have a seat.”

Lily sat down in the nearest arm chair. Sasha sat in another chair with a small table between them.

“Tea?” Sasha said, glancing at the teapot on the table.

“No, thank you,” Lily said, looking worried. “I don’t know why I’m here,” she said.

“I do,” Sasha said. “Most people have questions when they first come here.”

“I should go,” Lily said, standing and looking around. It all just seemed so confining. So absolute. She didn’t live in this world. Not really. When she was in Alinora she could remember the “real” world, but she barely cared about it. But now the real world was encroaching on Alinora more and more. She suddenly knew she didn’t belong here.

Sasha stood too. “Come with me,” she said, taking Lily’s hand. Lily went with her reluctantly. She’d been led by therapists enough for one lifetime, she thought.

She followed her to the middle of the house to a stairwell. It spiraled upwards. They went up and passed a second floor and then came to a door. Sasha opened it and they walked out onto the roof. It was flat and had half walls all around it. And potted plants, and a dainty table with two chairs, made out of thin metal in an intricate flower and leaf design. Sasha walked past the table and chairs to the wall, and looked over it out at the town and the wilderness.

“You can breathe up here,” she said to Lily.

Lily followed her over to the edge. It was calming.

Sasha turned to her, “Would it frighten you to know I know why you’re here?” she asked. “I know about the counselor in your world. How she led you down a wrong path.”

“How do you—” Lily began.

“I’m a seer, Lily,” Sasha said. “And I’m not 17, despite my appearance. I’ve been here for centuries.”

Lily looked into Sasha’s eyes and knew she was telling the truth. They were crystal clear blue eyes and so still somehow. It was comforting.

“What else do you know?” Lily asked.

“You wonder what this place is, and if your pregnancy is real,” Sasha said.

Lily nodded.

“It is real. The pregnancy. Caleb is the father. Not some stranger who attacked you. Okay?”

“Okay,” Lily said, enthralled by how much Sasha knew.

“I’m going to tell you about this place,” Sasha said. “Where you live, in your world, where you built your house, that is sacred ground.”

Lily looked surprised. Of all explanations, she was not expecting that one.

“Centuries ago,” Sasha continued, “the Ancients who lived there practiced the healing art of astral projection. They invented Alinora as a place for people to go to heal or to seek knowledge or stillness to allow knowledge to be released from their minds. The Ancients were not a nomadic tribe. The land their tribe lived on became a sacred place of healing because of all the healing work they did there. And Alinora became more real. After a time it had earned its own dimension. Because it had so many visitors and believers in it. Do you understand?”

“I think I do,” Lily said, in awe.

“When people sleep in the place where that tribe once lived, they are transported to Alinora,” Sasha said. “It wasn’t a choice you made to come here. It was just that you were living on sacred land.”

Lily was amazed. “But the therapist hypnotized me to take me here,” she said.

“There are other ways to get here,” Sasha said. “Meditation, astral projection. Some people even choose to come here after they die.”

That hit Lily like a ton of bricks. Die? She looked down the street at all the people happily playing. She looked around at the beautiful landscape and sky.

“Are you saying, this is… Heaven?” Lily asked quietly.

“I’m saying this is a heaven,” Sasha answered.

“And the people here are… dead?” Lily asked with fear in her heart.

“Most of them,” Sasha answered quietly.

“Is Caleb?” Lily asked quickly, afraid to know the answer.

“Caleb is not dead, Lily,” Sasha smiled at her. “If he was you wouldn’t be carrying his child. That can only happen between two living people who travel here from somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else?” Lily asked.

“No one comes from Alinora,” Sasha told her. “Everyone comes here from somewhere else. Even your baby cannot be born here, though he or she can visit this place after birth.”

Lily was amazed by all of this new knowledge. Why couldn’t Ellie have been this helpful? But then how on Earth would Ellie have ever come to know all this?

“Is Caleb from Earth?” Lily asked a little nervously.

“He is,” Sasha laughed. “He lives in the same woods you live in.” Sasha went to the table and sat down then. Lily followed her.

“The woods protect the sacredness of that place in your world. They have kept people away. The chaotic energy of people would have broken the tie between there and here. That pathway to Alinora would have been lost. It still could be if more people clear the trees away and build things there. It will stop being a peaceful healing place. The trees sprang up after the Ancients died out. Possibly the last of the Ancients caused that to happen, perhaps the Earth was just protecting her sacred treasures. But in that wood you will also find Caleb.”

Lily was in a daze. Staring at her own hands on the table. This was a lot to take in. She put one hand over her belly. It was just starting to become noticeably round now. Five months pregnant.

“So, it’s all real?” Lily said still in a daze.

“Yes,” Sasha answered.

Lily looked up at her then, “And you, Sasha,” she said, “are you… dead?”

Sasha slowly smiled and shook her head.

“But you said you were centuries old,” Lily said, confused.

“But I am not from your world, Lily,” Sasha said. “In my world of origin people live a lot longer than in your world.”

“Oh,” Lily said. “Wow. Other worlds?” She shook her head.

Sasha laughed. “That is a story for another time. Right now I think it is time for you to be getting back.”

“To Caleb?” Lily asked.

“Mmm…” Sasha thought for a moment, then shook her head. She smiled and winked. “Let’s have a more gentle awakening this time…” she said quietly, and reached out to touch the side of Lily’s head.

Lily woke in reality with early morning sunlight streaming through the tops of the trees outside and through the open curtains of her bedroom window.

She was home. And now she knew everything she needed to know. Especially that Caleb was real.

* * *