Gift of the Brocken Spectres

by Linda Dennis

 

We discovered it on Black Mountain, just after the angels appeared. Heaving ourselves over the rocky cliff, we stood atop the peak like conquerors discovering new lands.

 

I felt invincible after the treacherous climb. “Just take in that pure air!”

 

“Amen to that, Marty!” Josh replied.

 

It was my twenty-ninth birthday. While in the bar the previous day with Josh and Brad, we decided to go on an impromptu climb to celebrate. At that point in time, we were basically unnoticed artists, each mired in our own personal hell of invisibility and not knowing how to climb out of it. So, we climbed a mountain instead in hopes of saving ourselves.

 

Brad said, “I feel dizzy.”

 

“Maybe the beers weren’t such a great idea.” I walked over to him and knelt down to examine his knee. He had slipped on the way up and injured himself. “Your pant leg is torn, man.”

 

 “No surprise there.”

 

“Look!” Josh exclaimed, calling us over to the ledge.

 

Dusk was descending. The mountain was encased in dense fog and distant thick clouds. Right before our eyes was an ethereal image. Then two more slowly emerged. They were huge, filling most of the sky. The tops of their heads were radiating numerous shades of colors in an arc, like rainbow auras. At the top of the color spectrum was a pale pink color, cascading into pastel green, then purple, dark orange, bright white and, finally, sky blue.

 

When the angelic-like forms changed positions, their auras curved in sync as they did so. They moved with an unearthly grace. As they began fading with the light, we reached out to them, beckoning them back. Before disappearing completely, they reached out toward us.

 

“Huh,” I said, disappointed. “They’re gone…, and so is the daylight.”

 

“I guess it’s good we have these headlamps,” Brad said. He clicked his on, and Josh and I did the same.

 

“Were those angels?” Josh asked.

 

“I’m a little dumbfounded,” I said. “It’s like they were trying to tell us something.”

 

“Well…, okay,” Brad said, scratching his close-cropped beard, “they seemed to be pointing to something down there.”

 

We moved closer to the ledge, tiny rocks giving way under our feet and tumbling downward. When our headlamps converged and created a single beam, they revealed irregular-shaped, glowing objects wedged between two boulders at the bottom of the mountain. We risked the descent to retrieve them and saw that they were crystals, each about two feet long and eight inches wide. Their colors varied from deep blue to purple.

 

Tentatively, I reached out and touched one and immediately felt energized. Like a laser imprint before my eyes, six numbers appeared. We played the lottery with those numbers and won. Millions.

 

Yet, that wasn’t the end of things with those supernatural crystals. I came to learn that they were called Ye Ming Zhu crystals, extremely rare and valuable, known for bringing clarity and good fortune to their owners.

 

The music I wrote from the inspiration of those angels gained local interest. Josh’s pastels took on richer tones and he opened his own gallery. Two doors down was Brad’s sculpting studio and, sandwiched in between them was my own coffee/art/music shop. It was wildly popular, parked in the heart of Santa Fe on East Palace Avenue.

 

While lounging at the shop one day, my girlfriend read an article to me. It was about something called a Brocken Spectre, a hugely magnified shadow of the observer. Many took it to have spiritual meaning but there was actually a logical explanation for it.

 

“Now, wait,” I said to her, “do you mean to tell me that what we saw on that mountain was actually our own shadows reflected onto the clouds?” She nodded and I laughed at the irony. “Wait till I tell the guys.”

 

“Tell them what?” she asked.

​

"Tell them about how we saved ourselves."