by Holly Lisle
“Probably not,” Minerva snapped the words out; Darryl noted surprising depths of bitterness in her voice. “ ‘Thank you’ didn’t seem to be the sort of thing that would occur to him.”
“He was always awfully self-centered,” Birkwelch agreed. Then the dragon stiffened and pointed toward the newly green horizon. “Shit, shit, shit,” he snarled. “Weirds.”
Darryl looked where the dragon pointed and froze, his heart pounding. Five winged forms alternately flapped and soared toward the hill. Darryl wondered if the Weird who had also been Cindy would be among them — or if she had died trying to save his kids from the Unweaver, or in Minerva’s firefight. He could imagine recriminations, anger, or even further disaster as the fallout of the Weirds’ arrival — but he could not think of anything good that could come of a meeting with them. So he waited, pad and pencil in hand, trying to think of magic he could do quickly that would control them without destroying them, should the need arise.
The Weirds circled slowly and landed one by one; and one by one they transformed — melting from huge, ugly flying monstrosities to the quasi-human creatures which were native to Eyrith.
None of them looked like Cindy, though they all had the same glowing green eyes.
When the last of them finished their transformation, the first, a brawny man, stepped forward and dropped to one knee, and hung his head. Behind him, the other four Weirds followed his lead.
“We beg your forgiveness, Weavers,” the man said, “for betraying you, for stealing your children, for plotting against you, and for failing to guide you. We made errors, and compounded the errors by betraying the principle that should have guided us — never unweave, never destroy.”
Darryl took a moment to make the transition from expecting disaster to figuring out something gracious to say. He would have loved roasting the sons of bitches who kidnapped his kids and trashed his life, but the Weirds were right. “Never unweave, never destroy” was a good rule. He wouldn’t have had his kids without it.
“You are forgiven,” he said. He thought of adding something sort of flowery and formal, but decided against it. He was stretching the truth as it was.
Minerva evidently thought so, too. She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes and arched an eyebrow in disbelief. Then she shrugged. “There is no anger between us.”
I wouldn’t bet on that, Darryl thought, eyeing his wife. You toasted a bunch of their folks. And I fed a bunch more to dragons. I’d be willing to bet there’d be plenty of anger — if they didn’t think showing it would get the rest of them cooked as Birkwelch’s dinner.
“You are truly gracious,” the big guy said, and stood. An awkward silence followed, until one of the women at his side gave him a surreptitious jab in the ribs with her elbow. He dissembled well, turning the woof of pain into an almost natural-sounding cough. “Because of the hardship we have caused you, and the disorder we have wreaked in your life, we hereby offer Eyrith as home for you and your family for however long you choose to stay here.”
“You are generous and kind,” Minerva said, “but we have other plans.” She gave them a nice little bow, and in the smoothest brush-off Darryl had ever seen from her, she added, “Which we really must be attending to now. If you will excuse us—”
The Weirds’ relief was so evident it was comical — and they were perfectly willing to take a hint. They reformed into “fly-ugly” mode, and within an instant were launched and winging their way home.
Birkwelch cocked an eye-ridge and looked from Minerva to Darryl. “That seems sort of premature. I’d have thought you would at least have considered staying here. Eyrith is about as much like your homeworld as anyplace you’re going to find.”
“We’re going home,” Darryl said.
Minerva nodded.
“Ah, guys,” the dragon said, “I hate to be the party-pooper, but back home, you folks are dead. Don’t you think that might make things difficult? Just a little? Eh?”
“We’ve already figured that out,” Minerva said. “We’re going to go back in time to the point where all this mess started. Only this time, we’re going to do things differently.”
“Ah, no—” Birkwelch shook his head with such vehemence Darryl almost expected him to dislocate his neck.
“Why not?” Darryl asked. “We’ve learned our lesson. When we go back, we’ll do things the way we should have done them the first time.”
The dragon kept swinging his head back and forth. “No, you won’t. Or rather, no, you didn’t. You’ve learned better now, but back then, you made your choices. And the past does not come with an eraser. You go back, and all you’ll do is form a loop in time, so that you get to relive this little adventure over and over and over.”
Darryl and Minerva exchanged glances. Darryl said, “What do we do, then? I want to go home.”
Minerva sat and stared off into the distance. “We can’t change the past.” She looked up at him and grinned suddenly. “But we ought to be able to play merry hell with the present.”
* * *
The whole family sat on the grassy hill in Eyrith, getting ready to go home. Daddy wrote the story of the way it was going to be. Mommy painted the pictures.
“I think you ought to magic us rich,” Jamie said.
Carol said, “Magic me as the most beautiful, smartest girl in the world.”
Mommy sighed. “You are already smart, and already beautiful. And Carol — if we make you different, how will your grandma and grandpa know you?”
“Could you at least magic me better grades in Language Arts?” Jamie asked.
“We’ll see.”
Barney knew what that meant. It meant “No — but I don’t want to argue anymore.” He grinned. Jamie was such a butthead sometimes.
“What about you?” Mommy and Daddy asked him. “Do you have any special requests?”
Barney could think of a million neat things that he could have asked for — but he couldn’t think of one that was important. “No,” he said. “I just want to go home.”
And anyway, he thought, even if Birkwelch says magic doesn’t work the same back home... I bet I can still do some stuff. He intended to try.
* * *
Minerva pushed the doorbell and listened to the familiar ring. She heard footsteps clicking on the flagstones in the entryway. Her mother opened the door.
“Mom—” Minerva managed to say before her mother screamed. It was quite a scream.
To her credit, Mrs. Wilson didn’t faint. She leaned against the doorway, breathing heavily, and she did turn whiter than the doorframe — but she didn’t faint. “You’re dead,” she said.
“No, Mom, I’m not. Darryl isn’t, the kids aren’t. Everybody’s fine.”
“You aren’t going to believe this,” she told her mother, and even as she said it she knew they would believe. Darryl had written it that way. “We were kidnapped by... um...” She winced, and gave her mother what she hoped was a sheepish grin. “…by space aliens.” She took a deep breath. “The FBI and the CIA are doing everything they can to cover it up.”
They were, too, she thought. She and Darryl had stuck an alien theme a mile wide into their story. The whole thing was going to wreak havoc with the US defense budget for the next few years. She hated that, but...
Her mother hugged her, and cried, and dragged her into the house, and laughed, and screamed some more, and called her brother and her father and all the neighbors—
It was worth it. It was worth the confusion, worth the deceptions, worth everything she and Darryl had done just to see her parents coming back to life. She suspected Darryl, at his house with his folks at that moment, felt the same way.
Not until quite a bit later did her dad ask the second big question.
“Minerva,” her father asked, “why in heaven’s name would aliens kidnap you?”
Minerva twisted the Weaver’s ring on her finger, and shook her head sadly. “They thought we were somebody else,” she said.
* * *
Minerva noticed that both she and Darryl had gotten quieter and quieter as the day progressed. Their story, at least temporarily, seemed to be holding. The presence of the CIA agent parked in the drive kept the neighbor’s questions in check. Her friends were thrilled to hear from her — after the initial shock, at least — and the same went for Darryl’s. The hospital still had her job open, and Geoff Forest offered Darryl his back — with a raise, even.
With nightfall, she and Darryl settled down at last. The kids were asleep, the house was quiet, and the two of them sat side by side in the loveseat, staring into the crackling flames that leapt and danced in the fireplace.
Things were more or less back to normal — and Minerva knew they would get more normal as the days went on. She believed this — but her pulse pounded in her ears, and she felt as if at any instant, she would leap out of the seat, jump out of her skin — explode.
“Darryl?” she said. Then she paused, uncertain.
He looked over at her, and she noticed the crease between his eyebrows, and that he’d been biting the skin on his lower lip. “You’re thinking it too, aren’t you?” he asked.
She sighed. “Probably.”
“We can’t stay here.” He looked back at the fire.
He’d said it first. Thank God, he’d said it first. She agreed. “We can’t. I can’t go back to the hospital. I can’t do that anymore.” She stared down at her hands, surprised to see they were trembling. She realized just the thought of trying to be what she’d once been had left her shaking.
“I told Geoff I’d think about my old job — but I won’t.” He leaned over and looked into her eyes. “There are universes out there waiting for us. We have things to do.”
“But not here.” Minerva grew more certain of that with every passing instant. “They know us here. They won’t be able to let us be what we have to be.”
“We’ll go... somewhere — maybe travel.” Darryl leaned back and stared into the flames. “I’ll write, you’ll paint—” He nodded, and the worry lines vanished from his forehead. “We’ll do what we should have done all along.”
Minerva felt light and full of energy. Yes, she thought. She’d been dreaming of this moment all her life. “We can visit from time to time, maybe — now they know we’re all right—” She closed her eyes and thought out loud. “We’ll need to call our folks, give them some story — probably blame it on the CIA or the FBI — a witness protection program — something like that.... We need to tell the kids—”
Darryl chuckled. “Barney will be happy, at least. He was pretty upset about not being able to make chocolate out of thin air.”
Minerva glanced over at him. “So you want to go to one of the magic universes?”
Darryl arched an eyebrow. “They’re fun.”
“Yeah. They are.” She nodded. “And we have to take Murp.”
“Yes,” Darryl agreed. “Definitely. The little guy deserves to come along.”
“We won’t need much more than that.” Minerva couldn’t really think of anything they’d need except each other.
“We have to get past the CIA guy out front.”
“No problem.” Minerva smiled and drew an imaginary spiral in the air with her finger. “We’ll just walk through the wall,” she said. “That’ll drive ‘em nuts.”
“When do we leave?” Darryl asked.
Minerva closed her eyes and thought. They’d wasted so much time already. They didn’t know how much time they had — but they knew it wasn’t forever. “Tonight,” she said.
Darryl hugged her and grinned. “It’ll be an adventure,” he whispered.
She laughed, feeling better the instant the decision was made. “In that case, we’d better find Birkwelch.”
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & DEDICATIONS
1993 Dedication
In Memory of Susan Woodward
1993 Acknowledgements
Thanks to my children, Mark and Becky Deaton, who acted as technical advisors on the kid portions of the book;
To Michael MacWatkins, the Crazy Celt, who gave Jamie his personality;
To Chris, who went over every word of this after me and helped me put everything together;
To Schrodinger's Petshop — world's best writing and critiquing group;
And especially to my editor, Toni Weisskopf — who has been patient, and terrific, and who made me do this right in spite of myself.
2016 Dedication
To Matt, Rebecca, Mark, and Joe,
who stand by me.
2016 Acknowledgements
Thanks to Clyde Caldwell, who permitted me to reuse the beautiful painting Minerva Wakes on the cover of this rerelease of the book.
Thanks to my Cover Art Conspirators: Cat Gerlach, Wendy Smyer Yu, and Rez Zircon, who looked at test covers I was making for this book and heard my wistful remarks about having loved the original; who then secretly hunted down the painting for Minerva Wakes, contacted the current owner, and backtracked all the way to Clyde; contacted him and told him I was re-releasing this book, and asked him what they would have to do to let me use the painting for the cover of the re-release — and only after he told them I could use it, contacted me with the fantastic news.
Without them, this book would have had a really crappy cover I’d put together from stock art.
Thanks to K.V. Moffet, my editor for this edition, whose wonderful and diligent work made this book as bug-free and readable as it is. Any remaining mistakes are all on me.
2016 AFTERWORD
This novel has been sitting on my hard drive since the rights reverted to me about a decade ago. Along with a number of my other books with reverted rights, I finally got it scanned and edited, and then I went through it and reread it.
Which was the first time I’ve done that since I got my author copies back from Baen in 1994 and went through them.
Mostly I was happy with with the story, even though I wrote it when I was considerably younger and still pretty green.
(Writers frequently cringe when reading through our early work. This is a learn-as-you-go job.)
But this book held up for me.
After all, it's about creation versus destruction, and about how some folks embrace creation, and how some embrace destruction, and about how the world will become better, even if only a little better, if you do the former, and will become worse, even if only a little worse, if you do the latter.
That theme came from my own experience, and has been the theme around which I've built my life.
I write fiction. I also help other writers turn their own writing dreams into reality. This matters to me, because it allows me to build the world I want to live in — a world in which people wake up happy because they're going to spend some portion of their day doing what they love, in which they go to sleep thinking about what they're going to create the next day.
It's how I live, and how I've been living since January 1st, 1985, when out of the blue, I decided my New Year's resolution for 1985 would be to write a novel before my 25th birthday.
When I set that goal, I gave myself ten months to meet it… which was a mark of my innocent ignorance of the process, given that .prior to that, I'd never finished anything but high school term papers and essays.
But I created a schedule for myself, and figured out how many pages a day I would have to write to complete a whole novel in the time I'd given myself.
I lost some time to procrastination.
Some to being a new mom and a working hospital nurse.
Some to flailing around not knowing what I was doing. And toward the end, I had to do twelve pages a day to finish by my deadline.
That last bit was a slog, and the novel I got out of the process landed firmly between awful and gawdawful.
But I did it.
And doing it, I discovered that I loved writing, and I determined that I loved it enough to learn to do it better.
Thirty-two years older, here I am. Still doing th
is, still loving what I do.
That 1985 resolution was the only New Year's resolution I ever kept, by the way, but if I had to go back and pick one… that was definitely the right one to keep.
So back to this story.
Like I said, I was mostly happy with Minerva Wakes, but back when I wrote it, I did not see the connection between what I loved that made me so happy and the part of the process that had actually changed my life.
I thought — and wrote into the book — that the universe got back on track because Minerva and Darryl cared.
I said that a number of times in the story. And it was the wrong thing to say every single time I wrote it.
Don't get me wrong.
Caring is important.
It's a foundation.
To make your own life matter, even if just to yourself, first you have to know what's important to you, and why. You have to know what you care about, and why you care.
So it mattered that Minerva and Darryl cared about their kids, each other, and being creators rather than destroyers.
But if all Minerva and Darryl had done was care, their universe would have fallen to the Unweaver.
Likewise, if all I'd done was care about writing, I would still be a nurse working in a hospital — or doing something else that was never my dream.
So when I reread this story, I realized had to fix the mistake I'd made when I wrote it back in the early nineties.
Please realize that as a reader, I hate it when writers go back through their old works and completely rewrite them. I have always thought, and still think, If you have a different story to tell, then dammit, write something new.
So I didn’t do that.
However, my book had a big mistake in it. Big.
Luckily for me (and the book) it required only a small fix.
I changed about twenty words total in this edition of the book.
