“I just couldn’t do that to someone. At least with me, it’s contained for a while.”
“Then it is the burden you must carry. Be aware that eventually you will falter, and it will be free again. At that point, the damage it will wreak will be immense.”
I felt sick at this pronouncement. “Okay, I get your point. Can you at least check the cocoon, and make sure I did it right?”
She nodded and said, “Then we must bring Jennifer back.”
In the end, she had to wrap her hands around the caduceus to be able to probe into my mind. Her touch in my mind was as light as a spring breeze but as unstoppable as a hurricane, and she was incredibly deft. Where I could see the surface minds of others like a large, blurry, canvas, she was a needle that could easily penetrate my canvas to see the depths underneath. She examined the cage I’d built to contain the shadow. For the most part, she approved of my “raw strength” and my “crude but effective” work, but she showed me some things that would keep the cocoon from unraveling quickly even if the caduceus were lost to me. I could power it with my own Source for a time.
All too soon, she withdrew and said, “Now it’s time for me to leave your world and return to oblivion.”
Imourned for all the knowledge that would be lost. “What do we need to do?”
“I’ll teach you what you need to know and what you need to do to get this done.
“Finn,” she started. “Your language doesn’t have the terminology to discuss this, so I am just going to try to get it close enough.” I nodded.
“On Earth, all life is motivated and accompanied by a soul. From the simplest life forms to us, all have a soul. Generally, humans and other sentient races can support the largest souls.”
That was one of the all too vivid memories that the shadow had left—the big, tasty juicy souls people carried around. I was revolted when thinking about it made me hungry.
Jen continued, “The origin of the soul is unknowable, but most feel that it comes from the divinity that underlies all life. We called it the Boundless Light or simply the Boundless, but perhaps the Divine tracks better in your language. Your God could fit this description, though you have clothed him in far more trappings than seem necessary. In any event, your soul is a part of you from birth. If your soul is removed, you will die unless you find another way to sustain your life. Your death releases it to return to The Divine.”
Death. The memory of killing people and eagerly consuming their souls as they came free of their bodies once again tumbled me over like a snail in the surf. I shuddered.
Jen didn’t pause. “Everything that happens to you is reflected in your soul. In effect, it becomes imprinted with your life, your mind, an image of your body. Some of us believe that the purpose for this is to bring the sum total of you, your life, back to The Boundless to enrich it and expand it. Thus, we all have a sacred duty to live life to the fullest.
“Our soul extends beyond the physical world. It flows into other…” She searched for the word. “…dimensions.” She nodded with satisfaction, “Yes, that fits. It is this extension that lets your soul… again, never mind. It is not important.”
I hated not knowing things. I prodded her. “What?”
She ignored me. “It is important to realize that while the soul influences you, and intrinsically knows right from wrong, it’s not you. It is not your mind—even though it contains a copy of your mind. Your mind is separate.
“What you are going to do first is to erase me—my mind from Jen. That is what the crystal keeps locked in its structure. It is the knowledge and information that makes me—me.”
I hated the thought of that. It would be like murdering her.
As if she could read my thoughts, she said, “Only what I have experienced here will be lost. The amethyst crystal still contains a copy of me, so I have not permanently departed this world yet. That is also crucial to our procedure. When you and Jen grabbed the crystal, the higher potential energy within you, aided by the structures we put in place within the crystal, flowed through the crystal. That activated it and projected its information onto Jennifer Washington’s mind. When you completed it, she was, in effect, gone, except for the little bit you left. We will have to do that same thing, but with an additional step.”
She pulled a brilliant quartz from her pocket. I recognized it.
“Hey, that’s one of mine! Where did you get that?”
“I got it from your room. It was necessary. The Washingtons did not have a crystal of sufficient quality. I have taken this quartz crystal and imbued it with a pattern. This pattern will result in the inversion of the mental projection onto Jennifer. All you will need to do is touch this and the amethyst together, hold the crystal with me, and everything else will be physics. In effect, it will erase my overlay from this mind.
“That will be the first step. The second step will be trickier. I’m not sure you can even do it. Handling a soul is a delicate thing. The soul itself is immortal, and we thought indestructible till we encountered the shadows, but the imprinted information is not. For this step, words will not suffice. I will have to show you.” She laid down the quartz and held out both her hands. “Take my hands.”
I was a bit nervous about this. I’d had my mind and my soul played with enough to last me a lifetime. “Is this going to hurt?”
“No, you will be fine. Take my hands.”
I did. Her hands were small, soft, and smooth, but I could feel the strength in them when she gripped me. Suddenly, she was there, a presence in my mind again. I felt a tug within me, and we were standing in a grassy field. It was a beautiful, sunny, cloudless day. The temperature was perfect, neither too warm nor too cool. There was a light breeze blowing through my hair, but no sounds of life or movement other than the grass and the abundant flowers. I looked around in awe.
“This is beautiful. Where are we?”
“It is merely a projection in my mind. This is a place where I come to meditate and clear my thoughts. It will do for our purposes. There will be little to distract you here. That’s why I didn’t choose my usual chambers.” She saw my question and this time deigned to answer, “Our homes and places of study are sufficiently different from yours that they would be distracting for you. This place should feel comfortable and familiar.”
I nodded. “It’s very pleasant.”
“Okay, sit with me, take my hands again, and we will begin.”
I did as she instructed, and, suddenly, I could see her blue aura. It grew brighter and brighter until its incandescent splendor grew to encompass me. She said, “This is Jennifer’s soul —without the influence of my mind to color it. It is an exceptionally powerful soul. The most powerful I have seen, second only to yours. Here, we will find the echoes of her mind. Here we will come to save her.” I could still see Jen sitting across from me in the sunny field. “Part of what we are seeing and doing is conceptual. Part of it is real and literal. These are often the conditions you find when using the power of the Source to achieve a desired result.”
“You keep talking about it, but I’m not sure what you mean. What is The Source?”
She looked at me intently through the blue ocean of Jennifer’s soul. “I guess this is necessary for you to know. The Source is the sea of living energy, which surrounds us and permeates us. It flows through the entire universe and is the key to continuous creation. Its depth and size dwarfs all other aspects of physicality. It is what we tap into when we need to shape the physical to our will.”
I tried to think about this: An energy that flows through the entire universe? “Are you talking about Dark Energy? That’s too cool! We’ve seen evidence of its existence, but we never knew what it was.”
“How have your scientists discovered this without direct access?”
I thought her reaction peculiar. I considered my answer. “Well, we can see it in the way the stars move. It counteracts gravity over great distance, and it is pushing the stars apart.”
It was h
er turn to look amazed. She shook her head and said, “I almost wish I could stay and explore your strange world and see the universe through your eyes. What a fascinating place this must be. It would never have occurred to us. In fact, it would be beyond our capabilities to measure the movements of the stars.”
I didn’t feel like this was really the time or the place to discuss space telescopes and red shift, so I went back to something she had said earlier. “What do you mean ‘without access to it’? How did you discover it if you had no access to it?”
She shook her head. “It is not important.”
“But—”
“Enough. You need to focus on Jennifer.”
I couldn’t believe she was cutting me off. Just when I felt like I was on the verge of understanding, she backed away. “But, you can’t just leave me like this! I have no idea what’s happening to me. You have to tell me more! I need someone to teach me and show me what I can do! Right now I feel like a toddler with a light saber! I seriously messed up my dad because I didn’t know what I was doing! You have to tell me something. Give me a starting point.”
“Finn, your raw abilities should be enough to give you an edge in your world. Be content with that. It is only with the root of the Tree of Life you carry that you have enough power to hurt yourself or someone you love. You should encase it in stone, drop it into the deepest ocean, then never worry about it again.”
“I can’t do that! It’s what is keeping the shadow in check in my mind. If I get rid of it and that monster breaks free again, hundreds or thousands of people could die.”
“Then, just keep the tree fragments and the whistles away from it, and, in time, the shadow will diminish back to near impotence. Finn, I know that your life is important to Jen. She’s quite fond of you. Her feelings have influenced my judgment, and that is why I’ve told you as much as I have. I am unable to tell you more. This was one of the limitations we set ourselves when we created the crystals. What we know cannot fall into the ancient enemy’s hands. If it did, every living thing on this world could die. The shadows are a burden your society must carry, since, as far as we know, they cannot be destroyed. Be content that they are now just parasites and those infected can still live a full life. A few thousands or even tens of thousands of people are not a bad tradeoff when you consider the totally incomprehensible number of human souls living on this planet. I’d have never thought such numbers possible.”
It seemed like Star Trek morality didn’t hold sway over her. She did not feel that the needs of the few equaled or exceeded the needs of the rest. Even though I didn’t really believe that moral code sounded right either, this was me and my loved ones we were talking about, and it pissed me off. It made me feel like I was five years old again.
“Listen, just give me some lessons before you go—”
“Enough! There is no time to condense thousands of years of research and wisdom into the time we have left. There is no more to discuss. Do you wish to retrieve Jennifer or not?”
I swallowed my anger and nodded.
“Good. Now, look around you. See the patterns flowing in her soul? Those are the patterns you must transfer back to her mind. Follow me and I will show you how to effect that transfer.”
She did, and she was right: there just aren’t words to describe it. I can oversimplify it by saying that I needed to make a projector capable of transferring Jen’s mind back to her physical body. It was similar to but different from the way the crystal overwrote her mind. It was also scary as hell.
When we finished, I asked one more question. “Will this bring Jen back just as she was?”
“It depends on how well you do your job. She may retain some small remnant of me, and she may or may not remember what has happened since I invaded her mind.”
I knew the answer to my last question, yet I had to ask it anyway. “What if I fail?”
“Jennifer will be gone. Even if you allow her body to live, all that she has been will be lost to the universe forever, never to join the body of the Divine. At best, you will have a person who is like a newborn baby. She’ll remember nothing of who she was or what she experienced in her life.”
Shit! No pressure here.
She didn’t give me a chance to worry about it. “Come, let us return to the world, and we can take the first step. Waiting much longer will diminish your chances of success. And, I might lose my will.”
“I thought you wanted to be erased.”
She said seriously, “No one ever wants to be erased, Finn. Life is sweet, and we cling to it sometimes far beyond what is reasonable. Now, let us begin.”
Suddenly, we were back in Dr. Anderson’s office. I was sitting across from Jen-Il Saia, still holding her hands. Sometime during our absence, Holly had crept in, sat down on the couch next to me, and laid her head on my lap. She was sound asleep.
I released Jen’s hands. She grabbed the quartz in her right hand, I grabbed the amethyst in my left.
I asked one more time. “Are you really going just to leave me this way? I mean, is there really no way you’ll tell me more?”
“I have told you my answer.” The high priestess had spoken.
I looked into the amethyst’s familiar depths. At least now I knew why it had always seemed so deep. I held it out in my open hand. Without hesitation, Jen put her hand on top of it. The quartz she held connected with the amethyst. This time the roar of power that flowed through me was familiar, and I was ready for it. It howled though me like a raging fire, spiraling down through my arm. I watched carefully as the red of Il Saia’s aura faded under the onslaught of the power coming through the crystals from me. There was still some red in her aura when the flow of power slowed to a trickle. Unsure of what else to do, I broke the connection.
Jen looked around her with wide eyes and then fell forward from the chair. I lunged to grab her before she hit the floor, dislodging Holly in the process. Holly yipped in fright as I put Jen back into the chair. Holly’s presence left me no time to consider what I had done nor to mourn Il Saia.
“Is she okay, Finn?” asked Holly nervously.
I tried to smile at her. “She’s just resting, Holly. I’ve got to help her now, and it’s going to be very tricky. Can you go outside the door of the room and make sure that no one disturbs us?”
She nodded. “I will.” She left without asking questions.
I nervously considered Jen. I said to myself, “No pressure here, Morgenstern, just merely life or … amnesia.”
Relax, Finn, you will do just fine, Spring said soothingly.
I answered her out loud. “Thanks, Spring. Were you around for all of that?”
She sounded amused. Of course, I was. Where do you think I would go? Now, do what you have to so we can go out dancing with her.
I snorted. If you think that’s a good idea, you haven’t seen me dance.
She snorted right back. If you think it’s a bad idea, then you haven’t seen me dance.
Imagining her luscious form dancing started some of the wrong pumps going—even though I thought she was just kidding. Reluctantly, I shifted my attention back to the task at hand. I gingerly reached into Jennifer the way Il Saia had taught me. I was acutely aware of the delicacy required.
I don’t know how long it took, but I was nearing completion when the door to the room slammed open. I jumped in my seat and slammed abruptly back into myself—with the transfer unfinished.
Dr. Washington roared from the doorway. “Get your hands off my daughter, you perverted demon!”
I yelled right back, “You idiot! If you hurt her, I’ll make sure you hurt even worse!”
Perhaps that wasn’t the best approach to take. He charged into the room at me. I dimly noted that Dr. Anderson was outside picking himself up off the floor while Tom charged in after Dr. Washington.
Of course, an outraged father beat a professional orderly any day. Mr. Washington got to me before Tom could intervene. It wasn’t really a thorough beating. I’ve had one of
those. He just slammed his fist in my face, and I went down faster than a twenty-dollar hooker.
When the darkness receded, I lay on the floor with a splitting headache and Dr. Anderson leaning over me.
Anderson’s face showed a nice baby bruise around one cheekbone. I could tell it would be a real shiner when it grew up.
I stared into his cool blue eyes and ignored the hand he proffered. Instead, I asked, “Do you ever get the feeling that the universe is telling you something?” He nodded. “Me, too, and right now it’s telling me ‘and stay down’!”
A month ago, I would never have dreamed that I’d pass out, or get knocked out, so many times in my entire life! My head hurt.
Missing Persons
Anderson pulled me up to a sit and I gently felt my bruised face. “Who asked that asshole to the party, anyway?”
Anderson sort of half scowled, favoring the bruised part of his own face. “I’m afraid that was me, Finn.”
“What the hell for? I never pegged you as the stupid type.” My outburst caught us both by surprise.
Before I could apologize he said, “Finn, he’s Jen’s father. He needed to know where she was.”
I shook my head but stopped as my brain sloshed around. As soon as the nausea-inducing waves faded away, I asked, “Where is Jen? Is she okay? Did it work? Is she back?”
“She’s with her father, and I don’t know if anything changed. She didn’t wake before he took her.” He offered me his hand again and pulled me up from the floor. “Let’s get some ice on that bruise. It’s going to be a beauty.”
I waved him away weakly. “I’ve had worse. I’ve got to see Jen. I don’t know if I finished bringing her back and I don’t know what that means. What if she’s still not whole? Damn it, I have to see her.” I tried to blink away the vertigo that suddenly hit me and stumbled out the door.
Holly tackled me around the waist. I grabbed the door frame before I could go down. She was crying. Between sobs, she choked out an apology.
“Oh Finn! I couldn’t stop him! I’m so sorry, but he was so big! I tried—”
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