“I just sat on moss before.”
“That’s nice, too,” Theo replied. “You don’t like what I’ve done with the place?”
“I do. It’s just…I don’t know.”
“It’s more me.”
“Yes. What do you call this retreat of yours?”
Theo smiled. “This is the place from which truth springs, where we can take the long view. Someone else might call it ‘Heart’ or ‘Heaven.’ I call it The Last Cafe.”
“I see.”
“Cozy, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And something’s bothering you. Whatever it is, this is the place to figure it out.”
Jaimie stood. “They want me to go fight Misericordia, Dad. I need answers.”
“Ask the right questions and the answers will appear.”
“If this is heaven…you’re dead?”
“Jaimie, you already know the answer to that. You’ve known since Missouri.”
“Since the night our house blew up. Yes. I…yes.”
“Shotgun blast to the chest. I’m sorry you witnessed that. I died very quickly, if that helps. Sutr couldn’t kill me, but any idiot can pull a trigger. Any idiot did.”
“I did see it. But I saw you walk away, too. I thought he’d missed…or something.”
“The stronger the brain, the more powerful the old brain block can be. You didn’t want to believe life could be taken away so easily.”
“I brought you back?”
“Nobody really comes back, Jaimie. That door is exit only. You know this isn’t some silly ghost story, right?”
“What kind of story is it then?”
“It’s about life and death.”
“So, it’s a horror story.”
“Let’s not be too grim. Call it suspense.”
“What am I doing here?”
“Avoiding what you know you’re going to do. This is active procrastinating, getting your nerve up to face the truth.”
“And what is the truth?”
“I haven’t been with you since the night Carron’s marauders came. When you leave here, you will face Misericordia. That much is real. The minotaur is coming to you and you'd better have the labyrinth ready.”
Somewhere a clock chimed.
“But…no!” Jaimie protested. “You’ve been with us the whole way! We’ve had whole conversations!”
“We never had conversations before, son. How do you suppose we accomplished that after Kansas City?” Theo sipped his hot cocoa and looked into the fire. You already know what’s real. Your mind just has to give the heart permission to acknowledge the loss. It’s natural.”
“This is hard to believe.”
“Ask yourself what’s real. In all our conversations, did anybody else really hear me, Jaimie? Ever see me actually do anything? All those miles and I never drove once? Really?”
Jaimie thought.
Theo’s smile was kind and patient. “I’ve been adjacent to the activity, Jaimie, not in it.”
“What about the times Mom and Anna talked to you?”
“Either you imagined it or they didn’t want to let go of me, either. When people are scared, they imagine they aren’t alone. Some people say that’s where God comes from.”
“What kind of atheist are you, Dad?”
“A bad one. When I got really sick and was sure I was going to die on Douglas Oliver’s couch, I lost my nerve. I started talking about the Gateway to the Spirit World when I was delirious. I never thought I’d confess to killing D’Arcy Kennigan. And here we are. You have a good imagination, son. You extrapolated so much and so far, you never guessed your mother was carrying my ashes home.”
Jaimie cast about, as if the library itself might give him a worthy objection. The idea struck him as fanciful at first, but in The Last Cafe, anything could prove a strong intuition.
The boy stood abruptly and thrust his hand into a nearby bookshelf. He reached at random, but found the book he was looking for immediately. As soon as his hands closed on the book with the black cover, every book in the library turned black. Every tome became the same book.
The cover showed the silhouette of a boy walking alone down a road in the rain. In the bottom right hand corner, a monster shambled behind, following the boy.
Jaimie flipped through the pages. Each page was blank. Then, on page 180 Jaimie found some text. The book offered up the scene from the road he was looking for.
“The cowboy with the bright, blue boots! Mom was outside the van, but I heard her say you were inside! Right? That happened!”
“She was afraid of the man, Jaimie. She lied to make him think she had backup if she needed it.”
“But, all we’ve talked about…. ”
Theo gazed back, saying nothing.
Jaimie turned back to the book in his hands. Flipping through more blank pages until he found more text. It detailed the night he met the two French girls.
“Anna called out for you!” Jaimie said. He stabbed a finger at the page and turned the book to show his father. “See? She called out, ‘Daddy!’”
“Fear. Habit. It says she was embarrassed, too. For a second, she felt like a scared little girl instead of the strong, young woman she’s become.”
Jaimie stared at Theo for some time. His father seemed younger and stronger and that reinforced the resemblance between father and son. “I am talking to myself,” Jaimie said.
Theo smiled. “I said, ‘Quiet reflection.’ You’re talking to a mirror, Jaimie.”
Far off, the clock chimed again. Outside The Last Cafe, Dayo waited to take him to face Misericordia. The boy pushed that thought away.
“You were here before,” Jaimie said, “in the trees. You…you were the trees.”
“I always did love Shakespeare.”
“I brought Dr. Sinjin-Smythe here. And Shiva!”
“In the Dreamscape, the birch forest is your safest place.”
“You told me to bring back meaning!”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Theo stared at him. “That’s kind of circular, don’t you think? The only satisfying answers I can give you are the answers you’re hiding from yourself.”
Jaimie looked to the fire. It crackled. He felt the heat of the stove. It all felt so real, but there was no stovepipe to channel smoke outside, nor was there a woodbox to feed the flames. He was in the Dreamscape again and, worse, he couldn’t stay. The clock chimed louder, more tinny and irritating this time.
“The meaning is…”
Theo leaned forward. “Yes?”
“Not anything anyone can give to anyone else. You have to find it for yourself.”
“So what meaning have you found for yourself, Jaimie?”
“Anything I could say would sound trite.”
“Don’t censor yourself. Just tell me what you feel. Don’t let what you think you should say get in the way of your truth.”
“I love you, Dad.”
Theo sat back in his seat and smiled. “That’s just fine, son. That does nicely. I love you, too.”
Jaimie began to weep. “I can still see you walking down the hall toward me after the explosion. But…I’ve been talking to myself since our house blew up.”
Theo gave a slow nod. “And even now. I’m sorry.”
“Do you think this is what your heaven will be? I mean, the real thing, not just me dreaming?”
Theo got up and held Jaimie’s hand. “I think this is the heaven you know I’d wish for. Thank you for that. You’re a good son.”
“What does The Way of Things want from me, Dad? Why all the death? Why all the pain? I’m…I’m responsible for the deaths of so many people. Not just bad people. I did what The Way of Things wanted and now a lot of good people are dead because of me.”
Theo looked around the vast library. “Jaimie, when I read a book, I’m looking down into another world. It’s — ”
“God-like?”
“Yes. I think we’re all characters in a play and The Way of Things is looking down into our world, just as real as the world of fictional characters.”
“So?”
“It’s the oldest question about thinking: You assume you have thoughts, but who is the real thinker behind the thought? Where do our thoughts come from? Are we the dreamer or the dreamed?”
Jaimie shrugged. “Tell me. What do I think about that?”
“The common objection to this line of thought is the problem of infinite regression. If there is another thinker behind you, who is the thinker behind him? And so on, forever.”
“I’m confused.”
“I’m not surprised. You’re talking to yourself.”
Jaimie rolled his eyes the way his sister often had. It was kind of satisfying when confronted with exasperation. He made encouraging circles with his hands. “Yeah, but?”
“Perhaps the philosophers don’t appreciate how truly vast the universe is and how many timelines and dimensions it can hold.”
“You’re saying the universe can accommodate infinite regressions? An infinite number of thinkers and observers, watching the story unfold, entertaining themselves. We are all books?”
“And someone, somewhere is staying up to read in bed, watching us, right now. They’re listening.”
Unconsciously, Jaimie peered upwards and Theo followed his gaze.
“God’s reading us right now?”
“We are all gods, in some small way.” Theo took a sip of his cocoa, his brow furrowed. “Technically, I’m not saying this. You are.”
“Dad!”
“Okay. Sorry…um…yes…The Way of Things is watching our story unfold, reading our book and discovering where it leads, just as we enact the play. The play can go all sorts of ways. Uncertainty and surprises are the payoffs.”
“So, The Way of Things is the reader?”
“Maybe the ultimate reader. Maybe the regressions aren’t infinite. Maybe the thoughts and potentialities all emanate from the dark matter of the universe.”
“How can the It hide the story’s outcome from Itself?”
“If humans can keep from turning to the last page, surely all-powerful forces can show some self-restraint.”
“You didn’t say why it’s okay that I killed people.”
Theo sighed. “Gods need stories. You are a story.”
“Why do gods need stories?”
“To break up the monotony between big bangs? Because we created our gods in our image? Because, like us, gods understand themselves…we get at the truth of our natures…by drawing on the experience of others? Without our stories, a god’s life would be awfully boring. Everybody gets off on judging others. Maybe that’s why we make our gods so harsh.”
Jaimie spoke for himself, with certainty now. “But a life isn’t a story we tell ourselves. We tell ourselves lies to help us cope with how awful it is back there in the...in the Meatspace. Our fictions help get us through. Stories make sense in ways reality never can. We suffer so many terrible losses. Our narratives give our lives meaning.”
Theo’s eyes narrowed. “Time is short. Conclusion?”
“The Way of Things gives us life to feed It meaning. Our stories give us hope to deal with this plague of days.”
The clock chimed again, louder and more insistent than before. It sounded like something was broken and stuck. The mechanism kept banging as wheels spun in place.
Theo’s smile faded, matching Jaimie’s face. He looked more and more like Jaimie with each passing moment. “It’s all a story, but it’s all real, too. When you go back to face the Alpha…it is real. The pain will be real. The losses will be…tangible.”
Misericordia was close to Poeticule Bay. Even here in The Last Cafe, Jaimie could sense him. The vampire, usually naked, was now clothed in heavy body armor, ready for battle.
Theo pulled Jaimie up from his seat.
“You have brought back meaning, Jaimie. The sacrifices The Way of Things demanded? It’s used you and Shiva to give the world another chance.”
“What is that chance?”
“To join the big parade, to be part of the Purge and the Reset and eventually find our way forward. We were about to destroy ourselves, one way or another. All that we’ve suffered and all that we’ve done ensures that God gets His story. Without all the drawn out suspense, God’s an avid reader without a book.”
Theo hugged his son for the last time. “Remember what we say to feel safe?”
“Pickle,” Jaimie said.
* * *
When Jaimie stepped outside, tropical heat pulsed through him. He walked back the way he came, through the tall bamboo to the birch forest.
D’Arcy Kennigan was gone from the clearing. However, Jaimie heard two boys laughing through the forest. When he turned, a sawdust mountain rose high above the trees.
Two boys climbed it, laughing and dodging as they threw wood chips at each other. Halfway up, they paused and looked back to wave goodbye.
One was D’Arcy Kennigan, long dead of a shotgun wound. The other was, of course, Theo Spencer. His father was dead of a shotgun blast, too, many years later.
“Race to the top, Bags!” D’Arcy yelled to Theo.
The boys leapt and laughed and fell back and crawled up again. Young Theo Spencer jumped and bounced down the sawdust mountain as if he was on springs.
“It’s like walking on the moon, Jaimie!” he yelled. “Like the moon! Thank you!”
Jaimie felt the weight of the book in his hand. He examined the cover again. The title appeared in white: This Plague of Days. The author’s name, emblazoned across the bottom, read: James Augustus Spencer.
He turned the book to examine the spine. There he found the title, his name, and a logo for the publisher. Jaimie wasn’t surprised to find it was in Latin.
Ex Parte Press.
Ex Parte.
From one.
And he saw the universe in the palm of his hand. The Way of Things was dark matter, God and a reader, but It was also the read. Everything and everyone, himself included, came from One, turning on Itself to understand Itself.
Jaimie riffled the pages one last time. Every page was a mirror.
To win our title, we must defeat the tribal
Cliff drove Papa Spence's old rattler of a farm truck. He called to his passengers in the open back. "Ten minutes to the bay!"
Jaimie stared at the stars, but his mind was on The Last Cafe. He'd seen his father as a young boy, running up and bouncing down the sawdust mountain. It was a pretty picture, but it saddened Jaimie to know the dream was really a gift for himself.
What lay on the other side of what Theo had called the "exit door?" Jaimie still didn't know.
His father once said that, in Hamlet, Shakespeare called Death "the undiscovered country." Jaimie liked that idea, but Hamlet was about a guy who couldn't make decisions and all the action happened on the living side of the grave. No real help there.
If the Army of Light failed, Misericordia would surely shove him through that exit door tonight.
Jaimie's palms broke into a hot sweat but his forehead was a cold sheen. He hoped that The Way of Things was having at least a reasonably good time watching his terror build.
* * *
Jack sat across from Jaimie, watching him. The Vermer girls sat on either side of Jaimie. "These girls shouldn't be coming to Poeticule Bay tonight," Jack told Dayo.
She caught Aasa's disapproval immediately. "Sorry, Aasa, but it's true."
"I have to see this," Aasa said. "It's an origin story. Those are the most powerful stories. We're going to tell this one for generations."
"And where Aasa goes, I go," Aastha added brightly. The little girl flashed a thought-picture at Jack. The image was of a small golden fish on a hook. Behind it, a bigger fish with a huge smile and many teeth loomed.
"Bait," Dayo told Aastha. "The word
you're looking for is bait."
Jack shuddered. "You know you'll only get to tell this story if we live. I've met the one you call Misericordia. He turned a huge refugee camp at the Brickyard into…well…"
Jack didn't want to explain for fear of frightening the Vermer girls. However, the word-pictures came unbidden and they did the job in a flash.
"Don't worry about me, Mrs. Spencer," Aastha said. "I found out about Father Christmas recently, too, and I’m okay about it now.”
Jack and Dayo broke into chuckles.
"It will be okay, I think," Aasa said.
"News from the future, little oracle?" Dayo asked.
"No," Aasa said. She eyed Jaimie. "Just faith in the story. We are the authors. We’ll make it turn out right.”
“Happily ever after?” Jack asked.
“Good stories have satisfying endings, Mrs. Spencer, but they aren’t necessarily happy. We’ll find out soon. No cliffhangers now.”
Jack reached out with her mind, but apparently Aasa could block her thoughts as easily as Jaimie could. When Jack asked her unspoken question, the picture in her mind was that of a stone wall. Jack looked up. Instead of a starry sky and a full moon, she found herself at the foot of a high wall as smooth as glass. It was an ice castle. Aasa peered down at her from a high turret.
Jack blinked and she found herself in the back of the farm truck again, speeding toward Poeticule Bay.
“You locked me out, Aasa,” Jack said.
"The Way of Things doesn't know this future because It doesn't want to know, that's all. That doesn't mean there is no future. Stop worrying. Worrying never helps.”
Jack turned to Dayo. "There is something else I worry…um…wonder about. Humans can communicate without speech. Apparently Jaimie's been doing that in his dreams for quite some time."
"Dreams makes it sound a bit hippie, doesn't it?" Dayo asked. "I'd call it astral projection."
This Plague of Days (Omnibus): Seasons 1-3 Page 90
