“Several difficulties,” the Gautama began counting on his fingers. “One, while we can follow an individual soul, we do not trace its prior moves through the Wheel of Life. Two, it will not be able to take the software with it, so it will have stowed it somewhere safe. The good news is that it will continue, for reasons it cannot understand, to return to the place that the software is stored time and again. It will be necessary for someone to enter the Wheel of Life and pursue this soul until it is again found.”
“Uh, I’m afraid that would be me.” St. Peter looked about reluctantly. “I don’t want to go, but I think because the Hungry Ghost is an incarnation of me, I have the best chance of following it. But won’t time be an issue, we cannot wait for many lives to pass. We only have two days.”
“Oh,” Gautama reached into his robe and pulled out a smartphone. “That is no problem. Ananda wrote me very nice little app for that. I can program you to follow the Hungry Ghost, and the slider will let me accelerate the turns of the Wheel, making him experience multiple reincarnations very quickly. Hopefully, you can find the software in time that way. Now, where is that app?” He scrolled side to side through multiple screens of bright icons.
Eric slapped Peter’s shoulder. “I’m there with you. Two sets of eyes are better than one.”
“That is a good idea,” the Buddha said without looking up. Concentrating harder on his phone.
“And me,” Valerie wasn’t sure why she volunteered. Was it her urge to find the software, or did she simply want to accompany Eric, her only anchor in the storm that was the present madness?
“No!” Eric made it a flat statement.
“What do you mean, no?”
“It could be dangerous.”
Valerie dropped his hand and turned to glare at him. “And?”
Eric clamped his jaw shut, clearly realizing where he’d accidentally gone.
“Here I was,” Valerie growled out from a deep core of righteous indignation. “Naively thinking that there was a chance of something between us. That you might actually feel some of the things for me that I am feeling for you. An interest. A potential.”
And though both were true, that didn’t stop the steamroller of her tongue once the words had started flowing.
“But instead I find that you think I need protection from… you don’t even know what.” Her voice was strident enough that both the tea merchant and his son were edging back away from her within the space of the tiny stall.
“I—” Eric protested but she cut him off.
“Have nothing you can say in your defense. You—”
“Ah!” the Buddha exclaimed. “Here it is!” He punched his finger at the phone and St. Peter and Eric were gone with the sound of a distinct pop.
Chapter 30
“What?!” Valerie wobbled on the bench and Michelle rested a hand on her shoulder to steady her.
“Where did they go?” the woman was looking about the tea stall frantically. Under the bench, behind the tea merchant. There weren’t all that many places in the tiny tent.
Michelle tightened her grasp to keep Valerie from running out of the stall looking for them.
The Buddha was consulting his phone. “I set them to follow this Ron Schmidt soul at the fastest turnover rate that our system will allow.”
“But—” Valerie still hadn’t grasped that they were gone.
Michelle considered. While it might have been nice to make a final plan before the men had been sent on their way, this was probably what they would have ultimately done. She decided against second guessing the Buddha.
The tea merchant hadn’t even batted an eye, and served the Buddha, Valerie, and herself, with tea. A small steel cup, placed in a small steel bowl. There was some trick to catching the thin edges of the cup on the tough skin at the thumb and finger joints, then pouring it back and forth between the small bowl and the cup. But she’d never gotten the hang of it. Gautama made it look so damned easy.
Valerie did it right almost absentmindedly, making Michelle feel even more of a klutz. So, she watched carefully and tried it for the hundredth time. And, finally, actually got it right. As if being around Valerie made her calmer and more competent. That’s what friends were supposed to do. Had she ever befriended a mortal before? This was definitely new for her.
The sweet liquid, smelling of tea, cloves, and cinnamon, cascaded easily back and forth in a pale brown flow. The more she poured back and forth, the more it cooled until she could finally sip from the cup without burning herself. The milky sweetness coated her tongue pleasantly and calmed her nerves further.
She really hadn’t been ready for all the changes of the last few days. The status quo had been making her exhausted and cranky, but it did have the advantage of being the status quo. Well, she sipped some more of the tea, if she were going to actively participate in the problem, she needed to make sure that Heaven and Hell survived until the software had been recovered.
“Gautama,” Michelle looked over at the Buddha, who had been sitting patiently, apparently at perfect peace with the moment. “I think that Valerie and I had better be getting back to check on the situation. We need to get back to where we started.”
The Buddha had already set down his tea. He cheerily waved goodbye to them and punched a button on his phone.
Michelle dropped her tea, but before it could spill into her lap, she was no longer there.
Chapter 31
Eric landed on all six feet.
There was a small pop of displaced air as Peter appeared beside him.
Before Eric could see what was going on he was bowled head over heels, tramped on, and slammed into a dirt wall a dozen times. He was finally kicked off into an empty corridor. He stood, shaking his head to clear it. A moment ago he’d been arguing with Valerie in an Indian tea stall.
“Hi,” a gigantic black ant, as big as he was, jumped into the mouth of the side-tunnel. Eric backed away raising his forelegs until he realized it was Peter. And that he himself was an ant.
He would have sagged to the ground if he’d had less than six legs. “We’re ants.”
Peter nodded and twitched his antennas together in what looked like a laugh, “You’re quick, you are.”
“Not quick enough to join that,” he walked forward until they stood abdomen to abdomen and watched the flood of bodies going by.
“So we’re going to get reincarnated into whatever form your Hungry Ghost twin Ron is being reborn as?”
Peter shrugged a couple of shoulders. “I guess. I’m new to this as well. Let’s find him.”
A gap appeared in the constantly flowing bustle of ants before them.
“Jump now!” Peter leapt forward.
Eric followed instantly, impressed at the power of having six legs.
The noise of everybody running along together and bumping into each other was deafening. He jostled closer to Peter as they wound along the twisting passages, “I always thought ants were quiet.”
“Try turning off your antenna.”
He tried to think of how to do that with no success. When he decided to simply stop listening, it worked. The silence settled over him like a quilt. But with the sound went whatever sight had been allowing him to see in the dark tunnels. Then he was slammed into a dirt wall again and turned his antenna back on in time to see the hordes as they trampled over him, again.
Eric huddled in an unused corner for a moment. He certainly didn’t want to picture Valerie getting run over like that. He felt at least a little vindicated in trying to protect her. Too bad she hadn’t appreciated it. Not even a little.
Peter somehow circled back to him, making the corner quite crowded.
“Great idea, Peter. Next time, you can turn off your antenna and see how you like it.” Eric shook his head to clear it and looked again at the flowing stream of workers rushing frantically by. �
��Where is he?”
A lone ant was hauling a huge piece of something. “Hey, that’s Ron.”
“How do you know?” The ant that was St. Peter was looking in totally the wrong direction.
“The two of you look exactly alike,” Eric aimed him toward his twin. “The software made him in your image, so that has to be Ron.”
They both jumped out and grabbed onto the large flat object. It was the only way not to lose Ron in the crowd. His legs were barely strong enough to hold on, so Eric bit down on the thing as well. The salt tasted wonderful, “Hey. It’s a potato chip. I love potato chips.” He started to chew off a small piece.
Ron suddenly yelled at him, “Stop that. The queen’ll rip off your antennas and stuff them down your throat if she catches you.”
Eric quickly wiped his mouth with his next set of legs, still not releasing the potato chip. As they wrestled it around, Eric couldn’t tell where they were heading. They dragged it up a tunnel away from the main flow and into the light.
“Oops, wrong way. This is the way out. Hey Peter, we’re in Australia. Must be the middle of the wet season, there’s water everywhere down below.” They were indeed high on the side of a towering anthill. It tapered upward from the barren red dirt of the Outback in a slender taper over a dozen feet tall.
Peter let go and came over to take a look. At the same moment Ron gave a big tug and flipped, with his potato chip, over backwards into the water.
“We have to follow him,” Peter started to climb down the side of the ant hill.
Eric followed carefully after watching where Ron had gone down. There was no sign of him, “We’re too late. We’re on to the next cycle.”
Lesson: Right mindfulness. Look before leaping. Bang! the Buddhist software giggled in Eric’s ear as the bright sun disappeared.
Eric’s last thought was to wonder why the Buddhist software said, “Bang!” Because Valerie had been dressed so cutely in Western style?
# # #
Valerie tumbled out of a door and onto a hardwood floor.
Michelle landed close beside her.
The first thing Valerie saw when she raised her head was not a burlap tea stall and a smiling Buddha. It was a pair of blue lines of tape stretching away from her up the hallway, widening apart until they reached the bookcases at the threshold to her own beloved living room dominated by a large oak table.
Her living room.
Her large oak table.
They were back in Seattle. Valerie wanted to weep with joy.
She and Michelle helped each other to their feet. Late afternoon sun sparkled in through the living room windows, washing her apartment in a golden glow.
“I guess this is where you and I started,” Michelle said in barely an absent-minded whisper. “But I meant to go to Heaven where this mess really began.”
“Now how do we get there?”
Michelle just shrugged at her question.
Valerie turned and spotted a man sitting at her work table absorbed in a manuscript.
“Uncle Joshua?” she headed down the hall toward him.
“Oh.” He quickly restacked the manuscript. “Valerie and—” He quickly fumbled on his glasses. “And Michelle. I was worried about you.”
“What are you doing here Uncle?” She went up and hugged him. It was the first thing that had made sense in days. Other than holding Eric’s hand. But then they’d fought. And then he’d been gone. And then she’d been…here.
She collapsed into one of the chairs even as Michelle sat down on the couch. Valerie didn’t know what she should be feeling about anything at this point.
“I was worried about you, so I came by to check. I knew by the state of your kitchen that something had happened. I cleaned it up for you.”
“Oh, thank God!” She really hadn’t been looking forward to it.
“You’re welcome.” Her uncle’s smile teased her.
“You’re right. Thank you, Uncle. You’re the best.”
“And then I worried more when I saw you hadn’t even cleaned up breakfast from the living room. That is not like you. So I decided to sit and wait for you to make sure everything is okay.”
Valerie considered. Other than her cookbook totally missing its deadline, the Universal Software being stolen by a Hungry Ghost, maybe falling for Eric then fighting with Eric, and that the Devil Incarnate was sitting on her couch watching the two of them intently, everything was just peachy. Not a word of which she could say to her uncle.
“I’m okay, I guess.”
Joshua raised one eyebrow and glanced down at her clothes.
Valerie could feel a flush. Western wear and mismatched cowboy boots were definitely not her at all.
“I’ll be right back.” She slipped into her bedroom and changed into a black turtleneck, jeans, and sneakers. She was glad that Joshua had not attempted to clean up in here. She quickly gathered blouses, slacks, a skirt, and underwear and dumped them all in the laundry basket. A quick tug on the quilt at least hid the worst aspects of her bed-making habits.
When she returned to the living room, Michelle was sitting beside Joshua at the table.
Valerie stopped and watched them for a moment. She felt an ease around each of them that she didn’t find with most people. Around Joshua, it was like she was touching the calm center of the universe at large. Around Michelle, she felt, well… Valerie probed at the feeling trying to name it. Michelle made Valerie feel…friendly. Even likable. And she was finding that she enjoyed that feeling more and more. Friends with the Devil. Now what did that say about her?
She moved up to them, after stopping for a brief moment to admire her sparkling kitchen and again thank both God and Uncle Joshua.
“This is a very curious manuscript,” Joshua was patting a hand on the printout of the cookbook that Eric had forced from the Universal Software.
“Does it have a recipe for getting just two people to Hell? I seem to have left my copy behind.” Michelle’s tone was humorous, masking the truth of their need. They’d left their copy of the recipe on the desk of Hell’s Librarian. The recipe for just two people to travel to Hell had been significantly more complex than for four. Without the printout, there was no way they could reproduce it.
“No,” Joshua had apparently taken the question seriously. “But I did find one for getting into Heaven.”
“What?” she and Michelle exclaimed in unison and Joshua looked quite flustered.
“Well, I, uh, don’t know about such things. But this one here seems to be what you’re looking for.” He flipped through the stack and came up with a sheet of paper that had a quite short recipe on it.
The title was “Heavenly Keych.”
“Well,” Joshua rose and wrapped Valerie in a hasty hug. “It seems that you two are busy. Now that I’m sure you are okay, I must get back to the restaurant. Michelle, a pleasure.” He did not offer her a hug or even a handshake before bustling to the door. Just before he closed it behind him he hesitated.
“Yes, Uncle?”
“Once this project of yours is all over, I think you and your friends should come to dinner. Yes, that’s a good idea.” He nodded emphatically to himself. “Yes, all of you. Don’t forget your boyfriend.”
“He’s not…” But she tapered off because Joshua was already gone.
“What a strange man.”
“Coming from the Devil, that’s quite a statement.”
“Nonetheless, he is. He seems familiar, but I can’t quite place him.”
“He does that to a lot of people.”
Michelle shrugged.
“So, will it work?” Valerie indicated the recipe as she sat down beside the Devil.
Together they leaned in to learn how to make a Heavenly Keych.
Chapter 32
Eric couldn’t keep himself from running and t
wirling among the deep green grass. They’d just come from the sub-Antarctic wasteland of the Crozet Islands where they’d been fur seals. Ron had gotten eaten by an Orca for straying into danger for like the twentieth incarnation in a row.
The only thing the Crozets had going for them was that they were the antipodes of Seattle, as far away as he could get from his own thoughts, the exact opposite side of the planet. It wasn’t helping much.
He and Peter had tried asking the Buddhist software for more information. But it didn’t know anything about the progress of the decay of all reality. All it ever responded with were its dorky lessons and its Old West “Bang!” whenever they shed yet another mortal coil.
But this incarnation he could really enjoy. He felt so alive. The air was fresh and the sun was bright. He stopped at a small stream trickling through thick and tasty grasses and leaned down to take a drink. A small white fuzzy face stared at him out of the ripples. Something hit him from behind and he flipped head over heels into the icy water.
Turning, ready to attack, he came face to face with a lamb. Its huge grin gave him a hint, “Morning, Peter.”
The baby sheep bounced away into the grass. He called back over his shoulder, “Isn’t this great?”
Eric scrambled out of the water and shook himself so hard that he fell over. Climbing back to his feet he ran along a fence looking for Peter. For a moment he thought he saw a pair of bright eyes watching him intently from the underbrush on the other side of the wire, but he didn’t care. He’d spotted Peter standing half-hidden by a budding rose bush.
Peter ducked down at the last second and met Eric head on.
The loud clonk as their heads came together echoed throughout his body. Eric wobbled for a moment and dropped to the ground. His head hurt like the very demons of Hell were hammering away at it.
Peter managed to stay upright a moment longer before falling against him.
Eric made the mistake of trying to shake his head to stop the buzzing. His skull only ached more. Dropping his chin onto his forelegs he looked at Peter through one eye, “Lousy saint.”
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