“It’s best if you straddle my legs.” He laughed. “I’m not a pervert, I promise. This is purely platonic.”
“No funny business,” she cautioned as she sat in his lap, curling her feet cat like alongside his thighs. She was sure there’d be a bulge in his pants, and was somewhat puzzled when there was none. His expression was impassive, yet his eyes underwent several subtle mutations that were startling, yet at the same time, Althea was unsure she really saw what was happening. The dim light plays tricks, she told herself. But Lindt is an odd bird. The oddest bird I’ve ever known. And somehow I don’t think I know just how strange he really is.
Lindt placed his hand on either side of her face, letting his fingers slip into her soft curls. Smiling faintly, he tilted her head toward his, and they touched foreheads.
Althea heard herself gasp as they were propelled out of their bodies. She looked down and saw to her surprise the house, the little store, and the forest surrounding them falling away at a terrifying rate of speed.
**What’s happening?**
**Wait,** Lindt replied.
Seconds later, the world itself dropped away, the moon skimming past like a skiff on a lake as they soared through the solar system. Asteroids and other space debris tumbled away as the sun and its planets receded into pinpoints of light. How can we breathe? Althea wondered. There’s no air out here. At least that’s what my science teacher told me. The only thing beyond Pluto is dust, radiation and...demons, Mrs. Walters had said...
Mr. Lindt laughed.**If only it were that simple,** he responded.
**We haven’t left the porch, have we?** Althea asked as they rocketed past unfathomable columns of green glowing plasma.
**Our bodies are still where we left them,** Lindt replied, amused. **Our souls, however, are uncounted light years away.**
**Are we really in outer space, or are you just making all of this up?**
**Define real.**
**You know what I mean. **
**Yes, we really are out here**
Althea was stunned to silence.
Galaxies, nebulae, and strange gaseous formations Althea could barely comprehend appeared, and then faded from view. The universe itself receded until it became one long thin green-gold string dancing in a miasma of other strings. Some were greenish bronze, some were white or silver, others blue. Some were colors she couldn’t fathom, and weren’t sure if they were colors at all, but vibrating strands of sound masquerading as light. All of the threads pulsed and hummed; writhed and twisted until they tied into an eternal tangle of knots, twists and loops which resembled a slowly rotating figure eight.
**What are those things? **
**The word we use for them is incomprehensible to the Human mind.**
**But that green string we just came out of, was that the universe?**
**One of an infinite number, yes.**
**I thought there was only one.**
**Yes, you would think that. Oh don’t be offended, you simply have no way of knowing. You and your people can only see the thinnest edge of reality; the way someone looks at a razor’s edge yet does not see the entire blade. Even this,** Lindt’s arm swept across the panorama of space, **is only a fragment of what truly exists. Your mind would burn out if you looked beyond what I am showing you now.**
**We’re not the only ones living on it, are we? Our own universe I mean.**
**No. The All is generous when it comes to creating life.**
**And all those other strands? They’re universes too, aren’t they?**
**In a manner of speaking. In the future your scientists will refer to them as branes.**
**Brains?**
**No, like membranes. They’ll be right, but terribly wrong too. Disastrously wrong, in fact.**
**I don’t understand.**
**I know.**
Althea tried to absorb this information and found her mind bogging down. **Where are we? **Althea asked. **This place outside those—those—branes?**
Lindt replied. **We call it The Forever.**
**I don’t... I just can’t...**
**I know. You cannot comprehend it. Don’t try. Your mind would disintegrate if you tried,** Lindt replied, his thoughts tinged with humor. **Besides, that’s not what I wanted to show you. What I want to show you is there, just above us. Now, look up and gaze upon the only thing that is greater than yourself.**
Althea looked up and saw to her astonishment a cone of the purest white light she’d ever seen piercing the blackness. Tears of joy spilled down her cheeks, and with the joy came a yearning so powerful she couldn’t resist. She felt herself pushing away from Lindt, to free herself from the bonds of flesh, bone and blood and dissolve into the perfection of the great awareness flowing from the light.
Lindt’s hand closed over the back of her head. He pushed her face into his shoulder. **Don’t look for long; otherwise the yearning will never cease.**
**What is that?** She asked, averting her gaze.
**The All,** Lindt replied.
**You mean God don’t you? **
**It is far beyond what you comprehend as a god, but yes, it has been called that. Others know it as The Supreme Awareness. Or the Great Compassion. Some call it The Great Beginning and End. My race knows it simply as The All.**
**Then tell me...**
**There is nothing to tell.**
**Is it a part of this place?**
**Yes and no. It’s from beyond and yet has a foothold here.**
**You mean there’s something else beyond here?**
**Only the gateway that you see. The All is just beyond it.**
**It’s...It’s...**
**I know,** Lindt laughed. **It’s not exactly what they taught you in Sunday school, is it?**
**Not even close.**
**And yet, there’s more.**
Before Althea could ask, Lindt carried them further away. Overwhelmed, Althea burrowed her face into his shoulder once more. The multiverse fell back until nothing remained but a faint glimmer of light. Above them the great eye of The All gazed down upon them.
Lindt stopped. **Look now.**
She shook her head.
**Come now,** he assured her. **You’ve come this far. Why not see the rest?**
Althea opened her eyes. She gasped. Surrounding them was a seething undulating black-purple mass that emitted a strange dull light of its own. It spun, swirled and pulsed, emitting a malevolence so thick Althea could feel it pressing against her skin. It was too real for her; too horrible and too sinister. Terrified, Althea closed her eyes and held Lindt close.
**It’s evil.**
**I know, yet evil doesn’t come close to describing it does it? Evil gives it a conscious, a purpose. This has neither. Not in any way that you could understand. Those like myself refer to it as the Remnant. It isn’t life as anyone knows, but in an instinctive way it has a sentience all it’s own. It has been trying to put out the eye of The All since its inception. Even though that is its desire, it never can. It cannot bear the light, you see, so it can never come close enough to cause harm. It can, however harm the All’s minions.**
**Which came first, God or chaos? **
**No one knows. It happened before beginningless time.**
**And you’re somehow a part of all of this.
**Yes.**
**So when you said you were in construction you meant—**
**—yes. I thought it was very clever of me.**
**What are you, exactly?**
**You were correct in your earlier assessment. I am not a man, nor am I an alien. An alien implies that I reside on a specific world, which I do not.**.
**You’re an angel then.**
**I am incomprehensible to the current level of human understanding.**
Althea soaked it in. **Yet you’re real, and solid. I can touch you, hear your voice, and see your face.**
**All of which is simply a mask.**
**Can you die?**
**Yes, under the correct cond
itions I can be destroyed. But it wouldn’t be permanent. I would absorb into the vast expanse of the All and be reborn. Just as you will some day. Just as every sentient being who comes into the presence of the All when their time comes.**
**This is just too much.**
**I know, yet I have a reason for showing you all of this. Do you feel up to it or are you completely overwhelmed?**
**Show me more.**
**Very well.**
She felt them descend and once again the multiverse came into view.
**See those two old strings swaying close to one another? They’re about to have a baby together, then they will die. Watch.** Lindt said.
Althea looked down at the two strands that Lindt had indicated and watched as the thick dully glowing filaments bumped into each other. The subsequent bump produced an incredible explosion of light and energy. An instant later, a small thin violet ribbon formed. The two older universes disintegrated like burning firecracker fuses.
**This is how it’s done,** Lindt explained. **That tiny strand is a brand new universe.**
**Just like that?**
**Just like that,** he said, his mental voice filled with warmth and humor. **Of course, some of the multiverses you see are uncounted eons old, whereas others, are newly born. Like the one we just saw.**
**Then they all have life spans.**
**Yes, they do.**
**And the two old strands that burned up, they died, didn’t they?**
**Yes.**
**And all the people living on them, they died too?**
**One was already devoid of life, and the other...yes, I am sad to say that nothing survived.**
**Was there any way to save them?**
**No, I’m afraid not.**
**And you and your kind create these universes?**
**No, but we do help them along. We’re something like midwives.**
**Oh**
Althea scanned the scene below. **Where’s my universe?**
Lindt pointed. **That one is yours, the green-gold string expanding between those two big gray ones. Those are your parent branes. They’ve created countless numbers of universes together. You’ve lived and died an unimaginable amount of times, Althea. Just like the universes we see. Once upon a time, you walked on a different world and gazed up at the stars, learned and loved, and died, only to be reborn again and again on different worlds, in different universes, in different times.**
**Then I could have met you before.**
**Yes, many times.**
**But you said earlier that I’d never see you again.**
**I’ll see you again, perhaps not in this particular lifetime, but in another.**
She looked at the short thin filament expanding between the two dull pulsing cords.
**I can’t imagine.**
**I know.**
**Can I go back in time and find out?**
**Yes, but it’d be a pointless exercise. There’s wisdom, you see, in not being able to remember your former lives. Imagine the yearning in your heart now, in this one lifetime. How could you endure the ache and sorrow from recalling countless other lifetimes?**
**But still—**
**But still,** Lindt laughed. **Human nature demands that opportunity, doesn’t it?**
Althea gazed back out at the undulating purple-black mass. **That thing out there. It scares me worse than anything I’ve ever seen.**
**There’s nothing to fear. It’s merely the aftereffect of creation.**
**But it’s after you.**
**It’s after all of us.**
**And yet you tell me that there’s nothing to fear.**
**That is correct, yes.**
**But—**
**Hush, now, it’s time to go home.**
He pushed her away gently and she felt herself falling back into her body. “This,” he whispered, “is why I must not stay here. Why I can never take Cally away from the people she loves. I cannot risk her precious life because I was selfish to think I could love and marry and have a normal life like ordinary people.”
“And those creatures, those shadows—”
“The Remnants? Yes. They will destroy you and your mother and aunt just as surely as they will destroy me. If I let them. Which I certainly will not.”
“But what about God? The All as you called it? Won’t he interfere?”
“No. Because to interfere will destroy the natural progression of the Omniverse. Everything must proceed as it was intended.”
“But the shadow...what did you call them? Remnants.”
“Do not have the same kind of power. And their influence on Earth is limited, yet it is enough. It is enough.”
“Won’t they come anyway? To get any information we have about you?”
“No. Once I’m gone, the Remnants will lose interest in you. That’s one of their few saving graces, short memories.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she whispered.
“I know, but it’s time. See?” He pointed toward the driveway and the black sedan that arrived weeks before and dropped him off at their doorstep seemed to appear from nowhere. He kissed her on the forehead and said, “I’ll never forget you.”
“Please, please don’t go. Stay just a little while longer.”
“I’m not going far, not tonight.” He stood, gave her a slight smile and retrieved his carpet bag and brown paper sack. He handed the sack to her and said, “This is for you.”
“What is it?” She asked.
Mr. Lindt smiled. “A tiny bit of myself. Consider it something to remember me by.” With that, he kissed her lightly on the top of the head, and gathering up his possessions, walked out to the waiting car, got in and drove away.
Althea knelt on the veranda’s deck, clutching the crumpled bag to her chest, and watched as the car disappeared into the night. For the second time in two weeks, she realized she was crying.
Chapter Fourteen
After watching the sedan leave with the closest thing she ever had to a father inside it, Althea returned to her room, dragging her knapsack behind her. She tossed the paper sack Lindt had given her onto the bed. She looked at the bag, considered opening it, but knew if she did she would cry and not be able to stop.
Instead Althea flopped down on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor. I have never felt so alone in my life as I do right now, she thought. Her eyes were drawn to the small stack of books piled neatly underneath her vanity. She uttered a deep shuddering sigh, her shoulders quivering despite the hot humid predawn air. She slipped on her shoes, picked up the books and went outside.
She walked around to the back of the house, down a small trail which rose and fell over a small hill. Beneath the hill was the household burn pile. She stood before it, contemplating, her lower lip trembling, a knot the size of a a small pony in her throat.
I’m not going to cry like a big stupid baby, she told herself. I just won’t do it.
But she did as she dropped the books on top of a heap of cinders, fished out a book of matches from her skirt pocket that she had snitched from the mantle and set the books on fire. The paper caught, and a small fire blossomed. The pages that she had anchored her dreams to curled to black ash, rimmed only by a red gold thread of flame. It reminded her of what Lindt showed her in his on strange and miraculous way. That’s all we are, she thought as she watched the sparks flicker and die in the early dawn light. We’re nothing more than sparks riding on the wind. There is no point to anything. Everything lives then it turns to ash, only to be reborn like the phoenix over and over again, and for what? To hurt and yearn and love and be unloved in an endless dance that has no meaning?
She reached out with her mind, searching for her friend, her teacher, for the only man with whom she remotely had a connection. Without realizing it, Lindt had become someone she could lean on, someone she could trust. Someone who was wise and kind and, most of all, someone who could truly understand her for whom she really was.
Damn you, she thought, feel
ing deeply angry. Damn you, old man. What good was it to show me all of those things and leave me here alone to face my mother and all those people in a few hours?
Althea had hoped and yet had not, that he was somehow still tucked away in her mind. But he was not. That link was severed as soon as he stepped into the sedan. She searched her thoughts, her feelings, and found only an empty place where he once resided in her heart.
She sat on her heels, her arms wrapped around her belly, and wept.
Althea didn’t know how long she sat that way, weeping, grieving: over the loss of her childhood; for Lindt, who couldn’t stay but was on the lam from forces she couldn’t comprehend; for a life that he showed her but didn’t stand by her, to give her the strength and courage to go through with the plans she made. While they sat on the porch and talked, everything seemed so reasonable, so easy and effortless to do. Now that the sun was just beginning to give the rich violet sky a pinkish tinge, Althea wasn’t sure she could go through with it. If only Lindt had stayed just a little while longer, she mourned. Just long enough to stand with me when I say no to everyone in a few hours time, I could be strong. I could do it. What’s a few more hours? Why couldn’t he have stayed with me just that much longer?
“I need you,” she whispered. “I need you now more than I’ve ever needed anyone in my life.”
A profound coldness pierced her. Althea looked up at a predawn sky that was still heavy with stars. She wiped the goo from her eyes and stood, her calves tingling from crouching for so long. Her mind was clear, her eyes sharp. No sound came from the forest and swamps beyond. Even the plaintive cries of bachelor birds were silenced. Even though she couldn’t see anything abnormal, Althea knew she was being watched.
The fire was almost out. A few small flames licked the backs of scorched book covers. But something very strange was happening to the fire. It looked as if it were turning into a liquid. Startled, Althea realized that the nearby grass, heavy with dew, was freezing. Her breath came out in startled frozen puffs. She shivered, stared down at the fire again, shocked when she realized that the flames, as well as the embers beneath, had frozen. She bent down, and broke off a piece of a flame, hunkered down and considered it.
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