Flux

by Beth Goobie

  Slowly Nellie unwrapped her arms from her knees and knelt facing the twin moons. It had been three weeks since her last remembering session, and in spite of the friendship she’d received from Deller and his mother, there was still an ache in her to be touched by her own mother’s hand. Hugging herself tightly, she began to rock. “Blessed Ivana,” she murmured. The words spoke themselves deep into her mind and she closed her eyes, imagining the Goddess’ hands atop a church spire, high above Dorniver’s roofs. “Blessed Ivana,” she sighed. “Mother of all mothers, mother of all sad and lonely children, come to me, come.”

  Hunched and swaying, Nellie forced herself deeper and deeper into herself, digging into her mind for that moment when worlds connected and she could find her way through. Old women, she thought furiously. Think of their stinky garlicky mouths and the inside of a church, smelly with incense and old carpets. An ache started in her knees and they creaked protestingly but still she rocked, pushing against some invisible inner barrier. “Blessed Ivana, blessed Ivana,” she whispered, but all that came to her was the loneliness creeping up her arms and the hot burn of her knees against the ground. What was wrong? Why wasn’t her mother coming to her? Was Ivana angry with Her humble devotee?

  Placing the heels of her hands against her closed eyelids, Nellie pressed hard. Suffer, she had to suffer the way the Goddess suffered for Her people. Surely then Ivana would grant a lowly request to call one dead mother from the grave. Nellie, sweet darling, her mother would whisper—

  “Nellie,” murmured a voice, and soft fingertips grazed her forehead. Yearning pierced Nellie, she cupped her hands and lifted them pleadingly the way the Goddess did. Her mother was coming back to her, was even now descending onto this riverbank—

  “Look at me, bozo,” commanded the voice, and Nellie’s eyes flew open to see her double in the gold-brocaded dress standing before her with a weasely smirk on her face. Instantly she was on her feet, her claws out and ready to lunge, but the other girl simply waved and faded into thin air. Breathing heavily, Nellie sat down with a thump, and sure enough her double reappeared, wearing the exact same smirk.

  “What did you do that for?” Nellie hissed. “I was remembering.”

  Her double shrugged. “Thought it would be interesting.”

  “It’s not interesting,” Nellie snapped. “Interrupting people’s hearts like that.”

  “Keep that in mind next time you see the possibilities,” replied her double coolly. “Besides, you don’t need to do it anymore. You’ve got someone else now.”

  “Doesn’t mean I’ve got to forget my real mother,” Nellie spat.

  “I didn’t tell you to forget her,” said her double. “I said you don’t need her anymore. Let her rest, like the dead should.”

  “What about you?” asked Nellie, pointing. “You wear the remembering dress all the time.”

  For a moment Nellie’s double regarded her impassively. Then, in a single movement, she shucked the dress and stood naked, holding it out to her. “Here,” she said quietly. “Take it back. But I can already tell you it won’t work. I’ve tried and tried, but she doesn’t come. We don’t need her anymore. That’s why she isn’t coming to you. Now that you’ve found love in this world, she can rest in hers.”

  Sinking her face into the dress, Nellie stroked it like a live thing. It was true, what her double was saying—she could feel it, some kind of longing slid out of her and gone. “But isn’t it evil?” she whispered, breathing in the dress’s musky scent. “To let her go like that? To forget her? Think of her all alone in the dark, suffering without any love. Think of how she died.”

  “She’s not dying anymore,” her double said softly. “That’s finished. She stopped suffering a long time ago. Now she needs to rest, and for us to let her go.”

  With a heaving sigh, Nellie lay down on the riverbank and curled up with the dress. An enormous exhaustion settled around her, curling up like a second presence, and for a moment she seemed to feel a hand pressed to her forehead and the quietest of voices whispering, Nellie Joan. Goodbye, my sweet Nellie Joan. Then it was gone—the presence, the great gray exhaustion and that moment when invisible doors opened and worlds connected. Hugging the dress tighter, Nellie licked tears from her mouth. “I’ve still got my twin,” she said thickly. “Nellie Joanne.”

  “Me too,” said her double, sitting beside her.

  “You knew,” Nellie accused, lifting her head to glare at the hunched figure. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”

  Her double shrugged. “Something you had to figure out in your own skin.”

  “Thanks a lot, Miss Snotty Ass.” With a sniff, Nellie started to get to her feet.

  “Okay,” her double sighed heavily. “I’ll tell you this much. Nellie Joanne used to live with me until I started school. That’s when they took her away, but I still saw her at training sessions.”

  Nellie sat down eagerly. “Black Core training sessions?”

  Her double shot her a quick glance but remained silent. Nellie’s eyes slitted, and then she blinked them into a wide-eyed innocence. “Why can’t I remember her?” she wheedled, trying a different tack. “I can’t remember even one little thing. When I saw her name on the file, my head felt like it was blowing up, but I wasn’t surprised, neither. Somehow I knew, but I just couldn’t remember.”

  Her double nodded.

  “D’you think she can remember me?” Nellie asked pleadingly. “No,” her double said firmly. “She’s fixed, even worse than you. Remember, there’s no flux in the Interior.”

  In bewildered silence, Nellie stared at her double. “But not all the levels are fixed,” she said finally. “I saw Nellie Joanne in the crystal level, and she wasn’t fixed there. If we went into the Interior and found her, maybe we could unfix her and bring her to live in the Outbacks.”

  “You’d need a lot of flux for that,” her double said darkly. “The skins are like stone there. And anyway, you’ve lost your identity tattoo.”

  Nellie shrugged carelessly. “I’ll get a pen and draw one on.”

  “There was an implant under it,” said her double. “Remember the bump under the cat’s head? It had all your vital statistics and case history. Without it, they’d catch you at the first checkpoint.”

  “Well, we have to do something,” Nellie snapped. “What if I just thought myself there, like they do in the crystal level?”

  “Can’t,” said her double immediately. “The vibes are slow here, so it takes a lot longer between thinking about doing something, and then doing it. In the crystal level it’s so quick, you just think something and it happens.”

  A weasely expression crossed Nellie’s face. “What if I shapeshifted into a crystal girl and thought myself there?” she asked cagily.

  “Uh-uh,” said her double. “When you’ve got flux you can shape-shift into any form, but you can’t hold it. The reason you stayed in crystal form in the Temple was because of your mind link to your crystal double. That’s broken now.”

  “Oh.” Moodily Nellie stared at the twin moons. “That mind link is why the crystal people all think at each other instead of talking, isn’t it?” she asked finally. “The vibrations are so quick that by the time someone thinks a thought, it’s already spoken into everyone else’s mind.”

  Her double nodded and Nellie shuddered. “No wonder they’re all the same,” she grumbled. “No one can have private thoughts.”

  “It’s different,” shrugged her double.

  “Yeah, but they don’t think outside themselves,” Nellie protested. “Deller and his mom were dying and they didn’t even care. I know they helped us in the Temple, but it was evil of them not to care when people were dying right in front of them in their own level.”

  “Maybe,” said her double. “But maybe they aren’t afraid of death the way you are. And maybe they just don’t know any different. None of them travel to other levels, remember?”

  Sitting up, Nellie stared at the twin moons. “What are the
levels?” she asked huskily. “D’you think that all of them put together are one big ... thing? A kind of oneness like in the crystal level, but a oneness that lets each level be different? And inside each level, it lets each one of us be different too? At least in the slower levels.”

  “Unless your level gets fixed,” said her double.

  “But who’s fixing the levels?” Nellie asked. “The Goddess?”

  “No way,” her double said emphatically. “You’ll find out someday, when you’re ready.”

  Quiet relief flooded Nellie. She’d learned enough lately to last her for a good long while. “I bet that’s why those men jumped Fen in the tenth level,” she said eagerly. “Like you said, everything after the tenth isn’t fixed, and they probably didn’t want him to find that out. But they didn’t come from the eleventh level, their vibrations were way too fast. Were they from a floater level, like you?”

  Her double shook her head. “It’s something else, something I can’t tell you about. You don’t know enough yet, and it would bust your brain.”

  “Oh.” Nellie let out a small hissing laugh. “You’ve busted it a couple times already, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  Her double snorted, her eyes dancing across Nellie’s, and got to her feet. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “The others, y’know.” Her eyes strayed longingly over the gold-brocaded dress and then she said quietly, “You did good in the Temple. You listened.”

  Brief brilliance sang in Nellie’s throat. “Here,” she said gruffly, holding out the gold-brocaded dress. “Take it. I’ve got other clothes.”

  Her double accepted the dress, running a hand over the gold embroidery. “I had my own, but I threw it away when the remembering stopped working,” she said slowly. “I kept this one mostly to bug you, but somehow I got used to wearing it.”

  “It’s like a song,” Nellie said wistfully. “It sings. About her.”

  “Yeah,” sighed her double. Sliding on the dress, she stood glimmering in the moonlight. “You’ve decided, haven’t you?” she said. “You’re going back to the Interior to find Nellie Joanne.”

  At her double’s words a vivid flash of fear hit Nellie, and then she nodded. Her double sighed knowingly.

  “Take Deller with you,” she said. “He’s got sense, more than you do, and he’ll have connections there through the Jinnet. And whatever you do, make sure you listen.” She stared at Nellie, her face earnest with moonlight. “Listen to the skins,” she said. “Listen to your own skin. Can you hear it?”

  Reaching out she took Nellie’s hand, and Nellie felt herself washed with a liquid wave of sound. Voices swirled through her, a huge crying out, and for a moment every molecule in the air seemed to open and she was looking into every level at once. Countless girls with sarpa eyes stared back at her, the closest dressed in yellow T-shirts and blue shorts, those further out furred like animals or with wings on their backs. One spiraled gently like smoke and another seemed to be made of fire, flickering in all the colors of thought.

  Without warning, the girl in the gold-brocaded dress sang a shrill clear note and stepped directly into Nellie. Then, in a rapid flickering sequence, the rest of her doubles also broke into song and stepped into and through her. Suddenly Nellie found herself shapeshifting through mad gorgeous shapes—gargoyles and angels, a girl who flowed like water and another who seemed to be composed of the scent of a susurra flower, a great flying serpent, and then for a moment, a glittering figure made of a myriad brilliant crystals. With a triumphant hoot, Nellie finally realized what shapeshifting was.

  “It’s love,” she bellowed gleefully. “It’s all the levels reaching out and touching each other with love.”

  Gradually the endless sequence of doubles stopped passing through her and retreated into their own levels. The singing voices faded and the air closed into itself again. Bit by bit Nellie felt the molecules of her body reassert themselves, first her bones, then her heart and lungs, her nervous system and finally her skin. Opening her eyes, she saw the girl in the gold-brocaded dress standing beside her, still holding her hand.

  “Now that,” said her double with a grin, “is what I call flux.”

  About to respond, Nellie was interrupted by the cracking of twigs and whirled to see Deller coming toward them through the bush. A grin crossed his face as he saw her, and then he fixed on the girl in the gold-brocaded dress and went bug-eyed.

  “Hey!” he yelped, coming to an abrupt halt. “Are you a double?”

  Absolute silence descended onto the girl standing beside Nellie, and she gave him an icy glare.

  “Uh, Deller,” Nellie said hastily. “It’s kind of, well ... relative, y’know?”

  “Relative?” he asked, confused. “You mean she’s your cousin?”

  “No.” Nellie slitted her eyes, scowled and fidgeted. “I mean, like ... Well okay, I’m her double.”

  The air relaxed as the girl in the gold-brocaded dress gave an approving nod.

  “Oh.” Deller’s eyes darted between them. “Yeah sure, I get it. So, does that mean we’re in another level?” He glanced around eagerly. “Where’s my double?”

  “We’re not in another level,” Nellie said impatiently. “And if you shut up and don’t ask too many questions, she might help us find Fen.”

  A very weasely expression crossed Deller’s face and he glanced quickly at Nellie’s double. “D’you know any easy ways into the Interior?” he asked.

  Relief hit Nellie, so enormous she almost sank to her knees. As usual, Deller was way ahead of her. She wasn’t even going to have to ask him if he would come along on her search for Nellie Joanne.

  “You can’t go through the skins,” her double said quickly. “A watch has been placed on them and even if there wasn’t, the skins are too tough to get through in the Interior. You’ll have to get there the normal way.” She turned toward Nellie, her gray sarpa eyes intent. “You don’t know,” she said quietly, “how important this is. How important you are—more even than the rest of your doubles. You have to listen, to the skins, to your own skin.”

  Utterly bewildered, Nellie stared at her double. Their eyes locked and then she heard a voice shimmer deep within her mind. You’re not half bad, y’ know,it said lightly, for a double. My slowest double, that is. A dense brief humming started up around the girl in the gold-brocaded dress, she grinned a fierce weasely grin, and was gone.

  “Hey!” Deller yelped, stepping forward and running his hands through the air. “Is there a gate here?”

  “She doesn’t need gates,” said Nellie, staring at the place her double had been standing. What in the Goddess’s name had the girl meant when she’d said Nellie was the most important double? What had happened to everything being relative? “She won’t show me how she does it without them though,” she added glumly. “She’s kind of a crabby person, actually.”

  “Well.” Deller grinned at her. “She is your double.”

  Nellie slitted her eyes at him, but he ignored her, settling down on the riverbank and pointing west. “See that?” he asked.

  Sitting beside him Nellie glanced in the direction he was pointing. “See what?” she asked grumpily.

  “That constellation,” he said. “It’s the Five Children, the ones who didn’t get turned into moons and ended up living normal lives. It’s sitting right over the Interior. All we have to do is follow it, and it’ll take us where we need to go. It’ll be like a promise. We’re going to find them alive—Fen and Nellie Joanne.”

  Nellie sat watching the scattering of tiny stars, her heart thundering like an ache, like anger, a knife-edged knowing she couldn’t put into words. What they were about to do was absolute foolishness. It was sliding off the cliff edge of hope. It could steal breath and end heartbeats. And it would take her straight into her most frightening memories.

  “What about your mom?” she whispered, hugging her knees. “She told me no more running off. And she’ll be too scared to let you go.”

  “We’ll have
to sneak off,” Deller said glumly. “I don’t like it, but I don’t know any other way. We’ll hang around a couple of days when we get to Shor to help her get settled, then take off. Lucky for us Shor’s closer to the Interior than Dorniver.” He sighed, rubbing his face with both hands. “I know she told you to stick around, but you’re not taking off really, if you’re with me. She’ll be mad. She’ll be out of her head with worry. But she’ll understand why we went. And think how happy she’ll be when she sees us coming back with Fen.” He stared up at the Constellation of the Five Children, transfixed. “It’ll be worth every minute of her worrying, she’ll see.”

  “Yeah.” Doubt still hung over Nellie like a thick veil. “But what if ... “ She paused, swallowing.

  “What if what?” asked Deller, turning to look at her.

  “Well ... “ Again Nellie paused. “What if what the doubled priest said in the Temple is true?” she burst out unhappily. “What if I am half sarpa?”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” shrugged Deller. “My dad had sarpa in him too, remember? Lucky for Fen it all went to him.”

  An astonished look crossed Nellie’s face, and he leaned toward her, bumping her shoulder with his own. “The way I see it,” he continued, “if you’re half sarpa, you’ll be able to figure out what they’re likely to do next. We’re bound to run into a few of them again somewhere, especially since they’re looking for you. And I bet they’ve got something to do with whatever’s happening to Fen and your sister. Plus, being half sarpa, you can do things the rest of us can’t. I mean, Nellie—, “ Deller gave a short laugh. “When those guys took off through that laboratory door, it wasn’t the human part of you they were running away from. Anyway,” he said gruffly. “Your heart’s all human, I know that for sure.”

  Suddenly Nellie found herself engulfed in a tight hug, Deller’s heart thundering against her own. Just as quickly he withdrew, and they sat breathing rapidly, staring out over the quiet rippling water.

  “Well,” said Nellie, her hands fluttering nervously, patting her short bristly hair, her face, her throat. “Well.”