The day was unremarkable. There was sunshine, and warmth, a slight breeze and a few clouds. Brown and orange leaves littered the sidewalk. Loud music emanated from a parked car around the corner, and accented voices worked there way into the street.
A long gray building with concrete stairs in a lower income section of town. There were a few small crab-apple trees planted in regular increments along the sidewalk served as landscaping. Ripened and damaged fruit rolled along under the woman's feet as she stepped out of SUV and approached the building.
The woman who climbed the stairs seemed, not unremarkable but quite out of place. Her stylish, conservative dress betrayed a suburban origin. She had straight blonde hair that fell to the middle of her back and was clasped in a long gold colored barrette. She certainly stood out in this run down neglected neighborhood. Without a single resident having decorated for Halloween, the visitor felt an eerie chill run down her spine. She strode purposely to the third floor and knocked.
The door had not been closed properly and swung upon to reveal a converted apartment. Behind a folding table, face to the open door, a brown skinned woman sat in flowing silky robes the color of peacock feathers . "Come on in," the woman said with no trace of an accent of any kind.
The seated woman was called Nina. That much was known to the visitor. That much and little more.
The blonde haired woman shut the door behind her. The room smelled like a combination of apples and roses, a soothing and welcoming scent. Not quite what she had expected. She was, however, not surprised to see that the room was softly lit with many candles placed around the room, or that the windows where drawn over with thick velvety curtains in the deepest shade of purple you could imagine. There seemed very little in the room that resembled an actual residence, but that wasn't really her concern.
"My name is Antonia," she said nervously..
The seated woman nodded. "Yes. They call you Toni." The blonde woman cringed at this. It was true, her family called her Toni, a nickname that she was not fond of. There was nothing really remarkable about the woman knowing this, anyone could have guessed it. Nor was there anything remarkable about what she quickly added, which was, "A name that you do not prefer." Antonia had obviously reacted with distaste but she nodded with agreement anyway.
"Pull up a seat, Antonia," the woman told her in a voice that she found soothing, even a bit hypnotic. She started to wonder if this had been a good idea, but she seated herself across from the woman and waited. She found herself at a loss for words, nearly forgetting why she had even went there. She found herself unable to look away from Nina to clear her head. The woman she beheld was an ageless beauty, seeming somehow ancient and young at the same time. It was easy to believe that she had the gift, as many who had seen her had been convinced.
"No, you do not like being addressed as Toni. Those who call you that- they do not see you for who you really are, but only for who they want you to be. Who they expect you to be. You are tired of living up to others expectations of you. But you do not know your own expectations of yourself. You do not know who you are."
Antonia took a sharp breath in. The words sent cold shivers through her body and then a strange prickly heat. The woman had looked through her as if she were made of glass. "Can you tell me who I am?" Antonia asked in an awed whisper.
"No one can see who you are, until you can see yourself. You must become what you want to be."
