Chapter 34-
“How do you keep doing that??”
Sonsee looked over from her seat at the sound of Janna’s impatient voice. The children were sitting at the kitchen table, playing some sort of spoken game.
“Okay, okay,” Bleech conceded. “I’ll do an easier one for you.” Janna nodded and furrowed her brow.
“So take your age, then double it, okay?”
“Mhm.”
“Now add twelve.”
“Uh… uh huh!”
“Halve your number.”
“Got it.”
“Subtract your first number.”
“Yeah?”
“Is your answer six?”
Janna threw her hands in the air.
“I don’t get it!” she cried, exasperated.
Bleech sat back and smirked knowingly. It was really a simple trick: put importance on the starting number, then do a completely unrelated equation, and finally take out the starting number. Each time, one should end up with the same answer regardless of the first number. Janna may have been very well studied in anatomy and medicine, but her math skills weren’t sharp enough to catch on to his game.
A small smile fell across Sonsee’s face; it was nice to see the two of them playing together. They had enough tragedy between them to deserve some time to be kids.
The travelers would be staying the day at the cabin, to make sure that Disintegration had no residual effects on Sonsee. Melty, making every effort to be a gracious host, had prepared breakfast for the lot of them. At the table, they were greeted by full plates of bacon and eggs, soon to be scarfed down.
Once the meal was done, they each cleaned up after themselves and stood up from the table. Bleech and Janna stepped outside to look around at the meadow, Sonsee hung around in the living space, waiting patiently for Melty.
Before eating, Sonsee was taken aside by the woman of the mountain, who spoke to her in hushed tones.
“When we eat, I want you to practice spirit sight.”
“Practice it? What do you mean?”
Melty took a glance at the others.
“It’s easiest to see when you’re relaxed and near people you’re close to,” she explained. “Even if someone is out of physical sight, you should still be able to feel them and comprehend their spirits.”
Sonsee had nodded, not entirely understanding, but willing to give it a test.
Melty was also interested in the results of her test, and eagerly washed the dishes, trying to tidy up as quickly as possible.
“Excuse me, Melty?”
“Hm? Ha?” She flipped around, not expecting Gallow to be standing behind her, looking every here and there, but rarely into her eyes.
“Sorry, but I was wondering,” he asked, sheepishly. “Would it be too much trouble if I helped make lunch?”
She stared at him with an empty, blinking face, which suddenly became a smile.
“Of course!”
---
Sonsee rubbed her thumb into her palm, an absentminded tick while she articulated herself. When Melty finally arrived from cleaning up in the kitchen, she launched into a nervous explanation about how she was unable to sense anything substantial during the meal, and that this whole exercise felt like a failure.
Melty only chuckled in response.
“Well, it can’t be whole failure,” she retorted. “Unless you actually give up.”
“I don’t know,” Sonsee bemoaned. “It seems like something I need to learn from, but I don’t even know where to start…”
Melty could tell from the tone in her voice that even the one experience of failure was crushing to her.
“I wouldn’t be too upset,” the older woman comforted her. “I don’t think Janna succeeded either.”
“Janna?”
“Oh.”
Melty’s eyes suddenly grew and her mouth formed into a small, surprised ‘O’ shape.
“I forgot about that…” she laughed.
“Forgot about what?”
“Well, I had the same conversation with Janna, just before breakfast, which went basically the same way.” She scratched her chin as her gaze drifted off.
“How is that possible?” Both Melty and Janna had been in her view nearly the entire morning, and she had never seen the woman pull Janna aside.
“The power of my Siamese Dream, you see, means that I can exist in multiple thoughts, times, places, all at once,” Melty explained, as if it was passing knowledge.
Sonsee was flabbergasted.
“Please… explain,” she asked.
“Well, it’s pretty simple,” Melty began pacing slowly around the room. “When I pulled you aside to speak, I also pulled Janna aside. From her perspective, you and I never spoke, but really, both were happening at the same time.”
“How… er… How can two things be true at once? That doesn’t make any sense!” Sonsee exclaimed.
“Because my ability is beyond truth,” Melty stopped in the center of the room. “That’s why it’s called a Dominion.”
“A Dominion…?” she asked, trying to sort it out in her head. “Dominion over what?”
“In some sense, reality. But I think the closer explanation would be, ‘That I am above the laws of physical existence.’
Even though I take this physical form and I ‘live’ here,” she formed air quotes. “My power is really far beyond anything that a flesh-and-blood being could understand.”
Sonsee’s head spun with this overly abstract explanation.
“Let me explain it like this,” Melty said, realizing that she wasn’t getting across her point. She strolled over to the wooden table that sat between the couch and the host chair. Dropping to her knees, she stretched her hands out as if to say, ‘ta-dah!’
“The table?” Sonsee asked pensively.
Melty shook her head.
“Think of the top of this table like existence, okay?”
“Existence?”
“Yep,” she affirmed. “The whole reality; I can see everything on it, every point, right?”
“I guess so…” Sonsee tilted her head, examining it closer.
“Now if I take my finger,” Melty continued, lifting her index. “And place it on the table, I’m on the space, right?”
“Yes…?”
“This is how you and every other physical being exists,” she explained. “But I can just as easily place another finger somewhere else, see?”
She planted her middle finger an inch apart from her index.
“That’s a simple application of Siamese Dream,” she took her fingers off the table and stood up. “It’s only really the basics of abstract being.”
“So,” Sonsee said with a friendly, mocking tone. “Are you having this conversation with Janna right now as well?”
“No,” Melty looked like she didn’t anticipate the question. “I wanted to let her play in the flowers; I don’t think she’s all that upset about the exercise.”
“How do you know she didn’t get anything?” Sonsee asked.
Melty looked out the glass pane window to the meadow and smiled.
“It’s her first try, of course it was going to be rough.”
---
Within a minute, all three of Smitt’s goons had fallen to the ground. Susarion, easily twenty or thirty years their senior, stood above them without having broken a sweat.
From his place in the dirt, one of the riders looked up at him, utterly infuriated. Depending on how one saw things, this was either a humbling or demeaning experience, perhaps both. Unfortunately, none of them were introspective enough to ever see this defeat as a sign to change their ways; this was a humiliation that would hang with them for years to come, never spoken of to anyone.
He saw in Susarion’s eyes a calm superiority that was all the more enraging. What he couldn’t see was the sadness that lurked within him.
“Please,” Susarion’s voice was surprisingly kind. “You don’t need to do this. Whatever pride you think you’ll reclaim by harming my friend is fleeting and wasted.”
“Shut the hell up,” the young man growled.
“You don’t need to prove anything,” the elder continued. “It’s much more courageous to live peacefully than to start fights.” For a moment, his face became grave, and he spoke as if it was into a void, into a mirror.
“You could be dead at your age, I want you to live well.”
Slowly, they struggled to their feet, their muscles exhausted.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, old man, but if we ever see your friend again, he’s dead.” The young man pointed at Susarion and then to the buggy.
Dion smiled, he was well aware that three normal humans could never stand up to him in a regular fight.
“They’d need to catch me by surprise and blow my head off from afar,” he mused. “And even then, it’s up in the air; as long as I can activate my ability, anything’s possible.”
The men rode away from the buggy after exerting themselves to get to their horses. Susarion stood in the cloud of dust kicked up by their steeds, turning back to Mr Sol.
“Sorry for the ruckus, Mister, let’s be back on our way.”
As if nothing had happened, they set out again.
“Horses got a little scared back there,” Mr Sol commented. “Say, what were those hooligans talking about you?”
“Nothing,” Dion dismissed it. “They’re confusing me for someone else.”
“My daughter’s been fooling around with those crowds,” the driver said. “Was dating some youngster from town, a real ruffian, terribly mean to her.”
“Is she seeing him anymore?” Susarion asked well-meaningly.
“No, been broken up for a few weeks now,” he answered. “You know, her mother is the most lovely woman, I don’t know how she could even fancy a guy like him.”
“Would you rather she date someone like you?”
“I-” Mr Sol was flustered by the joke, but broke into a guffaw. “Well, I’d like to think I’m good to my wife; you need to find someone to spend your lifetime with!”
“Yes,” Susarion agreed. “Someone you’d like to spend a lifetime with.”
Dion, leaning against the corner of the interior, noticed a subtle change in his companion’s eyes, a softer concession to his attitude, imperceptible in his speech. There had been one time that the older man had tried to tell him about his history, but Dion lacked any engagement. If he had listened, he may have been expected to share his own story, which he was not interested in. Dion was free from his past as long as he was under The Tiger, that was the power he held.
“Why do you figure girls like her like guys like that?” Mr Sol pondered. “None of them really enjoy it, anyway.”
“Maybe people like him just fool girls into thinking they’ll make them happy,” Susarion reasoned. “There’s a lot of ways to be happy, but most people don’t understand them, latch on to these surface features…”
“You think young men exploit that?”
“I think they buy into it,” Susarion corrected him. “And they just become that.” He paused a moment.
“I also don’t believe that someone who behaves like that is a ‘young man,’ more of a boy, if anything.”
“What about those railroad tycoons?” Mr Sol wondered. “They’re older’n me! You don’t think when they have those young wives, that they’re just in it for the money?”
“I’m sure they know that about their wives.”
“Isn’t that the same thing, dontcha’ think?”
“Of course.”
“So you’re saying, let me get this right, that those railroad tycoons are like boys?” Mr Sol seemed incredulous.
Susarion looked away into the clouds.
“There’s a way a man needs to live, I believe that, to serve himself and his community, and I think you’d find that very few of those railroad tycoons live like that.”
“Well,” the driver chuckled. “Am I in the lucky few?”
A small smile formed at one side of Susarion’s mouth.
“I don’t know you that well, mister, but I’d guess so.”
“That’s really the worst a person can get, dontcha’ think?” Mr Sol said.
“Some people are just false from the outset,” Susarion added.
Dion listened to their conversation and watched the countryside roll by. The altercation had taken minutes; they would be at their destination in a matter of hours.
---
“Okay, have another go at it.” Melty’s hand was placed gently on Sonsee’s shoulder.
From off in the kitchen, Gallow called.
“Hey, I think it’s ready! Can you check?”
Her attention turned to the young man at the stove, preparing dinner. Lunch had gone well, being some simple sandwiches and Melty couldn’t help but agree to let him try his hand at the evening meal as well.
Once she was beside him, she checked the pan and assured him it looked good.
“I got a little creative,” he said, as if nervous about going too far. “I added some bell peppers I found in the ice box, is that alright?”
“That’s wonderful!” she exclaimed, and his heart lit up.
As they sat down to eat, Sonsee could feel a palpable, warm energy around the table. She took a bite of Gallow’s cooking, ground beef with added bell pepper slices.
“It’s great!”
She felt a great calmness and happiness inside of herself, a contentment that kept her whole body still. She didn’t want to move for fear of letting the feeling out, she just sat in it. This sensation- it was centeredness, a rare moment which was more lucid than reality.
“This feeling is closer, closer than ever to…”
She couldn’t even finish her thought, because finishing it would make endings real, and everything was very forever in that moment. Her eyes were cast to the center of the table, which held nothing, but all around her, she could see her friends.
Their spirits shimmered faintly in the periphery of her consciousness. This was the beginning- the inkling- of spirit sight.
“It’s a great meal, because it’s hard to mess up.”
Sonsee’s effortless focus was interrupted by Melty’s voice. As she left the superlucid state, she came back to the scene, where Gallow’s face contorted into annoyance.
“Hey!” he retorted. “What are you saying about me?!”
Melty looked surprised that he would take offense to her comment.
“Oh, well, I-I was just saying that it’s a good beginner’s meal, because it was your first attempt!” she stuttered out. “It’s good! It’s really good!”
“Well,” he said sternly. “It’s rude to remind someone that they’re a beginner like that, it’s patronizing.” He stuck his fork into his food.
“I’m sorry…” she said softly. “I didn’t know, I don’t get to meet a lot of people…” The guilt on her face was saddening just to look at, like a scorned puppy.
The air around the table was quiet and uncomfortable, Bleech felt as if even swallowing was too loud. The only sound was Gallow’s fork on the plate.
…
……
………
Gallow burst into laughter, throwing his head back.
“W-what?” Melty asked innocently.
“It’s just-” he choked out between chortles. “I’m not actually mad.”
“You aren’t…?”
“No, no way,” he assured her with an honest smile. “You didn’t mean anything by it, so don’t worry.”
“Oh…” she seemed confused.
“Maybe I let that go on too long,” he admitted. “But you weren’t trying to insult me, so there’s no reason to get mad, right?”
“I guess…” Melty perked up a bit, and began to feel much better.
“Do you wish you could meet more people?” Bleech asked suddenly.
“Sorry?” she asked back.
“You said that you didn’t meet more people,” he clarified. “So I just wondered if you wanted to meet more people than you get out here.”
“Well, I think I like to meet people, so yes.” She seemed confident in her answer.
“So have you ever thought of living in a city?”
“No, no,” she said. “A city would be a terrible place to be.”
“Really?” Bleech had always thought of the big cities as places to be, far outside his reach.
“Too many people, the signals get all mixed up,” Melty knew what she meant, but had trouble articulating it.
“What do you mean signals?” Sonsee asked.
“There’s a certain way for people to live, and cities are just so unnatural for them.”
“How do you know how people should live when you’ve never left this area?” she pressed.
Melty hesitated for just a moment before she explained herself.
“Well, you know every night, when I fall into a kind of stasis?”
“The floating thing you do- with the green light?” Sonsee asked.
“Yes, that.”
Janna and Bleech were confused, but held their tongues.
“What that really is, is my consciousness projecting across a very wide space.”
“How big?”
“Oh, um,” she held her chin. “I’d say about the size of the country.”
“The whole country?!” They were in disbelief.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “I can observe a very large number of people’s dreams as they sleep, and they all have a lot of commonalities.”
“What kind?” Sonsee was rapt with curiosity.
“Well, I notice that most of the people living in those big cities find stress from it. There are very many people who are still lonely despite being around so many people.”
“But there’s a lot of people who like it, don’t they?” Gallow interjected.
“Maybe,” she offered. “But one has to wonder how many people they need to be around to be happy, and whether or not the number in cities is much more.”
“What? Explain.”
“Hm, well,” she picked up a glass of water. “If you were thirsty, would you say that this would quench that?”
“Depends on how thirsty I am,” he answered.
“If you were the thirstiest you could be before dying, how much would you need?”
He thought a moment and replied.
“A crapload.”
“Do you think you could drink a whole lake?”
“Maybe,” he smiled.
“No, really!” she insisted.
“No, I guess not.”
“There it is, right?” she felt she had explained it properly, finally.
“Even if you were really, really, thirsty, you would still only need so much water.”
“And I bet there’s a lot of scum in that lake, too,” he joked.
Her eyes perked up.
“That too! That can be part of the analogy.”
“The scum?” he asked. “Like, what? Bad people?”
“Exactly!” she celebrated. “I observed you people for a long while before I came here, and only recently did you start living in these big cities.”
“And you don’t think that’s good for us?”
“I don’t think you’re used to it, as a species, I mean,” she clarified. “Think of ants, those little things live in big, big groups and they’ve always done that, but people aren’t made to be strangers in a crowd. Loneliness is a terrible thing for you guys, and it hurts a lot more to be lonely without being alone.”
“So what do you think we should do about it?”
She thought for a moment.
“I really don’t know,” she admitted. “I think it’s only going to get worse, though; that’s as much as I can say.”
Melty didn’t know enough about people to be able to come up with an answer; even people who knew a lot about people couldn’t have known what to do about it.
“What were we talking about again?” Gallow brought the conversation back.
“Hm, oh!” Melty recalled. “Why don’t I meet more people?”
“Right!”
“I suppose I’m worried about making a fool of myself,” she explained. “Embarrassment is a new kind of emotion for me, to be honest.”
“You don’t get embarrassed in the abstract plane?” Janna wondered aloud.
“There isn’t much of a society to make reasons to be embarrassed, I’m not used to it.”
“So you’ll just stay here forever, or until you decide to go back?” Gallow asked.
“I think I’ll stay here for a while, until I’m ready to go into society, maybe two lifetimes.”
“T-two lifetimes??” Gallow laughed. “That’s a lot of time!”
“Well, I can change my mind anytime…” she returned to her food.
---
The cover of night had descended on the camp, and Mr Sol had started a small campfire. After feeding the horses their share, he walked back to the log where his passengers were sitting, warming themselves.
“So, ready for tomorrow?” he asked excitedly.
The tour was an overnight experience; in the morning they would wake and make their way to Mount Dement, spend a few hours there, and head back. Or so it should be, in Mr Sol’s experience. He had no idea of his customer’s true mission, and they intended to keep it that way.
If it were up to Dion, they would have killed the tour guide in his sleep, but Susarion was too empathetic for something so brutal.
“I’m looking forward to it,” the elder of the two replied. “Our friend lives right by the mountain, so don’t worry about bringing us back.”
Mr Sol looked at them with disbelief.
“You want me to just leave the two of ya’ out there?”
“It won’t be an issue, we’ll be well taken care of,” he assured him.
“But… I at least need to refund you two at least half of the money, and that’s back in town!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Susarion had a strong, confident look on his face. “We know what we’re doing.”
“I hope so,” he chuckled nervously.
The campfire crackled between them, their thoughts each cast in different directions.
Mr Sol contemplated the scare earlier that day, and the safety of his wife and daughter.
Susarion prepared himself for the day ahead, knowing that he needed to live one day at a time.
Dion anticipated the bloodshed of the next day, excited to let his veneer down once more. It was exhausting to wear a mask every day, but he knew, whether explicitly or not, that his true self was too disgusting and monstrous for the world at large to accept.
“The only absolute guiding principle in this world is truth, the truth is our Supreme God, and it will obliterate your evil!”
He mocked those words the day he heard them, they were nothing but the desperate attempts of a weak system to defeat him.
Beneath the stars, dreams and days converged. Sonsee watched the stars outside her window, Janna dreamed softly. Gallow tossed and turned, enthralled by the success of his meal, while Bleech slept face down on his pillow.
Melty floated in her meditative stasis and pondered…
“The mind is a feather, floating and twirling in the wind, beautiful and useless once it has left the bird…”