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The Maze - Nineteen Alabama, Ted phoned the company. The secretary apolo- gized for the delay and told him that the interviewer had been called away unexpectedly. He would be back in the office on Monday, she explained, and she hoped Ted would be patient a bit longer. The secretary also said that Ted’s phone number had been misplaced, making it impossible for her to reach him about the delay. Monday morning, as promised, Ted received a phone call and an invitation to work, starting that very day. He was elat- ed, having fallen in love with the beautiful surroundings, and he accepted readily. “Raphael was right,” he thought. “This will be a good change. I’ve been at home too long anyway.” The friend with whom Ted had traveled offered to go back to Alabama and move whatever belongings he might need, to which Ted agreed. A week later, the friend was back with his things, and Ted had notified his employer at the res- taurant, explaining that his leave of absence was going to be permanent. The job worked out well for Ted, and he felt he had made the right decision. Raphael’s advice had been sound, but once Ted acted upon it, the little Mexican man disappeared from his dreams. He quickly settled into a new routine and estab- lished himself in Albuquerque. He bought a mobile home and set it up in a beautiful park on the desert’s edge, relishing the majesty of the Sandia Mountains in the distance. As part of the changes in his new life, Ted kept quiet about his psychic talents, and for the first nine months, his life went smoothly, with no strange episodes of any sort. In fact, he gave no thought to the paranormal until one day Judy, one of Ted’s coworkers, mentioned an unusual event she and her husband had recently witnessed. “We were on our way out of town for the weekend,” she said, “heading toward Estancia. It’s just a small, two-lane highway out there. We were driving along in the dark, it was around eight p.m., and then all of a sudden the sky lit up all around us. For a few seconds, we could see the surrounding area light up, just like daylight! Even the interior of the car was filled with light. Masquerade of Angels 182 The Maze - Nineteen ”And then as suddenly as it had appeared,” Judy con- tinued, “it disappeared. Everything was dark again. We thought that was strange, so my husband Joe and I stopped to see what was going on. We both got out, and I looked up, you know, to see if a plane or helicopter or something was there to justify the bright light. But there was nothing, not even another car coming in either direction.” Ted and the others listened curiously, wondering what she and Joe had seen. “T guess it was a UFO,” Judy concluded. “We didn’t see a craft or anything directly, but what else could possibly appear and disappear so quickly? And what else could possi- bly light up the sky that way?” “Wow!” Ted said. He had never known anyone who had seen a UFO-except Maya, he suddenly remembered. Judy’s friends listened to the account excitedly and asked many questions about the experience, except for Ted, who said nothing. He was thinking about Maya and the distant object he had seen years before, hovering in the mountain gap above Sun Valley. Maya had directed him there with the assurance that he would witness a UFO, but at the time he couldn’t feel certain of the object’s real nature. He had never been convinced that it was a UFO, although Maya insisted that it was. But since she had not been present, he wondered, how could she possibly know? Besides, Ted wasn’t even sure he believed that such things existed. After all, the government was constantly exposing the mundane realities behind people’s fraudulent claims of UFO sightings. Now, however, he knew that Judy was not pulling a hoax, and he didn’t know what to think. Shortly after this, Ted received a book in the mail from his niece in Alabama. He appreciated her thoughtfulness, but when he looked at the book cover he didn’t find it especially appealing. It was called OUT ON A LIMB and was written by Shirley MacLaine. His niece, however, soon phoned and asked if the book had arrived. “T read it,” she said enthusiastically, “and you’ve got to read it, too, Ted.” “Why?” he wondered. Masquerade of Angels 183