Chapter 17
Master Preston G Waycaster arrived in the garden under a glass dome that covered a crater looking out at twisted space-time and a kaleidoscope of stars turned rainbows.
G addressed the open air. “I am here. Fully.”
The keeper of the garden emerged. “I know,” Lilith said. He was confused by her movement, which was either a slide of an eight legged beast. Her movement and physical sense continued to defy his expectations. “The Merger has occurred. We are one.”
“I don’t feel any different,” G said.
Lilith chuckled. “Of course not. We are not affected by the soul merger. Not directly,” Lilith said, coming closer. She glided on air like a serpent on ice. “You promised to let Daphne go,” G said.
“I have kept my promise,” Lilith said. “She has complete autonomy. She may go wherever she please.”
“You promised she could leave,” G argued.
“And she can. She may leave by any ship in the hanger,” Lilith said.
“You know as well as I, no one can leave here by ship. That’s certain…”
“She may leave by the same way you came, husband,” Lilith said, walking around him, touching him. She brought her lips close to his ears. “But, she hasn’t learned that skill, yet, has she. What a poor teacher you must be. Even if she had learned, would she leave you here with me? Knowing all that she knows? Should I free her from her cell now, or after we arrive?” G was aware of movement. Not hers. Theirs. The moon was moving. His vision was altered, almost tunnel vision.
“Yes, the fall has begun,” Lilith said. “Or ascent. It’s both the same, really.”
She came around to face him again. Her appearance had change in an instant. He saw Ashia, the Goddess, his personal, secret Jedi master and teacher from his youth and adolescence. She was a Diathim. She was human. She was Corissa. She was Shmi. She was… The features of her face were barely discernable due to the brightness of her inner light. Her eyebrows were mere shadows. Her eyes were luminescent green. Her hair was glorious flowing of red curls, with tiny snow-flake type flowers.
“You’re Ashia?!” G asked.
Lilith broke through the illusion, her hair a tangle of angry snakes that came calm when facing her love. “No,” Lilith said. “She is here, because of a previous soul merger. It takes a trinity to survive the fall. You are the bond that will cement us all together.”
“But…”
“She is mine, as you are mine,” Lilith said.
“But Daphine?”
“A mere hitchhiker. We carry a number of souls in constellation around us. One for every preferred species,” Lilith said. “I have Ashia because I have you.”
“It’s a trap…” G said.
Even as he was saying this, he was solidified instantly in carbonite. Lilith wrapped herself around his hardened self, her snake like apparition winding round him from hip to heels, squeezing him. Her arms embraced him. Her wings folded around him further, so that only his head was free from the cocoon like grip. She kissed his stone cold face.
“Perspective,” she whispered into his ear. She moaned delightfully. “We’re really moving now!” Her coils tightened and relaxed. “We arrive together! Together forever. So many stories to plunge ourselves into. New ones. Old ones…” “That was unnecessary, Sister-Wife,” Ashia said, “This one is mine. You can’t have him,” Lilith said.
“I am not trying to steal him…” Ashia tried.
“Liar! You are always trying to take what is mine,” Lilith said. Her head track Ashia as she walked, even turning a full 180. “I won! He has more children with me than you. He loves me more.”
“This is not a competition. This is not an end all be all choice. He is free to choose. We are all always free to choose. And he will always choose us, regardless of the masks we wear. That much was proven. He loves everyone, Lil,” Ashia said. “Only someone with this kind of love could be with us. Only his love could endure us. Only his kind of love could make this journey possible.”
“Yes! We’re free. We’re finally free. Ages have we been chained here,” Lilith said, squeezing G even harder. Her face was unhappy. “No, not this one. I don’t want this one.” “They all lead to new places,” Ashia said.
“I wanted the big one,” Lilith said.
“We don’t get choose this,” Ashia said.
“No! It’s not fair,” Lilith cried. “He is mine. I won. You’re doing this! Out of spite, you’re doing this.”
“You are no more in control of what happens here than I,” Ashia told her. “Our unconscious is a greater authority; it know more, it chooses our path. Our souls are greater authority; it knows more than even our unconscious. It chooses for us. The one brought forth by our merger; he knows even more, and he will take us all to glory.”
“No! I worked so hard…” Lilith said.
“We will still be together,” Ashia tried to comfort her. “This is just change.”
There was nothing she could do but hold on. The fall was inevitable. They were beyond a point of return. Even if she and G tried to soul travel out, to bilocate out, they would not escape. This was done.
“Change,” Ashia said. “Inevitable. We’ve talked about this, Sister wife. If the new place become unbearable, you can always return. We left enough roots here.”
“Start over from scratch?! Forget everything I have learned? Give up all the souls I have collected?” Lilith asked. “No! Never!”
No matter which way one looked, there was the appearance of looking into a tunnel.
“How many souls did we begat?” Lilith asked.
“I lost count,” Ashia said. “Change is good.”
“Change is good. Not all change is good,” Lilith said. “Jedi Maxim?”
“A Waycaster maxim,” Ashia said. “I love you sister-wife. See you in the next life.” She closed her eyes and faded away.
“No! I don’t want to sleep!” Lilith said. “I want to see the birth! No…”
Light seemed to be diminishing. Lilith clung to Preston G Waycaster, staring at him, even as she kissed him. At some point, all seemed gone. There was a warm sea of darkness, warm like nothing Lilith had ever experienced. She resisted sleep, telling herself her eyes were open. Her eyes were open, was the mantra. Emergence was so brilliant that she still couldn’t see, but she knew it like bird rising from the darkest cloud directly into sunlight; as if struck directly by lightening. Emergence and rising, as if in water. Bubbles rising in water. She found herself moving through an endless series of frames, looking at the back of herself. Even as she turned, she was always observing the back of herself. Endless, chasing reflections, cycling.
“You wanted to see.” It was an echo.
“G?” Lilith asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“The world is pixilated.” She was not certain it was G’s voice. “Each frame of existence a mere membrane of what was and what will be. We live in a continuity of interrupted frames and it is our ability to dream that allows us the illusion of singularity. This multiplicity is you.”
“G?” Lilith asked.
There was no response.
“I am alone again,” Lilith said.
“Never again. There is love. Sleep, mother. Dream. I got you. I got all of you. Always.”
♫♪►
The parents of Pari identified the body that was on life support. As the parents on the birth certificate, they were brought in to determine what to do next. They were struggling. They were bothered by the suicide. They didn’t believe she would actually do it. They pressed for proof, wanting to believe someone did this to her. Perhaps an enemy she had made while living on the streets. Both parents were shocked to learn that she wasn’t biologically theirs. The father was less shocked, as he had suspected but had said nothing because his relationship was first with the wife, and second with the child. He didn’t care if it was his or not, it was a just a child. But to learn it was neither his nor hers, that didn’t make any sense. They hadn’t ever had fertility treatment, and though the medical officer wanted to pursue a potential crime, they weren’t interested. This was their daughter. They had raised her.
But it made so much sense to them, too. Was her behavior because she wasn’t biologically related? Did this explain her inability to relate or to establish relationships in general?
The video footage was unquestionable. Pari walked off a bridge. She hit a pillar on the way down to the water. A pedestrian had tried to stop her.
“If you’re sure the brain damage is irreversible, then terminate,” the father said. “She would not want this.”
“The thing is,” the medical droid said. “We can’t turn off the life supports. She is pregnant. The fetus was not injured during the fall. We can sustain the body until it’s birth.” Pari’s parents didn’t know they could be shocked further. Pari had never talked about relationships. She never had a male friend. In fact, she had never had a friend, at least not one that came to their house and visited.
“The state is willing to place the fetus in an artificial womb and adopt it out, however, the body would be a better option. We can simulate movement and normal sound environments so that the fetus will developed as naturally as it would if your daughter was still alive. A sitter Droid will stay here and talk, read if you like. Ideally, the two of you participating would be helpful. You are, legally, the grandparents, though given what we know, the state won’t obligate you.”
“We need to talk…” the mother said.
“No. We just do this,” the father said. “It’s what we do.”
“Proceed as if nothing matters? Nothing’s happened or changed?”
“Yes,” the father said.
“I will leave you two here,” the medic droid said.
Mom climbed up in the bed with her daughter, touching the stomach. The father touched his wife’s hair, standing behind her. They didn’t speak. There was nothing more to say. They would raise a grandchild.