Read Enlightened (Love and Light Series) for Free Online Page B

it.” His narrowed eyes and puckered brow held for a second, and then he dissolved into a laughing fit. His belly shook as tears seeped out of the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away with thick, calloused fingers, blowing out a breath between hissing giggles.
    “Whooooo, boy,” he gasped. “It really is funny when you think about it.” He snorted. “It’s been here waiting all this time and everyone’s running around like crazy, tripping over themselves to find it.” The amusement left his voice. “Even fighting over who was going to get here first.” He snorted again. With eyes fixed on the moon he leaned forward, patting the ground.
    Her face frozen in permanent surprise, Loti hesitantly kneeled on the bare dirt beside him.
    He patted her knee and pointed a wide finger at the moon. “But we’ve found it, haven’t we?” He smiled as if he and Loti were in on the secret. With an ache in the back of her throat, Loti nodded as she followed his finger to the unusual moon. When she looked back, her bizarre companion was upside down, standing on his head. She leaned away from him, tucking her chin, eyes wide, because he wasn’t just doing a headstand. He was in the exact same cross-legged position he’d been in earlier, only turned on his head. With his hands relaxed on his knees, he seemed unaware of his predicament.
    “Do you know why everyone’s killing themselves to find this place, Loti?” His voice was quiet and subdued.
    With a tingling in her chest, she shook her head. “No, sir.” She swallowed.
    The black man blinked in surprise and laughed out loud. “Sir? Oh, that’s precious.” He slapped his knee a few more times, and when he’d caught his breath, he let out a happy huff. “Ahhhh, you make an old man feel good, girl.” He shook his head. “Sir, indeed.”
    He rested a gentle, reassuring hand on her knee—a neat trick for someone hanging upside down in mid-air—and in an instant, all of Loti’s fears dissipated in the warmth of his touch. She felt like she should know him, but his name was out of reach. Had she and David met him on a trail somewhere? Hadn’t he told them a story about a little bird offering unwanted advice to a bitter monkey in the rain? And about thinking three times before deciding? Hadn’t he shown them how to make bread from sprouted grains and how to gather the dew from the leaves in the morning? She shook her head, and for a split second recognized she was dreaming, but then lost it, again.
    Edging closer to him, she asked, “Why is everyone trying to find this place?”
    “Because, child, they want to know the secret of the universe.” He closed his eyes and his chest heaved. “And because they think if they know the secret of the universe, they will have their greedy, little heart’s desire.” He patted her knee. “Which is true, of a sort.”
    Loti’s heart picked up its pace and she tingled all over—but it wasn’t from fear. In an eager voice, she asked, “What is the secret of the universe?”
    He chuckled. “Oh, girl, you already know it. We didn’t have to come here to figure it out.” His lips tightened. “Hell, everyone already knows it. They just don’t believe it.”
    Shaking off his irritation, he turned an expectant smile on Loti. She shifted her hips to the side and crossed her ankles into an easy, seated position. Rubbing the toe of her boot, she rooted around in her cluttered mind, but couldn’t unbury the secret to the universe. She’d pondered the meaning of life, her life, but never the secret of the universe. Taking her time, she untangled the pole straps from her wrists and arranged the hiking poles on the dirt in front of her. Giving up, she flicked her gaze up at him.
    “Would you tell me, please?”
    Without a second’s pause, the black man answered, “Be thyself, know thyself, trust thyself.”
    His laughter rang out across the mountain side, somehow was the mountain side, and set the rocks to trembling. His