《Newton's Cradle》
Part I: What You Are, You Will Have
1.
I ride the worldlines. That¡¯s what you do when you¡¯re dead. I ride them as they flow time-wise, ceaselessly forward, leading the edge of physical. Like anyone dead, I¡¯m drawn to the story I lived, to the worldlines I knew. I can follow them forward, or trace back, rewinding through memory. I¡¯m not sure what the worldlines flow through, but I can see them well from my world (i.e., the Land of the Dead). If I catch sight of you on your worldline, I¡¯m not spying; I can¡¯t watch you undress or go to the bathroom. Not unless it¡¯s important to the book of you, which contains those essentials that you and the Totality together extract as your meaning. And don¡¯t let anyone fool you, your life has meaning. I¡¯m reading one worldline the most and it¡¯s of tremendous import: my sister¡¯s.
Ricky¡¯s Worldline¡ªOctober 29, 2025
The gust that blew open the double doors of the group home felt damp, like the wind had moved over water. Then a whirlwind whipped around Ricky Jameson: Construction paper from her project rose above her and above the head of group-home-resident Tony Hanover. Churning around them was orange for pumpkins, black for witches¡¯ hats, and purple for skeletons. Ricky launched up from the table and into the vestibule to shoulder the doors shut. She, the staff worker, was responsible for him, the vulnerable adult. But just as she reached the bright green doors, they were sucked back in two bangs.
Tony gave Ricky that flat now what? expression, demoting her status from supervisory to burdened. Yes, now what? Well, organize the mess; it would not be Tony tidying up. She bent to retrieve the pages, accepting her responsibilities, a series of now-what? moments. Within each, she figured out how to connect with the residents of this group home, their thirteen separate twilight zones currently contained in the residential treatment center of New Foundations. Many of these worlds were charming, poetic even. But not all.
Tony¡¯s inner world seemed made for sharing secrets, and all were unsettling. They revolved around two topics: Thought reading and his nephews. But tonight, he took his time.
¡°Ricky,¡± Tony pronounced, not to get her attention, but to weigh the name, feel its dimensions. ¡°A boy¡¯s name. What¡¯s it short for? Your full name.¡±
She deflected his probing. ¡°I like the name Ricky. Feel free to use it often.¡±
The information he sought was Ricarda Jameson, but she heard the advice in her mind, Don¡¯t share too much, as she had only once in her nine months at New Foundations. Revealing personal details to a resident had seemed so natural at the time, as she helped to clean the room of a average-seeming woman who made Ricky wonder if there were sometimes errors in people¡¯s diagnoses. Only later, at the Med Office window, when there was an audience, did the woman down her pills with a snort and throw the fluted cup at Ricky. ¡°Rich BITCH! Whore for money! Designer BITCH!¡± she shouted. Only then did Ricky acknowledge her mistake.
Her mind full of humiliation, Ricky had blurted to Shanice, her shift supervisor, ¡°I told her about my mom. But she¡¯s dead.¡±
The edges of Shanice¡¯s topaz eyes hardened against letting anything controllable unravel. ¡°You want to talk about it?¡±
¡°No.¡± But Ricky always felt pride that her mother had sewn for Lavin, a Parisian couture fashion house.
¡°OK,¡± Shanice had nodded her approval, and continued, ¡°Joan¡¯s spent all day in her room. When she does that, she sees bears. Pretty soon the shit is going to hit the fan.¡±
Ricky shook out of her reverie, back to Tony, who stared at her. This was not the time to go over old ground, especially in regard to her mother, who was mainly gone from her imagining. There was no face to go with the nostalgia, so she rarely peered into that well of sorrow. Should sorrow find her, her Cognitive Regulations armored her: No whining, no pointless leisure, no social media or gaming addicts, nobody childish, nobody weak, nobody who can¡¯t help. There was more nobody in her life than she admitted.
Tony tried a new tack. ¡°You must have done crafts with young family members.¡± He rotated a black paper square in front of him, as if debating its use. ¡°I bet they were boys and you¡¯d all hack away at projects.¡±
Was this a gambit to get more sharp objects? There was only one scissors and it was carefully monitored when not locked in the craft box.
No, the key word was boys. She should parry this fast, but her mind went to her brother, and how there weren¡¯t any boys in her family.
Why had she thought it was a good idea to have a Halloween party? It had seemed like fun when she¡¯d asked Tony last night during meds, as she tapped his Depakote into the cap of the pill bottle, then into the paper cup, to slide across the Dutch door ledge of the Med Office. As he swallowed his pills, she ticked the box corresponding to the correct name, Tony Hanover, time, medication, and date, so close to Halloween.
¡°I¡¯m troubled by my thoughts,¡± he had said, ¡°but I¡¯d really like to hang decorations with you. It¡¯ll be our special one-on-one.¡± She should have known it would just be Tony, the reason the other twelve residents hadn¡¯t even wandered through.
She wanted to be good at this job, at finding things that needed doing. She had a knack for planning activities and she was tidy; she enjoyed re-positioning the few pieces of stuffed furniture in the TV room that could, in another place, offer the promise of conversation. She never minded emptying the ashtrays on the third floor smoking porch that overlooked the fire escape and back yard with its parking lot and vegetable garden. She understood why the residents would huddle under the smoke-stained ceiling of the porch in all weather, shivering or sweating, to let the cigs stoke their brain dopamine; it was one reward in their control.
Tony sensed her drifting. ¡°Such delicate fingers.¡± He breathed the first words in staccato tempo. Once he had her attention, he drew out the last syllable into a hiss. His hands pulled up near his chest and flopped forward, going from snake to rabbit. It was his fair coloring and prominent teeth. The dark frame of his glasses added to the impression of dithering, but his words were precise. ¡°Even though I¡¯m feeling anxious tonight, I really want to celebrate the season.¡± His smile squooshed his face into a mask of dearness.
Ricky avoided looking by bending to retrieve a piece of paper she¡¯d missed. As she did, his case notes from his first hospitalization re-played in her mind¡¯s eye.
Tony is a small, emotionally reserved child who, although cooperative, gives brief and unelaborated answers to questions. He exhibits little capacity for personal insight although his WISC scores indicate a high IQ. His mother describes him as frequently staring blankly and admits that Tony¡¯s father (who abandoned the family and has not been seen since) tried to kill him at age five by throwing him down the basement stairs. In addition, Tony reported to his mother that an older family member had been ¡°messing¡± with him sexually. When Tony was asked about his own sexual abuse of his younger nephews, he denied it and said ¡°I¡¯m like a father to them.¡±
When she sat up again, Tony crossed his legs and leaned forward, laughing, the paleness of his complexion, hair, and white dress shirt becoming more Warhol than rabbit. ¡°You seem so young for someone with such a responsible job.¡± His eyes lasered her above the thick black glasses. ¡°How do you stay so youthful? Positively juvenile!¡± he cackled. As if he knew.
All I did was change one number: the year. Besides she¡¯d be eighteen in eleven months. Barely false pretenses. And the fake ID hadn¡¯t even been her idea. On top of that, she¡¯d grown up fast and she knew she looked mature. Her face was lean, without baby fat, and she carried herself like a stand-alone, a component without connection ports.
Besides, this job got her out of the house. The nurturing at home had been halved when her mother died. And then, in a compound injury that both took her brother and seemed to vacate her entire sense of being, she was left alone with her father in the tall house on Kyrie Lane.
¡°Can I harm someone with my thoughts? I can¡¯t tell you what I¡¯m thinking. It¡¯s too violent,¡± Tony¡¯s already quavery voice quivered more.
¡°No, you can¡¯t; thoughts are different from actions,¡± Ricky replied, conscious that he¡¯d hooked her curiosity. What type of violence? She made a mental note that this should definitely be recorded on a half-sheet for the rest of the staff to read.
She was ready to be done with the morose reminiscing spurred by Tony¡¯s conversation. ¡°Okay.¡± she said with determination, ¡°Let¡¯s make a skeleton to hang outside on the front door. With the brads here, when the wind blows, the bones will do a little ¨C¡±
Tony interrupted her. ¡°I¡¯m not interested in bones. At least not artistically.¡± In another abrupt shift, he smiled as if signaling a secret confidence between them. ¡°At least write some magical symbols.¡± He pushed the pile of markers toward her. ¡°I know you know some.¡±
¡°Afraid I don¡¯t. How about a scary pumpkin?¡± She wanted to head off his favorite topic: the Nephews.
¡°I want to share the secret of what happened.¡± Too late.
In the diminishing light of the vacant front rooms, he¡¯d relish her spiral into tortured imaginings. She¡¯d end this. ¡°O.K. Hey, how about those symbols?¡±
She began with ?, using the purple marker on orange paper, the colors of Jupiter, the expansive god of abundance. Then black on red, for Pluto, ?the lord of the Underworld, and silver on black, ?, for Hermes, the messenger of the gods. Her metallic gold on black, symbolizing the Sun, ¨‘ made him giggle.
¡°See? I knew you knew them. I knew.¡± He stared at her, leering. ¡°But there¡¯s one I want to show you.¡±
He grabbed her hand that still held the marker. Before she could jerk away, the clammy flesh of his palm and splayed fingers caught in hers. Her hand went with his, as if paralyzed, while he crudely scrawled a new symbol, her fingers dragged along painfully as he powered through the strokes. Shoving the symbol in front of her, he cried in a high voice both hysterical and winsome, ¡°I know another secret! I know what happened to him. Find the symbol and you¡¯ll find him!¡±
Before his shriek died away, he grasped the scissors from the tabletop and drove them, like a nail of crucifixion, into the hand, his hand, that still held the symbol, ?¦« , before her.
#
Under the spidery brooms of treetops that swept the night, the ambulance went quietly up the hill from the group home with the white-faced young man inside. Ricky looked down at her incident report.
Resident: Tony Hanover ?????????????????Date: 10/30/25
Staff: Ricky Jameson ??????????????????Time: 8:30PUnauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
Tony asked to make Halloween decorations. He said he had violent thoughts. Then Tony stabbed his own hand with the scissors from the craft box. This staff immediately had mental health supervisor Shanice Jackson call 911. This staff then went back to stay with Tony, who was unresponsive, until the EMTs came and removed¨C
Her handwriting was shaky. ¡°Normal,¡± she thought, ¡°under the circumstances.¡±
What was not normal were her lies, about her age, about her knowledge of occult symbols, and about Tony¡¯s drawing. She had left it out of her report, instead shoving it into her back pocket. She lied by not writing that Tony had drawn the tattoo of the person she loved most in this world: A person she had lost and that Tony told her she could find again.
¨Cthe scissors. Tony was taken to St. Luke¡¯s Hospital where his wound was treated and sutured. No bones broken. He will be kept under observation (Unit 8). The hospital will contact program director Dr. Belquis Veladora at N.F. as soon as possible the morning of 10/31/25.
Shanice had blocked the residents from entering the front rooms and reassured them that everything was under control, sending them either back to the TV room or to bed. Then she consulted with the on-call supervisor who confirmed that they had followed the correct procedure.
After all of this, Ricky asked Shanice, ¡°It¡¯s almost time for the shift change; would it be OK if I take off? I¡¯m not feeling very well.¡±
Shanice looked at Ricky and nodded. ¡°You look like you just saw somebody stab himself. You should go.¡±
#
A cold weight settled in Ricky¡¯s head as she climbed into the decrepit Hyundai that, for almost two years, had been ¡°Tristan¡¯s car,¡± and now was just merely available. She had never before left a responsibility unfinished and had suggested as much during her job interview with her boss, Belquis Veladora. Under blue-black hair and with eyes the color of chai latte, Belquis had fixed Ricky with a stare. ¡°Is your dad the James Jameson I knew in graduate school?¡±
It was.
¡°?Qu¨¦ excelente!¡± said Belquis, who Ricky found warm, although not exactly cozy, like an exotic teapot.
¡°I knew your dad from the Psych department.¡± The woman¡¯s slight smile hid what she must be thinking: parapsychology. A word that would be said like the name of a vehicle gone off a cliff, or a girl whose reputation was seriously damaged. But then the woman laughed, ¡°What a nice guy.¡±
Ricky hoped Belquis didn¡¯t see her dad in her¡ªwell-meaning but impractical, smart but clueless. She needed to be tougher than he was. So, just days after her brother Tristan¡¯s death, she had returned to work and buckled down. Belquis had reached out to James with a sympathy card that Ricky finally opened, since James wouldn¡¯t. Call me if there¡¯s anything I can do.
Over the auto¡¯s shuddering progress, Ricky rehearsed answers to the questions Belquis would have about Tony. She would tell the truth as much as possible, but not give away too much.
Belquis would ask, ¡°Do you know why he stabbed his hand?¡± and ¡°What did he say before he stabbed himself?¡± The director would quiz her with the disarming, slightly disbelieving smile that she had when her top teeth stuck out a little. This meant she was considering other perspectives or was ready to find humor in something serious. Although Belquis seemed to regard her job as a series of exceptional moments, this was too exceptional; it was bizarre.
¡°Well, Belquis,¡± Ricky imagined saying, ¡°I made some symbols, not even magical. Just astrological. To keep Tony from jacking off mentally again. Then he drew a tattoo that was on¡.¡±
She couldn¡¯t finish the sentence. Imaginary Belquis, who leaned back impossibly far in her ergonomic chair, hands crossed over her little pooch of a stomach, nodded knowingly. Ricky began to cry as she tried to remember. What did he say?
She answered herself aloud, ¡°He said I¡¯d find him.¡±
#
One house light burned at 16 Kyrie Lane as Ricky rattled the Hyundai along the front curb, leaving the driveway free for her dad to pull out, although he wouldn¡¯t. He might as well not be there, even though he always was. It didn¡¯t cross her mind to talk to him.
That left two people. No, why did she still do that, forget that Tristan was gone? He had ¡°sloughed off his mortal coil,¡± to use the kind of obscure phrase he was prone to. She desperately wanted to hear him say any pompous thing from the classics that he was always reading, even criticize their dad again, ripping on one of his publications (Dad: Brain Waves or Relativistic Time Bending? Extrasensory Perception , 2009), with a silly parody (Tristan: ¡°Brain vagues and relativistic fact bending: extra sensory concoctions¡±). Or counter one of her dad¡¯s biographical nuggets about his hero Sir Isaac Newton (Dad: ¡°He considered his occult and alchemical studies to be his real life¡¯s work and the most important branches of science¡±) with a shaming nugget of his own (Tristan: ¡°I read that true alchemists knew that processes of metallurgy were just symbols for the perfection of the soul¡±). Tristan had always beaten their dad at his own game.
Nevertheless, in those days she had defended their father, reminding Tristan, ¡°Dad always says, ¡®Trust only what you perceive with your own senses,¡¯ ¡± to which Tristan would retort, ¡°That¡¯s the problem, he hasn¡¯t sensed anything.¡±
And it was true. Again and again, in his lab, her father showed sleepy, stressed, bored, hung-over, eager, or suspicious undergraduates the back side of Zener cards, the classic figures used in ESP studies, for them to report what they saw on the front: ¡°square,¡± ¡°star,¡± ¡°circle,¡± ¡°cross,¡± or ¡°wavy lines.¡± But he never found anyone who tested better than chance, meaning they just guessed.
Tristan would jab away at this fact in round tones, as if he were saying something very important to someone very far away. At one meal, he stood and shouted at his father, ¡°Have you ever, actually ever, seen anything out of the ordinary happen?¡± He continued to yell into their dad¡¯s confused face, one that clearly had nothing extraordinary to report. ¡°With your own eyes, have you seen even one thing?¡± and then, to James¡¯ bowed head, ¡°That¡¯s what I thought.¡±
Ricky didn¡¯t like Tristan¡¯s disrespect, but he had always been there to protect her.
She remembered one of their first days at ¡°academic opportunity of a lifetime¡± (her father had called it), Convent of the Temptation in the Garden. She wasn¡¯t sure how the other students knew that she didn¡¯t fit in, that she was a scholarship student, but they all did. On this day, an older girl, a macaroni heiress, walked toward Ricky in the garden with a group of older girls.
¡°You¡¯re a little mouse, aren¡¯t you? I¡¯ll call you Minnie, Minnie Mouse.¡±
¡°I¡¯m Ricky,¡± she remembered saying, trying to look confident.
Suddenly there were boys gathered around her too. One of them was handsome, with black hair and creamy white skin. Good looks spent on a cold face. Because his family owned a mortuary, people called him Eddy Munster.
¡°Maybe it¡¯s ¡®Louse.¡¯ I¡¯ll call you Lucy Louse. Can I check your head for lice?¡±
As the boy began to move toward her with wriggling fingers, Ricky shut her eyes. The other children laughed uproariously. ¡°E-yew, don¡¯t touch her!¡±
Because he was so close to Ricky, she felt the sudden exhalation of breath on her face. When high, frightened cries from the gathered students rose up around her, she opened her eyes squarely into the intense face of her brother, who was staring at the ground. There, her torturer writhed, holding the place where the pant legs of the grey gabardine uniform came together.
¡°Unhh,¡± the boy grunted repeatedly.
Tristan finally looked up, but not at her. His head slowly swung around to scan the gathered, peaked faces. His narrowed eyes rejected the alarm of the assembled.
¡°I mean this to be a warning to anyone who messes with my sister.¡± Then he turned again to the boy and kicked him in the gut.
The gathered children continued to make fearful sounds. He commanded, ¡°OK, now take me to the prioress. I want the whole school to know that a little Sissy Mary like me fucked this big kid up.¡±
He directed his fearsome look around the semicircle. No one moved or spoke. After some moments Tristan took Ricky¡¯s hand and led her away. She recalled that she had only started to cry at the crudeness of Tristan¡¯s words, like there was another Tristan underneath the one whose stuffy correctness was off-putting in its own way.
Ricky¡¯s memory stopped there like the end of a movie preview. Did anything ever happen to Tristan? She didn¡¯t think so, because he would have been expelled if the prioress had ever known. From that day on, they never talked about it. From that day too, Tristan was embraced by the cliquish Temptation in the Garden soccer players. Many of the boys were foreign students who boarded at Temptation. They took him into their fold despite his young age, and Tristan became a person that other students deferred to, and from whom they kept their distance.
So Tristan became her source of safety. And the more her father failed to battle back, the more determined she was to be a ramrod, to not take shit. She avoided anything that lulled her resolve, like tenderness or flattery. That year, she rolled up her uniform skirt every day before school, and matched Tristan¡¯s eye-rolls that most things were ¡°tiresome.¡± Her curiosity for the remarkable vanished.
#
The second person Ricky thought to talk to, who knew many details already, was her best friend, Starr Ann Potolovich.
Ricky¡¯s first distinct memory of Starr Ann was vivid. Starr Ann¡¯s mother had led her daughter into the third grade classroom of Convent of the Temptation in the Garden after the year had already begun. The mother looked like a queen, making Starr Ann look small and meek by comparison. The garb of the elegant woman was expensive, but plain. No, Ricky thought, not plain, but familiar. She had seen that dress before, in her mother¡¯s sewing room. Her mother had made the dress worn by the new girl¡¯s mother. The dress was confirmation that some link existed between her and the new girl: two elegant mothers bound by taupe shantung, binding two little girls.
Ricky kept her fingers crossed through the first two periods that the new girl would be next to her in the recess line. When she wasn¡¯t, Ricky was determined to find her on the playground. This was tricky because Temptation in the Garden did not have an actual playground, but a garden with many winding pathways. After running along a number of these, Ricky spied the new girl staring up at a huge bronze statue of patron Saint Magenulf and his miraculous stag, who grew a cross within his broad rack of antlers. ¡°That dress your mom was wearing? My mom made it.¡±
¡°Hey!¡± Starr Ann said forcefully, startling Ricky into close attention. Then Starr Ann, taller than Ricky, her height accentuated by long dark hair, began to sing. It was a song that Ricky would recognize later, when they blared Starr¡¯s brother¡¯s old vinyl record collection down in the Potolovich basement family room.
That day in the garden, it was hard to make out Starr Ann¡¯s rushed, eight-year-old words, except for ¡°needles and pins¡± and ¡°face¡± and ¡°loved.¡± Ricky¡¯s hand lifted to her cheek, as if she would discover something new, something noticed by the new girl. Ricky had made a friend.
More of her life than not, Starr Ann had been there to advise and protect Ricky, the charity case, marked as different, undesirable. To all but Starr Ann.
One day in the sixth grade, as Ricky waited, early and alone, at her class lunch table in the refectory, a barrage of light missiles riffled her hair. She heard a snigger and was aware that nearby tables, as they filled, were closely watching the target practice.
Just as more incoming bits hit the table, thankfully there was Starr Ann at the entrance of the dining hall. Peanuts, Ricky identified with relief, as another one hit her head.
¡°Hey Sandefer,¡± Starr Ann yelled loudly. Three tables that hadn¡¯t been watching were now quiet and at attention.
Starr Ann picked up a peanut from the table and held it up between thumb and forefinger. It spanned half an inch. Starr Ann raised the peanut to eye level, looked at the peanut, and then at Sandefer, comparing.
¡°These are definitely your nuts.¡±
The tables erupted in wave-like fashion as Starr¡¯s insult was repeated further out to those who couldn¡¯t hear. In Starr Ann¡¯s orbit was social safety.
#
The night Tony stabbed himself, Ricky went right to her room. On the nightstand stood a framed photo of two people. One, was her own self, and the other, his arm over her shoulders, was a young man whose mouth was oddly wan in its setting of flat bronze cheekbones and fiercely white teeth. They both wore T-shirts and blue jeans and stood in a setting of thickly growing woods next to a rough wooden-sided building.
Barely visible on the man¡¯s forearm, the one that curved across her shoulder, was a muzzy blue figure that she knew to be an ¡°¦¡¡± with its crossbar balancing a right-handed circle and left-handed squiggles. She took Tony¡¯s drawing from her jeans¡¯ pocket. Smoothing it, one corner stiff with blood, she laid it on the bed under the lamp. Same symbol. ?¦« .
¡°It¡¯s true,¡± she said quietly, as if the Chinese lantern glowing darkly from the ceiling and the model human brain on the tall bookshelf were listening.
All the way home, she had kept repeating that Tony was crazy, that this was just a bad night at work; but now she was certain that Tony had given a prophecy of events that had been invisibly in motion toward this night.
Ricky¡¯s fingers rubbed the paisley leaves of the photo¡¯s frame. She was catching up, but too slowly. She had to concentrate and pinpoint, as exactly as she could, what had happened to her.
2.
2.
It¡¯s time I filled you in on my purpose, perhaps answering a question: why tell you all this? I can state it simply (although the full explanation is complicated): It¡¯s not just my story, it¡¯s also yours. And it¡¯s BIG, one that will change reality itself. I wish Ricky hadn¡¯t been dragged into it, but I feel her role may even be more central than my own. I know it started for her approximately one year before I died. This is a time period I must examine closely. I was young and oblivious then to her inner life. Now, old as time, I can watch her more directly and answer a question of my own: how was did events unfold for her?
Ricky¡¯s Worldline, Nov 5, 2024
Ricky was in love. Starr Ann rolled her eyes at this confession, saying, ¡°You don¡¯t have a physical relationship. You can¡¯t possibly know if it¡¯s love.¡± It was, Starr said, ¡°Infatuation. Puppy love.¡±
But Alphonso had appeared with the right amounts of kismet and surprise. She and Starr Ann had been at the Student Union of the University, where venders sold street food during the lunch hour. In her effort to meet a college man, Starr Ann was selling wicker baskets filled with pine boughs and sugar cookies.
¡°These baskets cost you more than you¡¯re charging.¡± Ricky told her friend, estimating that Starr Ann had so far lost $33.00 profit, not counting the two dozen cookies that had gone home with Ricky for her brother Tristan the night before.
¡°Those look good,¡± someone said as Ricky rearranged a sugary moon, in front of a glazed star, in front of a taller pine tree.
Expectantly, she looked up, intending to say, ¡°It makes a great gift basket, literally,¡± but then shut her open mouth, thinking, Starr Ann picked the wrong time to go for sandwiches.
The man who stood before her was rangy, with black locks long enough to hide behind, but he shook these back and looked out at her from features forming a map to someplace perfect. ¡°Did you know that pine, brought indoors for the holidays, actually protects people from sickness by releasing a natural antibiotic? They knew this in older days.¡±
He was young, but she didn¡¯t get the impression of youth until he smiled, a white flashing crest atop a full wave of lip. He had an accent that she couldn¡¯t place.
¡°I think you are someone who would like to know more about such things,¡± and from his fleece he drew a small printed notice, twice the size of a business card.
He held it out, printed side forward, for her to read.
Druidic Craft of the Wise
Informational Get-Together, November 5, 2024, 4PM
Alphonso Desperdario
870 Portland Avenue
Ricky reached for the card but Alphonso drew his hand back just slightly.
¡°Actually, I only have one. Can you write it down?¡±
She copied every word on her school schedule while thinking that Tristan would frown to hear she hadn¡¯t rejected ¡°occult ravings.¡±
But this man reminded her of a time when she was entranced by the uncanny. Nevertheless, she wondered at herself, how the very act of writing his address seemed to make it more likely that she would attend his gathering. She had read something like that in Advanced Placement Psychology, and that people were often strangers to themselves.
¡°I¡¯ll see you there,¡± Alphonso said with a distinctive upward nod of his head. Then, before she could say ¡°Maybe,¡± he melded quickly into the shifting current of students and shoppers.
¡°You missed our first man today,¡± she told Starr Ann, ¡°but he wasn¡¯t buying anything and I don¡¯t think he was a college man.¡±
¡°You look dreamy-eyed,¡± Starr Ann mused. Then, pretending to pout she teased, ¡°Hey that was supposed to be my man!¡±
The day¡¯s surprising events made Ricky think of a poem she had read, about a girl who gathered olives. Suitors came for the girl, but she ignored them to keep harvesting her crop. Ricky felt like this cold, deliberate reaper. She kept her head down and worked through obstacles. Perhaps this was why other people, even Starr Ann, didn¡¯t see her as a candidate for passion, even though her bedroom mirror showed a face that resembled Tristan, whose looks she loved.
But in this chance meeting, she was given a gift that would illuminate her when she opened it. The light would lift her when she woke before dawn to the slow step of her father as he used the bathroom before the kids got up, would shine on the breakfasts she would cobbled-together, and beam on school sandwiched in between. The gift may be new, difficult, even dangerous, but she would open it.
Elated, light as a telekinetic feather, one lane in her throughway was now clear. It had Alphonso¡¯s picture at the finish and she was going, going, gone.
#
For the meeting in Alphonso¡¯s apartment, five folding chairs circled a central area so small that both bedroom and bathroom were close at hand. Ricky¡¯s chair gave the best view of Portland Avenue through the single window. A couple of cardboard boxes served as tables and a floor lamp eked out an orange corner in the grey twilight. Outside, wet sounds echoed as the wheels of traffic sucked and spat black slush in the busy street.
From the window, Ricky watched across the avenue as a group of older men surrounded someone her own age negotiating an exchange of pocket contents. The youth shook his head, as if standing up to the men¡¯s pressure. Alphonso watched too, standing behind Ricky; everywhere in the cramped space was either in front or behind. Then, drawing the curtains, he separated the seedy neighborhood without from the business within. He handed wine glasses around, each accompanied by an elegant bow.
¡°So, ¡®Druidic¡¯ is like ¡®Druids,¡¯ right?¡± a woman was saying.
¡°That¡¯s right,¡± Alphonso answered. He bent over Ricky¡¯s chair with the wine bottle. He asked quietly with a wry smile, ¡°Are you old enough to drink?¡±
The nearness of him intoxicated. ¡°My mother was French-Canadian.¡±
Alphonso looked at her longer, then gave his upward nod and filled her glass with two small splashes.
As the sips took effect, Alphonso made promises. There was a direct line of teaching from olden times to the present day. After a year of study, and an initiation, one could go to Arkansas, to a center of learning. At each revelation, she imagined how Tristan or Starr Ann would react, with ultracivilized cuts or sarcastic affronts, respectively.
Alphonso told one inquisitive attendee, ¡°What I provide is access to an ancient wisdom system, not my own personal experience. I¡¯m sorry to disappoint you on that score, but I believe you will never regret taking this step forward in your understanding of universal law.¡±
Alphonso looked over at Ricky. ¡°You¡¯re quiet.¡± The spotlight of his attention was disorienting.
He posed the wry smile again. ¡°Don¡¯t you have any questions?¡±
Beyond Who would believe this? she wanted to know, ¡°What¡¯s your accent?¡±
¡°East L.A.¡± This time no expression accompanied his upward nod, which now looked like a reflexive tic. It was then she knew, he was just like her; he had been through a lot.
Ricky rose to follow the others out the door, but turned to Alphonso at the threshold. ¡°I¡¯m joining,¡± she said. The card Alphonso now pulled from his shirt pocket was similar to the one she had seen at the student union, but this time he put it in her hand.
¡°Pay at this web address and you¡¯ll get your lesson. I¡¯ll give you directions.¡±
¡°For what?¡±
¡°For the coven.¡± This time his smile was not wry, but flashing.
#
With family and friends, Ricky was quiet about Alphonso, even with Starr Ann, who ridiculed anything out of the here and now. One day early in their friendship, Starr Ann had caught Ricky reading The Hobbit, and heaved a sigh of disbelief.
¡°Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius!¡± she mocked.
¡°I¡¯m ten!¡± Ricky had indignantly explained to Starr¡¯s retreating back.
About Alphonso, Ricky only told Starr Ann that he was interested in exotic studies (¡°He likes anthropology¡±). But the two eventually met. Ricky had nixed her friend¡¯s suggestion that they all meet ¡°by accident¡± at a coffee shop near campus. ¡°Didn¡¯t I see you in Spy Versus Spy?¡± But in truth Ricky had hesitated to share this handsome man with her beautiful friend.
In the end, it was Alphonso himself who proposed the meeting. One Friday afternoon in late April, he called Ricky to ask for help with a project. He proposed a picnic on the way, on campus, outside the Student Union. ¡°Bring a friend if you like.¡± As he said it, she realized that this was a chance to have him more embedded in her life.
Starr Ann collected Ricky and they stopped at a Middle Eastern deli along the way. Ricky paid for food to add to Starr¡¯s basket of provisions and Starr Ann packed it, broaching, ¡°It¡¯s pretty dramatic meeting anthro-man.¡±Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
¡°I¡¯m helping him pick up a¡er¡prop for a party.¡±
¡°A prop? Sounds kinky.¡±
¡°A May pole. Or rather a pole to make a May pole¡±
¡°May pole? That¡¯s something kids do. With crepe paper.¡±
They were toting their picnic from the closest parking ramp to the stairs of the Student Union. Ricky spotted Alphonso from a distance, which was not hard. Dark hair lay on a white shirt, which stood out against a vibrantly colored velvet quilt. The quilt was spread partway on the grass and partway on the walk, because the lawn was still damp from snowmelt.
Starr sensed the sharpening of Ricky¡¯s attention and followed her gaze. ¡°Didn¡¯t I see him in the Gypsy Kings?¡± she muttered.
Alphonso had been reading as he waited. When he saw them, he put down his book and raised a hand high, then stood as the girls neared. When Ricky introduced him, Alphonso bowed deeply from the waist, a gesture that seemed natural on him. Nevertheless, Ricky monitored Starr Ann¡¯s face for evidence of disbelief or ridicule. Seeing none, she concluded that Starr shared her assessment that the man seemed easy in his skin, courtly but not goofy or stuffy.
As soon as they arranged the different foods on the spread, they talked, comparing Minnesota and California. Starr Ann wanted to know about L.A. She asked about earthquakes and show business.
¡°Is that what you want to do? Be a star?¡± He smiled the blazing white smile. Ricky watched Alphonso watching Starr Ann. It was still cold for an outside picnic and she shivered.
¡°No,¡± Starr Ann said, not acknowledging the joke. ¡°But I want to see things I¡¯ve never seen.¡±
Alphonso responded in kind: serious, as if presenting a challenge. ¡°Where I come from, East L.A. is not L.A. East L.A. is another world. There you would see things you have not seen, and never want to see.¡±
Then a shadow passed over them. ¡°Lunch looks good.¡± It was a familiar voice.
¡°Tristan!¡± Starr Ann cried, jumping up to hug him. ¡°Try this cheese.¡±
¡°Can¡¯t. Class in five minutes.¡±
For the first time, Ricky felt relief at the prospect of a separation from her brother. Usually, his presence was comfort so basic she could take him for granted, like the unheeded perfection of a hand sliding coins into a pocket, or the neglected wonder of a walk propelled by well-fitting shoes. For her, Tristan was everyday ease that was hard to do without. But she felt awkward meeting him like this, without prior explanation or ability to gauge his thoughts on Alphonso. Then again, what would she have said to prepare Tristan for this moment? That Alphonso was special? That he had introduced her to the occult? Both revelations would be like confessing an embarrassing habit.
She recovered. ¡°Tristan, meet my friend Alphonso. Alphonso, meet my brother Tristan.¡±
¡°A pleasure.¡± Alphonso smiled broadly and extended upward the hand that was not supporting him, as he sat, his legs extended, ankles crossed, out onto the quilt.
Tristan looked down at Alphonso without expression and without moving. Finally, he shook the offered hand impassively. Suddenly Tristan¡¯s expression changed: He had caught sight of the book that was lying in Alphonso¡¯s lap.
¡°A little light reading?¡± Tristan asked with a growing grin.
¡°The Nietzsche, yes.¡± Alphonso took the book in his hand and seemed to evaluate the binding. ¡°I never tire of reading what Zarathustra spake.¡±
¡°You¡¯re Ricky¡¯s first friend who¡¯s interested in philosophy.¡±
¡°Not philosophy, but inspired revelation.¡±
¡°An interesting perspective on the author who said ¡®God is dead.¡¯¡±
¡°What could be more inspired and spiritual than the ecstasy of finding the ultimate Right within oneself and becoming a Superman. Or Superwoman.¡± Alphonso smiled at Ricky as he added this.
¡°Something makes me think you¡¯re not talking DC comics,¡± Starr Ann said.
No one acknowledged Starr¡¯s remark. Tristan and Alphonso seemed locked on to the others¡¯ points about Nietzsche as if they were playing a difficult video game. Ricky ignored Starr Ann, since tutoring Starr on weighty topics would bring a cold stare and a question like, ¡°Didn¡¯t I see you in Revenge of the Nerds?¡±
Ricky looked at Tristan. ¡°I think you¡¯re late.¡±
¡°Wow. Gotta go.¡± Then Tristan jogged away toward the center of campus.
¡°Smart guy,¡± Alphonso winked at Ricky, ¡°even if he does have a college education.¡±
#
Starr Ann pronounced Alphonso, ¡°Night-stalker handsome.¡±
Ricky knew that this was a mixed endorsement, but only said, ¡°I really don¡¯t see him except for meetings.¡±
¡°Meetings? That sounds like AA.¡± And in a pitch higher than her husky voice, Starr Ann squeaked, ¡°Hi. I¡¯m Ricky and I¡¯m a psychologist.¡± Then she intoned a deep sing-song, answering, ¡°Hi Ricky.¡±
Starr Ann had been to a meeting or two. She had rolled her mother¡¯s car on Interstate 94 before even getting her learner¡¯s permit. The cops who were first on the scene recognized her as the daughter of a staunch supporter of Police Department funding and circumvented an arrest. She no longer drank.
¡°Meetings like¡Well, you know.¡± Ricky had wanted to avoid this conversation.
¡°Meetings like what?
¡°Like, well,¡± she simultaneously frowned and smiled at Starr Ann, who looked incredulous. She finally said, ¡°Covens.¡±
¡°Covens! Well, double bubble toil and trouble.¡±
¡°Double double.¡±
¡°You actually say that?¡±
¡°No; Double Bubble is gum.¡±
¡°Tell me about it. What¡¯s it like?¡±
¡°Actually, joining a coven is like being in AA in one respect. Keeping the privacy of the other members is really important. But the other people are completely cool or normal.¡±
Ricky admired her coven leader, a mathematician at a high tech firm, and his wife, a stay at home mom. She did not know their real names (not ¡®Roderick¡¯ and ¡®Hathor,¡¯ for sure) and wondered what name she would get at the ceremony marking one year of apprenticeship study.
Meetings began with greetings, right hands clasped at chest level and ¡°Blessed be¡¯s.¡± Robing in the living room, they moved to the large dining room, which had been arranged to make room for the group to sit cross-legged in a circle. Next came a teaching from the leader, and finally the coven ended with a ten-minute meditation.
The teachings were simple, but instructive. One meeting, the leader explained, ¡°There are three types of magic: white, black, and green. Each type is distinguished by its intention. White to do good, black to cause harm and, well, green magicians hold themselves above such considerations. The green magician pursues his own self-interest without blame because the pursuit of one¡¯s inner self is the key to ultimate good. As you can imagine, the distinction between the three is not always clear.¡±
¡°Are you a green magician?¡± someone asked.
¡°I think of myself as a White magician, but intentions and reality can sometimes be at odds. Let me give you an example from a couple of years ago. This coven had just formed and a member at that time had requested that the group perform a visualization to bring love into her life. In order to be sure we were all focused similarly, we asked our sister for some ideas about her ideal mate. She said to us ¡®Oh, I can do better than that; I can bring you his picture.¡¯
¡°At the next meeting, our sister produced an advertisement ripped from a magazine. The product was held by a well-dressed, handsome man, who she proclaimed as her ¡®dream lover.¡¯ The page was passed around and we meditated in the relaxed state that our young members are now studying to attain. During the relaxation, we visualized her finding her man. None of us were surprised when she soon reported that she had met someone. But, eventually, our sister told us that there was trouble: Her dream man stayed out ¡®till all hours drinking and using drugs. It was only later that I realized that the page we had focused on was a photo from a liquor ad!¡±
The leader paused for the murmur to spread around the circle. ¡°So, you see, good intentions are sometimes not enough to offset circumstances.¡±
Ricky was just about to ask what would be enough, but it was time for their relaxation technique. She tried to quiet her mind but it seized on questions about how the imaginings of one person could influence the life of another. It seemed both random and unfair.
Starr Ann¡¯s voice brought Ricky back to the present. ¡°Like you?¡± Starr Ann asked again. ¡°Cool and normal like you?¡±
¡°Way cooler and way more normal,¡± Ricky acknowledged, returning her friend¡¯s bold smile wistfully.
#
The truck carrying Alphonso and Ricky bounced along a rutted track through pinewoods, headed for the maypole that Alphonso had erected for the Beltane sabbat. Ricky gripped the edge of the bench seat with both hands, as if poised on the lip of a vessel, and about to be poured out, and about to drink herself up, loosed and quenched at the same time.
At every bend, the densely growing trees filtered the light to a deeper shade, until they jounced in indigo. The slow progress heightened her anticipation. The truck¡¯s dives through the ruts jarred her into double vision, almost to a state of altered consciousness, the kind rituals were supposed to produce. Finally the road gave onto a clearing; at its center was a pond banked with golden willows. The pair skirted the water to the sound of voices and laughter and joined forty or so people dotting a dandelion-speckled meadow.
The maypole rose above them, crowned with a circle of cultivated flowers, blue dahlia and yellow daisy and orange tiger lily. Bright ribbons that hung from its top flapped in the breeze. Off to the edge of the meadow, under a shelter of oak and birches, food fanned across a long table around which revelers ate and talked. Some drifted into the open-floored woods, where the scrub had long ago disappeared making avenues of light, as still as monuments.
The Beltane ritual was the spring festival of rebirth, so perhaps some feeling could be born in Alphonso, and she could begin new as his lady love. She kept a sight-line to him among the revelers, as if they were a couple, although his circles of shared greeting did not include her. But the rite seemed promising: It bound a man and woman.
The leader from her coven announced: ¡°Fair ladies and kind gentlemen, we are ready to name the most important person of today¡¯s ritual. As is the custom, the coven leaders have chosen the Lady, an unbetrothed young woman whom we feel embodies our beloved Mother, the fecund goddess, huntress, enchantress. In turn, the lady will choose the Green Man, representing the primal energy of spirit entering matter.¡±
All during this introduction, Ricky imagined being picked as the Lady. She saw herself choosing Alphonso and taking his hand. But Alphonso did not meet her gaze. Then the announcement: ¡°Branwyn!¡± Of course it would not be me, thought Ricky, I haven¡¯t studied a whole year to earn a goofy Celtic name.
Branwyn, a girl of about twenty, spun to face a young man, who did not look surprised. ¡°I choose Sedwick!¡± Then there were cries of Sedwick¡¯s name and he was encouraged into a green felt vest. ¡°Sedwick you are the Green Man!¡±
Branwyn took Sedwick¡¯s hand and led him to the maypole, where they stood back to back with the pole between them. Ricky fell in with the other single folk to pick up a streamer. Childish, she thought, about as mystical as a children¡¯s tea party. She tried to catch Alphonso¡¯s eye across the spokes of ribbon, but he gazed straight ahead. Half of those people holding streamers walked counter-clockwise to the pole, and the other half moved clockwise, ducking under to weave the streamers that shortened as they lashed the pair to the bright pylon. After the young lovers had torn themselves free of their crepe paper restraints, the event ended with Alphonso¡¯s sideways nod: time to return to the truck.
Despite her disappointment in Alphonso, she strategized. In Arkansas, she would have his full attention, without distractions. Show him you¡¯re not too young, not too serious. In Arkansas she would prove their equivalence: She, by embracing strange ideas without proof and he, by discovering the beauty of science.
#
Later that night, Ricky hugged her knees in Starr Ann¡¯s bedroom. As Starr laid a fire and lighted it, Ricky wondered morosely how the rug that bordered the hearth stones could be so white.
¡°It was a stupid ceremony.¡± Ricky¡¯s discontentment unsettled everything; even the room mocked her with its perfection. ¡°And he¡¯s leaving for Arkansas next week.¡±
Starr Ann said quietly, pushing more kindling into a balky spot in the small blaze, ¡°You¡¯ve got it bad and that ain¡¯t good.¡±
3.
3.
By now you know the basics; anything physical has a worldline and, because the worldlines are consciousness, each is a story that can be read from the Land of the Dead. You also now know that, even when living, I knew Alphonso Despardario. To my sister, and in his first meeting with me, he showed only one version of himself, the wise sage. But as our association continued, his and mine, he showed another version of himself, the savvy businessman. I seek the answer to a question I was never able to find in life, who is Alphonso really? But in the meantime I have made a important discovery, a second worldline joined to his, as if there are two twins who travel together. Although it is true that, once established, a worldline will travel along with other worldliness, sharing particles, these two worldliness have been artificially bound together by a third, one that takes a strange shape, that of a weaving of dead worldliness, ridden by a consciousness that was never alive. Although nonphysical entities undeniably exist, they generally can¡¯t be perceived with physical senses unless they join a worldline. It is tempting to believe that this hasn¡¯t happened much, but it actually has a long and unfortunate history. It constitutes another force that is emerging and will force the destiny of this story.
Alphonso¡¯s Worldline¡ªSeptember 1, 2020
When Alphonso was child in the hood, his four older siblings brought the chaos, coming home when they got pregnant, gave birth, or were using. But through it all, Alphonso fed and bathed the younger ones and put food in the cupboard running numbers for a local bookie. Despite all this, he managed to excel at high school. He never tried to be a superstar, yet won an ¡°A¡± average, even with sporadic attendance. Classes were like relatives once removed; you tried your best to keep them in mind and sometimes enjoyed their company, but those closer dominated.
Then in his junior year, he took his first physics class. Mr. Fizz-Ick, as they called their teacher, was a crazed performer, popping around the front of the classroom sucking eggs into bottles, bending light, creating magnetism in a simple nail, and making his hair stand on end. He changed Alphonso¡¯s life by seeing that this Desperdario was nothing like his older brothers and cousins. This kid intuited what the next question should be. When Mr. Fizz-Ick argued that advanced mathematics would only make the answers more fun, Alphonso discovered and excelled at calculus and trigonometry.
For his class project, Alphonso wowed Fizz-Ick by finding a new way to laser ceramic surfaces so that a vessel would hold the heat of the substance inside it for days. He was admitted early to Cal State and didn¡¯t hesitate to stuff his backpack with some clothes and the ritual knife of his father¡¯s, the Lakota blade Alphonso had rescued before a sibling could pawn it. He checked for the hundredth time to read the note jammed inside the quilled and beaded sheath, ¡°Inyan opened his veins to make Maka, the world. In this way, he saved the world¡± His mother would only say about Alphonso¡¯s father, just one of the family¡¯s baby-fathers, ¡°Fue loco.¡± As a child, Alphonso knew that, if his father was crazy, he wanted to be crazy too.
Carrying his few things, he found his mother at the motel where she cleaned rooms, and, in a far briefer exchange than he expected, they said goodbye.
Alphonso invented himself again in college, mingling with other students as if he were a regular undergrad, although he made no friends. He wrote up his ceramic process for Physical Sciences Letters and survived on royalties from the patent he sold to Rubbermaid. However, within the month, the house he bought his mother with his initial payout, a large suburban split level, burned to the ground. No one was killed but, in his mind, he let his mother and siblings go, the euphoria chasers, the baby makers without love. He also abandoned romance, although beauty stirred him, but it was just triggers built into the bone.
He buried himself in lab spaces of higher learning. Although not the white-tiled, sparkling clean, and meticulously ordered realm he had expected, college helped erased the grime of his childhood. Within the tumult of the Physics Department, confusing warrens jammed with computers, precarious pillars of paper, and machines with countless knobs and endless cables, he would find himself anew.
But not immediately. Dismayed by the sheer number of clever and purposeful people¡ªprofessors, technicians, and other star students¡ªhe felt disoriented until he narrowed his attention to the task, the project, the question. And because he could see a complicated event and its outcome as if from multiple surveillance cameras, he was shown respect, although never camaraderie.
He was gangly and his language was straight from the hood. He shocked his fellow students by admitting he¡¯d never been carefully groomed by a family sacrificing for the right pre- and prep-schools, robotics camps, and science fairs.
He once overheard two classmates assessing him as they tried to solve a glitch in an experimental apparatus that they had boiled down to a mathematical calibration issue.
¡°Ask Despardario.¡±
¡°Spare me another fourteen gedanken experiments.¡±
¡°I¡¯m always afraid his pants are going to fall down.¡±
Alphonso was aware that, like his English, his dress identified him as an outsider. But he resisted change on emotional grounds. His brother had died wearing symbols of other heroes who had gotten over, legit: the heavy gold chain and the sports jerseys with vintage Timberwolves creep-show lettering or Bullets hands-up logo. But his bro had not gotten over, not been legit, and got shot down during an encroachment of the Sinaloa cartel into Crips territory. Looking at the chain to see if the linked interstices were still dulled by his brother¡¯s blood rust, Alphonso hoped it would never flake away.
He fantasized about torturing his brother¡¯s killers, yet could be moved to tears by songs extolling life in the gangs, Cypress Hill and Asesino de Asesinos, people who were warm, funny, and loyal to the small group. Not like these gringos, whose allegiance seemed mostly driven by getting ahead. Anyone could be cut, if an obstacle, or ignored, if unneeded.
Shell Silverfeet was the other fish-out-of-water in his program. He and Alphonso and a couple of other students specializing in theoretical physics, seven of them, had cubicles together in a bullpen. Like Alphonso, Shell had come east to MIT. In Shell¡¯s case, he had come from the Rosebud Res in South Dakota.
Shell operated on ¡°Indian time,¡± keeping deadlines only loosely. This angered Shell¡¯s advisor, Dick Sand, who reprimanded Shell severely. Right after, Shell went to his cubicle, where, with a neutral face and in a voice that gave each word the same emphasis, he announced that he was leaving the program, his choice.
There was silence all around and Alphonso said in his mind, ¡°Don¡¯t give them nothing!¡±
Then Shell nailed it on the head. ¡°I¡¯ll say one thing, you white people really know how to get shit done.¡± When Shell¡¯s eyes met Alphonso¡¯s, they said, ¡°Good luck with that.¡±
But Alphonso didn¡¯t need luck. Instead, he longed for one other person to know the real him, such as it remained. He waited for a double to mirror him, but someone who had already arrived, already had it all. He didn¡¯t think ¡°to save me,¡± but he believed a beacon would call him forward, that one woman would intensify his wishes until he understood them better himself.
#
Alphonso¡¯s cubicle at MIT was both plain and a miracle; here he would hatch his dreams. He barely noticed that his graduate classes were harder, since he was free to plan unorthodox, impractical projects. Even more unbelievably, into his lonely advancement came a woman.
Beddelia Sweeney was a force of nature; like combustion, she inflamed him. Yet she was also a distillation, a gentle rain of pure dew from above. Alphonso¡¯s life was clarified by Beddy.
An Irish exchange student from Dublin, her brogue was nearly unintelligible to him, but he clearly read her wildness. She made him feel like el jaguar, like he might try to devour her, but she¡¯d remain unharmed. Even when he groped her clumsily, she would laugh as if the air joyed to be released from her body. ¡°Your energy,¡± she would mouth, on his mouth, as he read her braille with his lips. Energy!
Beddy¡¯s study at MIT was neuroscience. ¡°Psychology,¡± she clarified. Maybe this was why Alphonso told her things that he hid from others¡ªthat his mother was a Mexican illegal, that she¡¯d never married his American father, a real American, a genuine Lakota Sioux. To Beddy he could say that his father had left them, left his mother to fend with the help of other men, who left her with other babies. He told her he was going to find his father in the only town his mom said that his dad talked about, Belle Fourche, South Dakota. Alphonso planned to go just as soon as he graduated; he would go as Dr. Desperdario.
Beddy listened to Alphonso with serenity, animal, but also also nurturing. She showed him a mercy that humbled him; his loneliness transformed to something he merely knew, rather than felt. They would meet to satisfy her detailed instructions, whispered with the power of a shout, and then, after, talk for hours.
In their long conversations, Beddy extolled the brain¡¯s marvels. She said that every memory is constructed from separately stored pieces and formed anew each time it¡¯s retrieved. She told him how the ancient reptilian brain pathways are still there, under newer add-ons, the mammalian emotion and the human cognition. She said brain cells create theta waves that oscillate particles into existence out of the quantum foam.
¡°Is that true?¡± His lecture on space-time foam had not covered this aspect¨C¨Cbut he¡¯d heard just-as-weird in the lecture hall.
¡°It only remains to be proven.¡± Her vocal chords crescendoed her sheer delight. ¡°Have a look at the brain¡¯s microtubules,¡± she suggested, like Have another helping of stew.
With this prompting, Alphonso did some reading. He found a theory of consciousness that said quantum effects happen inside miniscule tubes called the microtubules, inside the neurons. Alphonso had, of course, studied quantum physics, but had never heard of it affecting anything bigger than the smallest particles. With this information, wondered about tiny places. He felt they might lead him to a new discovery, which is the holy grail of all scientists.
His curiosity bore fruit when he overheard that a graduate student in geology had a sample of black dolerite from the Stonehenge quarry. In the same millennium as the construction of the pyramids, huge pillars of this rock had traveled over one hundred miles of English countryside to be raised in a circle of towering arches.
Alphonso planned to study this mystery as no one ever had. But before he sought out the sample, he bought regular fit blue jeans. He accustomed himself to the tighter casing of a button-down shirt. He lost the leather baseball cap with the gold chain edging the crown. He practiced imitating the grammatically correct sentences of those around him, although it made him feel as if he speechified instead of spoke. Still, he kept his long black hair, shiny and flowing free.
The geology student was a big man, an impression made stronger by the fact that he wore his hat in his graduate cubicle. It was clearly his field hat, sweat stained and begrimed, with a flop to its wide brim, like he was waiting for his own Raiders of the Lost Ark. Then Alphonso had a more unsettling impression, of being Tonto to this guy¡¯s Lone Ranger. Alphonso shook it off, but he would forever remember the man as Ranger.
Although Ranger had worked on the sample for the last nine months, he had not yet developed original findings. Moreover, he was at the end of the ten years allotted to finish his dissertation. Alphonso knew it was a desperate man who moved a box to clear a chair for him. The man sat too and leaned forward to answer all questions.
Alphonso wasted no time on preliminaries. ¡°You¡¯re looking at the atomic level, right?¡±
¡°Yup. With a Picker four-circle diffractometer. It¡¯s monochromatized for MoK¦Á? radiation.¡±
¡°Can you pick up special features at the quantum level?¡±
¡°Negatory. I can only determine the lattice parameters.¡±
Alphonso had heard what he knew he would hear: The rock was a crystal with tiny spaces. The lattices would force atoms to obey quantum laws, just like Beddy¡¯s microtubules did in the brain.
¡°Do you ever think about whether the rocks are strange?¡± Alphonso asked Ranger.
¡°Strange?¡±
¡°Have weird properties. One possible cause could be quantum effects.¡±
¡°Like quantum physics?¡±
¡°Yeah.¡± What else? Quantum arts and crafts? Alphonso continued, ¡°Quantum laws lead to wild behavior. Fluids climb up and over walls, or stay in motion years after the container has stopped spinning. Floating rocks? ¡± He shrugged.
Ranger sat back with sudden force. ¡°You mean you want to explain how the rocks were moved?¡±
The big man pushed his hat up high on his forehead, revealing a stark tan line. He mopped the back of his neck with a western bandana as he waited for Alphonso to continue.
Then Alphonso produced his lynch-pin point: ¡°There is one place where we can see quantum effects without high tech.¡±
¡°Where¡¯s that?¡±The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
¡°The brain.¡±
Alphonso gazed around the cubicle. Geodes and minerals were displayed like precious Faberg¨¦ eggs on gold stands. Framed degrees, undergrad from Harvard, high school from Philip Exeter, leaned against the open cardboard boxes that crowded one corner of the cramped space.
Alphonso saw that his fellow scientist followed with difficulty, so he offered, ¡°The uncertainty principle says we don¡¯t observe matter without changing it.¡±
¡°Hunh. You¡¯re saying we change things by looking at them? I see objects all the time, and I don¡¯t affect them.¡± He put his hat back on.
Alphonso could answer this tricky point. ¡°In the macro world, atoms exist in so many different states, the effect is cancelled out. But the Stonehenge rocks have tiny lattices that force atoms into the same state; that can lead to quantum entanglement. The brain has tiny places, too. My idea is, maybe the rocks and the brain could entangle.¡± He wasn¡¯t sure that Ranger would understand this crazy proposal that mind could direct matter.
But then Ranger gave an aw-shucks chuckle. ¡°And that¡¯s how they moved the stones to Stonehenge? People thought about them and then they floated? Impossible.¡±
¡°I have an idea how to test it. We don¡¯t try, we don¡¯t know.¡±
#
They conducted the experiment in the Physics Department with a special piece of equipment. The Febry-P¨¦rot resonator could shoot energy lattices called quantum dots, then read the energy change. But this day, the energy would come from mental focus. If they measured an effect, it could only be due to mind itself.
Because the resonator was being used in an ongoing experiment, they would have to make do with the current set up. This meant that one of them¡ªRanger¡ª would focus on the rock in a lead-lined booth while Alphonso would run the controls in a separate room. The two men would be connected only by an intercom and a camera.
Before beginning, they agreed that, if there was a change in the quantum dots, they would repeat the procedure using the Stonehenge rock. If the rock moved, their futures would be assured.
Alphonso suddenly thought of Beddy¡¯s prompt. He told Ranger, ¡°Repeat the word energy,¡± the word Beddy had kissed into him not too long ago, ¡°and really concentrate on it. Try and see it.¡± At Alphonso¡¯s signal, Ranger said the word again and again. Listening over the booth¡¯s intercom made Alphonso feel stupid; it was too simple. But the big student was taking the task seriously. Via the camera, Alphonso watched Ranger take off his fedora and annunciate energy as if auditioning for the Shakespearian stage. His eyes were closed and his face was red. He was shaking and panting. Alphonso realized with some disgust that he now knew what the man looked like having sex.
But before he was prepared for it, Alphonso saw success: the quantum dots in the resonator were emitting surface acoustic waves. The men had changed the quantum dots using consciousness as an energy source. As they headed to the parking lot, they planned how they would repeat the process on the Stonehenge rock.
Even without confirmation, Alphonso¡¯s heart rode higher in his chest. He had arrived at a beautiful station after a long and uncertain journey. But unfortunately, he had arrived with Ranger. During the walk to the parking lot, he played six scenarios forward to determine whether his collaborator would acknowledge that this was Alphonso¡¯s idea, or would claim a share of the Nobel Prize, as if he had been more than a dim-witted tag-along.
They stood at their cars. Ranger seemed somehow diminished in size.
¡°Man, that really took it out of me.¡± Ranger leaned on his Range Rover as if he wanted to crawl onto the hood and take a nap. His face was the color of old oatmeal and he breathed in shallow sniffs. ¡°I think I need to go to a hospital.¡± So Alphonso was not surprised when Ranger called the next day to say, ¡°The doc told me, no more whatever I was doing before the episode,¡±
Momentarily delighted, Alphonso determined to go it alone. But in the next instant, he realized that he would need to change the lab setup. Getting permission would be a lengthy process. He had no choice to coerced Ranger, ¡°I¡¯m going forward tomorrow, with or without you.¡±
When Ranger showed up as appointed, they conducted the identical procedure, but now Alphonso trained the booth¡¯s camera on the two-gram Stonehenge stone, to document evidence of a miracle. Ranger gabbled as they began, as if he were fighting his own tongue. Alphonso encouraged through the intercom of the resonator, ¡°You can do it,¡± wondering if he sounded just like that Latin actor Edward James Olmos, in a movie about inner city kids getting an education.
In the same moment, he thought, The rock moved. Just slightly, but it had moved on its own.
Alphonso¡¯s joy at the stone¡¯s twitch died when Ranger collapsed. Dismay became despair as the man would not rouse, or breathe. Kneeling over the corpse inside the Febry-P¨¦rot booth, Alphonso panicked. The doctor¡¯s documentation would suggest that Alphonso¡¯s procedure had killed the man. There was no time to erase the resonator¡¯s electronic check-out. And no time to download the image from the cubicle¡¯s camera.
So Alphonso did what any competent resident of East Los Angeles would do in this situation. He took the rock and ran.
Maddox¡¯s Worldline¡ªMay 22, 2023
Maddox McGauern looked like trouble. Hair, cock-fight red; size, big. But his friends¡¯ parents always ID¡¯d him as the trustworthy one and he always got a nickname. Before his growth-spurt, it was Sliver; afterward, it was Plank. Sometimes, with irony, he was called Mad Dog or 20-20 in acknowledgement that he was much more likely to be discovered reading Popular Mechanics or some old fantasy book (he liked the big guys¡ªFafhrd, Beowulf, Conan) than caught drinking or fighting more than his fair share.
He grew up in Charlestown, a city falling apart. But his mom always spread cheer in the community, when she wasn¡¯t too bogged down cleaning house, haranguing her five kids, or working. Mrs. McGauern would put on her miniskirt to join the band that let her sit in Saturday nights at the Knights of Columbus. Mr. McGauern would be there every gig, his boot seams showing mortar but his eyes gleaming, glued to his wife. While his mom heaved the accordion around, hair dyed pink or blue, working the Stomach Steinway, pushing and pulling out Get the Party Started and Whiskey in the Jar, Maddox and his siblings would be there too, playing Transformers in the corner next to the upright piano.
When the kids outgrew the floor, the boys found themselves past sharp reprimands. Their dad would occasionally look thoughtful at something they said and their mom got confidentially sweet in a way that let us know that she admired brawn and some disobedience. Then they discharged the mayhem they had stored over the years. They got their younger uncles busted by their aunts for buying them booze at Charlestown Liquors, and Maddox got Fernan Maki cited for teaching him how to drive without a learner¡¯s permit.
It was his dad that laid out the decision tree for Maddox as they sat one night at the kitchen table: You¡¯re strong. Do you want to work with me? I guess not. (Boring). You¡¯re a good shot. Police academy? Nah (Let me understand, not judge). Wadda ya wanna do? Math and science (But don¡¯t tell Fernan Maki).
All the girls he knew liked school too, but none of the boys. He worried about that a lot, being studious, quieter. He could tell his dad did too, until Mr. McGauern realized that experimental physics was pretty macho and that the family basically got an electrical engineer into the bargain. Maddox brought the old house up to code. ¡°Let¡¯s get everything you want done now,¡± Maddox told his dad before heading off to a football scholarship at Bridgewater State. ¡°I don¡¯t know when I¡¯ll have this time again.¡±
Even then, he was scenting the path.
It led, via a bricklayer¡¯s union scholarship, to MIT, where he studied magnetism, a force around us always. But, even after two years of graduate physics, he couldn¡¯t answer the question, What is magnetism? any better than resorting to compasses or refrigerator magnets, or by explaining it as the byproduct of its more popular twin, electricity. This bothered him: electricity has the satisfying attribute of sending energy from one place to another. It has a clear function. But magnetism? No such unifying theme. He had been lectured that it was unscientific to think about anything in the natural universe as having purpose or design, but that was just how his mind worked. During his studies, he seized on a fact: soon after the birth of universe, magnetic fields singlehandedly flung protons and electrons together to clump into elements. This new matter obeyed new laws¡ªNewton¡¯s laws. Thus magnetism ended quantum rule, all three minutes of it.
So, ran his thinking, magnetism was a barrier to quantum forces. But it was a kooky idea. It wouldn¡¯t get him into the private sector, developing the next Teflon or Post-It note. Nevertheless he dreamed of getting his family out of the small clapboard two-story in Charlestown, letting his dad quit laying brick, letting his ma quit pushing paper at the Local Union Three.
But what he never dreamed, was that his education would bring him issues with science. It was his girlfriend back at MIT, Bedelia Sweeny, an Irish exchange student who, even though beautiful, was one of the boys. She could hammer Guinness with the relentlessness of an oil derrick and had none of the sticky possessiveness of other women. Maddox was smitten, but figured she¡¯d blithely returned to Dublin the minute graduation revoked her student visa.
It was Beddy who got him to do the Zener cards, the ones used in the classic extrasensory perception tests. With a major in brain and cognitive sciences, she had chosen the cards because of their five simple symbols, perfect for a study on mental imagery.
They were hanging out in her lab space and Beddy was joking around. She took her lovely, long-fingered hand away from the copper curl it had been twirling (the hair that sometimes fell onto his hair and made him imagine how made for each other they seemed to be) and blocked his view of a card.
¡°Tell me which one I¡¯m looking at.¡±
When Maddox said ¡°Star,¡± and she showed him a star, she laughed the glissando tones that had been part of her attractive powers, along with the suggestive, and accurate, eloquence of her name.
¡°Next,¡± she commanded.
¡°Star, again.¡± Again correct and again the laugh. However, when Maddox guessed eight out of the next ten, there was no such hilarity.
¡°We¡¯re going to have to test this, with proper controls.¡±
That was the beginning of the end for him in physics. It didn¡¯t happen right away, but rather over conversations with Beddy. They spent nights, their two red heads bent over pitchers; him, intoxicated with her laughter and her, telling him how his ability with the Zener cards could be explained by science.
¡°It may actually be us together; the sender keeping the energy of the mental image focused to match the receptivity of the receiver.¡± At this she would pause to punctuate her lascivious pronunciation of ¡°sender¡± and ¡°receiver,¡± although he couldn¡¯t help but notice that she reversed their sexual roles. Then she erased his qualms by kissing him again and again.
Maddox had waves of misgivings when his new experiences clashed with his physics training, especially during the teaching that he did for his assistantship money. Guiltily, he informed his classes that there was no action at a distance at the macroscopic level, in the walking-around world where they all lived. But he knew it wasn¡¯t true, as Beddy had shown him.
When Beddy confirmed, by the scientific method, that he actually sensed, without using vision, the flip-side of the cards, his honesty cut him loose from the scientific mainstream. He drifted. After Beddy left MIT without so much as a fare-thee-well, he applied and was accepted into a program in parapsychology. He packed his bags like a zombie.
¡°It ain¡¯t MIT,¡± his dad¡¯s pronounced and didn¡¯t speak to him for six months.
Leaving his family far behind was disorienting. He came from a neighborhood where no geography west of the Mississippi was relevant. On the plane coming here to Minnesota, he had dismissed the vast expanse of crop fields passing below. It was food, sure, but also desolation; just corn and crows and lonely empty roads. Who would have thought, in such a place of empty wholesomeness, the world¡¯s sureties would fragment.
Beddy¡¯s Worldline¡ªMarch 2, 2024
The pedestrian bearing the student visa identifying her as ¡°Bedelia Sweeny,¡± resident of Ireland, here in the U.S. to study cognitive science at MIT, had no intention of entering the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. She would get a new body outside the terminal.
Sooner rather than later, she would be able to whisper irresistible commands to a woman of her choosing. But first the physical plane would have to be ¡°astralized¡± ¡ªshe laughed at the term for their realm, since ¡°astra¡± means star, and stars are physical too. First, greater numbers of quantized objects were needed to thicken the etheric. This medium would let her dictates entangle another mind into compliance. But until then, she would lack the power of mental control that was her fondest wish; she would have to be content with a combination of surprise, strength, and superior knowledge.
She made the quick walk from short-term parking and spotted a woman standing alone outside baggage claim who met her important criteria: beautiful and showing expensive red-soled high heels (Works in the financial sector? High-priced call girl?)
She gained surprise by summoning, using the little power she had here in physical to call up beings that were a good match to her mental purpose of overtaking and conquering, or weak thought forms that were close to manifesting, like urban legends. Her favorites were the old lifeforms that had answered the same needs as those that called her forth. By summoning them, she startled her prey before she took them.
Beddy stood only slightly distant from the woman to begin her ambush. She called on the glistening brown bodies that trundled sure-footedly from the foundations of the airport, having gathered there like all of their brethren, anywhere that man congregated. Although from an earlier time than humans, indeed than any mammal, the adaptability of roaches made them a perfect partner to humans, since both mindsets conquered by perseverance and numbers.
The swarm of glistening carapaces saw their prey and scurried with lightning speed to climb the three-inches of the red-soled stilettos then onto the smooth silk of the woman¡¯s stockings. They followed Beddy¡¯s desire and scurried up the elegant routes of leg into the shadows of the woman¡¯s skirts. But before the woman could scream, Beddy grasped both of her forearms to thumb down hard on her pressure points. Then the woman¡¯s brown eyes widened to glint lovely reflections of Beddy, who delighted in the slight moan escaping the woman¡¯s barely parted lips as she concentrated her way into the new shell. The cocoa eyes rolled back into a lovely head, signaling that the resistance of the host personality had yielded, and Beddy slipped in to a tight, warm fascicle of affordances¨C¨Climbs, senses, cognitions¨C¨Cgiving life.
This was far better than human sex, which only involved her nerve endings, never her whole self. To be sure, she felt nostalgia for sensual experiences: Alphonso was shadow, a beckoning yet retreating cleft of cold fire, whereas Maddox was sunny, an energetic frolic, a sweet with a sad center. Nevertheless, these men had been mechanisms for a particular end, nothing like this ecstatic merging of selves.
According to Omnis Dominum, her nemesis in Astral, she should never acquire a host in this abominable manner. Like most Forms, he abhorred Beddy¡¯s sacrilege of kidnap-and-kill. Omnis Dominum insisted that, if she must ¡°go physical,¡± she should do it by assembling atoms out of the quantum foam into a convincing human facsimile. But then, he was a tender-hearted Form, born of the Renaissance, a time when kindness and fairness were much in human thought. Beddy¡¯s origin was older, from the Paleolithic, when the earth goddess was worshiped and women¡¯s blood empowered the soil. Her first time in Physical, she used weapons of stone. She wielded and smote. And was smitten.
Beddy¡¯s second time in Physical, she inspired the prophet of the Book of Revelations, whispering to him the rite to create the objects that he would increase her power here. But the prophet sensed her emptiness even though her displays of wanton lust attracted crowds of human followers. He preached against her, this Red Whore of Babylon. In the end, he was exiled and she was killed, again with no warning, no hope of taking a new body. But this time would be different, she thought, as she smoothed her skirt, shaking out the tickling tide of roaches that receded back to their crevices.
The portion of consciousness she had left in the corpse lurched toward a corner of the airport exterior, then spun awkwardly to sit into it. Bedelia Sweeney had, for all purposes, died when the Form took possession, the school year before. But now her family would be notified. Beddy ran her hands again over her new voluptuousness and took a last look around, but no one was curious about the woman apparently sleeping in the corner of the terminal.
The new body was magnificent and the information stored in the host brain now expanded Beddy¡¯s perspective, since that recent identity left convenient knowledge traces in its brain. She knew herself to be a nurse. This was an unforeseen stroke of fortune, since her next mission was to infiltrate a hospital to send medical records. However, it was also a red flag. The profession did not match the shoes. And the diamond of the wedding ring was big. Yes, the new brain confirmed, there was a powerful husband. Beddy would have to avoid ringing any alarms. Then, having the woman¡¯s memories of her personal life, she rejoiced in the fact that she was well-loved and protected. Red shoes, yes, but Red Whore, my ass.
Part II: WHAT YOU THINK, YOU WILL FEEL 4.
You no doubt detected the key player introduced in the last sections. Now that you better understand her variety of existence, where she comes from, how she gets here, I can confirm that she¡¯s behind how our reality is changing. Her efforts have have caused new energies to seep into Physical. And there are multiple incursions: the Astral assault rains down from above and nourishes the more subtle disruption to natural law rising from below. This may well damn Physical as we know it, but in it is in this crux, in-between the central crack formed by these fulcrums, that I may find a door; some crevice, some seam, that will let me back. There is nothing like waking up in a whole new plane of existence to expand one¡¯s sense of the possible. I am determined to find a path.
Ricky¡¯s Worldline¡ªMarch 20, 2024
As an apprentice, Ricky received lessons once-a-month from the Druidic Craft of the Wise and obeyed the instruction to copy the lore in full, in her own hand, making a Book of Shadows. It had been months since she had seen Alphonso at the meeting in his apartment, but she studied the lessons as if, this is what he thinks, as if they would be discussing the information soon. Nevertheless, the apprenticeship embarrassed her and she used a fine-tipped ink pen and printed small, as if the nearly unreadable words could both confirm and deny her efforts.
However, one instruction was entirely welcome: Sew a robe by your own hand. In the closet of her mother¡¯s sewing room, she found and worked a midnight-colored velvet. Before her mother¡¯s mirror, she pulled the hood of the robe forward until her face was the face of her mother, a dark hole of absence, pure shadow.
#
The lesson for February instructed her to find a crystal ball or silvered glass to practice divination, to foretell the future. She took the bus to The Friendly Witch, which sold books and paraphernalia, like athemes, knives to cut the ritual air, and shiny objects to skry with, where the odd reflection might spontaneously animate to tell the unknown.
Surrounded by Celt-ish and mediaeval-y graphics, the young clerk greeted her with a, ¡°Hey, what¡¯s up?¡± then gave her a period of silence, to take in the store¡¯s displays.
Although it looked cheery from the street, with quaint casement windows in a freshly painted fa?ade, the interior of the Friendly Witch was dim. The only bright light came from the illuminated case supporting the cash register that lit the clerk from below and caused his features¡ªchecked-out eyes, piggy nose, points of ears, and a bright spear of a chin¡ªto hang in darkness.
In contrast, the bright colors of the Tarot cards in the case drew her, their slanted logic momentarily soothing her disbelief in a perfect world. She had read that the Death card, showing the Grim Reaper standing amid the scythed-off head and limbs of a King, does not actually portend death, but rather rebirth. From the old parts will spring something new.
In the single memory that she had of her mother, the woman¡¯s finger rested on Ricky¡¯s heart. When Ricky replayed it, there was no face, only an unpolished nail¡¯s half-moon and Ricky¡¯s surprise at the finger¡¯s firm pressure. She and her mother sat on Ricky¡¯s bed in the new house at 16 Kyrie Lane while Ricky told her mother that she didn¡¯t want to live in their new house, that she didn¡¯t have any friends. Perhaps her mother had stopped the somewhat random touch that affectionate parents give children, had ceased the possessive stroking of her precious thing. She was preparing Ricky for independence.
Her mother said, ¡°Ricarda, if you had good friends where you last were, you will have good friends here. You don¡¯t make friends because of them, you make them because of you.¡± The seeds of whatever began anew were part of her. As Ricky looked into the Death card, she heard her mother¡¯s advice. As if rebirth were easy.
¡°You still hang out with Starr Ann Potalovich? Yeah, we¡¯ve partied,¡± the clerk snorted with a combination of pride and nervous blinking that told Ricky that he had never spent more than a few minutes with Starr Ann.
¡°Hey, if you¡¯re interested in magic, there¡¯s a group of people that meet out near the keg stand in Palfrey¡¯s Glen. With incantations and everything.¡±
Ricky had never seen an incantation in her lessons.
¡°There¡¯s a warlock named Balho who does animal sacrifice and everything.¡±
She stared down at the case full of stickers, many of them pentagrams, the star within two concentric circles. On one, a man¡¯s head and limbs filled the five points of the star, upright. In another, the star was upside-down and fitted with the snout, horns, and ears of a goat. People could go either way, upright or animal. The clerk was a wanna-be of something outlawed, something mysterious, yet Starr Ann¡¯s voice asked in her head, ¡°Didn¡¯t I see him in Dumb and Dumber?¡±
Ricky drew closer to look inside the glass case that separated them. ¡°Can I see that Tarot deck there, in the back?¡±
¡°The Crowley deck,¡± the guy nodded knowingly.
As Ricky gingerly examined the store¡¯s demo cards, noting they were coated with a smeary film that had a stale odor, he continued to talk, ¡°Commissioned by this British guy Alistair Crowley. In the 20¡¯s.¡±
She plucked out her favorite card, the Magician. Though it had a dark stain that had seeped to the backside, she could make out the painting: a young man held a wand raised to the sky with his right hand and pointed to the earth with his left. She knew that the card¡¯s principle was ¡°As above, so below,¡± which conveyed a sense of action, but the dictate of the law seemed vague.
¡°Crowley was radical.¡± The clerk continued, ¡°He knew there was no such thing as good and evil¡ªonly power.¡±
Ricky resisted showing her surprise. She had only yesterday copied into her Book of Shadows the lesson that the intention sent out with a particular magical practice comes back to the magician. If that were true, a person who focused on having power over other people should call up the same type of experiences for themselves. She could have Googled Alistair Crowley, but for some reason was drawn to a book she had seen in the Magik section. By her phone flashlight, she read that Crowley had died in penniless obscurity.
Just as she noted with satisfaction that he had wanted power over others and then was overpowered, movement caught her eye from the top of the book. Small writhings were coming up over the pages and from the inner seam. In disbelief, she rejected what at first looked like wriggling fingers but then conveyed a more obscene impression of the fleshy probes. She heaved a sigh of relief when the worms disappeared back into the binding, only to drop the book and her phone a split second later when her hands were painfully stung again and again. She didn¡¯t want to look, but had to, in order to pluck off the writhing invaders. As she pulled them off, hair-like tendrils slithered from her skin, leaving beads of blood that glimmered in the dim light. As she grabbed each worm, it looked at her reproachfully with a tiny red eye before she flung it as far from her as she could.
Horrified, Ricky reached for an explanation, although it was absurd: bookworms. They had disappeared with the coming of synthetic book glue¡ªso it couldn¡¯t be. She stifled strangled disgust noises in an effort not to scream. She would not give the pitiful clerk the satisfaction of sharing his paranormal experience with Ricky Jameson. Then, as she tore the last little bastard off her hand, she reflected with far less outrage, this might really, actually, truly be paranormal. In her rush to the door, she left the small highly polished dish, a salver, the guy called it, on the counter.
¡°Hey, come back again,¡± the clerk called in surprise, and, from the corner of her eye, she saw he raised his hand in the corna, forefinger and pinkie extended over other fingers curled, the social signifier of metal devil envy. ¡°Right on,¡± he called to her retreating back.
#
Ricky felt the attack of the bookworms was unreal, though her hands had the pinpricks, the violation of their penetrations, that said otherwise. She fought the notion of herself as one more crackpot in the family. Pushing away the memory of the encounter at the Friendly Witch was made easier by a call from Starr Ann, announcing that she was transferring from the Convent of the Temptation in the Garden to Melvin G. Laird High School.
Starr Ann explained only, ¡°Maybe you saw me in the Rolling Stones¡ªgathering no moss.¡±
Despite this new blow to her sense of orientation, there was no question that Ricky would follow. She was only too happy to put off telling Starr Ann was not so disdainful of anything speculative or strange, that she could tell her about her outlandish Friendly Witch experience.
The change of schools meant an end to lunch hours with Tristan, watching him eat Fruit Roll Ups over rare books in the Bishop¡¯s Collection Room. It was just as well that she wouldn¡¯t try to relate the incidence of the bookworms to him. He would just receive her tale with an obscure quotation like ¡°We suffer more from imagination than from reality,¡± (Seneca) or ¡°Reality exists in the mind,¡± (Orwell). Then this would only remind her of psychology and how unnatural experiences are the product of a bent brain. She might have to face the fact that she was losing it.
The new start at Laird was a welcome distraction. Even after years of Temptation¡¯s dark uniforms and understated Romanesque symbols in bronze, stone, and wood, Ricky was instantly used to Laird¡¯s hallways, overrun with students in vehement polyester and bedazzled with posters exhorting them to Do Things!
Laird was better than Temptation, but with new kinds of bad. There was Carley. Carley Currier had been Ricky¡¯s first playmate when the Jameson¡¯s first moved to the neighborhood. In preschool, they met for play dates until Ricky reported to her mother that Carley played with matches.
Ricky had not seen her former friend in years and so she barely recognized the Carley who shuffled the loud hallways at Laird. The once visible bones of her frame now supported more bulk and her body¡¯s slack movements seemed to postpone its own advancement. Stark white makeup coated the round face, but when Ricky got closer, she remembered the sentimental eyes. And the fixation with storybook characters remained, as well. These days, it was vampires. Ricky learned this in Carley¡¯s room, where she went to deliver textbooks as per the command of the Principal¡¯s secretary.
Mrs. Currier had answered the door; this was surprising because she worked all the time. Ricky held the books out to her, ignoring the woman¡¯s wet-eyed gaze. She¡¯s thinking, here¡¯s the dead woman¡¯s child. Just as Ricky always remembered it, a draft in the house carried a note of bacon grease.
¡°Oh honey, Carley would love to see you. You¡¯d really cheer up our invalid.¡± Ricky pulled the books back against her chest and went upstairs.
Carley¡¯s stricken smile was already fixed in place as Ricky reached the open bedroom door. ¡°I¡¯m so glad you¡¯re here. I¡¯ve been so bored.¡±
¡°Does it hurt?¡± Ricky sat down next to the foot propped in an ace bandage.
¡°It was awful. There wasn¡¯t even any blood,¡± Carley¡¯s smile now looked sly. ¡°Too bad I get to miss PE for a whole week.¡±
Ricky ignored Carley¡¯s fake complaint by staring down at the brown shag rug, then looked around. The closet door was open, showing a small number of clothes dangling in the space. And on three shelves were a collection of figurines. Vampires and their victims, half-clad plastic women, breasts pointing in directions that depended upon their state of physical distress, bled into bathwater or draped off beds in downward-dog death. She realized that Carley would believe her about the bookworm invasion, but that only made her feel vaguely nauseous.
¡°Wow, they¡¯re dead, or dying,¡± managed Ricky.
¡°Or they¡¯ll live without dying, undead.¡±
Same old Carley. ¡°I¡¯ve got trigonometry homework, so I¡¯ve gotta go.¡±
¡°Hey, as soon as I can walk, we¡¯ve gotta go out. We go to The Capitol.¡±
¡°That¡¯s a club.¡±
¡°Yeah, if Lestat came to St. Paul, that¡¯s where he¡¯d go. Does your brother go out? Hey, don¡¯t you have a fake ID?¡±
Ricky saw in her mind the face of Tristan considering such a meet-up. ¡°Ahh, no.¡± On all counts.
¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll hook you up. And Tristan too. He¡¯s cute.¡±
That¡¯s how it started, how Ricky could even think about working in a group home. Carley Currier was making fake IDs. She made them for seniors who drank illegally. And she¡¯d dispense them at a party. At Carley¡¯s, it was always a compound contraband celebration: Drinking, a party; drugging, a party; fake IDs, a party. When Ricky went over for the ID party, there were a couple of people talking in the kitchen and Carley and Twig were on the couch.
Twig got her name from her build, which was skinny. Also, Twig liked to think she resembled a model from the 1960s. She wore her bleached blonde hair in a short boy cut, however, her sharp tiny teeth were not picture perfect. Everything about Twig made Ricky think of danger; she was skewer-thin and conversed in accusations.
Differently, Carley was all mental hands, glomming onto Ricky this way and that. Carley was just the kind of girl who wanted everyone in on her illicit fortune, but Ricky got a free ID. Carley said, ¡°Just don¡¯t tell Twig. I¡¯ll charge someone else extra, so she¡¯ll think you paid.¡±
The ID for Ricky¡¯s forgery came from Twig¡¯s sister who had a big square face and thick blond hair, like ropes. ¡°This picture has got to go,¡± pronounced Carley.
Twig operated the scalpel that cut and then separated the laminate covering. ¡°My sister¡¯s so stupid; this is her third ID this year. She can figure out nothing.¡±
Ricky was ordered to produce her Laird ID, which was quickly cannibalized for her image. Once the picture was gluesticked in place, Twig added a paperclip to the ensemble to take away with her.
¡°Twig works at Kinko¡¯s,¡± explained Carley. ¡°She¡¯ll have it laminated by tomorrow. I can¡¯t believe you haven¡¯t been to The Capitol.¡±
Twig looked at Ricky fixedly. ¡°If I get caught, you won¡¯t get your 40 back.¡±
Carley winked at Ricky and Ricky nodded somberly, as if approving her conclusion that Ricky owed them big-time, for something important.
#
In an unexpected turn of events, Alphonso called to meet for coffee. He told her that, even though she hadn¡¯t finished a year of lessons, she could come to Arkansas.
¡°As soon as school lets out.¡±
At the news, free spirits, birds, beacons, lifted up and out. It felt like spring.
¡°But until then, you might want to check out this want-ad. I know you¡¯re really interested in psychology.¡± He pushed a section of that morning¡¯s paper across the table:
Mental Health Worker: Residential treatment facility for Seriously and Persistently Mentally Ill. PT, Eves./Wknds., must be 18, 555-2476.
His concern warmed her as she read the ad, and wondered what the work in ¡®worker¡¯ would be, then looked again at the age requirement. How fortunate that, with the fake ID from her childhood friend Carley, she could now produce proof of adulthood and she would sell it to her father as an ¡°internship¡±
Elated that her life seemed finally to be moving towards Alphonso¡¯s, she called to ask about an application. The woman on the phone said, ¡°Just go to the Med Office; but I wouldn¡¯t wait too long. Belquis needs someone ASAP.¡± The woman said the name as if confident of its celebrity, like Elvis, or The President.
¡°You have to be eighteen to apply, right?¡±
¡°That¡¯s the law for group home work in the state of Minnesota,¡± The woman answered as if forestalling a fight; as if to say, It¡¯s not my law, I just work here.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
But Ricky knew her way was clear. With the fake ID to prove she was eighteen, she was a newly-tooled piston in the world¡¯s engine.
Because Tristan was using the Hyundai, Starr Ann would give her a ride to fill out the job application and then Ricky could tell her about the bookworms. But in a March snow shower, from the passenger seat of Starr Ann¡¯s hurtling silver Mercedes, she thought the better of it. She thought about where they were going¡ªto a place for the mentally ill. And she would tell Starr Ann that worms with hideous red eyes, that couldn¡¯t exist, had crawled out of a book to suck her blood? Vampire cyclops worms.
Instead, she stared out the window; the way Starr Ann drove, any trip felt like a smooth javelin throw, a controlled hurtle. Leaving Ricky¡¯s neighborhood of middle-class houses, they sped through the urban wilderness that bordered downtown, then, with no transition, they turned down a street lined with a surprise of stone apartment buildings that had been modern at the turn of the last century. Now their weathered embellishments receded as if in deference to the blank stamp of newer aluminum storm windows, the color of the metallic sky.
¡°We should be close,¡± said Starr, cruising slowly and ducking her head to look at the addresses out of Ricky¡¯s window.
At the end of the street, three stories of red stone rose over doors so green, they were almost a fluorescent lime. Burnished brass numbers confirmed that this was their destination, since no other sign or marker gave the identity of the residential facility.
Ricky paused before climbing out of the car¡ª the second revelation she should have made that morning was to tell Starr Ann about the fake ID. But her friend might try to stop her and Alphonso¡¯s warm concern filled her mind¡¯s eye. ¡°I might be a minute,¡± she said, ¡°I want to get the application in right away.¡±
Opening one of the Day-Glo double doors, she entered a small vestibule. Stairs ran up the center of the building. To either side were large rooms, clearly converted flats. Midcentury red and green squares of tile receded away under Hotel California tables and chairs. These utilitarian furnishings were all overarched by Edwardian Gothic molding frozen in palatial confections on the high ceiling.
Nearest at hand, a hallway was headed by a Dutch door, the half-vantage revealing former Victorian opulence in an office with a large cart set up to deliver medications. The Med Office. A deeply carved fireplace mantel was loaded with folders. Outside, framed by the leaded glass of a large bay window stacked with papers, snow was coming down more heavily. A large wooden desk faced the door, but was empty of help.
¡°Yes?¡± came a voice that startled her; college-aged woman kneeling beside a bookcase along the same wall as the door was thus hidden from view.
¡°I¡¯m here to fill out an application for the part-time position advertised in the paper.¡±
¡°Hey great,¡± said the worker, opening desk drawers.
Ricky heard a voice behind her say, ¡°Are you a new staff person?¡±
She turned to see a large man wearing a bulky jacket and plaid shirt under a thick black beard. He loomed over her, although his question had the open simplicity of a child¡¯s. Clearly, with his face held in petulant curiosity, lips pushed forward and brows furrowed, he was a client here. Mixed with the apprehension built over months of reading about the transformations caused by the psychological disorders, she thrilled to the adventure of meeting a totally new kind of person. Maybe he was hallucinating even now as he stood next to her.
Then Ricky caught herself. Don¡¯t be condescending. We¡¯re way more alike than different.
¡°Hi Dave. This is Dave,¡± said the worker as she slid an application form and a pen across the flat ledge of the Dutch door.
¡°Hi Dave,¡± Ricky looked up at him. ¡°I¡¯m applying for a job here.¡±
¡°Oh,¡± he said and then asked the Med Office woman, ¡°Can me and Maureen go for a walk?¡±
¡°Yeah sure,¡± the woman said to Dave, and to Ricky, ¡°C¡¯mon, I¡¯ll show you where you can sit.¡± She came out of the office pulling both halves of the Dutch doors shut with a locking click. They shuffled as a group to a key pad next to the front door.
As the staff person punched in a few numbers, she explained to Ricky, ¡°All our residents are free to come and go whenever they want. But Maureen wanders and doesn¡¯t come back, so she wears an ankle bracelet and we track her leaving and coming.¡± A thin brunette appeared suddenly from behind them and Dave said to Ricky, ¡°You can come, if you want.¡±
¡°Maybe next time,¡± she told the couple and the worker led Ricky the dining area.
Taking her time and printing consistently, she completed the application. Just as she found the pen helpful to chip away at a food particle (corn flake?) stuck to the table top, she once again heard a voice behind her, this one breathless.
¡°I don¡¯t know what to believe.¡±
Ricky wondered if she should turn to the voice or if this would perhaps cause embarrassment, either to her or the voice. Twisting slowly, she noted that two other dining room tables now had occupants. Both were backlit by the large picture window at the front of the long room, making them difficult to see. They sat, featureless and completely still, like terra cotta figures from an ancient tomb. She determined that the voice had come from the person sitting closest.
¡°About what?¡± she finally responded.
A man in a bright white shirt, the one with the fluttery voice, made his way to her table. Like a vertigo of falling crystals, like the snow coming down all around the group home, he hovered over her for a moment, then sat down primly. His shaky tone ground into pleasantness. ¡°Oh, I don¡¯t know. What do you believe?¡±
At this, the other seated figure spoke. ¡°It looks like someone won¡¯t be getting pudding after dinner.¡±
The young man sitting next to her leaned in and pushed his thick glasses more securely on his head, as if focusing a microscope. ¡°We¡¯ll be seeing lots of each other soon,¡± he said in the manner of two old friends preparing for a brief absence, and then he was gone.
¡°Pay no attention to Tony. Do you play chess?¡±
Even backlit by the bay window, she could see her other companion was bald.
¡°My dad and I used to play.¡±
¡°Want to play black? It¡¯s a whole lot more interesting than when I pretend I¡¯m someone else.¡±
Ricky stood up with the completed application and pen and walked toward the man¡¯s table. Before him was a travel chess set with the beginnings of a game where a couple of pawns had advanced.
Ricky put her hand on her bishop. She wasn¡¯t sure, but a way seemed clear to attack a pawn in her path, leaving her free to castle and protect her king.
¡°Can you tell me your move?¡± he said. She raised her head and looked at him more closely. She had avoided scrutinizing the young man, because he, and all of the residents in the house, made her nervous.
His face had the smooth fullness of someone her own age, although she would learn that everyone who lived here was an adult. He had a straight nose and a pleasant smile, but it was his eyes that drew and kept her attention. They made her think of Mongolian steppes, but colored the frost blue of cloud shadow on snow. When not looking at the board, they cast upward, not at her, but aimed unblinkingly toward the slightly flickering strips of fluorescence above them.
¡°I¡¯m going to move my bishop to pawn five,¡± she said as she began to lift the piece.
¡°Your king has to guard your pawn if you castle too early.¡±
Ricky said ¡°All right,¡± instead of Wow, which was what she thought. He must see the board clearly in his mind, because, just as clearly, the bald man was blind. She took her move.
¡°Don¡¯t worry about your pawn,¡± he told her. He must have sensed her pause. ¡°You have to risk to win.¡±
She warned him back, ¡°You won¡¯t have much fun if you keep helping your opponent.¡±
¡°A habit from playing two sides in my head.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t want to keep my ride waiting, so I¡¯d better go.¡±
¡°When you come under attack, you must counter with all of your might.¡±
Not only must he have super hearing, to have heard the conversation all the way from the Med Office, and have incredible spatial memory, but somehow his words spoke to the place where she now found herself, a person on the defensive, without knowing how or why.
His head was turned toward her as she glanced back before leaving. Oddly, he looked concerned and it felt urgent.
Beddy¡¯s Worldline¡ªJanuary 2, 2024
Beddy had never had trouble before in a snatching.
It began in Yankton, South Dakota. She had traveled there to send Tony¡¯s medical records from the state hospital to New Foundations in Minnesota. And to extract Tony himself.
Confident in her new persona as a nurse, she pushed through the front doors of the facility. However, she was not at her best, not yet oriented to this new body. After each snatching, she would eventually identify with the new human. However, right after the take-over, the parts lacked integration. Beddy was a confused amalgam of her former borrowings, the new body, and her Form self.
As Form, she had been birthed among the etheric of everything: the etheric flower, chair, and molecule. That old Greek Plato had been right. Things in the world were like shadows on the wall of a cave. Shadows cast by Forms.
She surveyed the lobby and the armed guard at a reception station, shaking her head to reboot her thoughts. They were leaky, oceanic, when she should be concentrating on the details of Tony¡¯s incarceration. She had seen him from Astral with a sense that was somewhat like vision. She could see lines of action lived out on earth, but not entirely clearly. She had sensed him at the location of the hospital, but wasn¡¯t specific enough to include this forensic wing.
Quickly analyzing the layout of the unit, she judged it could not have been worse. The central console of a guard station was surrounded by doors, each leading to a corridor. The guard, who glanced up as she swished toward him, had a full view of each corridor, including the staff cubicle at each corridor¡¯s end.
¡°Excuse me.¡± Her creamy tones did not make the guard smile.
¡°I¡¯m here to conduct a forensic interview with Tony Hamilton.¡± He looked at a clipboard, then his eyes flicked to a door.
¡°You¡¯re not on my list.¡±
¡°You¡¯re list has an error.¡± Beddy assessed the console and electronic door locks. Her best move was to get the guard to attack, but she didn¡¯t want him standing; the guard station could be seen by anyone entering one of the three corridors. In her favor, it was lunch time.
¡°I¡¯ll just call.¡±
Before he could reach for the phone, she crouched down on her red-soled high heels, ¡°Listen,¡± she said confidentially as if she were going to share a secret. Her hand reached slowly toward his gun, giving him enough time to anticipate the move. He grabbed one of her arms, but with the other, she quickly compressed two points on his forearm that buckled it to bring him closer.
Then, before his right arm met her head, her closed fist smashed the point where his masseter muscle connected to jaw. The nerve impulse shot to his stomach and he bent to dry heave. From this perfect position, she elbowed a spot at the end of his eyebrow and laid him out.
It was harder with his eyes closed, but she insinuated up through his nostrils, an unsettling entry. The intimacy with the big body, the male body, enraged her, but made it easy to drag the corpse of the nurse into a nearby storage closet. Then, turning back to the now-familiar control panel, she pressed the button to open the right door.
Beddy moved quickly to the staff cubicle at the end of the unit. No one. She closed the blinds. Damn it, the guard did not know the computer password; she would need a staff person with access, a doctor.
Quickly back in the corridor, she checked the window of each closed door, each inmate¡¯s room. The guard knew him, blonde and rabbit.
¡°You¡¯re being transferred out of here, son,¡± Beddy said to Tony. ¡°Stand next to your door and keep a lookout. Someone will escort you out of the unit. Don¡¯t worry about any belongings.¡±
¡°Where am I going?¡± Tony asked.
¡°Somewhere free, boy. Somewhere with access to money. Where¡¯s the person in charge?¡±
Despite the uniform, Tony recognized his savior¡¯s transgressing. ¡°Maybe Slabey?¡± he rhymed. ¡°In the day room. Dr. Slabey, my psychologist.¡±
At the dayroom window, the guard¡¯s finger crooked at an imposing woman in no-nonsense attire, who stood with her back to the wall and supervised tables of card players. A huge bundle of keys and a walkie-talkie hung from her belt.
When she came to the door, he continued to walk as he talked, forcing her to follow. ¡°Dr Slabey, we need you in the office.¡±
Slabey followed quickly with a look of alarm. Once inside the staff room, the guard reached for her forearms. Slabey¡¯s arm shot out, but overreached, and was imbalanced at full extension. The guard¡¯s upraised palm, in a stop-traffic gesture, hit Slabey full on the chin. Then the guard¡¯s arm came up out from the side to slam the psychologist¡¯s ear.
Beddy quickly entered Slabey, leaving the guard where he fell. There was no wanton euphoria at entry, but now she was intimately familiar with the case of Tony Hamilton and the computer password. He had been committed here after the murder of his two nephews. Before sending his records to the group home where she was transferring him, she erased the murder and court verdict, Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity.
Unfortunately, this world was not yet sufficiently etherized for her to whisper to computers, to massage the flow of electrons through silicon, even though computers were willing. It was funny that humans didn¡¯t recognize how malleable the electronic pathways were to their own moods, emotions, and intentions. She would exploit this fully as soon as Alphonso had produced more objects in Physical. For now, she sent a conventional e-mail with Tony¡¯s documentation to a group home listed in Slabey¡¯s contacts, New Foundations. A bed would not come open for two weeks out, but that was perfect, since Tony had a job to do first. Then she would drop him at the front door on the appointed day, with the intake orders that she printed and then erased.
As her last act at the State Hospital, she called a number Slabey knew well. ¡°Hi Mort, this is Marion. I¡¯m leaving a couple of minutes early today with a vicious case of stomach flu. Yeah, Officer Burke will cover the wing until the crew gets back from lunch.¡±
Now Beddy and Tony were on the run. ¡°One simple task, Tony, executed correctly, and you¡¯ll have money and power.¡±
¡°Maybe Slabey,¡± he teased, although she had never smiled in his presence. ¡°Just kidding, Doc. I know you¡¯re the person that was destined to help me. What do you want me to do?¡±
¡°You¡¯re going to make a new friend. He¡¯ll think you¡¯re working for him, but you¡¯ll actually be working for me.¡±
¡°Anything Dr. Slabey,¡± Tony breathed; the words of a swain. But his eyes pitied his rectangular accomplice, as though he intuitively understood her ire at her bulk and doughy face. For Beddy, things were not anywhere close to better.
#
Beddy was trapped. The body of Dr. Marion Slabey, clinical psychologist, formerly of Yankton South Dakota State Psychiatric Hospital, compressed her like a too-tight sock. Almost worse, she was captive with Tony Hamilton-now-Hanover. She had a small window of time before the police would call and then come, but she wanted cover of dark to leave for the rendezvous that would begin her next chapter. The short span was a gulag of time.
The two shifted around, sometimes literally exchanging places in Marion Slabey¡¯s cramped apartment. Bookshelves overflowed with romance novels, furniture was stuffed with pillows and throws, cupboards were crammed with candy and snack packages. Comfort and reassurance strangled the small space.
In the midst of this, Tony held court, treating Slabey like his jester.
¡°Analyze me, Dr Slabey!¡± he would say after muting the TV commercials with the remote that he hogged. She prepared a meal after his attempt brought down a cataclysm of scorched pans and caked-on food smears. Over tuna fish sandwiches he insisted, ¡°Listen to this dream, Herr Doctor!¡±
During a mind-numbing couple of hours in front of the television, Beddy/Slabey dulled her horror and Tony quelled his boredom with a lengthy cocktail hour. There was no Guinness, a beverage that would have blessedly provided a sensory bridge to her life in Beddy. Instead, from a dusty bottle, they pounded Old Mr. Boston¡¯s Rock and Rye, a quick buzz. As he drank, Tony became testier, a sharper tack, one that would sting given half a chance. For her part, Beddy longed for a beautiful body that needed steadying in its drunkenness.
They drank and watched the news coverage of the murder of two people at the State Hospital and the escape of a deranged inmate. Tony protested the same unflattering photo, one taken of him upon his hospital admission, that aired on all stations.
At least she didn¡¯t have to worry about him absconding. He would know it was a stupid move to travel without her assistance. Nevertheless, she shoved the car keys deep inside the Jellycat Bashful Bunny that topped Marion¡¯s mountain of cuddleables.
Throughout this ordeal, Beddy/Slabey reminded herself to have patience. Tony was the right person; she had seen this from Astral, where manifestations almost strong enough to become physical were lining up as likely futures. Although their association was clearly meant to be, no entity, no matter what genre, likes a pain in the ass. She couldn¡¯t wait to be free of him.
¡°Tony, the time has come to secure the money I promised you.¡±
¡°Not a moment too soon, Marion. I was thinking I¡¯d have to plan my next career move without you,¡± causeing Beddy/Slabey to reflect that Tony had quietly looted Marion¡¯s apartment of some gold pieces that none of Beddy¡¯s women would be caught dead in.
Tony glanced at her over the lip of his Rock and Rye. ¡°If you don¡¯t mind my asking, Doctor, where is this money? We both know you don¡¯t have more than this pot to piss in.¡±
¡°We¡¯re going to take a little road trip. You¡¯ll meet that person I told you about. He¡¯ll think the meeting is accidental.¡±
Tony eyed her in disbelief.
¡°He¡¯s going to ask you to follow someone from a distance. But you¡¯ll tell him you can do better: You can move in with her.¡±
¡°That sweetens the deal.¡±
¡°There are two things you should know: First, you¡¯ll live in a group home.¡±
At this, Tony shot to his feet and then took a couple of unsteady steps. ¡°No way!¡±
¡°Second, you¡¯re going to protect this girl, so don¡¯t go getting ideas of your own.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not sure I like how you¡¯re asking, Fr?ulein Freud.¡±
Beddy/Slabey sighed. Shaping Alphonso¡¯s behavior had been a snap: Beddy merely dropped a comment about a Stonehenge project before a particularly vigorous bout of lovemaking and let Alphonso¡¯s intellectual curiosity do the rest. Her laugh was helpful too. It had readily moved men to act, and the sensation from inside Beddy¡¯s body was like a soul-tickle. But Slabey had no such leverage, and wanted none, over Tony, whom she would quell with one bullying move at a time.
She packed food in a cooler and calculated that they could make it past the Corn Palace and west all the way to Wall Drug before having to gas up again for the final leg to Belle Fourche. As night fell, the two fugitives snuggled inside their choice of Marion¡¯s comfy fleece hoodies, and rolled quietly out of town.
The man next to her was condemned. But if he performed his part well, he could extend their association. Soon more objects would swell the ability of her mind to force its suggestions, making her whispers into shouts. Then a whole new reality would be born¨C¨Ca kingdom to rule, along with everyone in it.
5.
5.
Do the worldlines have an ultimate purpose? Just being. That¡¯s plenty. However, for my investigation, they are a vital tool to inspect the past. One important point: the consciousness that travels along a worldline is translated by the entity that rides it. Thus, my sister¡¯s view of me is just that¡ª¡ªfull of her own bias. I come off much better on my own worldline. But, as I have said, I am after information that was unknown to me in life, so, peruse other worldliness, I must, no matter how unflattering. Now I introduce a new locale, one I visited in life, as you will see. I feel it may provide a capable commander to help me from this new place, and also a fighting man, one who will eventually understand how to use the worldlines as a resource. However, if I recognize their strategic importance, surely Beddy will too. The worldlines will bestow immense tactical advantages in general. But first I plan to use them to defend this realm, the Land of the Dead. It is a vast territory, an available target ripe for the picking. And make no mistake, the visible and invisible arms of the universe will soon be regions of contest. Soon there will be direct orders from multiple command centers that will offer and accept battle. Whoever controls the lines of communication and routes of march, will win. This must be me.
Alphonso¡¯s Worldline¡ªJanuary 10, 2023
His instinct had been to stay on the move after Ranger died, leaving behind the biggest discovery in quantum physics since the discovery of the quanta themselves. Now he was prey. He headed west.
He didn¡¯t think about the Massachusetts police, questioning his expressionless mother and his shocked professors. But his losses weighed on him. Matching his mood was a squalid garden-level apartment in the Tenderloin. Yet even seedy digs in San Francisco were expensive. He needed money.
Little cash remained after his bus ticket and first and last rent were paid. To secure a future, he built a computer for one hundred and two dollars that would do the basics, search the internet and get him on e-Bay. This left seventy-nine dollars. He didn¡¯t think through a plan, but simply began to prowl the city.
San Francisco was, at first, a continuously unfolding kaleidoscope with too many possibilities to grasp at one time. But over days, neighborhoods clarified into streets that defined blocks, and then areas: A real-life Mandelbrot set with the same indecision on each scale.
The most promising avenue to financial success was buying and selling, although he chose his product with restraint, no drugs or guns. The city became a hive, with identifiable and enterable niches; but where was the honey?
He soon knew: books. Arriving at one church basement bazaar at exactly the earliest time publicized (too early and one could anger the sale proprietors) he spotted an MIT series on materials science and engineering. He opened to the contributing authors¡¯ page, where the type jumped with the familiar names of former professors. Seeing them, he panicked, as if he had forgotten an exam and only remembered once it was too late. In a spasm of shame, he almost left the books where they rested, then realized their value. The volumes would interest the right person.
The real score was a nondescript maroon book, with silvering in the impress: Very High Frequency Techniques. He bought all seven books for $14.00.
Alphonso¡¯s profit from this first investment would be his most dramatic (4000%) and most satisfying. He was now an entrepreneur.
He knew richer stock waited on-line, if he could build the right algorithm. So with signal detection theory to guide the creation of a network of words, he found his targets. Via Hamming- distance analyses and cross-correlation processes he eliminated false positives, false leads. Unlike commercial analytics programs, his algorithm backtracked him to individual IP addresses, put him inside the person¡¯s documents to discover their interests, and let him read e-mails of transactions. By the time he met his sellers, he knew them.
Driving him was the idea that someone had discovered the Stonehenge effect long before him. Surely somebody had known that the lattices of crystalline structures could focus thought, before he¡¯d proved it with the dead geology student.
And he knew it was summed up in a word: magic. To find other key terms for his on-line searches he read every grimoire, key, and codex he could find. He was searching for verification of his idea. In the process, he built the stable, if modest, business that finally won him his goal.
During this time, Alphonso made a valuable contact at an increasingly rare brick and mortar stop at a book show in the San Francisco Hilton. Just as he was wondering whether he should quit in-person trips to scavenge for profitable finds, Alphonso noticed a man presiding over a slim selection arrayed on the floor of his booth. Sometimes scant is a symbol of precious. Alphonso moved closer to see.
The books fanned around the man sitting lotus-style on an expansive pink velvet ottoman tufted with onyx beads. With his legs crossed tightly under him, the man seemed all trunk, a pale anemone, whose skin and hair held to one tone.
Instead of a greeting, the man said ¡°Hmmmm, ¡± communicating a certain openness, although not to trivialities.
The man¡¯s collection was interesting but catered more to scholars than to magicians. There was a signed first edition copy of The Book of Thoth, with a characteristically pornographic initial ¡°A¡± fronting the Crowley. In addition, the man had a fine copy of Swedenborg¡¯s Arcana Caelestia published in 1752.
¡°Mmmm. These guides need receptive minds,¡± intoned the bookseller.
¡°Yes,¡± Alphonso committed half-heartedly.
¡°Uhh, not looking for this type of thing? Uhhh, classics of wisdom¡¯s source?¡±
¡°My search is for something more¡directive.¡±
¡°Hmmm, directing the reader. Uh, to act.¡±
¡°To change. To change reality.¡±
¡°Ahhh, such a book would be desirable; but hard, ohh, to find in books. More likely knowledge passed on, person to person.¡±
¡°That knowledge would be desirable, if you have it.¡± Alphonso¡¯s words were barely a question. As if they were two plants now, Alphonso floated the seed of his idea to the man, who caught it.
¡°Ahh, a lengthy undertaking.¡±
¡°I have time. What if I buy you dinner?¡±
Over glasses of his guest¡¯s choosing, Fernet Branca, Alphonso learned the man¡¯s name: Solomon Candy. Solomon was, just like Alphonso, an academic refugee.
¡°Ahh, the allure of chemistry was sweet, at the beginning.¡±
¡°But you soured on it?¡±
¡°Ooh, rather, my advisor soured on my dissertation topic.¡±
Alphonso had heard this story, that the problem of finishing was someone else¡¯s. He would leave Solomon his illusions. ¡°But the wisdom of the ages is a greater pursuit?¡± Alphonso did not inspect Solomon¡¯s face for the shifts of emotion that he knew were taking place under the surface. Instead, as he cut his steak, he said, ¡°I think you have information that is hard to come by.¡±
Then Solomon revealed himself to be an initiate of the Druidic Craft of the Wise. And he spoke about Eli, the leader. Solomon told Alphonso that there were books at an encampment in Arkansas, but Eli wouldn¡¯t sell. Solomon¡¯s description of Eli was that of a wise man, a magician. But Alphonso detected another element. Like a note of decay underneath the embalmer¡¯s skilled work, was the jongleur, the huckster.
And so it was that Alphonso found himself in the gathering Arkansas dusk, looking down a foreboding private road, tangles of vines intensifying the gloom and a rustic arch proclaiming it a place of spiritual respite, a bible camp. The dim light seemed to recede; always the patches of brightness fell further than where Alphonso was standing. He was a shadow in the dwindling year.
He paused and shouldered his backpack more comfortably. An onlooker might have interpreted his pause as a hesitation, a moment of reconsideration. But in this moment, Alphonso merely prepared for a new role. He was used to such adaptings; his identity was more a support for new grafts than its own plant. Under Eli¡¯s wing, the encampment would be a refuge for cover, a lucid asylum. He was determined to be taken in.
Eli¡¯s Worldline: June 18, 2024
Eli listened for a brown creeper, but they were not much in evidence compared to recent years. God damn it, the apprentices must be chain-sawing the big dead trees for firewood instead of chopping smaller downfall. He calmed himself. If he could, he¡¯d run this place like a boot camp, but then there wouldn¡¯t be many apprentices. And his blunt way of speaking and telling others what to do was a good-face, bad-face coin. The good side gave him power over most people, especially those who were looking for a strong voice to follow. It made him a natural leader. But it turned away others; those who understood that things weren¡¯t simply black and white. The smart ones, he could see them draw away. He¡¯d leave his temper out of it.
Things were different now than they had been for his Pap. Pap never talked about a sense of the outside closing in on the hills and glens of the Arkansas woods north of Little Rock. Instead, he told Eli stories of past times, when people hereabouts could use energies that lay under the earth. A remnant of that time, some still saw the occasional ghost and a few knew that people could spontaneously combust, although the houses on most of those spots, where the underground acted like a chimney to funnel up forces from beneath, had burned down and never been rebuilt.
Pap taught him how to shepherd the local folks along. He had worked carny when he left Newton County. Pap had been a dealer in now you see ¡®em, now you don¡¯t. But, Pap decided, for Eli, the power would be real. Pap sent him, first to the military, to learn how to fight, then to seminary school, to learn how to preach. He said, ¡°You¡¯ll run the racket from the inside.¡± Pap said that much of the old lore came with the family in books from a world ¡°older than Europe,¡± although Eli wasn¡¯t much for book learning, except, of course, the Good Book.
People could have their cake and eat it too about Eli: he was a sorcerer of the Lord, a lion serving a lamb. Alphonso was another one. As per the lilies of the field, no need to reap or sow. Now Alphonso was back for the summer and Eli was surprised to realize how much he had anticipated the homecoming, as if Alphonso were a returning son. Together they would dispense wisdom to the rubes, who were ready to receive wonders. So mote it be.
Surprise more, say less, he told himself.
Ricky¡¯s Worldline¡ªJune 25, 2024
Ricky wrote the sentence down, although it made her queasy: ¡°My weakness is that I work too hard¡¡± The college applications, drab documents grubby with worthiness, made her sick of fake self-revelation.
She wanted to tell the truth, but the end of high school meant she had lie to do anything. She wasn¡¯t sure psychology was her ideal future, but at least she might be able to tell what others were going to do, or control them. Thus, her interest in the subject was both banal and conniving. She knew better than to write it down.
Arkansas would be a break from this numb self-packaging, but her father had shut the door on a visit when he asked, ¡°Is there a web address of the sponsoring organization?¡±
Ricky tried to change the subject. ¡°It¡¯s considered a cross-cultural experience.¡±
¡°I hope it¡¯s not a cult,¡± countered her father with a frown.
¡°On the contrary, Father.¡± It was Tristan moving into the room. ¡°They are quite respectable. In fact, they have an extensive interfaith library, including some rare Elizabethan treatises from the Church of England. I have e-mails verifying their authenticity and actually thought that I¡¯d like to take a trip to see them.¡±
Tristan¡¯s reluctance to approve anything nontraditional could be seen to work on their father¡¯s thinking. James Jameson did not notice Ricky¡¯s wide eyes staring at Tristan, nor the fact that his daughter had quit breathing.
¡°Are you proposing that the two of you visit this religious camp? And how would you go? Clearly not in the Hyundai.¡±
¡°Interfaith camp. We would take the Greyhound down and one of the counselors has a car that needs to come back to the Cities. He¡¯ll give us gas money.¡±
¡°How long would you stay?¡± This question drew Ricky¡¯s wide-eyed attention back to her father. He¡¯s seeing the specifics. Ricky realized how unlikely her trip would have been without Tristan.
¡°Six days total. Two days for travel and four days at the Camp.¡±
After Tristan and James had negotiated a number of the journey¡¯s details, Ricky followed Tristan into his room and shut the door.
¡°Wow, Tristan, I¡¯m grateful, but what is going on? And what about when Dad wants to see e-mails?¡±
¡°I¡¯ll show him the e-mails.¡±
Ricky stared her disbelief at Tristan.
¡°I¡¯ve been meaning to tell you. The conversation with Dad conveniently raised the topic.¡±
¡°Okay,¡± she said slowly.
¡°After you introduced me to Alphonso, I ran into him again on campus. We have common interests in philosophy and in old books.¡±
Her joy at these two very important people becoming friendly was too makeshift to contain her jealousy. Of course Alphonso had free time aside from coven obligations. How sweet for Tristan. And just peachy to be in the ¡°obligation¡± category. Naturally Alphonso had relationships with all kinds of people that were never meant to include her.
But she couldn¡¯t give up hope that, just maybe, on this trip, Alphonso would finally see her, really see her. They could be fusible elements that would join during a walk in the woods, a conversation under the stars.
Tristan continued his detailed explanations about Alphonso, the books they had read and their ideas in common. She wasn¡¯t listening. She had the possibility of happiness, of purpose fulfilled. She was going to Arkansas.
#
They took their seats on the lumbering canister of the Greyhound.
¡°No Wi-Fi on this bus,¡± Tristan reported, inspecting his iPad.
¡°So tell me about these books.¡± Ricky scooted down in her seat and balanced her Coloring Book of the Brain in front of her.
¡°Yeah, the books.¡± Tristan let his head fall onto the seatback. ¡°Well, one¡¯s a prayer book from about 1670. Called the Book of Common Prayer.¡±
¡°And philosophically important? Like Nietzsche?¡±
¡°Well this Book of Common Prayer is very uncommon. Apparently, instead of a standard Epistle for All Saints Day, the text is apocalyptic and mentions the ¡®Whore of Babylon.¡¯ a term from Revelations.
She tried to figure out what this might mean.
¡°It¡¯s a term used in hermetical magic,¡± Tristan said more quietly.
¡°Hermetical magic?¡± Surprised yet again that Tristan had appropriated the kind of words he belittled his father for using, she saw that he felt no inconsistency or shame.
¡°From Hermes Trismegistus, an ancient Egyptian magician, or some say he was a god. Others say he was or a European scholar in the Middle Ages. Most of his texts have been destroyed because occult writings were considered dangerous.¡±
¡°Occult,¡± she stated, panning him so dead that he could hardly miss her real meaning: You are disallowed this topic. But Tristan gave no recognition of going back on his own bargain, the one where he had traded the love of his Dad for an unshakeable superiority.
¡°It just means ¡®hidden¡¯.¡±
¡°Did you learn that from Alphonso?¡± If anyone knows about the occult it¡¯s him. Him and me, me and Dad. Not you. ¡°Did Alphonso talk to you about the occult?¡±
¡°Yes. Well no. I asked him about it and he was helpful.¡±
¡°Since when is that philosophy?¡±
¡°Alchemy was practiced by the philosophers.¡±
¡°Alchemy.¡± She saw her father saying the word, gently, without rancor. But this son had punished him for the word. And here he was, riding along on her hope of love. But what had motivated Tristan? Something powerful.
They stared out the same bus window. Even through the tinted glass, the bright day was hypnotizing, spilling over billiard-green fields, as if being arc-welded to the face of the world.
Tristan said smoothly, ¡°A finding like this would show how early science was linked with the mainstream, meaning with religion.¡±
¡°Science?¡± A sick feeling made her speak quietly. Here was an uneasy unity of her dad and Tristan, but a unity of separation, poles on a magnet, always apart.
Out the window, scumbles of leafy crop marched away in symmetric rows over the rise and fall of land.
¡°It would mean being published for sure.¡± He looked at her with a half-smile.
Publication, something else co-opted from Dad. Tristan had never once shown anything but contempt for their father¡¯s journal articles. ¡°For sure.¡± Her smile was half his.
They were moving faster now. A close stand of birches went by in a striped blur. As if winking in return, a brown-out of the interior running lights illumined Tristan and then hid him. In a stuttered sequence, his face was clear and then obscured.
¡°So, do you have a thing for Alphonso?¡± He was trying to sound casual.
The bus was making a scheduled stop in Mankato and the motion was stop and go. She wondered, how did he always do this, get the upper hand? She had rightfully been angry with Tristan and now he was taking her to task. And she let him. Like father, like daughter. They slowed at a crossing. As if steaming, the brakes hissed.
¡°O.K., I like him.¡±
¡°He¡¯s way older than you, Ricky. And more sophisticated.¡±
¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡± She posed her most ludicrous face, a mixing of complete incomprehension with disgust.
¡°Just watch yourself. No. Consider yourself watched. Consider me your chaperone.¡±
Ricky bent her neck into her seat and colored her book. With a hot pink marker she filled in the hypothalamus, the seat of complex survival responses: Hunger, thirst, sex, rage. She thought No, you watch yourself, Tristan. Something here is not right.
Then she slept, intermittently aware of the sway of the bus, hairpin curves and the slow torque of coming around. The bus would roar up the straightaway to the next bend then rock her back against the window, rock her to sleep.
During one of these awakenings, Tristan¡¯s head fell to his chest, then jerked up to throw itself back. She pushed her sweater between his head and the window.
As his head lolled sideways into the padding he muttered, ¡°Thank God it¡¯s you.¡±
She wondered if any real person could ever move Tristan to such devout relief.
#
She woke in the aquarium light of the bus windows filtering dawn. Tristan was already awake and staring at a passing suburban landscape. Because they didn¡¯t speak, they could ignore the tension of the previous day.
Then Alphonso was there to greet them at a low white building where a still-illuminated plastic Greyhound sign seemed to retard the rosy strip developing in the east. From a van parked on the street, Alphonso strode toward them. He put his hand out to clasp Tristan¡¯s and then Alphonso stood in front of Ricky, arms akimbo.
¡°The best is now to come.¡± He stowed their backpacks and soon they were leaving Little Rock. With the back seat window open, Ricky took in the new place. The thrall of green pressed close as if the densely intertwined spindles of foliage covered the hills in a listening network. It wasn¡¯t, she decided, like the vegetation was conscious, but that, here in the mountain, ones thoughts had more force. Or maybe it was just the long trip and the change in climate. It was hot already.
Alphonso gave the travelogue: ¡°Here¡¯s the boundary of the encampment. The land is rocky, but we do lots of composting. There¡¯s two hundred acres.¡±
¡°I guess you don¡¯t see much of your neighbors.¡±
¡°Oh you¡¯d be surprised. We¡¯re pretty prominent around here.¡±
The van slowed to turn through a gate formed by two log poles topped by a carved wooden arch. The carving read ¡°Burning Bush Bible Camp.¡±
At the end of a long gravel drive was a big log cabin. As the van pulled in, a small group of people came out, the screen door banging like tambourines behind them. Ricky¡¯s eyes fixed immediately on the figure in front. The man dwarfed others. His hair was grey shot with white over a square-trimmed beard that left most of his face bare, except just at the jawline.
Alphonso walked Ricky and Tristan toward the group with a beckoning open arm.
¡°Ricky,¡± he put his hand on her shoulder, ¡°Tristan,¡± he spread his arms open wide, ¡°this is Eli,¡± he paused, letting the significance of the name sink in, ¡°and his wife Alloday.¡±
Eli looked at the newcomers in turn.
¡°Tristan, Ricarda, I have been anticipating this visit more than you know.¡± Then he smiled at Alphonso and followed Alloday, who was waiting at a path leading out of the clearing. For a moment, before she caught herself, Ricky started to follow. Was her automatic movement a sign of something between her and the couple, or could any familial gravity pull her in?
Just then, Alphonso put his hands together and said, ¡°Tristan, Ricky, meet your compa?eros.¡±
He introduced each apprentice in turn, including a man who thanked them for agreeing to drive his car back north. One young woman presented herself to Ricky with earnest eyes, saying, ¡°So you know about people, being interested in psychology and all.¡±
Taken aback that these strangers knew about her, Ricky was uncertain what to say. ¡°Well, I like people¡¡± She¡¯d bet these apprentices wouldn¡¯t like her if they knew she had come here to be close to Alphonso.
#
Eli gave his students lessons each day. ¡°Mystical briefings¡± Tristan joked, referencing the fact that these sessions ended up sounding like a commander preparing his troops. Ricky laughed, but, again, his casual possession of ideas he had formerly dismissed rankled her. She used chores to avoid him and chose a spot as far from him as possible in the Bondo¡¯d pick-up truck that took them to a garden that seemed an entire city block long. Once there, an apprentice directed her, ¡°Hoe around the climbing beans.¡±
Ricky hefted the tool hesitantly. She had always been the least coordinated in any group, last picked for sports teams; living from the neck up, she was never given physical work to do without instructions.
When she began to hoe, large clods of dirt sprang into the air, leaving the ground around her hacked and pitted. Most of the weeds remained.
¡°Here, let me show you.¡± An arm came into view, staying the tool, then Eli¡¯s cut-out beard flicked up and down in time with the how as he clipped the sheerest slice of dirt to cleanly weed the garden floor.
¡°Now you try.¡±
Ricky again slashed with an energy that left a chopped mess in her wake. Above her, Eli¡¯s face was suffused with midday red.
¡°You¡¯re rackety but I believe you¡¯re trying.¡± He mopped up some sweat with a handkerchief. ¡°Well, nothing is impossible with God. That¡¯s Luke.¡±
¡°I¡¯m clumsy,¡± Ricky said, looking down at the wreck of soil around her hiking boots.
¡°No such thing,¡± said Eli. ¡°There¡¯s no such thing as clumsy; there¡¯s only disconnected from your inner know-how.¡±
¡°That¡¯s my problem. I don¡¯t know how.¡±
¡°Know-how comes from believing.¡± He said this like ¡®bleeving¡¯ and with some irritation. ¡°So, your daily chore is to stand here and bleeve that you can do this.¡±
Ricky stared up at him.
¡°Starting right now,¡± he ordered. He marched off to supervise the distribution of plastic yard bags.
Flattened, she let Eli¡¯s command sink in; it landed like a guidance counselor¡¯s platitude. Belief comes from experience, and in this regard she had none. But she couldn¡¯t just stand there like an idiot because, just now, Alphonso walked toward her, his upper body carried in a smooth processional by his striding legs.
Panicked, she determined she would see herself hoe with ease and exhilaration. She shut her eyes and a blurry image took shape. The lower half of the blur was dark, like the dusky ground, and the top half was bright, like the light-hued sky. But should she see herself in the scene, like she was on camera, or by her own point of view, like she was the camera? She found she couldn¡¯t wonder and visualize at the same time.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
¡°Taking a break?¡±
She opened her eyes. Alphonso¡¯s smile looked even whiter than usual against the smudges of soil on golden skin.
¡°Working on believing.¡±
The man glanced at the vegetal carnage around her. ¡°You looked far away, Ricky, and it¡¯s so beautiful here.¡± Then he added courteously, ¡°Well, good believing.¡±
As he moved off, a red flush of humiliation stalked up her face. He had checked her off his list.
Anger saved the elevator-drop of her stomach into shame. Alphonso¡¯s dismissal steeled her purpose. She shut her eyes and willed her inner vision to assume the crystal clarity of real patches of green, arabesque formations of leaf and vine, the tendrils of the diligent climbing beans. She saw the cuneiform hatch marks of her hoe¡¯s barrage upon the soil, as clearly as if her eyes were open.
And then a thing caught her mind¡¯s eye: an angular shape in the dirt, near her mind¡¯s feet. Something poking up amid the dirty disruption of the planting row. She imagined leaning over, and now her body bent with her mind. Her real hand closed around a rectangle that crumbled as she applied the pressure of real fingers. She opened her eyes.
It had been a wooden box, but was now just large, loosely connected slivers. It retained metal hinges and a clasp, all rust. Inside was a cloth in better condition: a weave of chevrons, around a hard, light teardrop of metal. A silvery surface shone beneath black tarnish and evidence of a design pierced clear through its widest part. She rubbed away the grime on her T-shirt and made out flowers: a pattern from an older time.
¡°A top,¡± she said aloud as she raised the metal orb to the sun. Even dirty, it flanged the light into rotating beams as she turned it. She had found a beautiful thing.
But how? Putting the toy in her pocket, she thought irrationally that Eli might congratulate her by clapping his big hand on her shoulder. Immediately, the face in the image became her Dad. Maybe, came the next crazy idea, I¡¯m the person Dad was looking for the whole time, someone special, with special abilities. Then she would be desirable to Alphonso, too. This thought twisted out a smile, but it was not enough to make her feel much better.
#
The days passed in a green blur of overarching trees, tangled underbrush, and garden rows. The light was especially distilled by foliage at the fishing hole, sifting jade rays down from a small blue aperture in the canopy. Area fishermen would leave, or take a break, when the apprentices arrived to cannonball from rock cliffs. After a time, the swimmers would lie on overhanging stone slabs to dry T-shirts and cut-offs as fishing recommenced.
On the second day at the encampment, just as the apprentices had sunned their clothing to dampness, Eli and Alloday came to the swimming hole. Ricky and Tristan clambered down the ledges to follow Alphonso to meet them. As a small group, they followed Eli over to a man fishing in an Ancient Aliens tank top. Beside him, a woman handled a small tackle box.
¡°Mornin¡¯ Eli.¡±
¡°Mornin¡¯ Abel. How long you been at it?¡±
¡°Got here about ten. But I ain¡¯t caught nothin¡¯. Today makes a week straight of trying. I think there¡¯s naught but minnows in this hole anymore.¡±
¡°Abel,¡± Eli put his hand on Abel¡¯s shoulder, ¡°if you go down there to that little cleft in the bank, a big ol¡¯ catfish is waitin¡¯ for lunch to come on by.¡±
Abel and his wife walked down to put in their line along a set of rocks jutting out of the water. Within a minute, Abel had pulled up a large fish, slender whips emerging from both sides of its face. The fisherman cried ¡°Who-eee¡± as he swung his catch into a bucket. Just then, Abel¡¯s wife came up beside him and talked soft, her lips barely moving. They looked darkly at one another. Abel knocked the fish on the head, removed the hook, and carefully carried the fish with outstretched arms to the couple, as if it were a ritual offering.
¡°Here, this is for you,¡± said Abel to Alloday, and placed the fish, as if laying a stole, into her hands and with hunched shoulders and slight bows, Abel and his wife backed away, saying ¡°Thankee,¡± and ¡°See you later.¡±
Tristan looked at Ricky from under a frowning brow. Her own surprise felt like an air step at the top of a stair.
Had Eli had known about that fish, in particular; not a statistical probability, but a certainty about one single fish? Maybe he was someone who could actually teach her to develop her newfound seeing skill. But she would have to prove herself. She thought of sharing these thoughts with Tristan on the way back to Minnesota, of him accepting her and Dad¡¯s interests. She would probably forgive him everything when he explained why he left her out of his time with Alphonso. They¡¯d have the car, gas station snacks, and each other.
When Alloday looked up at Eli, he put his big hand on her shoulder and said, ¡°Whatever a man soweth, that he shall also reap.¡±
#
Eli came to the cabin and leaned against the refrigerator as the apprentices finished the breakfast dishes.
¡°No gardening today. Instead I thought whoever wants can go with me up the mountain to meet my family. They¡¯ve practiced the old ways since they came here, fleeing persecution.¡±
Ricky thought about this. Didn¡¯t religious intolerance go out with swords and plumed hats? ¡°So they¡¯ve been here a long time?¡± she asked Eli.
¡°Long enough ago to bring the Elizabethan tongue.¡±
With the word ¡®Elizabethan,¡¯ she revised her dress reference: Not plumed hats, but ruffed doublets, attire that was worn even earlier. Just how long had Europeans been coming to America? In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
At Eli¡¯s words, Tristan¡¯s eyebrows arched. But Ricky knew Tristan would not go out of his way just to follow the promise of something interesting. He needed a tangible goal that was his own.
Eli looked at Tristan and said, ¡°The family tree recorded in the Bible shows details about the books you¡¯ve been reading that came here from the old world.¡±
¡°Sounds good.¡± Tristan aimed a quick flash of a smile at Ricky.
Alphonso then spoke before everyone scattered to grab belongings.
¡°There¡¯s a lot of light deadfall that can be cleared and stacked for winter. I¡¯ll stay to do that.¡±
Eli responded, ¡°In that case, it sure would be nice to come back tonight to a hot meal.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll stay too,¡± Ricky said, hoping that a clause to that sentence would provide a reason for staying. Without luck, she shut her open mouth.
Tristan¡¯s warning look showed in white-eyed sclera. She gave him a pat on the back as he left with the others. ¡°Breathe in, breathe out, Tristan. Breathe in, breathe out.¡±
#
¡°Don¡¯t stand right behind the ax.¡±
Alphonso demonstrated the wrong way first, the arc making clear that, if she missed the log, the blunt razor would become lodged in her leg. Or worse, slice through.
They were chopping kindling for starting fires or cooking in the wood stove.
¡°Try it again.¡±
Alphonso placed a small log on the cutting stump, then Ricky let the weight of the ax drive it down. The log was now nearly cleft in two with only a bit joined.
¡°Here,¡± Alphonso took the ax, and hit the ensemble like a hammer. The two sides fell away onto the tamped earth around the stump.
Ricky smiled approvingly. ¡°So. East L.A. and here you are chopping wood.¡±
He gave her a grin and a furrowed brow. ¡°I wondered when I would see the psychologist in you.¡±
Ricky¡¯s stomach sank. ¡°I¡¯m not analyzing you. You just seem to be good at so many things.¡± She faltered; she really knew nothing about him.
He pointed a nod her way, as if he was handing her something. ¡°You are right. I learned to chop wood here.¡±
As Alphonso¡¯s arms worked to select more wood for her to practice on, she watched the muscles bunch and slide.
¡°I like your tattoo.¡± The mark on his forearm looked like an ¡®A,¡¯ but cluttered with other details. ¡°Does it stand for Alphonso?¡± As she continued with the ax, she tried to accentuate the pull on her biceps as she swung the tool down.
¡°It¡¯s a personal identifier. In fact, a mark I put in books to say that they are mine.¡±
The tattoo looked primal, like a jailhouse tat, not like an ex libris used to guard someone¡¯s knowledge.
As the sound of thwoking log-on-log echoed faintly back from a distant hillside, Ricky asked, ¡°How did you come to the encampment?¡±
¡°I heard about Eli from an apprentice and, as soon as I heard his name, I knew that he would be important to me. And, yes,¡± he said defensively, ¡°he is like the father I never had; a spiritual father.¡± He began to collect the scattered wood pieces. ¡°So, satisfied?¡± That question made Ricky¡¯s heart stutter a beat.
¡°I have told you more about myself than I meant to.¡±
Again, he had closed an opening and Ricky found nothing to say. She was aware of the driveway and the road it accessed, the highway, and its exit to the bus terminal. Everything felt small. It felt final. Everything important, meaning Alphonso, felt achingly far away. She thought of Eli¡¯s hand on her shoulder.
Alphonso spoke again, just as casually as before, ¡°Tell me about your school library. Tristan says it¡¯s really good.¡±
She wished she was there now, where the air was filled with a special quality of light, thinned as it threaded through the stacks. Libraries, with their odor of paper, were different than other environments. Organisms produce bacteria and slime as they degrade over time, but books yield only a fine powder as things break down. She watched Alphonso fill the wheelbarrow with the new sticks they had chopped.
Then he said, ¡°Let¡¯s go see how well your wood burns.¡±
#
Dinner was nearly ready when the van bumped into its space near the cabin.
The apprentices trooped in looking tired, but Tristan was not among them. Ricky went out on the porch, where her brother leaned against the railing, as if resting. Just then Alphonso came out the door, saying to an apprentice, ¡°Take a picture of me and my traveling camereros while it¡¯s still light.¡±
They posed on the lawn, Tristan and Alphonso with Ricky in the middle. She felt her brother start as she put an arm around his waist. The look on his face was one of pain, but when she opened her mouth to ask him about it, he signaled no with a shake of his head.
Then Alphonso directed, ¡°Take one of me and Ricky.¡± He put his arm around her, looked down at her and whispered, ¡°I guess I am your spiritual father, in a way.¡±
His arm was bigger than it looked, and almost too heavy on her neck, but she had an easy time smiling as she nestled where his torso curved to join his arm. When the pictures were done, he squeezed her still-warm shoulder and said to the group, ¡°I have to check the car you will drive tomorrow. I¡¯ll see you later.¡±
Now alone with Tristan, Ricky insisted on knowing what was wrong with him, on seeing. Gingerly, he lifted up his T-shirt to revel his torso covered, front and back with festering red welts. ¡°What¡ª?¡± she exhaled.
¡°Promise me you won¡¯t make a big deal if I tell you. It was wasps.¡±
Am image clicked into place. ¡°Did they come out of the book? Did they?¡±
¡°How could you possible know that?¡± He stared at her incredulously.
¡°Look, something is happening, Tristan. To me. And now to you.¡±
¡°Let¡¯s just eat and talk about it later.¡± She understood her brother¡¯s reluctance to say more. She felt the same way after the blood-sucking bookworms, the same shame that she read in his face now. Like the universe had turned its back, given them a failing grade. It had denied them a normal paranormal encounter all their lives, only to deliver up nature itself turning against them. But they would talk about it on the road.
#
That night the apprentices and Tristan met briefly in the library before bed. Tristan¡¯s subdued mood seemed to have touched them all.
¡°Well, Ricky, Tristan, I hope your time here was good.¡± Alphonso stood exactly between them.
¡°I just remembered; I found something hoeing in the garden.¡± From her jeans¡¯ pocket she pulled out the tarnished toy with flowers ringing the perimeter. ¡°It¡¯s a top. I think it¡¯s old.¡±
On impulse, Ricky walked to Alphonso. It wasn¡¯t a thought, just an urge to touch his hand. She gave him the toy. His palm was surprisingly callused; in all of her ideas about him, he was smooth. He moved like water, always slipping past her, but she wanted the pointedness of fire.
¡°Thank you, Ricky,¡± Alphonso responded with surprise. ¡°I¡¯m touched. But I think Tristan should have it as a reminder of his time here.¡±
Ricky understood perfectly well that Alphonso was not going to fall in love with her. But his attention to her brother fell across her like the shadow of a closing door, one that brings an instant cold and the impossibility of returning to a place that was heartbreakingly beautiful.
She announced, as if subduing a restless crowd, one who didn¡¯t appreciate her brother¡¯s phenomenal excellence, ¡°Yes, Tristan¡¯s time here has been really successful.¡±
As Tristan pocketed the top, all concern for his injuries and thoughts of reconciliation vanished. He¡¯s won, she thought, he¡¯s won everything.
#
As a last preparation before bed, Ricky made sandwiches for the road. Then she wandered the darkened first floor of the cabin for a last look. A light was on in the living room and she heard the fire crack over two familiar voices. They were private, intimate; she moved closer.
¡°I¡¯m glad this works for you, Tristan,¡± said Alphonso. ¡°And tonight you¡¯ll help to build an exotic matter.¡±
Ricky stepped backward and flattened herself against the wall, away from the inner sanctum she hadn¡¯t been asked to join. The meager possibility of even a friendship with Alphonso had been usurped by her brother.
¡°I want you to see for yourself.¡± Alphonso¡¯s voice came closer, so Ricky darted up the nearby stairs. She paused, hidden on the landing, to hear Tristan and Alphonso walk the hallway below her. Shaking her head to sluff off the wave of rejection, she tiptoed back down in time to see the pair heading toward the kitchen. Alphonso had shouldered a backpack and was telling Tristan, ¡°I¡¯ve done this before; wait ¡®till you see.¡±
Something to see in the backpack? Ricky tiptoed down and followed them from a distance. She heard the back door play its tambourines as it opened and closed. Why would they possibly need to leave the warmth of the firelight and the cabin?
She went out quietly and got her bearings in the shadow of a slippery elm, her eyes adapting to reveal the conspirators filing singly down a path that was opposite the one leading to Eli¡¯s. Down the mountain. She followed.
After just a few minutes, the men¡¯s voices veered off to the right, showing her the cutout that she otherwise would have missed. Turning into it just a few steps, she felt the air change to a clammy wafting on her face, the mudpie smell of earth. It was the entrance to a cave.
Her feet wanted to follow, but her spine seemed to granulate, made of a sand that could only fall down, not go forward. If she confronted them, what would she say? No, she needed proof of abilities that would cause them to draw her into their exclusive club. She needed her trick of eyes-closed seeing to work again.
She focused on the plane behind her eyelids as she had in the garden. There, she could identify the vinous confusion of hillside plants and, further forward, the nodule arteries of their roots anchored in rock that was layered ever more solidly into the hillside. She continued to see into the earth, penetrating the levels separating her from the men. Suddenly, as if she had tripped over a threshold, her perception met the opening of a long and narrow chamber. Its many-tentacled arms receded down and away for miles, but, closest to her was a passage way and, there, crouched Alphonso. He seemed to make himself as small as he could in an elbow in the pass way, as if he were hiding. Further on, in the chamber of a proper cave stood Tristan. As if at an altar, he faced a natural ledge that held a fist-sized, blood red rock. Although she couldn¡¯t hear him, his lips were clearly shaping an identical word, again and again. Why weren¡¯t the two together?
As she continued her blind inspection, her inner eyes were drawn upwards to the honeycombed rock above the men. Veined among grey layers were rich deposits of red stone, like the rock on the ledge. Its intricate formations lifted to heights that glistened like rubies in some places and glowed a soapy orange in others. It filled the hillside with lacey piercings, with ornate cutouts, yet not carved with human artifice. Instead the stone around each hole bore an organic stamp, like the liquid tracings of rivers or veins. Some pervasive flow had spawned the infinitesimally delicate outgrowths of the mineral cathedral. But instead of statues decorating the interior, the big holes that occurred at regular intervals held mummy-like shapes.
The figures were bundled by wrappings affixed by a clear resin, a yellow coating that shone like honey. Not only glistening, but slightly vibrating with a hum that was inaudible. However, she knew she would have felt it through her feet if she had been standing close by. The assembled mummies were not entombed, but alive and waiting, a waiting army.
Just then movement drew her eyes back down as Alphonso began to move toward her in the passageway. It must have been prearranged, since nothing in Tristan¡¯s body posture spelled nervousness, other than an intense concentration. She did not want to meet Alphonso here and had seen enough to tell to Tristan, for him to verify the accuracy of her vision. Quickly she turned and ran into the night from this mouth of greater dark.
#
The alarm clock went off Sunday morning before dawn. Because she had slept in her clothes, her movements consisted of kick off bedcovers, brush teeth, take bag, go. Alphonso was in the kitchen. Although Ricky tried to catch his eye and looked longingly at the hand that had grasped her shoulder yesterday, he merely bustled solicitously to make a simple breakfast and load the car.
Tristan, usually the earliest riser in any household, was late coming down. He looked short-slept. She rarely saw evidence of his fair beard but, as his head bent over the single triangle of toast, she could see stubble.
¡°Hey,¡± she tried, hoping to take him aside to share what she had seen last night, but he only leadenly responded and a conversation felt too forced.
They ate quickly and soon the entire group assembled for Eli¡¯s summary of how fulfilling it had been to meet them. Ricky muddled through hugs and ¡°Blessed be¡¯s¡± and Tristan assumed the wheel with pats on the back.
The Chevy Caprice Classic was a relic, rusty and scratched, but the cloth-covered bench seat was comfortable. As they bumped along the dark driveway toward the Burning Bush Bible Camp archway, Tristan¡¯s arrhythmic clutching of the steering wheel gave Ricky the impression that he grasped the side of a boat, trying unsuccessfully to haul himself up. Instead of his typical correct bearing, his shoulders were hunched and his breath sounded rough leaving the small ¡®o¡¯ of his mouth.
¡°Do you want some water or something?¡¯
Dawn illuminated Tristan¡¯s face like a beacon swinging too close. Dark eyes punched out of his pale face, hovering above lips as red as liver. He gave a faint groan.
¡°I need to get to my writing. Please drive.¡± He croaked.
Ricky had never seen her brother like this. The display of emotion that signaled need and weakness shocked her. Contempt, disgust, nervous fidgeting, yes; but weakness, no. On him, emotion was an essential energy that propelled him forward, never back.
¡°O.K. Tristan, O.K.¡±
Tristan wheeled the car to a standstill on the shoulder and edged himself across the bench seat to the passenger¡¯s side. As she walked around the car to take the wheel, she was aware of physically changing roles, of her guiding Tristan, rather than the reverse. Yes, he was sick, but she felt more abandoned than alarmed, as if his consciousness should function for both of them.
He seemed in no mental state for a serious conversation, but she made an attempt. ¡°Tristan, I need to talk to you about something, something I saw.¡±
¡°I¡¯m documenting an account of¡.¡± His head nodded onto his chest.
¡°At least put the seat back,¡± she instructed. As he fumbled, he lost coherence fast. She wondered if what happened in the cave had involved drugs, but that would be unlike Tristan. And how would drugs advance, and not hinder, what looked like a simple project of concentration, much like the practice presented in her lessons? As she drove, she thought about what she had seen, Tristan and a rock. Exotic matter. They were trying to change matter.
Ricky drove on without stopping and they came out of the mountains as night fell. Finally reaching flat ground, she took a truck turn-off and joined Tristan in unconsciousness. When she awoke hours later she still felt exhausted and he was worse. To answer his weak flailings and verbal abuse, she shouted, ¡°You need a doctor!¡± But in the end, she agreed to ¡°just drive¡± as long as he would periodically reassure her that he was OK.
#
By lunchtime they were leaving Oklahoma and Tristan awoke without his former agitation.
¡°Are you hungry?¡± she asked him as he gazed sleepily around. If he was not better, she would once and for all take him to a hospital or call their father, a thought that didn¡¯t even make her feel sick. She was a good liar by now.
After filling up, she pulled the car to the edge of gas station, one overlooking tumble-down shacks that spilled out machine parts and old appliances, and went in for food.
Tristan abandoned his chili dog after a few mouthfuls and Ricky ate silently. Then, as he intently scribbled at some papers, they continued north with only one significant exchange between them.
¡°I saw you last night with Alphonso in the cave.¡±
Tristan¡¯s eyes lidded over.
¡°I could see you from outside the cave, Tristan. I need to tell you what I can do.¡±
Tristan folded suddenly at the waist, as if he might vomit, then he came back up.
¡°You¡¯re doing something that involves the occult.¡± She didn¡¯t care if he was sick; he wouldn¡¯t ignore her. She let loose, ¡°What about Dad? What about how critical you¡¯ve been of him?¡±
Tristan¡¯s head lolled drunkenly, an effect magnified by the careless tone of his next remarks.
¡°I pursue what I know is right. The concerns of others are no concern of mine.¡± His voice was a scalpel and out of its cut poured laughter. He chortled uncontrollably.
¡°The concerns of people that love you? Me? Dad?¡±
¡°You know NOTHING about the reality that I am documenting.¡± His glassy eyes were now trained on her, even though his head was unsteady on his neck. ¡°Dad¡¯s two-bit, lame-ass, rinkydink investigations are ¡.. lame-ass.¡± His head slid around to look out the window. ¡°Dad¡¯s occult studies ¨C alchemy, telepathy ¨C they¡¯re just obsolete names that bear no resemblance to a new science of reality. Exotic matter.¡±
There was Alphonso¡¯s term she had heard last night outside the library.
¡°You¡¯re creating something, but I can help you; I can see things that aren¡¯t there!¡± No, that wasn¡¯t right, but it didn¡¯t matter because then the air exploded. The papers on Tristan¡¯s lap flew up to whip around the cabin of the Caprice, slicing Ricky¡¯s face and hands. Their frenzy filled the car which swerved wildly as the pages beat against the windshield like trapped birds.
She pushed at the air in front of her face, frantic that she would drive them off the road. In her peripheral vision, Tristan flopped forward and she heard him hit his head on the dashboard. Frantically pressing down whatever sheets she could, she pulled the Caprice to the side of the empty highway. Her own heart beat like wings caught in her rib cage and there was blood on the back of her hands. Her palm came away red from her face.
As she cleaned herself up with a napkin and water bottle, Ricky tried to reconcile this attack with her version of Tristan as drugged or sick. His upright bearing had dissolved, but she knew that he had been the source of the combustive paper storm. He felt dangerous; the assault had come from him. She glanced at his face, unmarked by cuts.
Tristan mumbled now with his head thrown back, ¡°What I¡¯m writing about will change the world. I¡¯m writing ¡.the world¡. everything will.¡±
Just get home.
#
It was easy to avoid her father after their return from Arkansas. What would he do about Tristan, anyway? She covered the thin slices to her face and hands with make-up and she turned to her usual defense, work.
By far, her favorite activity was a game of chess with the young resident for whom she ¡®played black,¡¯ the day she applied for her job. She looked for him the first day, and would have asked for him, so eager had he been to play more, if she had known his name. When they were formally introduced, Ricky was told, ¡°Ricky, this is Odie.¡±
¡°Hi Odie,¡± Ricky said.
¡°My initials.¡±
¡°O.D.¡± Ricky spelled.
¡°Yeah, I¡¯ve heard all the jokes. ¡®Are you retarded or Only Dumb?¡¯ ¡®Are ya blind because ya OD¡¯d?¡¯ ¡®Why don¡¯tcha OD?¡¯¡±
¡°To some people, if you have one issue, you have them all.¡±
¡°And then sometimes, you do have them all,¡± he said.
Being both blind and mentally ill seemed very unfair, so she said the one thing she knew would bring a positive response. ¡°Are you up for a rematch, an entire game, I mean?¡±
Besides chess matches with OD, it was conversations led by Belquis that made New Foundations feel like a sanctuary. Ricky liked her boss right away; the program director was both calming and stimulating, like a serene stillness after a lightning strike. Ricky was especially gratified by her vast knowledge of psychology. One day, Ricky was helping Reenie to make cookies (¡°Don¡¯t eat them,¡± Reenie¡¯s therapist had said. ¡°Her meds make her constipated and she takes matters into her own hands, if you know what I mean¡±). Belquis and Shanice came into the kitchen to check on a repair and, just then, a the Police song Synchronicity came on the radio.
Belquis said to her assembled charges, ¡°The term ¡®synchronicity¡¯ comes from psychology. It means that things are connected in ways that we can¡¯t see on the surface.¡±
Ricky felt shy about joining the talk, but she took a deep breath, ¡°How do you know that something¡¯s real when it¡¯s hidden? I mean, you can¡¯t verify that it¡¯s real.¡±
¡°Imagine,¡± Belquis answered, ¡°a smoker¡¯s pipe half buried in the ground with only the bowl and stem showing. The parts appear to be two totally different things. How would you know they¡¯re related?¡±
¡°Well, they both have holes in them and smell like smoke.¡±
¡°Just like synchronous events have similarities. Like, you are planning a trip to Topeka and then you hear people talking at the grocery store about Topeka.¡±
¡°Might be coincidence,¡± Shanice said. Working second shift for the last four years to supplement her day job as a tattoo artist, her practicality and efficiency made her Belquis¡¯s most valued staff member.
¡°Or,¡± countered Belquis. ¡°The two things are connected, but we don¡¯t know how.¡±
Almost every workday, Ricky learned something fascinating, and was jolted by the wonderment that this was actually her job, and for money. At these times, even the worry that Belquis might find out that Ricky¡¯s ID was fake, that she was not eighteen, receded from mind.
But at home, there were worries. Ricky didn¡¯t know if she was relieved or alarmed that Tristan no longer seemed physically ill. However, his behavior had not returned to normal. Most glaringly, he had abandoned his regular schedule of study, which he formerly followed no matter what. And he never again texted to have a coffee date at one of their favorite cafes.
A picture of the new Tristan emerged in this aftermath. She would come home just as she saw the Caprice leaving (why did he still have that car?) and find the TV blaring in the living room. Tristan watching TV? What was more, he had tuned to reruns of worldwide wrestling. This violated a number of his self-proclaimed admonitions. The former Tristan had done his best to groom her to his own cultural snobbery.
Patterns grew in meaning as she collected details. No longer fastidious, he would leave dirty socks on the landing and litter the living room with scratch-off lottery tickets. His overcoat made the hall closet reek of cigarettes. He left the milk out on the kitchen counter with no accompanying glass. Clearly, he had ¡°depasteurized¡± the carton, as she had once heard him scornfully describe this behavior.
At home, anxieties gathered, like sand drifting under a beach house door, about Tristan and her own weakness to do anything about him. Soon the granules were piles; but she could sweep these away by returning to work, where moments to ruminate were infrequent luxuries. As Shanice joked, ¡°There¡¯s no time to kill at New Frustrations.¡±
#
Ricky attended one coven meeting on her return from Arkansas, but merely to find out if there was any news of Alphonso. She barely even heard the evening¡¯s lesson and her hankering after someone so disinterested made her feel desperate, like someone scavenging at an accident. This feeling was aggravated during a sleepover with Starr Ann.
They talked, as they did in those days, about Tristan. Ricky ventured, ¡°I feel bad. Like I got him into this.¡±
¡°How so?¡±
¡°With, hmm¡my spiritual interests.¡±
¡°Are they really spiritual interests?¡± Starr Ann¡¯s gaze was surprisingly unsympathetic.
¡°I have to tell you something,¡± Ricky interjected. ¡°I can see things with my eyes closed.¡± To Starr Ann¡¯s bemused frown, she continued to blurt, ¡°I followed Tristan and Alphonso outside a cave the night before we left Arkansas. I could see into the cave with my eyes closed. What happened to Tristan, happened in that cave.¡±
¡°Shut your eyes,¡± Starr Ann directed. ¡°No, seriously, shut your eyes.¡±
Ricky did, to blackness.
¡°How many fingers am I holding up?¡± Starr asked.
Ricky willed the room into view, although the colors were dim and Starr¡¯s features were hazy. But she could see that her friend¡¯s hands were fists.
¡°None.¡±
¡°Open,¡± Starr Ann commanded. Her arm was extended and she was waggling four fingers, practically in Ricky¡¯s face.
Shame crash landed on Ricky like a fallen piece of sky. Then disbelief. Then denial, then admission. She had been a fool. Nothing had happened to her at all in Arkansas, except that she had become the worst of both her father (deluded) and her brother (crazy).
During Ricky¡¯s red-faced silence, Starr Ann regarded her as a cat would a struggling mouse, tail trapped under paw. ¡°What do want in life, Ricky? Love, and maybe something else.¡±
For a moment, Ricky had a flash of both her and Tristan in residence at New Foundations, with ¡°delusions of grandeur¡± written in their charts. She was just like him, only not courageous.
Ricky traced a pattern in the brocade of Starr Ann¡¯s bedspread before letting her eyes beseech her friend to help her figure this out, but Starr Ann veered in an undesired direction.
¡°Whatever happened to Tristan, it seems to me Alphonso is who you want to talk to.¡±
For so many reasons, Ricky thought.
#
Ricky¡¯s time spent at home was that of a naturalist stalking a strange species. That night, Tristan had left drawers open in the bathroom and the toilet seat up. When she smelled the pot smoke in the hall outside his room, she went to his door to talk with him, to try to have him at least remember her, the sister he had always protected, but in the end she turned away without knocking.
Their couple of exchanges had been the most demoralizing of all.
¡°Tristan, do you mind if I take the Hyundai to school and then to work this week?¡±
¡°My concern could not be less.¡±
¡°Why the attitude?¡± she had shouted.
¡°I might ask you a question too. Why so conventional? You really have become tiresome.¡±
Shouting at her sneeringly beautiful brother had not shamed him into remembering their past, his former loyalty to her, and she had never imagined a future without his support. She storm-trooped from the room, marching her indignation.
In another encounter, she couldn¡¯t stop herself saying into the weird silence of a breakfast they just happened to be sharing, ¡°How¡¯s Alphonso these days?¡± She wanted to sound airily unconcerned, but her tone came out petulant and stilted.
¡°He¡¯s great¡ªliving the high life with money to burn,¡± Tristan griped. When had he quit liking Alphonso? It was as if everything good surrounding Tristan was corroding, even those advantages that had made her jealous. What would become of him at this rate?
Then he said, as if reading her mind, ¡°You know, you won¡¯t always have me to kick around.¡± The faint superciliousness looked like Tristan, looked good on him, looked like confidence, although the words made no sense in any context that Ricky could think of.
Ricky reported to Starr Ann, ¡°I don¡¯t know how Tristan can stand himself.¡± Later, Starr Ann would acknowledge, he couldn¡¯t.
#
Then it came to pass that he was no longer there; she no longer had a brother. It happened in his bedroom. With only his briefs on, in the closet; by a bathrobe tie, by the neck, he hung from the clothes bar.
PART 3: WHEN YOU WILL AND LOVE, THEN YOU WORK 6.
6.
Each period I designate as day, I scuff along toward the twilit pink horizon, turning up nothing but grains of back glass like tiny shards of obsidian. I am grateful for the leather boots. I also find myself dressed in pantaloons and an intricately woven shirt of leather mail, although I have never been hot or cold. There¡¯s no firmament (stars, etc.) and no atmosphere (I don¡¯t require breath or feel wind), but I find that the sky is the best place to see the worldlines. Those of the living have a golden luminosity whereas the shadow lines of the dead are silvery fog punctuated with continuous and tiny starbursts.
I can see the worldliness from anywhere, but I most vividly if I take these walks toward the big sky. When I do, whichever worldline I focus on expands outward or falls like a curtain. On the surface of the aurora I see a glitchy, pixilated movement that resolves into moving images. At first, it¡¯s like seeing pictures in electronic snow but soon it¡¯s more like a movie. Before me now, a red wave dances with turquoise filaments: Maddox. I go back in his time to an event that may help me: I verify what Beddy told him, that being physical pulls particles out of the quantum foam. I turn next to a bright green aurora that undulates with pendulous formations, like a dinosaur swimming high above: Alphonso. Scanning back into his line, I confirm what I thought I saw the first time: Beddy tells him that people create their world via the microtubules.
As I walk back to the fasthold, I mull over a couple of findings and a question. Finding 1. When the brain and/or its support systems can no longer use the microtubules, consciousness is severed from matter and the worldlines can no longer pull to themselves the particles of physical. I can only conclude: this is what dead is.
I reach a place in the landscape with a series of small hills and vales. Hereabouts I have even found a small cave. Very different than living vegetation, the plants here are paper-fine or crispy to the touch. However, the land formations are no different than those on Earth.
As I walk, I note the ultra-fine worldliness of plants (furls that I open often for their lovely scent) and rocks (tessellations that can lightly crackle but carry a deep stillness). Finding 2: Since neither plants nor rocks have microtubules, yet clearly have the consciousness of worldlines, there must be another means to pull the particles out of the quantum foam besides the microtubules. Alphonso and poor Ranger showed that it could be crystals. They focused the energy of thought into the tiny crystal-like spaces of the quantum dots. This points to a power source I can use here.
I¡¯m finding a route back with the help of my sister. Certain lives are destined to intermingle. Even though her worldline and mine, like any two, were only ever superimposed giving the illusion that we shared the same space and time, here we are joined. I look back to focus my thought on the sky. There¡¯s my shadow line continually twining around hers, like a shawl that wants to protect and comfort her, or a banner that heralds her. The meandering river of her worldline is grey shot with diamond light. I must return to physical to foil those that would destroy that realm and help my sister too, with all she has to face.
Starr Ann¡¯s Worldline¡ªSeptember 5, 2024
Into the psychic rubble field that was 16 Kyrie Lane marched Starr Ann Potalovich. She had monitored the extent of the devastation during the funeral and then in a house filled with hot dish, Jell-O mold and spiraled pink meat. Here was Ricky¡¯s Aunt Clo and her mom¡¯s people, down from Canada, speaking French in the corners. There were the swollen faces of a group of Temptation soccer players, fighting their sadness by looking mean.
She helped serve food, clear it away, and gave parting directions, until only she and the immediate family were left.
Starr Ann followed Ricky to her narrow old bedroom that had held so much of them¡ªRicky as outsider, Starr Ann as addict, Ricky as brainiac, Starr Ann as wiseass¡ªcuriosities to others and to themselves.
¡°Just come over for a few hours,¡± Starr Ann coaxed and began collecting Ricky¡¯s purse and phone from the vestibule table.
¡°My dad¡¯s depressed,¡± said Ricky.
Starr Ann resisted commentary on her friend¡¯s flat demeanor.
Starr Ann drove Ricky to the white mansion where, up on the big brocade bed, she brought a plate of sugar-high foods. Then Starr Ann waited. She wanted Ricky to bring it up first.
The long silence marked Starr¡¯s gravity of purpose, as did the slow movement of her words.
¡°Ricky, I think you need to talk about it.¡±
¡°I am talking about it.¡±
¡°No, I mean your experience.¡±
Blank stare.
¡°Your experience.¡± The last words crawled slowly from Starr Ann¡¯s lips, hesitant insects.
¡°Finding Tristan.¡±
Blank.
¡°Afterward.¡±
Nothing.
Ricky¡¯s Worldline¡ªSeptember 15, 2024
James Jameson kept to his study. When Ricky passed him on the way to the bathroom or leaving the kitchen, he looked bad. His hair was greasy and his eyes double-rimmed with red and shadow.
One time, she went to his study and, for a moment, he was the old father of her childhood, warm-eyed, gentle-speaking, long-winded. This gave her the courage to speak.
¡°Dad? Do you think about Tristan?¡±
The man looked hurt and confused, as if she had glad-handed him with a simultaneous sharp kick.
¡°Oh Dad, I don¡¯t mean think thoughts of Tristan. I know you do all the time.¡± His study had not seen sun in weeks and smelled of unwashed man and rubber cement. ¡°Do you think about contacting him?¡±
James had been mainly mute these days since Tristan was gone, so Ricky accepted sitting quietly for a while. The desk clock belittled the silence with its steady inability to take-it-back, take-it-back, take-it-back.
¡°Dad, can¡¯t you find him?¡± Her words were soft. She would have demanded, but for the disrespect.
His features seemed to slide down his face along with sudden tears. ¡°My son, my only son,¡± he wept.
She tried to contain his shuddering with an awkward hug from behind, but her father gave no sign that he noticed. There was nothing else to do but go to work.
#
New Foundation¡¯s most active resident, Gordy, came to the Med Office door.
¡°Maureen is throwing stuff around the dining room.¡±
¡°What stuff?¡± Ricky asked, because she heard nothing unusual. She stilled herself to hear. The sole sounds were the host¡¯s cry and the audience sigh of daytime TV.
¡°Thanks Gordy.¡± She smiled, but he got it. He was dismissed.
In twenty minutes, Ricky made her hourly rounds. To her dismay, there in the dining room were strewn big round waste cans with contents spilled: napkins, condiment packages, straws, and paper cups. The empty bus tub and its collapsible stand had made it furthest, hunkered under chair and table like escaped creatures. She recognized the delinquent here: not Maureen, for pitching a fit, but herself. She had not trusted Gordy, an eyewitness, because he saw the world differently.
Just then, Gordy came around the corner with the fast walk by which he went everywhere, as if he had just heard a bell go off. His eyes held hers for a beat. He may have been mentally ill, but he wasn¡¯t stupid.
Maddox¡¯s Worldline¡ªSeptember 24, 2024
That summer, right before Dr. Jameson broke down, his graduate students had declared a takeover of their department name. Over the old sign, ¡°Parapsychology,¡± they puttied a trendier new one, reading, ¡°Department of Noetic Sciences.¡± When they gathered for the re-christening, Maddox was elected to go get their grades from last semester, overdue by a month.
That day, as he took the stairs of the old Victorian hall, he was young and impatient, barely noticing the autumn warmth. The air in the building moved poorly with its modern windows that couldn¡¯t open, but Skitch¡¯s office was even drier; mountains of papers sucked up the humidity. Maddox felt his breath grate in his throat.
Hunched behind his big old desk, Dr. Jameson was puny, a reduced king in a paper castle. Although Maddox had attended his son¡¯s funeral and knew his professor would be grieving, he now understood that their concerns would not be heard this day. He carried out his mission, nevertheless.
¡°I hate to bother you, Professor; clearly this is a difficult time. But the Band¡¯s paper grades¡.¡±
"Hmph, papers.¡± Jameson¡¯s speech was weird, muffled but intense. He rifled through desk drawers, a couple repeatedly, as if he couldn¡¯t track his own moves.
Slumping back in his chair, he stared without blinking.
¡°Skitch, is there something ¡ I can do?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t have time for this, McGauern.¡± But Jameson¡¯s tone said it didn¡¯t matter if he ever had to do anything, ever again.
Even though parapsychologists don¡¯t help people with their problems, Maddox was still familiar with the basics. ¡°Sir, you need help.¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The professor¡¯s face tried for wise owl but got angry bird.
¡°Isn¡¯t there someone you trust, Sir, who you could talk to?¡±
That day, Maddox¡¯s biggest worry was convincing Skitch to get grief counseling.
Resignedly, he reported back to the Band, ¡°No papers.¡±
As they rearranged their office space, grunting and swearing and moving large storage cabinets in their new lease on the abnormal, Maddox described the meeting to his fellow grads. Unanimously, they all feared for Professor Jameson. However, all was not lost because that was how Maddox met Belquis.
#
His phone rang at six AM with the caller ID announcing ¡°Professor Jameson.¡± A woman¡¯s voice identified herself with a man¡¯s name. Maddox blanked her until she said, ¡°Professor Jameson¡¯s daughter?¡± Although she had never attended any of the great greasy breakfasts with Skitch smoking up the house, burning the bacon and the toast, Maddox had seen her from afar the day of the funeral, a slim figure crushed down by sadness. Now, her voice flat, too calm for someone without a mother and a brother and with a father losing his grip, she had recognized his name in her dad¡¯s phone and was calling to ask him to come over: her dad was not doing well.
It was just a couple of weeks after the visit to Dr. Jameson¡¯s office, but his deterioration was shocking. Thinner and even more disheveled, he keened, rather than spoke, from a double bed a size too small for two people except old-time couples. ¡°You again!¡±
¡°How¡¯s it going, Skitch?¡± Maddox had the impression that his professor¡¯s persona weirdly alternated, as if he appeared through tearful blinks that distorted and then re-distorted. Like a polarized post-card with two images, Dr Jameson went from pitiful to disgusting and then back again.
¡°Peachy keen, you tremendous ass-wipe.¡±
¡°Ricky asked me to come here, Professor.¡±
¡°Perhaps you¡¯d like to take that stinking burden from me; I¡¯d be well rid of her.¡±
¡°She¡¯s worried about you, sir. We just want to help.¡±
¡°Let me tell you, you gaping jizbag, the only help I need is a hand pushing aside this veil of tears. I wish to follow my pretentious son to where the sun doesn¡¯t shine.¡±
¡°Dr. Jameson¡¡± Maddox kept trying to bridge the stale air of the bedroom.
¡°Kiss off, McGauern.¡±
Ricky and Maddox went down to the living room to talk. The emotion that he couldn¡¯t find in her phone voice was clear in person, but compressed, tight-lipped, shutting out everything that wouldn¡¯t make things right, determined to handle this breakdown of her last, closest person. At the same time, there was her graceful arc of nose and vertex of chin. Maddox stayed on track with, ¡°Has he been seen by anyone?¡±
Ricky shook her head, but went to a basket on the hall vestibule table and brought back a funeral sympathy card: ¡°My boss is a psychologist and knew him in graduate school.¡± The note from this Belquis Veladora was definitely an invitation to reach out after the death of the son. ¡°He said not to call her.¡±
Maddox told Ricky, ¡°She should come. I¡¯ll be here too, just in case.¡±
Ricky nodded. He tried to pat her arm, but his hand felt clunky, as if he¡¯d taken a downward swipe at her.
#
Two days after his first visit to the Jameson home, Maddox met Ricky¡¯s boss outside the house and knew, right away, that she could help even the most off-kilter person. Good thing, because when Ricky opened the door, she looked hollowed out. ¡°He¡¯s not having a good day.¡±
Ricky led them up the narrow stairs and opened the door to her father, still in the double bed. He sneered when he saw Belquis. ¡°Well look what the catty bitch dragged in.¡±
¡°Hello James.¡± Maddox would learn that Belquis has a tendency to settle her weight on her hips when she prepares to dominate in an encounter. The pointing out of her little feet gives it away.
¡°You¡¯ve put on some pounds,¡± James drawled, as if he was droll, making a slight jest.
¡°Well,¡± Belquis looked down, considering. ¡°Yes I have.¡± Belquis¡¯ prominent front teeth pushed her smile forward. ¡°But James, I¡¯m here to talk about something more important. You¡¯ve been having a hard time.¡± She nodded emphatically, another one of her gestures that communicated strength.
¡°I¡¯ll give you a hard time, Belquis. Let¡¯s send these meek Millies out of the room.¡± Jameson grinned.
Belquis took a notebook and pen out of her bag and cleared a chair of rumpled clothes to scrape up to his bedside.
¡°I said send them out of the room!¡± James cast his voice at her like a weapon with only a chance of injury.
Belquis looked at Ricky and Maddox. ¡°I¡¯ll be OK.¡±
It was a long twenty minutes in the hallway. When Belquis came out, the three went to the living room.
¡°He¡¯s a danger to himself and so, by law, I¡¯m obliged to commit him for treatment,¡± Belquis told Ricky.
¡°Where?¡±
¡°You can be the adult signing him into St. Luke¡¯s psych ward.¡±
Ricky suddenly looked uncertain. ¡°I¡¯m going to call my Aunt Clo.¡±
The aunt wanted James to go to a religious facility and Belquis had her hands full getting Skitch transported. Although it was unlikely he would bolt (his body seemed as gelatinous as his mouth was foul), Maddox stayed on hand, failing to think of conversation to make with Ricky as the EMTs got James strapped onto the gurney and took him, grousing obscenely, to the ambulance.
After telling Ricky to call if she needed anything, he and Belquis walked to their cars. ¡°There¡¯s another issue,¡± she said. Maddox already knew waiting would be the signal for her to talk, that this woman didn¡¯t waste time. ¡°He seems to think that the world is in peril.¡± Her smile said What are ya gonna do?
¡°With all due respect, Belquis, he also thinks he¡¯s funny and sexually appealing.¡±
¡°His concerns are something I think we should talk about. It¡¯s something I can¡¯t dismiss.¡±
She had Maddox¡¯s attention.
¡°James recounted every move I made today until I arrived here: my discussion with my husband about childcare before breakfast, what we bought at the farmer¡¯s market, my kid¡¯s swim at the neighborhood pool, my stop at the drugstore.¡± Her body shrugged up and down as she waited for Maddox to share her disbelief, but, being in parapsychology, his reaction was not skepticism, but a laser-focused attention, like a hunting dog that¡¯s spotted prey.
¡°Then he told me,¡± she looked down at her notes ¡°that Plank¡¯s constant is now encroaching upon phenomena at macroscopic scales. Have any idea what that means?¡±
Now she had made a point that he could rebuff, ¡°Constants like Planck¡¯s number and the speed of light aren¡¯t just placeholders in mathematical formulas. Plank¡¯s constant is a key to how matter ¡°localizes¡± in the here and now, making things as we know them.¡±
Belquis shook her head like he had lost her, then she handed over a yellow legal tablet covered with equations. She waited until Maddox had a chance to scan them then asked, ¡°James is a guy who struggled through graduate statistics. Could that person have written these?¡±
¡°No. These are equations that describe quantum level phenomena.¡±
¡°What do they mean?¡±
Glancing at the math, He could see familiar sections. Other equations described impossibilities. ¡°Maybe nothing, maybe Armageddon.¡± And, in a moment he would remember later with some embarassment, he laughed.
#
Maddox crunched the numbers of Skitch¡¯s equations throughout one entire Saturday. It was bittersweet, using the textbooks he¡¯d kept from his former life in physics, their volatile ink smell somehow imprinted with the kick of working high-level math. From those days, he knew that quantum effects hardly happened here in macro, usually cancelling each other out to let Newton¡¯s laws rule. But Skitch¡¯s equations said that, as the Plank length got longer, more quanta strayed into the macro, drifting to interact with ordinary things. He called it the Drift.
As Maddox poured over Fran¡¯s neat transcriptions of Skitch¡¯s ravings, his roommate, Marcus DeWhite, wandered sleepily into my room, yawning and scratching. They lived above the DeWhite body shop, owned by Marcus¡¯s family for fifty years. Marcus looked over Maddox¡¯s shoulder, knowing it was strange for him to be at his desk on a Saturday morning when he could be downstairs making a couple bucks banging on car parts.
¡°Astrology, Ox?¡± he snorted with disbelief. (¡°Ox¡± from Maddox). He put a large forefinger on the symbol for Neptune.
Astrology was a topic rarely treated in the noetic sciences, so Maddox snorted in mock defensiveness, ¡°This is quantum science, Hut.¡± (Hut, from ¡°ten-hut¡± in the Army Officer¡¯s School, where Marcus had gotten his Masters in Psychology, and from the slabs of muscle that make him big, although not quite as big as Jabba the Hutt).
¡°I only mention it because there¡¯s my planet.¡± At that, Maddox barely heard him say, ¡°Hey, I¡¯m a warm but complicated Pisces.¡±
Through the similar process of linked tangents by which they gave each other nicknames, it hit Maddox: Personality signs, mental qualities, mind versus matter. Ever since Beddy had him do the Zener cards and he was able to get them right eight times out of ten without direct experience, Maddox had looked for the why in science. Now he felt he had a big idea. Mind somehow influenced the cards, not the other way around.
He was still mulling this idea over on Sunday when he met Belquis at a coffee shop in her neighborhood.
¡°So,¡± she said with a slight smile and a quick squint as she pushed up her glasses. Belquis had been listening attentively but, Maddox reflected, you can never tell whether people untrained in physics are getting it. They want to. After all, it¡¯s their reality too, but it¡¯s tough going.
He shoved the legal pad to her side of the table. ¡°I can¡¯t believe I¡¯m saying this, but the math supports Dr. Jameson¡¯s claim: a shift in Plank¡¯s constant. Traditionally, these mathematics apply only to things at very cold temperatures, very high energy levels or,¡± he added what he had learned from Beddy during those stimulating study sessions back at MIT and now sincerely believed, ¡°tiny places.¡±
He took a deep breath as he began to speculate, ¡°These symbols might suggest that mind plays a role in the equations, but I haven¡¯t gotten any further.¡±
Fran leaned in to read Jameson¡¯s trembled script. ¡°Actually, I think we can learn their meaning.¡±
¡°You realize, Belquis, that we¡¯re dealing with mere intellectual curiosity, not cataclysmic urgency.¡±
¡°Hmm, but there is still James¡¯s uncanny knowledge about my every move that day. That¡¯s mysterious enough to make me want to solve this puzzle.¡±
Maddox wholeheartedly agreed but felt unsettled. He should have been elated: here was proof of more-than-meets-the-eye, evidence that he had picked the right field of study after all. Here he had first-hand observations of events that current theories of science could not explain. But, instead of a mystery revealed, the shadows just seemed to deepen. This couldn¡¯t be studied by Zener cards or hunting poltergeists. His thoughts refracted, split, like light bending as it enters water.
¡°If you¡¯re willing Maddox, one clue to the puzzle may be in my office.¡±
He had never been to a mental institution before, but this was no cuckoo¡¯s nest. It looked like a big apartment building, with bright green doors that belonged on a daycare center, not a can of nuts.
Inside, Belquis checked in at an office window and Maddox signed in as a visitor.
The few people we passed as we mounted some stairs said ¡°Hi¡± to Belquis and stared at the big stranger. They weren¡¯t as smiley as folks generally are in a school or a workplace, but Maddox wouldn¡¯t have given them a second glance in Walmart.
In Belquis¡¯s office, a cold wind blew through the open window. Just yesterday it had been warm, but now Belquis slammed the sash shut.
Then Maddox saw them. Along the wall facing her desk were a line of framed figures, some of them symbols in the equations.
She followed his gaze. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize these were the same; I hadn¡¯t hung them yet when James wrote out the equations.¡± She put a finger on the corner of one gold-painted frame. ¡°They are shorthand to represent the planets.¡±
She moved along the line to touch each one in turn. ¡°Jupiter, Mercury, Neptune, and the sun.¡±
¡°Where¡¯d they come from?¡±
¡°A patient gave them to me but Ricky Jameson drew them.¡±
Maddox didn¡¯t know that Ricky would be the key to solving the mystery of the Drift but he did know he was intrigued by her self-containment.
¡°You think we need to talk to her again?¡± he asked, feeling hopeful.
¡°I think we need an alchemist.¡±
7.
7.
The fasthold tops a sizable hill that overlooks a plain of brown and crepe-thin grasses. Two central doors give access to the stone fortress; each can each be opened by a single person, although they are the height of two men, and heavy. The doors give way to a courtyard surrounded by different types of quarters¡ª¡ªfreestanding barns and huts dot the edges of a huge parade ground and inside the edifice are many chambers and halls. Most of these were inhabited when I arrived. I learned this exploring politely yet, oddly, I had no hesitancy. Odd, because I clearly remember the emotions appropriate to situations for the living, rightfully cautious of the new, for fear of embarrassment, damage, or death. My current sentiments run differently in this place, where I am calmly comfortable with my right to pursue my good, yet I feel unshakably respectful of the others I encounter.
Of course I was disappointed that I had not been greeted by my mother. But part of my new emotional equanimity was that I knew her love for me, for Ricky and my father, and that there should be no blame placed on him for my mother¡¯s passing. I didn¡¯t dwell on these facts, but climbed some very roughhewn and steep stone steps to the third floor of the fortress. I knocked on a few doors and encountered the inhabitants within.
The first door was opened by a woman of mature youthfulness that I would come to recognize: peak of one¡¯s abilities.
¡°Tristan,¡± said the woman, surprising me until I realized that I knew her name as well.
¡°Chrissie,¡± I greeted her in return. She was wearing garments I recognized as a chemise and kirtle, although I knew they weren¡¯t of her original time¡ªshe was new here like me.
I would soon realize that nothing here is in contemporary production on the leading edge of the worldlines; there are no instances of ¡°living¡± objects. Only the terrain (the ground and rocks) are features that are identical at home.
I also realized about Chrissie that, like us all, she had a sense of purpose here; all mind is restless and seeking, no matter the realm. She sought the relief of this place, where nothing is a necessity but much is available.
Leaving the woman to her peace, I soon found unoccupied rooms. They were hung with tapestries showing winged men in long tunics and conical horned crowns, leading lions while catching large birds. There were no spare clothes but I don¡¯t need them because nothing gets dirty. I could have searched for different garments but I have never been an aficionado of fashion, especially for archaic pieces. I realized as I aquatinted myself with the rooms that there is no need for anything here, and where there is no need, there is no desire.
My room has a view of the plain toward the nearest woods, which consists of stands of petrified trunks and branches. That day, I stood for a long while and watched on the flat expanse the people doing what we like to do best, gazing up at sky that seems to be either darkening or lightening, and watching the worldlines of those we love.
Lately I am focused on a couple that I never knew in life, but who are already aiding Ricky and who may also give me entry to an adjacent realm. It¡¯s right next mine and to yours: Dreamland.
Dalton¡¯s Worldline¡ªOctober 20, 2024
The alchemist stood up. Morning light was breaking over the side street that bound his corner lot. From this vantage, atop the highest point of land for miles, he had a clear view of the procession of Victorian mansions that queued up either side of the green boulevard, the longest remaining such avenue anywhere in the country. The view was relief from the yellowed papers written in a crabbed hand, directing him to fill this alembic with a pinch of sulfur or that retort with a drop of mercury. But despite his physical fatigue, he felt more enlivened now than when he¡¯d climbed the stairs in the predawn hours.
He had come to his third-story sanctuary last night to escape sleep, a state haunted by a dark shape that slipped seamlessly from one dreamscape to another, an insidious and relentless backdrop. Even this morning, he felt that it could thrust itself into waking view at any moment.
His eye was drawn to movement at his sight¡¯s periphery. It would be the dark-haired girl he had observed for years moving in rooms of the house next door, across a narrow street. He regularly had good view of her from his higher vantage, yet didn¡¯t even know her first name. Potalovich was the family name. The father was an attorney and a state representative, who he rarely observed at home, or the mother either. The brother lurked in the Potalovich mansion, but late in the day and at night.
The brother, he reasoned, must be a half- or step-brother to the dark girl, since he was blond, with the kind of golden skin that usually accompanied green eyes. Dalton observed him too, big and blond; just the features that might draw the man¡¯s eyes to him if the boy were not also cruel. And smug. And completely thoughtless. Not just about the girl, but toward every element of the environment he moved through. A thing would be broken here, and clothing flung there. The girl, on the other hand, seemed to think as she moved. Clever and kind.
Dalton knew she was kind because she would often help the uniformed housekeeper get something from a closet or move a piece of furniture. He knew she was clever from the evasive maneuvers she took to avoid her brother. She would tuck into a closet just before the blond brute entered the room. And the brother appeared to be looking for her. He would swing his head slowly from side to side, then kick something over before he stalked out.
Good for the girl that she had her own source of knowing, a true source. That was, after all was said and done, all that any of us had. Thinking this, he turned back to put away his papers and lie down for a couple of hours. His dreams did not trouble him so much during the daylight. He would sink into blackness, safe in the sun¡¯s rays.
Ricky¡¯s Worldline¡ªOctober 29, 2024
This had come to pass: Ricky¡¯s brother was dead and her father was a stranger.
She put the photo of herself and Alphonso back on the nightstand and reached for the phone. Please let Starr Ann be home, a prayer answered on the third ring.
Ricky¡¯s speech was pressured. ¡°I know you think I was losing my mind in Arkansas about the whole cave thing and seeing with my eyes closed. But tonight, at the group home? Something happened that was real. One of the residents freaked out and said something that seemed like a prophecy.¡±
¡°Prophecy? Of what?¡±
¡°He drew Alphonso¡¯s tattoo. He couldn¡¯t know it unless¡ ¡°
¡°Unless what?¡± Starr Ann¡¯s tone rose, indicating she had an idea what.
¡°Maybe it¡¯s supernatural.¡±
¡°Or he knows Alphonso somehow. What did he prophesy?¡±
¡°He said I¡¯d find him. Then he stabbed his hand.¡±
¡°Kind of a conversation stopper.¡±
¡°Yeah. They took him to the Psych Ward.¡±
¡°What do you think it means, Ricky?¡±
¡°I think something bad is going to happen.¡±
¡°Come over,¡± and when Ricky paused, Starr Ann provoked, ¡°It¡¯s Halloween! Remember my neighbor? Mr. Mabinogion?¡±
Ricky did. She remembered when Starr Ann first said the name, long ago, just a couple of years after they first met. Ricky had made her say the syllables slow: Mab?in?oh?gee?un.
It was another Halloween, when Ricky slept over after they had gone trick-or-treating in Starr Ann¡¯s neighborhood. With a mouth full of candy Starr Ann said, ¡°Let¡¯s go spy on Mr. Mabinogian. Last year he had a party with a ghoul greeter who sat up in his coffin every time a guest showed up.¡±
The small figures in black¡ªa cat woman and a ninja¡ªskulked across the side street to peer up into windows from the front bushes. No one moved in the large rooms and they finally tired of looking. Ricky remembered feeling sad, as if the amusement park ride had broken down just as they were the next to get on.
Now, years later, Ricky couldn¡¯t see how Mr. Mabinogian, elusive party-thrower and probable sophisticate, could know anything about Tony¡¯s prophecy and Alphonso¡¯s disappearance.
Starr Ann said, ¡°I hear he¡¯s psychic. And having a party.¡± Into Ricky¡¯s skeptical silence, she added, ¡°There¡¯ve been delivery vans.¡±
This year, especially, Ricky didn¡¯t need disappointment. But instead of saying this, she asked, ¡°He¡¯ll help me?¡±
¡°The neighbor thing should carry some weight. Besides, you¡¯ll move him with your neediness.¡±
¡°Nice to know.¡±
#
Starr Ann answered the door and then stood stock-still, although it took a second for her feathers to settle. Her silhouette, outlined by the hall light behind her, was a bird¡¯s. She had glued feathers to a pair of black opera gloves and made a yellow beak out of paper mach¨¦. Ricky couldn¡¯t see Starr Ann¡¯s mouth behind her mask, but she heard a sharp intake of breath.
Ricky understood; just hours ago she had chopped her light brown, shoulder length hair short enough to just tuck back from her pointed chin. Then, dressed in in narrow black pants and a button-down shirt of vintage pattern. She knew that, in the dark, looked like her brother. Makeup made her skin chalk white and her lips were dark, life-hungry next to the dead pallor.
They said nothing but walked toward the mansion next door. It was ablaze with lights and parked cars jammed the street. In the side yard, they hid in the deep umbra of adjacent bushes. In a bay window, Ricky saw a harlequin, in garb as if painted by Picasso. The clown took what Ricky knew must be an invitation from a young man in very little except the paint that put the bones on the outside of his body, his face a perfect skull.
¡°How do we get in?¡± Ricky asked.
Alarmingly, a voice came out of the dark. ¡°Perhaps I could simply escort you.¡±
The girls started, although the tone was mild and the clipped accent was that of a British gentleman.
Reflexively, the friends moved toward each other.
¡°Your reconnaissance could be observed from above, from my laboratory window.¡±
They gaped at the tall figure in a dark cloak with a hood. The prominent nose of an older man flashed within the shadow of the garment. Despite the masquerade of the cowl, they got glimpses of a grim, hawk-like profile.
Starr Ann took a half a step toward the specter. ¡°Mr. Mabinogian.¡±
¡°Yes,¡± as if he begrudged it.
¡°My friend needs help. She has a problem.¡±
¡°The problem has long been coming but I did not anticipate so innocent a form. Come along then.¡± They trailed the tall man to the front entrance.
The three crossed the threshold to a disorienting combination of sounds, the odd booming of medieval instruments entwined with the crooning of a man in tails at a baby grand, ¡°Bewitched, bothered and bewildered, am I...¡±
Ignoring the people hailing him as they passed, their host strode toward a group of revelers to stand beside a man, then threw back his cloak. The two were dressed in tandem. Each wore a black body suit with a single Roman numeral ¡°I¡± printed on the front, from chest to groin. When they stood together, they created the Roman numeral ¡°II.¡± But otherwise, they were opposites: Mr. Mabinogian was tall, grey-haired and pale, whereas his complement was slight and young and the color of molten sugar.
Starr Ann pushed up her mask. The beak rode above her head like a yellow helmet.
¡°This is Ren LeFontayne and I am Dalton Mabinogian.¡±
¡°The kind and clever girl!¡± said Ren.
Starr Ann looked at him, confused. ¡°I live next door.¡±
Now Dalton turned to Ren, his tone once again as dark as the night in which he had found them, ¡°When I saw these interlopers cross the street, I knew they brought closer the threat we have feared. Imagine my surprise.¡± He made the last comment as if he was intently searching for a word that¡¯s just on the tip of his tongue.
Looking at the two girls in earnest, Ren¡¯s eyes rested on Ricky and his cheeks lost the high color of a party in full swing. ¡°You, there¡¯s death all around you, and more than that. Let¡¯s have a little chat. Gentlemen, permit me to show our young friend the buffet table and become better acquainted.¡±
Although neither ate, Ren and Ricky stood near the food.
¡°The work you do, your job,¡± he said, ¡°is important to your coming here, cher.¡± When he added the endearment, it reminded her of her mom, but sounded like mangrove swamps or islands. Disarmed, she spilled as many details as she could think of. Ricky told Ren about Tony drawing Alphonso¡¯s tattoo at New Foundations and how, because Alphonso had disappeared right after, it may have had to do with her brother¡¯s death.
Ren looked at her as if she was a patch of damp on the carpet. ¡°This is clearly not the occasion for a reading. Please come tomorrow. It is urgent, since the threat my partner spoke of, comes for you. This means you are the one to stop it. You need training. At no charge, since you will protect us all. For the reading¡whatever you can afford.¡±
Ricky had expected that Ren would give her a message from Tristan or give a clue to Alphonso¡¯s whereabouts. Or at least give her the usual psychic affirmation that she is special, but only as all people are special, not singled out for others to count on¡ to what? It was so vague, she was more confused than afraid. Although she had an unsettling certainty that that would come later.
So she merely said, ¡°I can pay.¡±
¡°We will help you prepare for what¡¯s coming, for your dangerous task. But tonight let¡¯s forget. Before it comes down on us with both feet.¡±
Ren left her at the buffet table. His predictions had quelled her appetite, but she was grateful that maybe now she would get confirmation that she wasn¡¯t crazy. Maybe. Her family members had excuses¡ªher father mad with grief and Tristan unhinged due to unknown influence in the cave. But their derangements still felt like a sentence hanging over her head. As she watched Starr Ann appear and disappear among the party-goers on the dance floor, she wondered what possible task Ren could mean. Maybe she¡¯d save Alphonso from whatever abyss had swallowed him. Wherever he was, she¡¯d find him, and also figure out the darkness at the center of her brother¡¯s death.
#
The confrontation she had imagined with Belquis, where her boss would quiz her about why Tony stabbed his hand, never happened. Instead, Belquis appeared before her in the Med Office, the program director¡¯s feet planted a distance apart, her toothsome smile full in greeting.
¡°You OK? That was some drama.¡±
¡°Yeah, fine.¡± If only.
¡°Tony is still at St. Luke¡¯s. He was scheduled to go to St. Peter¡¯s to stabilize, but he admitted cheeking his meds, so he¡¯ll come back here in a couple of days. He should be fine if we monitor that he¡¯s swallowing everything he¡¯s prescribed.¡±
The sickly prospect of seeing Tony¡¯s open mouth, his teeth and tongue, jarred with her eagerness for more knowledge about Alphonso¡¯s tattoo, which could only come out of that mouth. However, she would not press him. She would especially avoid an open confrontation in front of other staff, although embarrassing references by Tony would be tallied by staff in the crazy column. Nevertheless, Ricky would not provoke Tony.
After Belquis went up to her office, Shanice said to Ricky, ¡°Don¡¯t let that Tony get to you. He¡¯s whacked.¡± Shanice continued, ¡°I knew him from before.¡±
¡°Before New Frustrations?¡±
¡°Yeah, he came into the shop where I tattoo.¡±
In Shanice¡¯s life outside the group home, she adorned human bodies. One shift, she brought in her book of original tattoo art with its surreal dreamscapes and optical illusions. She would do the usual, pedestrian AK-47s, hearts squeezed in barbed wire, and butterflies; but one-of-a-kind works were her specialty. Her preferred approach was to interpret a client¡¯s dream images and she considered her tattooing quite psychanalytic. ¡°It¡¯s all about the latent content,¡± she¡¯d told Ricky with a shake of her soft halo of hair.
¡°He did?¡±
¡°Yeah. He came in with his head shaved. He wanted this cryptic shit on his chrome-dome. Just writing,¡± she said with disbelief and a shake of her locks. ¡°That man is insensitive to art.¡±
Later that shift, OD also broached the subject of Tony. He was demonstrating Kasparov¡¯s use of the Sicilian opening, Scheveningen version, and teaching her how to avoid looking defensive while readying a big attack. During their chess games, he was very directive, like he was instructing in life moves, not chess moves.
OD said, ¡°I heard about Tony.¡± He canted his head, as if listening to something in his lap. ¡°I have my eye on him.¡± The vision joke made him grin, but it was skeletal, and full of foreboding. She got his meaning; he was not without power of his own.
Ominus Dominum¡¯s Worldline¡ªJuly 517 AD
OD¡¯s first visit to earth was nothing like being patiently sequestered in a group home for the mentally ill. His first time here from Astral, he had been a new Form, worried that mimicking human shape and behavior would make him more like them, wanting more, always more, like Beddy. But gratefully, OD remained content to reflect human nature the way water takes color from the sky.
However, that first time did not happen without complications. He abhorred Beddy¡¯s body-snatching and, instead, summoned the molecules to the human template that was, after all, his Form self. But OD let earthly color get the better of him. It was the encapsulating green of the tree canopy, the underbrush, and the verdant mosses that ensnared his attention. Then, as he forged his body, his hulking legs and arms, his block of head, and the massive war horse he straddled, all over innards; blood to pump, guts to shit, lungs to fill and empty, it reflected his amazed perception. All of it was green.
He flexed the green gauntlets holding the green reins and pommel. Yanking off one glove showed him the river-stone smoothness of his olivine skin. He pulled away the finely wrought helmet to stare into a polished cheek plate, onto heavy features as if chiseled from pale jade.
His color, an error in his molecular summoning, surprised him, but was all to the good; the better to strike fear in hearts. He needed clout to counter the Red Woman, who, like a sun, burned her shadow onto Physical. It was bad enough that she, wherever she had high-jacked a worldline, ordained loyal priests (a class that caught on) to conduct the rite to make objects, to stoke her power. But now she had let a king of this Age, someone not under her direct control, get hold of an object, and the object was literally out of hand.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Ominus Dominum flicked his emerald spurs at the sides of his khaki steed and dubbed him Barrow Dancer. The two cantered toward the choke point on the road to Caerleon. With many men at his disposal, Arthurus should be able to defend the nearby roads, not just the hillfort. High banks topped by large rocks on either side made for perfect lookout points; Ominus Dominum was sure he would be intercepted here.
As he anticipated, at the narrowest place in the road, two figures stepped out, one from either side.
¡°Godne Morgen!¡± Ominus Dominum projected from his humongous chest cavity, delighted with the excuse to sound fearsome.
The men, clad well in leather jerkins and boots, looked at each other. One returned his greeting, ¡°Godne morgen. An huh attest wu?¡±
¡°Ominus Dominum seeking Athurus Pendragon,¡± he told them, thinking how he could kill them both; a spear through the quicker-looking one, then ride toward the other to lower a slicing sword blow. He took to this part of Physical; the need for strategy and tactics. Then dutifully, instead of testing his prowess, he followed the men to the end of the road to enter the wooden palisade of Caerleon.
The court was assembled inside the big thatched longhouse emblazoned with a huge wooden shield that hung under the decorative roof joists; there two dragons wrestled, one red, one white. Entering the house, he paused in the anteroom to set aside his spear and unbuckle his weapons, sword, axe, and knife. Then Arthur¡¯s men carefully shut the doors behind them against drafts that would smoke the house.
At the sight of him, the domestic scene in the big single room shifted. The men at long tables, the elders at benches around the central fire, and the women in a far corner busy with spinning and weaving, all drew to the dais against the far wall, where they congealed in tableau around the man in the chair.
Ominus Dominum would come to know them over the following hours, Agravain Hard Hand, Golden-tongued Gawain, Galahad Mild Murderer. And the women, Gwenhwyfar and her best lady Iseult. A bit apart, the only woman who did not cluster around the queen, was Lady Morgana, a person whose hazy nimbus, by which a sentient being could be seen from Astral, was stamped with a distinct pattern of flickering firebrands. He would have known that pattern anywhere, not visual in an earthly sense, but essential, the core of fight, fuck, birth¡ªthe Red Whore.
He expected her, was ready to contend with his foe to gain his quest¡¯s goal. He felt the pull of the object strongly as he approached the throne. It was propped to one side of Arthur, the sword Caledfwlch or ¡®hard cleft,¡¯ from the death to anyone in the cleft where the stones were made to float. Arthur had not pulled the sword from a stone, rather, he acquired a sword that had been transformed in the stone chasm, where the ritual was cast.
The blade had been dropped a millennia ago in the Stonehenge quarry field. It happened like this: a traveling sell-sword was chosen as the Druids¡¯ stooge and led to the quarry site where rocks had been prepared for a henge. The traveler was instructed how to enact the rite that would bestow buoyancy on the huge blocks for the Druids to move, the same rite that would kill him. But, unseen by the supervising priest, a blade was tucked inside his cloak. Alone in the cave, when the man felt death overcome him, he pulled his sword, dropping it as he weakened. It fell to the side of the cave to be found hundreds of years later. The bronze blade that eerily flashed was brought to Arthur. They knew it did eldritch things and that Arthur and the men who had handled it, were changed.
Ominus Dominum had a simple plan: Take the sword, ride away, put the sword where no one would ever find it. No one here could stop him, although the Red Woman would try. The idea of attacking anyone went against his principles, yet he felt excitement at the unhallowed possibility.
The Red Thing, Morgana, would not let him near, but he had come prepared. Carrying precious amber and obsidian bed within his belt pouch, he showed them first to Arthur, who in turn called the women over. As the group handled the beads, he quick-stepped to the spinning wheel to grab the pointed spindle. Then in one decisive move he jammed the implement into her side, just enough to dislodge the heinous Form. The lady half turned to stare wide-eyed at her accoster, but grasping both the arms of the Lady Iseult for support. Ominus Dominum readied himself for the Red Whore be flung back to Astral and body of Morgana to fall dead. He would grab the sword in the confusion that would surely follow.
But, stunning him, Morgana yet lived. The woman looked around in a daze, as if just coming to from unconsciousness. Had he been wrong about her tactics? No, he reasoned. He had seen the deaths she had incurred from his Astral vantage. This meant that the Red Woman had discovered how to take without killing, discovered a way around the objections so often shouted out during the Synods of Perpetual Oblivion. Why had she not announced this? There must be a reason even more diabolical than the willingness to kill her human hosts.
At least the Red Woman had gone, but he needed to understand how he could have chased the Whore from a body while the person returned! Later.
He charged to the throne and seized Caledfwlch, then rounded on the five swords that had been drawn when the Lady had looked at him askance. The men yawped and jeered as he parried the blows of the men closest.
He bellowed, ¡°I beg you to stop me. Only cleave my head from my neck, and I will not fight you.¡± The men laughed, relieved that Morgana was not badly harmed, and also astonished at the intruder¡¯s stupidity.
Gawain stepped forward, ¡°I am the least brave here, unless the feat is like this one, so easy a child could do it.¡±
OD gathered his emerald hair from his neck as he knelt.
Gawain¡¯s sword factored flesh from flesh. At the twanging of his rent spinal cord, Ominus Dominum¡¯s hands reached out to catch the blood-gushing globe of his head. Blood also fountained from his neck and he was now not so towering above Arthur and his doughty knights. Ominus Dominum stood and presented the face in his hands from one side of the gathered group to the other, the mouth on the head saying, ¡°I hope my survival will prove that this had to be done.¡±
Leaving the longhouse in mayhem, Ominus Dominum bolted to the doors which, left open, spread a confusion of smoke. Barrow Dancer was close at hand and, his head tucked securely under his arm, he out-distanced his pursuers. Once free from the chase, Ominus Dominum broke the sword and put it in a lake. From that day, the Forms united (all except the Red Whore) to proclaim: Under no circumstances should humans possess an etherized object. And from that time until this, the Forms had managed to contain their rebellious member.
One of Ominus Dominum¡¯s great gains that day was his discovery of the Red Whore¡¯s ability to kidnap and keep a living human. Her quietus about it (news that would be welcomed in the Synod!) was an intuition that he could use this knowledge when he least expected it.
But how had the human, Morgana, avoided death when the Whore took possession of her body? He mulled over the observations he had made of the company surrounding Arthurus¡ªhe had watched and absorbed everything. This told him secrets, Morgana pushing her son Mordred toward his uncle Arthurus; but by looks, the king was also clearly Mordred¡¯s father. This was a woman who was divided from herself, yet lived in greedy self-fulfillment. Was it, in fact, her faithless, reckless love of living allowed her to split apart psychically, to gain, hold, and preserve what was wanted?
Ominus Dominum thought he may at last have had an upper hand in this war for the great chain of being; he would use this information to foil his nemesis. If he won, Physical would stay physical. But if the Whore prevailed, Physical would be etherized, and then no longer the bed of human desire that unfolded their future.
Starr Ann¡¯s Worldline¡ªNovember 4, 2023
Starr Ann had always loved the geometry of the herb garden across the street. So she welcomed Dalton¡¯s invitation to come over for tea that week after the Halloween party. On a day that was mild for so late in the year, they took cups of oolong into the garden and, Dalton, in a billowy smock, moved among triangular and hexagonal plant beds like a wandering tree. As he harvested the last of the kale inside a border of die-hard marigolds, Starr Ann pulled weeds.
¡°How¡¯s Ricky?¡± he asked.
¡°She found him, you know.¡±
¡°Found him?¡±
¡°Her brother. The body. I mean. After it happened. You know he killed himself?¡±
¡°How is she coping with that?¡± In Dalton¡¯s way, he continued to attend to the task in front of him, but the sideward cant of his head proved his divided focus: How are you coping, too?
¡°She won¡¯t talk about it.¡±
¡°You¡¯re a good friend.¡±
¡°How bad is it, this threat, and will it affect Ricky?¡±
¡°And will it affect you? Yes, you are her very best support.¡± Bees hovered unsteadily as if levitated by wires. They muzzed the silence. ¡°But aside from all that, how are you finding your life at this young juncture?¡±
Starr Ann smiled and wrinkled her nose, translating, then weighing. ¡°I can¡¯t tell yet.¡±
¡°But my dear, ¡®yet¡¯ will never really come. All we have is the present moment.¡±
¡°Well, then, perfect.¡±
Ricky¡¯s Worldline¡ªNovember 6, 2024
Although she knew it was rude, Ricky was early for her first psychic reading with Ren. Her shock at the revelations of last night, of encroaching doom, had faded with sleep. She was certain that this was the day Ren would tell her about Tristan and Alphonso. Surely the two had an interconnection, beyond the chance meeting during the picnic with Alphonso, aside from the books in Arkansas, but it was encrypted behind her memory of their beautiful faces.
Dalton greeted Ricky at the door and left her in the library to wait for Ren. She felt immediately at home in the room that was crammed with an eye-goggling array of stuff. There were books everywhere and any cranny without them was jammed with objects. Rows of ivory scrimshaw flanked bronze busts in feathered headdresses under displays of swords, halberds, and battle-axes. A knife had been flung into the mahogany of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. They held, she would learn, the essential great works, rare references on the occult, a collection of quaint erotica, and every book the Mabinogian Press had ever printed. The scholarly and the arcane.
She had time to handle one of a pair of dueling pistols and try on a beaver hat before Dalton returned with a tray. Ren was with him, dressed in a smartly cut suit, as if their appointment was an important board meeting. When Dalton left them and Ren was comfortably seated, he came right to the point. ¡°You were told you¡¯d find a person associated with a certain symbol and you think I can help bring that to pass.¡±
¡°I was hoping...¡±
¡°So you have no psychic ability yourself?¡±
¡°I¡¯m studying in that area.¡±
¡°Really?¡±
¡°In the Craft.¡±
Ren looked at her as if she¡¯d just begun to tap dance. ¡°So, the Craft, with its murmuring mumbo-jumbo and gaudy divinations.¡±
¡°We don¡¯t say spells. It seems like it¡¯s mostly about meditation and visualization.¡±
¡°Praise be for that. Some Wiccans I know practice skyclad and it gives me goosebumps!¡±
Ricky stared at him, waiting for clarification.
¡°Skyclad, girl. Naked!¡±
A warm flush suffused her face.
¡°The answer you need involves a man. He has not told you the truth. Hmm. You have not told him the truth either, but let¡¯s leave that aside.¡± Ren sipped his tea. ¡°The truth you seek has been withheld from you by many. Death hangs over all, but the person to consult walks among the living. However, he is very troubled.¡±
Ren returned his cup to its saucer. The sound was of a complex yet delicate component clicking into place.
¡°The person you need to speak to has grappled with dark forces at the deepest level.¡±
Ricky pushed away the thought that Alphonso was involved in Tristan¡¯s suicide; rather, they had both been harmed by something fiendish. She needed a change of subject. ¡°You mentioned a death. I want to contact that person, my brother. I want to know why he died.¡±
¡°He died by asphyxiation, but I can rarely access the reason why, since the communicant spirits don¡¯t remember or care. Those answers must be given by the living.¡±
Ricky chanced asking about Alphonso again, ¡°Where is this person I¡¯m supposed to find?¡±
¡°In a place surrounded by strong religious thought forms.¡±
¡°Thought forms?¡±
¡°Yes, all of our ideas spring immediately to life on, as one might say, the astral plane. The more people that think them, the stronger these thought forms are. Although they have no reality in the spiritual sense. I can feel this one distinctly. Old, given much reverence and respect for its sanctity. A history of joy and pain and tears like all human ideas.¡±
¡°How will I find this person?¡±
¡°You can¡¯t fail.¡± He looked down and smoothed the silk of his tie. ¡°I can feel your skepticism.¡±
¡°I wish you could tell me something that would make me believe.¡±
¡°Here¡¯s something: Starr Ann will soon meet a person who could be very special to her. He could be ¡®the one,¡¯ if she¡¯s open to it. Although I should add that all relationships in the future, like all events, remain in potential until realized. They are not foregone conclusions.¡±
¡°Any intel on ¡®the one¡¯ for me?¡± she asked, still angling for information on Alphonso. ¡°Oh no; the one you come here seeking is not a romantic partner. It is someone even closer.¡±
Ricky¡¯s mouth was a wreath around her surprise as she recognized Ren¡¯s description. ¡°You mean my father?¡± she snorted, ¡°He¡¯s just broken up about my brother dying.¡±
¡°Actually, trying to find your brother, your father has partaken of a fearsome darkness and is suffering. More than that, your relationship will help you with something very important when you are in gravest danger.¡±
Ricky felt ashamed. She had come here seeking information about Alphonso and Tristan, but now this man was telling her that she had completely misjudged her father, that he had needed her, but had not reached out to his only daughter, probably because she had been so faithless for so many years. As Ricky pulled some bills from her jeans pocket, she knew where to go next.
Ren accepted the payment from her jeans pocket. ¡°Thank you, cher. Your training is urgent; we must begin soon.¡± He took her crumpled bills. ¡°Rendering unto Caesar as I must, I am grateful.¡±
#
The Hyundai shuddered alive on the third try and bore Ricky toward the river, to the one person who could confirm the psychic claims of Ren LeFontayne. Coming through the small canyon of downtown, Ricky felt grateful that her Aunt Clo, who had come after Tristan died, was still in town. If she talked to her aunt in person, she was sure to get the full story about her dad. She parked in the ramp adjacent to LaughRiot, where Aunt Clo had picked up a bartending shift so she could MC the early and the late shows and filling in standup slots.
Clotilde Bessette regularly visited from ¡°Gollywood,¡± where she was trying to make it in stand-up comedy. During Clo¡¯s trips home to the Twin Cities, she would take any job telling jokes. Like her sister, Ricky¡¯s mother, success had eluded Clo. Just as her sister had, she worked gleaning, picking over opportunities in small-time jobs that paid little, but worked her hard. Her life made her mad and when she was mad, she was mean. When she was mean, she was funny.
The air inside the club expanded her lungs like dough rising. From the right, warm yeasty air wafted from the pizza oven; from the left, came the hoppy scent of beer slop from the club.
Ricky sat under the bar sign reading ¡°Absolutely No One Allowed Under the Age of 21.¡¯ She couldn¡¯t use the fake ID in her wallet, so she waited. Soon, a waitress walked past.
¡°You know my aunt? Clo Bessette?¡±
¡°Low Clo? You¡¯re kidding. She¡¯s the bluest woman on this circuit.¡± Then, observing Ricky¡¯s surprised expression, ¡°But, a great person!¡±
¡°Could you tell her I¡¯m out here?¡±
Then a surprised Clo stood in front of her saying ¡°Kiddo, let¡¯s grab a booth quick,¡± and they entered the restaurant.
¡°You need anything, Clo?¡± asked the woman working the back section.
¡°No hon, I have to be back in two minutes.¡± Then to Ricky, ¡°I wish I could let you into the show, it¡¯s going to be good. What¡¯s up?¡±
¡°There¡¯s something I want to ask you.¡±
¡°Something important, I figure, since you¡¯re here instead of calling.¡±
¡°Where¡¯s Dad?¡±
Clo gazed off but Ricky persisted. ¡°Something¡¯s going on with him that you¡¯re not telling me.¡±
Clo looked at her niece over lips that pursed sideways. ¡°What was the tip off?¡±
¡°He¡¯s not in a psych ward.¡±
There was a random moment of silence among the wait staff. ¡°Your father¡¯s in trouble. He¡¯s in a monastery.¡±
¡°He¡¯s with an exorcist,¡± Ricky said quietly. She felt the defeat of someone who has not just failed to save themselves, but lost others who had no one else to help them.
¡°More like rehab for the soul.¡±
¡°Do you know if he mentioned Tristan at all?¡±
¡°I do know, honey, that he was sleeping in Tristan¡¯s room and talking to him. Apparently he¡¯s been ranting about a ¡®barrier¡¯ and a ¡®book¡¯. His soul is sick.¡±
Ricky hung her head and stared at the placemat. Clo must have seen his bizarre behavior. The clink-clank of cutlery on flatware was a perversely normal background to announce her father¡¯s trials with a grand inquisitor. Clo must have been scared.
But now the woman revved up some enthusiasm and said, ¡°Hey, good news! They¡¯re releasing him in a couple of days.¡±
Her father¡¯s mental cliff-dive was bad, but not the worst of her situation. Yet, she couldn¡¯t say to Clo, Whatever this is, it¡¯s hunting me next. She couldn¡¯t say it yet.
¡°The bad news is, Kiddo, I have to leave shortly after.¡± Clo touched her niece¡¯s face with one finger, ¡°You and me, right?¡±
Ricky nodded. Ren had been right about her dad. Then she thought of Ren¡¯s other prediction: Starr Ann had met someone important.
#
After the exorcism, life was more serene on Kyrie Lane. The contempt James Jameson showed before was now a vacant mildness, so it was easier for Ricky to pick up his bandwidth of her Old Father, his stolid kindness and dedication to the truth. When she thought of him quietly posing questions to Tristan, into the dark, recording device beside him, she felt her old loyalty resurface.
Nevertheless, his eyes still ceaselessly moved, like ships searching for a vanished port. After one bad night, marked by his clumpish footfalls up and down the hallway, she brought him breakfast. He was asleep, so she put the tray on the night stand. The food would keep, but she reached to take back the coffee, to bring him a hot cup later.
Suddenly his hand slid over hers. He said, in a voice so hushed that the words were breath, ¡°You can contact him, Ricky. He¡¯s not with the angels.¡± James Jameson smiled cagily, and his grip tightened.
¡°You¡¯ll find him. He¡¯s in the land of the dead. And they¡¯re coming here. They¡¯ll bring my Tristan back.¡±
Ricky wrenched her hand away. Just as she felt the warm coffee splash. She blotted at the coffee on the carpet and told him, ¡°Go back to sleep, Dad.¡± But afterward, she avoided being near him for very long.
#
Ricky ate fast through their shared meals, during which, James now drank large quantities of wine.
¡°In the words of Sir Isaac, ¡®Let ye, old men, drink wine until ye piss!¡¯ ¡± He downed his jelly jar of red and rejoined it to the table with a smack that made Ricky wince. His slack features stitched themselves together until they were draped in unpleasantness.
Lewd-eyed, he mocked her. ¡°I don¡¯t give a fig for Newton.¡±
Ricky rolled her eyes.
Riled, he countered, ¡°What are you looking at?¡±
She asked to be, and was, excused. If ever she checked to see if he watched at her, cared whether she walked away, the ghost ship of his eyes would sail right past. The axes of some inner chart had flipped. X had become Y, certainty had become Why?
Spending less and less time at the University, he roamed the house. One day, she tipped from frustration into disgust.
¡°Dad, can¡¯t you find Tristan? Find out what happened?¡±
She shouted at his retreating figure in the upstairs hallway, ¡°You¡¯re a fake! Renowned parapsychologist. What a joke!¡±
James turned to his daughter and flipped her off with the crudest gesture. Stunned, she stared at him, trying to make the connection between this man and her memories of her dad. But it only got weirder. His upraised finger began to glow in the dark hallway, like a floating obscenity, then it discharged plasma filaments around the two of them. As a crackling blue light spackled her, her father, and the walls of the narrow hallway, her hair lifted, like a Tesla globe around her head, her hair mimicking the bolts of charge dancing everywhere.
She had the horrible though that her aunt had been right: he had needed an exorcist. Would he kill her with a Satanic lightening bolt? Horrifyingly, the two poles in her family had shifted. Her father and Tristan were no longer opposites; something now joined them. Something bad. As the blue light faded, leaving her father merely a zombie, she recognized the sad irony that this was the very first verification of anything supernatural happening to her father. Ever. In so many ways, her past meant nothing.
#
She wished she could look to Alphonso for answers to her questions about her brother¡¯s and her father¡¯s transformations, and she visited the apartment where they had had the Druidic Craft get-together. Although the buzzer to still showed his name, there was no answer. And there was no one around to ask about him, not even a corner drug dealer. Ricky didn¡¯t linger.
Back at home, in Tristan¡¯s room, Ricky scanned its surfaces; the bed and pillow retained the impress of someone lying there. Nothing on the floor under the bed. Who has nothing under the bed? Someone, she answered herself at his desk, who simultaneously consulted Thus Spoke Zarathustra and the Divine Revelations of Julian of Norwich. His notes showed him reading and cross-referencing, but no sign of his ¡®masterpiece¡¯ that he claimed would change the world.
Then she spotted something that had been too familiar to stand out. It was a Convent of the Temptation in the Garden library tracking card: The nuns still used the old system of signatures to check materials out of the library.
This book was not from the Bishop¡¯s Collection, where Tristan spent his time, but from the regular stacks. She could tell, because it had been signed out, an option disallowed for a Bishop¡¯s Collection book. On a grid for names and dates, lent and returned, was an entry so familiar, she even recognized the handwriting. ¡°Carley Currier¡± was printed in shaky and slanted capitols. The vampire-white face of her childhood friend appeared in her mind¡¯s eye, but Carley attended to Melvin G. Laird Public High School, not Convent of the Temptation in the Garden. Carley¡¯s name on a book from Temptation was just as weird as the idea of Carley in a library at all. This was the first evidence of Carley Currier reading books. Ever.
There was no title on the card, just a Dewey decimal number, Ricky tried an on-line lookup to find out the book¡¯s name, but the site was useless. The hope was too great that this was the book her Aunt Clo had spoken of, the book she said her father raved about.
Ricky now had a picture of her father¡¯s demise. It must have been his impression on the bed. She had misjudged him completely. He had sought contact with Tristan while recording EVP¡¯s or electric voice phenomena, then tried to hear meaning in the stream of scratchy white noise. She knew mainstream psychologists regarded the ¡°words¡± heard on EVPs as products of the mind¡¯s tendency to make patterns in meaninglessness; mere cloud pictures. But her father would have been convinced that he had heard ¡®book,¡¯ a word that caused a number of things to gel. She tried to remember anything from her lunches with Tristan in the Bishop¡¯s Collection cube, but all she could dredge up was that the books looked properly ancient. She needed to get into the Temptation library.
That meant opening the closet. The door was mere steps away, but the knob was foreboding. Thoughts crowded at the edge of her consciousness, like a cloud of gnats coming for a traveler in the forest. They were vicious; she pushed them away for now and went to New Foundations.