NELLIE SAT ALONE on a riverbank, staring out over the quiet rippling water as a nearby wickawoo called out low in its throat, the last song of the day. It was dusk, the twin moons starting to show above the sepia-blue horizon, their pearly whiteness approaching half size. From a ways into the trees came the crackle of a campfire and muted voices as Deller and his mother cleaned up after the evening meal. Having been the one responsible for cooking the rather dismal lump of fried eggs, rice and cheese everyone had eaten, Nellie had been dismissed from the washing up chore and had wandered off to the riverbank to do some private personal thinking.
They were camped in the bush with a guide, approximately one day’s journey from Dorniver. After their escape from the Temple, Nellie and Deller had located his bike and helped his mother onto it. Followed by the four children, they’d wheeled her carefully across town to the house of a healer in the Snake-Eye district. By the time they’d arrived, she’d been sliding off the seat, barely conscious. The healer had immediately sent for several other women and they’d placed Deller’s mother in a deep sleep, then encircled her, laying on hands, singing and burning sweet-smelling herbs. Refused entry into the room, Nellie and Deller had taken up position in the hallway. Having gone two nights without sleep, Deller had soon drifted off, his head sliding down Nellie’s shoulder until it rested in her lap. His closeness had been warmer than anything she’d imagined. To get a grip, she’d concentrated on tuning into the molecular field and probing the room behind her.
The molecular field had revealed the glowing figures of five chanting women seated around a sixth who gave off such a pale light Nellie had initially thought she was dead. Listen, she’d told herself fiercely and tuned deeper into the scene, following sound downward into a quieter darker realm. There she’d seen two figures in the distance—a woman leaning against a man with sarpa eyes who held her gently in his arms.
No! Nellie had thought, and in a flash of fear had sent her mind toward them, intending to break them apart. But at that moment the door to the bedroom had opened and one of the healers had come out into the hall.
“You leave her be, child,” she’d told Nellie sternly. “This is her time to choose if she wants to continue living in her body, or pass on to the next world. It’s not your place to interfere. She’s been invaded in harsh ugly ways and we can’t change that, we can only work as much healing into her mind and body as we’re able. Then she has to decide if she wants to live on with the memory of what happened to her, or leave it behind.”
The healer had gone back into the room and closed the door, and Deller’s mother had continued to lie silent and motionless for two full days. Finally she’d woken, and after a meal and further rest, Deller had been called into the room. Impatient, Nellie had sat another full hour in the hall before she’d been allowed through the door. The woman she’d seen lying on the bed then had looked pale and thin, but the smile she’d given Nellie had carried the deep peace of two days of rest. Beckoning Nellie closer, she’d taken her hand.
“Nellie,” she’d said in her husky voice. “Deller’s been telling me what you went through, trying to rescue me, and I know about how the two of you’ve been sitting outside my door. Now I want to put what I’m saying next very clearly, so you won’t go changing it in your head. I don’t know if you’re a child of the gods and what that could mean if you are, but it doesn’t matter. From now on I want to wake up and find you in my home every morning, y’hear? No more taking off. You put your whole heart on the line saving me in that church and now I’m ready to put my whole heart into loving you, but you’ve got to realize it’s a different kind of loving, day by day. More like an open door than a windstorm. Takes a different kind of strength, keeping that door open, always coming back to the same people instead of blowing wherever the wind takes you.”
A smile flickered across Nellie’s mouth as she remembered the way Deller had stood beaming at her from the other side of the bed. There hadn’t been much time to stand around relishing the moment. Men had arrived to discuss moving them to a safe house in Shor, a small city several days’ journey to the south. By that point, the children they’d discovered in the Temple had been returned to their families in West Daven, and volunteers had been found to watch over Deller’s house. It hadn’t been difficult—with the bombing of the Jinnet’s headquarters and the news of infiltration by Interior agents, new resistance cells had been springing up everywhere.
A deep shudder ran through Nellie as she thought of everything that had happened, and she wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked fiercely. Abruptly she stopped and glanced up at the moons, halfway visible above the kwikwilla trees. A wistful look crossed her face, and she thought, Fit them together and you’ d get one person. A whole life, happy in itself.
In spite of the events of the past few weeks, there were still so many things missing, so many unanswered questions. She’d seen official documentation stating that her mother was dead, but not how she’d died. She knew she had a twin, but the knowledge was like a gaping hole inside her gut that demanded a solution. And the things the doubled priest had said about her father—well, Nellie didn’t want to think about that, pure and simple. A breeding between her mother and some creepy sarpa from a level higher than she’d ever traveled? A destiny that was so important, the sarpas had been pursuing her for years to fulfill it? What had the sarpa inside the doubled priest meant when it said it wanted to turn her into their greatest star? You had to be dead to be a star—stars were the souls of those who’d devoted their entire lives to the Goddess. Only Ivana could decide who became a star in the afterlife, not the sarpas.
Nellie shuddered again. One thing was clear—the sarpas were after her and she had to keep clear of all doubled people, especially priests and Interior agents. That shouldn’t be too difficult. She could usually spot Interior agents a long ways off, and the sarpas seemed to be restricted to inhabiting doubled people. Maybe they’d once lived in this level as solid bodies, but she was willing to bet they couldn’t any longer. She’d seen the hunger in the eyes of the doubled priest at the Temple. That sarpa had really wanted to get its hands on her directly, and if it could have shapeshifted into solid form, it would have done so.
Nellie shook her head, rumbling deep in her throat. The whole thing was beyond confusing, into another category of thinking and being she couldn’t comprehend. The sarpa in the Temple had been evil, no doubt about it, but Outbackers seemed to revere people with sarpa eyes, calling them the Goddess’s children. Was it possible the Goddess had once mated with a sarpa? Could there be good and bad sarpas? Or were they all bad, but some of their descendants good? Wonderingly Nellie traced the outline of her eyes. Was she actually one of the Goddess’s descendants? Could her destiny in some way be connected to Ivana?
This whole thing connected to the Goddess somehow, Nellie was sure of it. Ivana held everything—all of life, truth and knowing— in Her divine hands. But then why did She allow such evil to go on in Her holy house? Small ripples of thought flicked across Nellie’s face as she remembered the pleading hands that sat atop Dorniver’s church spires. Maybe one of the clues to this puzzle was in those hands. Maybe they weren’t blessing the churches as she’d originally thought, but trying to escape them. Maybe those hands were a message from the Goddess telling everyone that She wasn’t a building, She was a presence that stretched everywhere you looked. For Ivana, Nellie thought excitedly, her pulse quickening, was the molecular field, great hands of energy that held everyone and everything, even the people who didn’t believe in Her. That was what the hands on top of the spires were saying, she thought, a glad smile crossing her face: Reach beyond what you can see. Reach into the molecular field, with all its love and hope glowing in every molecule. Reach into what you feel, into your soul, into other levels, even into the afterlife like the twin sons if you have to, but reach and you will find what has gone missing in your life.
Slowly Nellie unwrapped her arms from her knees and knelt facing the twin moons. It had been three weeks since her last remembering session, and in spite of the friendship she’d received from Deller and his mother, there was still an ache in her to be touched by her own mother’s hand. Hugging herself tightly, she began to rock. “Blessed Ivana,” she murmured. The words spoke themselves deep into her mind and she closed her eyes, imagining the Goddess’ hands atop a church spire, high above Dorniver’s roofs. “Blessed Ivana,” she sighed. “Mother of all mothers, mother of all sad and lonely children, come to me, come.”
Hunched and swaying, Nellie forced herself deeper and deeper into herself, digging into her mind for that moment when worlds connected and she could find her way through. Old women, she thought furiously. Think of their stinky garlicky mouths and the inside of a church, smelly with incense and old carpets. An ache started in her knees and they creaked protestingly but still she rocked, pushing against some invisible inner barrier. “Blessed Ivana, blessed Ivana,” she whispered, but all that came to her was the loneliness creeping up her arms and the hot burn of her knees against the ground. What was wrong? Why wasn’t her mother coming to her? Was Ivana angry with Her humble devotee?
Placing the heels of her hands against her closed eyelids, Nellie pressed hard. Suffer, she had to suffer the way the Goddess suffered for Her people. Surely then Ivana would grant a lowly request to call one dead mother from the grave. Nellie, sweet darling, her mother would whisper—
“Nellie,” murmured a voice, and soft fingertips grazed her forehead. Yearning pierced Nellie, she cupped her hands and lifted them pleadingly the way the Goddess did. Her mother was coming back to her, was even now descending onto this riverbank—
“Look at me, bozo,” commanded the voice, and Nellie’s eyes flew open to see her double in the gold-brocaded dress standing before her with a weasely smirk on her face. Instantly she was on her feet, her claws out and ready to lunge, but the other girl simply waved and faded into thin air. Breathing heavily, Nellie sat down with a thump, and sure enough her double reappeared, wearing the exact same smirk.
“What did you do that for?” Nellie hissed. “I was remembering.”
Her double shrugged. “Thought it would be interesting.”
“It’s not interesting,” Nellie snapped. “Interrupting people’s hearts like that.”
“Keep that in mind next time you see the possibilities,” replied her double coolly. “Besides, you don’t need to do it anymore. You’ve got someone else now.”
“Doesn’t mean I’ve got to forget my real mother,” Nellie spat.
“I didn’t tell you to forget her,” said her double. “I said you don’t need her anymore. Let her rest, like the dead should.”
“What about you?” asked Nellie, pointing. “You wear the remembering dress all the time.”
For a moment Nellie’s double regarded her impassively. Then, in a single movement, she shucked the dress and stood naked, holding it out to her. “Here,” she said quietly. “Take it back. But I can already tell you it won’t work. I’ve tried and tried, but she doesn’t come. We don’t need her anymore. That’s why she isn’t coming to you. Now that you’ve found love in this world, she can rest in hers.”
Sinking her face into the dress, Nellie stroked it like a live thing. It was true, what her double was saying—she could feel it, some kind of longing slid out of her and gone. “But isn’t it evil?” she whispered, breathing in the dress’s musky scent. “To let her go like that? To forget her? Think of her all alone in the dark, suffering without any love. Think of how she died.”
“She’s not dying anymore,” her double said softly. “That’s finished. She stopped suffering a long time ago. Now she needs to rest, and for us to let her go.”
With a heaving sigh, Nellie lay down on the riverbank and curled up with the dress. An enormous exhaustion settled around her, curling up like a second presence, and for a moment she seemed to feel a hand pressed to her forehead and the quietest of voices whispering, Nellie Joan. Goodbye, my sweet Nellie Joan. Then it was gone—the presence, the great gray exhaustion and that moment when invisible doors opened and worlds connected. Hugging the dress tighter, Nellie licked tears from her mouth. “I’ve still got my twin,” she said thickly. “Nellie Joanne.”
“Me too,” said her double, sitting beside her.
“You knew,” Nellie accused, lifting her head to glare at the hunched figure. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
Her double shrugged. “Something you had to figure out in your own skin.”
“Thanks a lot, Miss Snotty Ass.” With a sniff, Nellie started to get to her feet.
“Okay,” her double sighed heavily. “I’ll tell you this much. Nellie Joanne used to live with me until I started school. That’s when they took her away, but I still saw her at training sessions.”
Nellie sat down eagerly. “Black Core training sessions?”
Her double shot her a quick glance but remained silent. Nellie’s eyes slitted, and then she blinked them into a wide-eyed innocence. “Why can’t I remember her?” she wheedled, trying a different tack. “I can’t remember even one little thing. When I saw her name on the file, my head felt like it was blowing up, but I wasn’t surprised, neither. Somehow I knew, but I just couldn’t remember.”
Her double nodded.
“D’you think she can remember me?” Nellie asked pleadingly. “No,” her double said firmly. “She’s fixed, even worse than you. Remember, there’s no flux in the Interior.”
In bewildered silence, Nellie stared at her double. “But not all the levels are fixed,” she said finally. “I saw Nellie Joanne in the crystal level, and she wasn’t fixed there. If we went into the Interior and found her, maybe we could unfix her and bring her to live in the Outbacks.”
“You’d need a lot of flux for that,” her double said darkly. “The skins are like stone there. And anyway, you’ve lost your identity tattoo.”
Nellie shrugged carelessly. “I’ll get a pen and draw one on.”
“There was an implant under it,” said her double. “Remember the bump under the cat’s head? It had all your vital statistics and case history. Without it, they’d catch you at the first checkpoint.”
“Well, we have to do something,” Nellie snapped. “What if I just thought myself there, like they do in the crystal level?”
“Can’t,” said her double immediately. “The vibes are slow here, so it takes a lot longer between thinking about doing something, and then doing it. In the crystal level it’s so quick, you just think something and it happens.”
A weasely expression crossed Nellie’s face. “What if I shapeshifted into a crystal girl and thought myself there?” she asked cagily.
“Uh-uh,” said her double. “When you’ve got flux you can shape-shift into any form, but you can’t hold it. The reason you stayed in crystal form in the Temple was because of your mind link to your crystal double. That’s broken now.”
“Oh.” Moodily Nellie stared at the twin moons. “That mind link is why the crystal people all think at each other instead of talking, isn’t it?” she asked finally. “The vibrations are so quick that by the time someone thinks a thought, it’s already spoken into everyone else’s mind.”
Her double nodded and Nellie shuddered. “No wonder they’re all the same,” she grumbled. “No one can have private thoughts.”
“It’s different,” shrugged her double.
“Yeah, but they don’t think outside themselves,” Nellie protested. “Deller and his mom were dying and they didn’t even care. I know they helped us in the Temple, but it was evil of them not to care when people were dying right in front of them in their own level.”
“Maybe,” said her double. “But maybe they aren’t afraid of death the way you are. And maybe they just don’t know any different. None of them travel to other levels, remember?”
Sitting up, Nellie stared at the twin moons. “What are the levels?” she asked huskily. “D’you think that all of them put together are one big ... thing? A kind of oneness like in the crystal level, but a oneness that lets each level be different? And inside each level, it lets each one of us be different too? At least in the slower levels.”
“Unless your level gets fixed,” said her double.
“But who’s fixing the levels?” Nellie asked. “The Goddess?”
“No way,” her double said emphatically. “You’ll find out someday, when you’re ready.”
Quiet relief flooded Nellie. She’d learned enough lately to last her for a good long while. “I bet that’s why those men jumped Fen in the tenth level,” she said eagerly. “Like you said, everything after the tenth isn’t fixed, and they probably didn’t want him to find that out. But they didn’t come from the eleventh level, their vibrations were way too fast. Were they from a floater level, like you?”
Her double shook her head. “It’s something else, something I can’t tell you about. You don’t know enough yet, and it would bust your brain.”
“Oh.” Nellie let out a small hissing laugh. “You’ve busted it a couple times already, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Her double snorted, her eyes dancing across Nellie’s, and got to her feet. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “The others, y’know.” Her eyes strayed longingly over the gold-brocaded dress and then she said quietly, “You did good in the Temple. You listened.”
Brief brilliance sang in Nellie’s throat. “Here,” she said gruffly, holding out the gold-brocaded dress. “Take it. I’ve got other clothes.”
Her double accepted the dress, running a hand over the gold embroidery. “I had my own, but I threw it away when the remembering stopped working,” she said slowly. “I kept this one mostly to bug you, but somehow I got used to wearing it.”
“It’s like a song,” Nellie said wistfully. “It sings. About her.”
“Yeah,” sighed her double. Sliding on the dress, she stood glimmering in the moonlight. “You’ve decided, haven’t you?” she said. “You’re going back to the Interior to find Nellie Joanne.”
At her double’s words a vivid flash of fear hit Nellie, and then she nodded. Her double sighed knowingly.
“Take Deller with you,” she said. “He’s got sense, more than you do, and he’ll have connections there through the Jinnet. And whatever you do, make sure you listen.” She stared at Nellie, her face earnest with moonlight. “Listen to the skins,” she said. “Listen to your own skin. Can you hear it?”
Reaching out she took Nellie’s hand, and Nellie felt herself washed with a liquid wave of sound. Voices swirled through her, a huge crying out, and for a moment every molecule in the air seemed to open and she was looking into every level at once. Countless girls with sarpa eyes stared back at her, the closest dressed in yellow T-shirts and blue shorts, those further out furred like animals or with wings on their backs. One spiraled gently like smoke and another seemed to be made of fire, flickering in all the colors of thought.
Without warning, the girl in the gold-brocaded dress sang a shrill clear note and stepped directly into Nellie. Then, in a rapid flickering sequence, the rest of her doubles also broke into song and stepped into and through her. Suddenly Nellie found herself shapeshifting through mad gorgeous shapes—gargoyles and angels, a girl who flowed like water and another who seemed to be composed of the scent of a susurra flower, a great flying serpent, and then for a moment, a glittering figure made of a myriad brilliant crystals. With a triumphant hoot, Nellie finally realized what shapeshifting was.
“It’s love,” she bellowed gleefully. “It’s all the levels reaching out and touching each other with love.”
Gradually the endless sequence of doubles stopped passing through her and retreated into their own levels. The singing voices faded and the air closed into itself again. Bit by bit Nellie felt the molecules of her body reassert themselves, first her bones, then her heart and lungs, her nervous system and finally her skin. Opening her eyes, she saw the girl in the gold-brocaded dress standing beside her, still holding her hand.
“Now that,” said her double with a grin, “is what I call flux.”
About to respond, Nellie was interrupted by the cracking of twigs and whirled to see Deller coming toward them through the bush. A grin crossed his face as he saw her, and then he fixed on the girl in the gold-brocaded dress and went bug-eyed.
“Hey!” he yelped, coming to an abrupt halt. “Are you a double?”
Absolute silence descended onto the girl standing beside Nellie, and she gave him an icy glare.
“Uh, Deller,” Nellie said hastily. “It’s kind of, well ... relative, y’know?”
“Relative?” he asked, confused. “You mean she’s your cousin?”
“No.” Nellie slitted her eyes, scowled and fidgeted. “I mean, like ... Well okay, I’m her double.”
The air relaxed as the girl in the gold-brocaded dress gave an approving nod.
“Oh.” Deller’s eyes darted between them. “Yeah sure, I get it. So, does that mean we’re in another level?” He glanced around eagerly. “Where’s my double?”
“We’re not in another level,” Nellie said impatiently. “And if you shut up and don’t ask too many questions, she might help us find Fen.”
A very weasely expression crossed Deller’s face and he glanced quickly at Nellie’s double. “D’you know any easy ways into the Interior?” he asked.
Relief hit Nellie, so enormous she almost sank to her knees. As usual, Deller was way ahead of her. She wasn’t even going to have to ask him if he would come along on her search for Nellie Joanne.
“You can’t go through the skins,” her double said quickly. “A watch has been placed on them and even if there wasn’t, the skins are too tough to get through in the Interior. You’ll have to get there the normal way.” She turned toward Nellie, her gray sarpa eyes intent. “You don’t know,” she said quietly, “how important this is. How important you are—more even than the rest of your doubles. You have to listen, to the skins, to your own skin.”
Utterly bewildered, Nellie stared at her double. Their eyes locked and then she heard a voice shimmer deep within her mind. You’re not half bad, y’ know,it said lightly, for a double. My slowest double, that is. A dense brief humming started up around the girl in the gold-brocaded dress, she grinned a fierce weasely grin, and was gone.
“Hey!” Deller yelped, stepping forward and running his hands through the air. “Is there a gate here?”
“She doesn’t need gates,” said Nellie, staring at the place her double had been standing. What in the Goddess’s name had the girl meant when she’d said Nellie was the most important double? What had happened to everything being relative? “She won’t show me how she does it without them though,” she added glumly. “She’s kind of a crabby person, actually.”
“Well.” Deller grinned at her. “She is your double.”
Nellie slitted her eyes at him, but he ignored her, settling down on the riverbank and pointing west. “See that?” he asked.
Sitting beside him Nellie glanced in the direction he was pointing. “See what?” she asked grumpily.
“That constellation,” he said. “It’s the Five Children, the ones who didn’t get turned into moons and ended up living normal lives. It’s sitting right over the Interior. All we have to do is follow it, and it’ll take us where we need to go. It’ll be like a promise. We’re going to find them alive—Fen and Nellie Joanne.”
Nellie sat watching the scattering of tiny stars, her heart thundering like an ache, like anger, a knife-edged knowing she couldn’t put into words. What they were about to do was absolute foolishness. It was sliding off the cliff edge of hope. It could steal breath and end heartbeats. And it would take her straight into her most frightening memories.
“What about your mom?” she whispered, hugging her knees. “She told me no more running off. And she’ll be too scared to let you go.”
“We’ll have to sneak off,” Deller said glumly. “I don’t like it, but I don’t know any other way. We’ll hang around a couple of days when we get to Shor to help her get settled, then take off. Lucky for us Shor’s closer to the Interior than Dorniver.” He sighed, rubbing his face with both hands. “I know she told you to stick around, but you’re not taking off really, if you’re with me. She’ll be mad. She’ll be out of her head with worry. But she’ll understand why we went. And think how happy she’ll be when she sees us coming back with Fen.” He stared up at the Constellation of the Five Children, transfixed. “It’ll be worth every minute of her worrying, she’ll see.”
“Yeah.” Doubt still hung over Nellie like a thick veil. “But what if ... “ She paused, swallowing.
“What if what?” asked Deller, turning to look at her.
“Well ... “ Again Nellie paused. “What if what the doubled priest said in the Temple is true?” she burst out unhappily. “What if I am half sarpa?”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” shrugged Deller. “My dad had sarpa in him too, remember? Lucky for Fen it all went to him.”
An astonished look crossed Nellie’s face, and he leaned toward her, bumping her shoulder with his own. “The way I see it,” he continued, “if you’re half sarpa, you’ll be able to figure out what they’re likely to do next. We’re bound to run into a few of them again somewhere, especially since they’re looking for you. And I bet they’ve got something to do with whatever’s happening to Fen and your sister. Plus, being half sarpa, you can do things the rest of us can’t. I mean, Nellie—, “ Deller gave a short laugh. “When those guys took off through that laboratory door, it wasn’t the human part of you they were running away from. Anyway,” he said gruffly. “Your heart’s all human, I know that for sure.”
Suddenly Nellie found herself engulfed in a tight hug, Deller’s heart thundering against her own. Just as quickly he withdrew, and they sat breathing rapidly, staring out over the quiet rippling water.
“Well,” said Nellie, her hands fluttering nervously, patting her short bristly hair, her face, her throat. “Well.”
“We’re going to find them, Nellie.” Deller turned toward her, his face shadowy in the sepia-gray dusk. “We’re going to find them and bring them back, you and me.”
“And the Goddess,” Nellie said firmly. Getting a grip, she raised a finger and waved it in his face.
“Sure.” With a grin, Deller hooked her finger with his own. “We’ll let Her come along too.”