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Twenty-One To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. Russell Barbara held on, steadying Ted until his fear subsided. She had seen this before, the abreaction or release of repressed emotion, that sometimes erupted when an abduc- tee consciously relived a situation of intense trauma. When Ted had gone through the frightening abduction at eight years old, he had been unable to express his fears, but now, with Barbara’s comforting support, he felt safe enough to let it all out. Once he was calmer, Barbara lay him back on the couch and gently brought him forward in time and out of the trance. As he rested, Ted thought about the Karly Kane story, which for him now had a new significance. “T think that story was about this experience,’he told Barbara. “When I remembered being in the auditorium, I saw a whole group of little beings dressed in blue outfits, just like the choir of children that Karly heard singing. I showed my niece that story one time, and she said it seemed like Karly died. But I said no, he didn’t die, he came back. I guess she was right, though.” “How do you feel now, about what the regression revealed? “There were so many images that I wasn’t able to tell you everything I saw. Sometimes I was too scared to look, and other times everything was so strange and confusing that I didn’t know what to think.” “Tf I understood you correctly, you told me that the aliens made a duplicate body, right?” Barbara asked, and Ted nod- ded. “So that when, for whatever reason, they took your soul and put it in that cloned body, your mother never knew there was any difference. Ted, why did this terrify you so much?” “My rational mind was trying to accept this,” he replied. “Tt sounds so hideous and horrible. I felt like I knew I was being destroyed, but also given new life. I felt both sensa- tions, the terror of my destruction and the joy of living again, dual emotions.” “Was there any change in your personality or health after that?” “T was sick for a long time,” Ted said. “Mother com- plained because I got some childhood diseases that I had already had before. And she said that for weeks I was in pain. I told her that my insides felt like they were burning up, and she used to soak me in a cool tub. When I was in school after that, I didn’t do very well for a while. I wanted to stay away from the other children.” He stopped, overwhelmed by the trauma of his memories. “T just now realize why my mother had reacted to me the way she did at times,” he continued sadly. “There were occa- sions when she seemed uncomfortable if I touched her, as if it made her a bit edgy. I think, maybe, she knew on some level that I had changed.” “Tt’s probably the buried knowledge about this,” Barbara mused. “She has no idea why she was affected that way.” She had seen many times before these situations in per- sonal relationships in the lives of abductees who suffered from unknown sources of stress, and Ted’s situation fit that pattern. But it was no consolation to him, knowing that oth- ers had been hurt this way, too. “Something else just triggered another memory from that same time,” he said. “It was a stormy day, and when I came back from wherever I had gone, I wasn’t on the road. I was left way out in the field, I don’t know where I'd been, and I was running. God, this is almost unbearable. I was trying to get home because something horrible had happened. I reached the back porch just as a tornado hit. It moved the house off the foundation, and my mother and brother were Masquerade of Angels 207 The Light - Twenty-One