Mind Over Psyche

by Karina L. Fabian

  Chapter 20

  “Oh, man, do you smell that?” Joshua moaned in ecstasy as they broke through the trees and the aroma of cooking meat reached them.

  Ocapo inhaled and hummed in pleasure. “Not much longer. We can stop and walk from here.”

  “I have so missed meat! The only thing that could make this better is a Diet Coke and about 400 milligrams of ibuprofen.”

  “Are you in pain?” Terry asked as they dismounted. He pulled the pack off his unicorn then hurried to Joshua, who moved more slowly.

  Nonetheless, he waved his friend off. “Just stiff from all the riding. I haven’t ridden this much in years. I’ll be fine—though tomorrow might be a different story.”

  He pulled the pack off Glory and set it on the ground. “Hold on, baby, let me see if there’s a brush in here—“

  Glory tossed her head and took off.

  “Hey!” He called after her.

  Ocapo closed his bag and handed it to him. “There is a waterfall in a cove down the trail. They are going to bathe. She said she will return for her brushing later.”

  “Great. Wet horse. You know, a shower doesn’t sound half bad.”

  Ocapo clapped his shoulder and led him down the path, Terry just behind. “Later we will go together. You should not wander off the trails alone. Remember what I said about traps? The plants may not recognize you as a friend.”

  Joshua cast a suspicious look at the trees beside him. That creeped-out feeling started crawling along his spine, when a heavy beat with a flying melody distracted him. “Music!”

  Ocapo laughed. “I told you.”

  “Do you have dancing?” He could not think of a better way to work out his kinks or his anxieties.

  Ocapo nodded and quickened his pace. “I, myself, am not very good.”

  “I’ll teach you—but I want to learn your dances, too.” He saw Terry lagging behind and reached back to include him. “Come on, Terry! I declare a hiatus on any heavy topics. Tonight, we party.”

  *

  Gardianju fell to her knees in the middle of the marketplace and concentrated all her strength on keeping two of Kanaan’s tectonic plates from shearing each other apart.

  Help me, she commanded, and her apprentice, then some villagers, knelt beside her and offered her their strength. She took it, pulled, and gradually, Kanaan’s struggles ceased. She focused the last of their energy on the mountain near the site of the quake. It shook, then crumbled, pouring tons of trees, rock, and debris into the gap that had opened.

  She and twenty others had to be carried to the healers, but Kanaan would survive another day.

  A season of calm came, though it held no calm for her. The torments of the Ydrel had increased as the torments of Kanaan lessened, and she devoted her talent to healing his mind, working with synapses and neurons as she would earth and flora, and sharing in his sufferings as she had shared in her world’s. She sat in the corner of her room, arms crossed over her stomach, rocking, and her walls seemed unnaturally pink.

  Another progression of the seasons had come, and again, they were in a season of calm. Even the Ydrel seemed to have calmed, though she did not know whether the demon attacks had lessened or if he could better defend against them. It did not matter; if he had been in torment, she could not have helped him this time. The events of the last Progression had left her unable to think, barely able to care for the world—or herself. She lay on the ground in an open field, staring up at a blue sky in which the smaller sun was catching up to its sister. She saw them but did not see them, for visions filled her mind. Kanaan caught in a deadly dance with another world. Bright flashes on an alien planet. Wrong. Bringing the demons. Bringing insanity. Insanity all around her. All around the Ydrel. Ydrel comes, but not to her. To another. A Miscria. Tasmae.

  A surge of jealousy, then the visions reassert themselves.

  The Ydrel comes to Kanaan, bringing change—and peril. Too much change. Too much peril. The other world explodes. Its pieces rain on Kanaan. Ydrel reaches out, clasps the demon planet. It is whole. It survives. The aliens survive. Kanaan changes. The dance, so perfect, so comfortable, changes. Snow falls from the sky.

  She didn’t try to interpret or even understand the visions, merely let them play in her weary mind until they became one with her dreams.

  More seasons of pain and confusion, torment and visions. Then, a sudden clarity, like awakening from a deep sleep. She looked at her hands, shocked to see the wrinkles, stared in amazement at the gray in her hair. Had it been so long? The Ydrel, she thought. The Ydrel is still a child. A moment later, she wondered why she thought that. No child could know what he knew. No child could have battled as he had. Ydrel Mentor, Ydrel Guide. Not Ydrel Child.

  She pushed the thoughts aside. God had given her this clarity for a reason. She had duties. She summoned the Keeper of Remembrances, and closed her eyes to rest until he arrived and presented her with a seedling. She caressed its tender shoots, opened her mind, and imprinted it with her memories, experiences, and visions. It burst into bloom, then one by one, the blossoms closed into buds. Only at the proper times would they open again to reveal their secrets.

  Next, she summoned her protégés, one of whom had been newly discovered during her time of visions and was being trained by her own apprentice, now nearly her equal in caring for Kanaan. Nonetheless, he had not had contact with the Ydrel. That must change. She would help him forge the link.

  But when they touched the Ydrel’s mind, her protégé fell to the ground screaming and did not stop until God took him two days later.

  When he breathed his last, Gardianju whispered heartfelt thanks that his suffering had ended, then turned to her newest student, who knelt beside her, terrified.

  This will not happen again, she vowed. To commune with the Ydrel is too dangerous. Yet they needed his information; she knew that, too. Her visions had shown her that.

  Once she had fled her mind to a Netherworld, where she had found the Ydrel hunted by demons. Now, she would find a way to pull him from his own mind to a place of her choosing. Somewhere neutral. Somewhere safe. Somewhere where there was only the Will of the Miscria and the Answers of the Ydrel. Her own Netherworld.

  She would never allow another Miscria to die as her apprentice had.

  *

  In the hidden grove, with a unicorn keeping watch, Deryl whispered in his sleep. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Don’t worry, Gardianju. I won’t hurt Tasmae. I swear, I won’t. I’ll make it right.”

  *

  The sun was setting on the mesas, but with the clear sky and incredible density of stars, everything was still visible, if a little washed out. Nonetheless, Joshua got hints of the variety of patterns and colors whenever someone’s costume caught the light of the several bonfires in the center of the camp. The Bondfriends—and maybe regular Kanaan for all he knew—loved color and pattern. He looked forward to the morning when he could see everyone’s outfits in detail.

  As with any large but close-knit community party Joshua had known, small groups had formed up, with people of all ages moving from group to group, the kids often at a full run. For the most part, they avoided Ocapo, Terry, and Joshua, content to cast glances their way. Even the children observed the rule, which impressed and touched him. He smiled and winked at one little girl who hovered near a tree just on the edge of what she’d apparently been told was the boundary, but before she could take that as an invitation to cross that boundary—and start a flood of curious kids, no doubt—he looked away toward the bonfires in the center of the campground. Over one roasted a huge animal with way too many limbs.

  He shouldered Ocapo and pointed to it. “So, everybody gets a drumstick?”

  As if in answer, the same child he’d smiled at appeared before him, bringing him a roasted leg that would put any turkey to shame. He chuckled—it felt so good to laugh—and took a bite. His eye
s closed in pleasure as he chewed.

  Ocapo nudged him, and he opened his eyes to see a young lady skipping out of the way of a young man. Laughing, she dashed past, with him in pursuit.

  “Oh-ho,” Joshua commented.

  Ocapo gave him a knowing smile. “You know the everyn who are doing the mating dance? Those are their Bondfriends.”

  “Really?” He watched as the man caught his mate. They spun a moment, nuzzled, then she squirmed loose, and the chase was on again. A few people looked up with tolerant amusement. “They haven’t been doing that the whole afternoon, have they? I’d be too exhausted to—uh—you know,” Joshua finished lamely.

  “Everyn do have greater stamina than Bondfriends, though Spot thinks Cawa drags things on. Krrrass doesn’t seem to mind, though. For that matter, neither do they.” He watched the flirting pair, wistful.

  “You have a soul-mate?” Joshua asked.

  “Not yet. Do you miss yours?”

  “More than words can say.” Joshua breathed through pursed lips, letting go of his sorrow before it could overtake him, and stood. “But this is a party, and I’m not going to think about that now. Come on. If I’ve got to meet anybody, let’s meet them, then let’s get the groove on, Kanaan-style.”

  But Ocapo wasn’t listening—not to Joshua, anyway. Rather, he was stock still and focused, his head turned toward a path in the maze. Joshua looked at Terry, found the healer mimicking his own confused expression.

  Soon, everyone had turned toward the edge of the clearing. The music faltered and died. The dancers stilled. Everyn landed on the trees or sat up from where they were resting on the ground. Even the children stopped their wild games to turn and focus. Joshua couldn’t see what they were looking at, yet he hesitated to ask or even move lest he disturb something important. Instead, he followed Ocapo’s stare.

  The camp was near one of the openings of the maze, and Ocapo had told him while they ate that Tasmae had created the woods beyond it to hide the entrance while at the same time corral the Barins into it. Around the only clear path, thick woods discouraged straying, except for a few clearings, where plants like the ones that made up the walls and keep waited to attack any non-Kanaan. He thought he saw some of the trees swaying, though whether of their own volition or because something was moving through them, he couldn’t tell.

  Suddenly, the everyn began to keen, and the Bondfriends joined them, adult and child alike, in a one-note chorus that echoed throughout the mesas. Joshua clapped his hands over his ears, but the sound still reverberated in his head. He glanced at Terry and saw the healer wincing as well.

  Then it was over; and just as if nothing had happened, everyone went back to what they were doing, though Joshua noticed that most of the children ran to edge of the clearing.

  “What was that all about?” He asked Ocapo.

  “Come on. I’ll show you. You’ll find it very interesting.”

  As they made their way to the far end of the camp, Ocapo explained. “A new pride has arrived, and they bring with them a child who has entered the Serenity. Remember what I’d told you happened to me before Spot found me? Her time has come. They are hoping an unbonded everyn here will choose to join her. What you heard was us alerting any everyn in the area.”

  They stopped behind the crowd of children who stood a respectful distance away yet stared with curiosity as some adults settled a young girl by the fire. A woman placed a cloak around her shoulders—her mother, Joshua guessed from the tender way she stroked her hair before sitting down next to her. The child didn’t look older than eight, and a frail eight at that. Her mousy brown hair hung limply around a too-pale face, which combined with her deeply shadowed eyes, gave her an ethereal appearance. Her eyes glowed with otherworldly joy and her dry, cracked lips parted in an unearthly smile. She was beautiful, in a spooky sort of way, like an El Greco painting.

  “Is she all right?” Joshua whispered. “She looks like she ought to be lying down, preferably in the healer’s den.” In fact, the healer had just knelt down in front of her and was hovering his hands over her head and neck. He was older than anyone Joshua had seen, and his hands trembled as if with palsy, but he still had a keen light in his eyes. Terry went to join him.

  “There is nothing they can do,” Ocapo whispered back. “She has entered the Serenity. But she has not eaten in days. If she does not find a Bondfriend soon, she will starve to death.”

  “She’ll die of dehydration first,” Joshua muttered. She reminded him of paintings he’d seen of saints caught in ecstasy. If she had been human, he would not have been surprised to see the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, manifesting on her hands and feet. “On Earth, we’d put her on fluids with an IV. Anyone tried to force feed her?”

  “She won’t swallow. They have been traveling for many weeks. If a Bondfriend is not found here, she will die.” Ocapo regarded Joshua shrewdly. “Is there anything in your talents that can help her?”

  Despite himself, Joshua had been wondering just that. Ecstasy and alien origin aside, the psychologist part of him would have diagnosed her with catatonia—and that was something he’d worked with before. “I don’t know,” he said, thinking aloud. “I might be able to get her to eat, but I can’t guarantee anything. I mean, I’d be using alien techniques. I have no idea if they’d work. But if it’s okay, I’d try.”

  Suddenly, Joshua found himself grabbed and pulled through the crowd of children to stand in front of the girl and her mother, and Joshua realized Ocapo had been translating the whole time. Nonetheless, he emphasized, “Tell them I don’t know if this will work. I could make things worse.”

  “They trust you as I do,” Ocapo reassured. “If you can get her to eat, it would buy her some time for the right everyn to find her.”

  Still Joshua hesitated. What if he messed up something that caused the everyn to not want to bond with her? His mother had taught him never to touch a baby wild animal because the human scent would make the mother reject it. What if he put some kind of psychic taint on her?

  The aging healer looked up from the girl and met his eyes. Even though he wasn’t psychic, Joshua could feel his reassurance.

  “Okay,” he said, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “I need two cups, one with something the healers think she can tolerate—broth or whatever—and one for me. Water’s fine in that one. Then, just don’t disturb us awhile. I don’t know how long it’ll take.”

  Ocapo clapped his shoulder and left to get the drinks. Joshua knelt down beside the girl. He observed her for a minute, taking in her posture, her breathing, anything he could use to reach her. “I don’t suppose you’d make this easy on us, would you, baby?” He asked her. “Your mom’s awfully worried about you.”

  Ocapo brought the two cups, and experimentally, Joshua set one against her hands, waved the fragrant broth under her nose. Her nostrils didn’t even twitch in reaction.

  “That won’t work,” Ocapo commented.

  “Didn’t think it would. Just curious is all. What’s she looking at, do you think?”

  Ocapo sighed such a wistful sigh that Joshua turned to look at him. His expression was a near match to the girl’s. “Your language doesn’t have words for it,” he said, then nodded and went to sit near the parents.

  Joshua turned back to the girl. “Well, whatever it is, we’ll see if we can make a dinner show of it, okay, honey?” He shook himself to release his tensions and doubt and, despite his earlier objections to Deryl, tried to “do Neuro Linguistic Programming on an alien.”

  The first time he heard the story about using NLP techniques to bring back a catatonic patient, he’d been fascinated. He’d bugged his father for weeks to try it out on someone—or better yet, let him try it out—until his father had finally scolded, “This is not a game, Joshua. NLP is a tool. If I think the conditions are right, I may attempt it, but only if I’m comfortable. As f
or you: Give yourself time. I have no doubt that when you’re older and more experienced, opportunities will present themselves.”

  His father had been right. So far, Joshua had used this particular method on an autistic child he babysat for a client of his father; as a case study with his father in Colorado; and on Deryl. Now, he’d try it with an alien.

  He set the cups in identical positions by his knee and hers, settled himself into a complimentary posture, and readied himself to enter “uptime,” match the girl’s rhythms, and get into her world.

  Maybe it was because she was psychic. Maybe it had to do with the training Terry had given him, or something about the world itself. Whatever the reason, he found his awareness almost immediately swept away. Something similar had happened with Deryl, but it had taken hours, and he’d found himself in a cloudy and gray world. Her world dazzled his mind’s eye like being inside a ray of sunlight. As he saw with her, he, too, focused on its source, and it was everything beautiful and holy and right.

  “Oh, God,” he whispered, and it was a prayer. In his vision, he sank to his knees beside the girl. Of course she was content to sit there, gazing and longing, yet patient. That rapture, heaven, was hers, too. She just had to wait to be invited in.

  He would wait with her.

  No, came a knowing, gentle and amused, in Joshua’s mind. He was loved, he was cherished, but he was not invited in now, nor was it his place to sit and wait. There were things he must do, beginning with this child beside him.

  He became aware again of his own body and of the girl sitting entranced before him. Automatically, he checked to make sure he was still in sync with her, and reached for the cup, raised it to his lips, and swallowed.

  She mimicked his moves.

  He heard the gasps of amazement from the people around him, but filed them away along with the amazing rapture he’d felt. Right now, his only focus was on going through the motions of drinking. When the cup was empty, someone refilled it and he took her through the motions a second time. When no one refilled it again, he let her return to her position of waiting while he decided what to do next. He could try to bring her out of it entirely, but he wasn’t sure he should, or that he wanted to. She rested in a place of near perfection—what would happen if he took her away from it with nothing to offer in return?