Wild Swans (22 page)

**
Come now
,** he assured her. **
You’ve come this far. Why not see the rest?
**

Althea opened her eyes. She gasped. Surrounding them was a seething undulating black-purple mass that emitted a strange dull light of its own. It spun, swirled and pulsed, emitting a malevolence so thick Althea could feel it pressing against her skin. It was too real for her; too horrible and too sinister. Terrified, Althea closed her eyes and held Lindt close.

**
It’s evil
.**

**
I know, yet evil doesn’t come close to describing it does it? Evil gives it a conscious, a purpose. This has neither. Not in any way that you could understand. Those like myself refer to it as the Remnant. It isn’t life as anyone knows, but in an instinctive way it has a sentience all
it’s own. It has been trying to put out the eye of The All since its inception. Even though that is its desire, it never can. It cannot bear the light, you see, so it can never come close enough to cause harm. It can, however harm the All’s minions
.**

**
Which came first, God or chaos? **

**No one knows. It happened before beginningless time.**

**And you’re somehow a part of all of this.

**Yes.**

**So when you said you were in construction you meant—**

**—yes. I thought it was very clever of me.**

**What are you, exactly?**

**
You were correct in your earlier assessment. I am not a man, nor am I an alien. An alien implies that I reside on a specific world, which I do not.**.

**You’re an angel then.**

**I am incomprehensible to the current level of human understanding.**

Althea soaked it in. **
Yet you’re real, and solid. I can touch you, hear your voice, and see your face.**

**All of which is simply a mask.**

**Can you die?**

**Yes, under the correct conditions I can be destroyed. But it wouldn’t be permanent. I would absorb into the vast expanse of the All and be reborn. Just as you will some day. Just as every sentient being who comes into the presence of the All when their time comes.**

**This is just too much.**

**I know, yet I have a reason for showing you all of this. Do you feel up to it or are you completely overwhelmed?**

**Show me more.**

**Very well.**

She felt them descend and once again the multiverse came into view.

**
See those two old strings swaying close to one another? They’re about to have a baby together, then they will die. Watch.**
Lindt said.

Althea looked down at the two strands that Lindt had indicated and watched as the thick dully glowing filaments bumped into each other. The subsequent bump produced an incredible explosion of light and energy. An instant later, a small thin violet ribbon formed. The two older universes disintegrated like burning firecracker fuses.

**
This is how it’s done,**
Lindt explained. **
That tiny strand is a brand new universe
.**

**
Just like that?**

**Just like that,**
he said, his mental voice filled with warmth and humor.
**Of course, some of the multiverses you see are uncounted eons old, whereas others, are newly born. Like the one we just saw
.**

**
Then they all have life spans.**

**Yes, they do.**

**And the two old strands that burned up, they died, didn’t they?**

**Yes.**

**And all the people living on them, they died too?**

**One was already devoid of life, and the other...yes, I am sad to say that nothing survived.**

**
Was there any way to save them?**

**No, I’m afraid not.**

**And you and your kind create these universes?**

**No, but we do help them along. We’re something like midwives.**

**Oh**

Althea scanned the scene below.
**Where’s my universe?**

Lindt pointed
. **That one is yours, the green-gold string expanding between those two big gray ones. Those are your parent branes. They’ve created countless numbers of universes together. You’ve lived and died an unimaginable amount of times, Althea. Just like the universes we see. Once upon a time, you walked on a different world and gazed up at the stars, learned and loved, and died, only to be reborn again and again on different worlds, in different universes, in different times.**

**
Then I could have met you before.**

**Yes, many times.**

**But you said earlier that I’d never see you again.**

**I’ll see you again, perhaps not in this particular lifetime, but in another
.**

She looked at the short thin filament expanding between the two dull pulsing cords.

**
I can’t imagine.**

**I know.**

**Can I go back in time and find out?**

**Yes, but it’d be a pointless exercise. There’s wisdom, you see, in not being able to remember your former lives. Imagine the yearning in your heart now, in this one lifetime. How could you endure the ache and sorrow from recalling countless other lifetimes?**

**
But still—**

**But still,**
Lindt laughed. **
Human nature demands that opportunity, doesn’t it?
**

Althea gazed back out at the undulating purple-black mass. **
That thing out there. It scares me worse than anything I’ve ever seen.*
*

**
There’s nothing to fear. It’s merely the aftereffect of creation.**

**But it’s after you.**

**It’s after all of us.**

**And yet you tell me that there’s nothing to fear.**

**That is correct, yes.**

**But—**

**Hush, now, it’s time to go home.**

He pushed her away gently and she felt herself falling back into her body. “This,” he whispered, “is why I must not stay here. Why I can never take Cally away from the people she loves. I cannot risk her precious life because I was selfish to think I could love and marry and have a normal life like ordinary people.”

“And those creatures, those shadows—”

“The Remnants? Yes. They will destroy you and your mother and aunt just as surely as they will destroy me. If I let them. Which I certainly will not.”

“But what about God? The All as you called it? Won’t he interfere?”

“No. Because to interfere will destroy the natural progression of the Omniverse. Everything must proceed as it was intended.”

“But the shadow...what did you call them? Remnants.”

“Do not have the same kind of power. And their influence on Earth is limited, yet it is enough. It is enough.”

“Won’t they come anyway? To get any information we have about you?”

“No. Once I’m gone, the Remnants will lose interest in you. That’s one of their few saving graces, short memories.”

“I don’t want you to go,” she whispered.

“I know, but it’s time. See?” He pointed toward the driveway and the black sedan that arrived weeks before and dropped him off at their doorstep seemed to appear from nowhere. He kissed her on the forehead and said, “I’ll never forget you.”

“Please, please don’t go. Stay just a little while longer.”

“I’m not going far, not tonight.” He stood, gave her a slight smile and retrieved his carpet bag and brown paper sack. He handed the sack to her and said, “This is for you.”

“What is it?” She asked.

Mr. Lindt smiled. “A tiny bit of myself. Consider it something to remember me by.” With that, he kissed her lightly on the top of the head, and gathering up his possessions, walked out to the waiting car, got in and drove away.

Althea knelt on the veranda’s deck, clutching the crumpled bag to her chest, and watched as the car disappeared into the night. For the second time in two weeks, she realized she was crying.

Chapter Fourteen

After watching the sedan leave with the closest thing she ever had to a father inside it, Althea returned to her room, dragging her knapsack behind her. She tossed the paper sack Lindt had given her onto the bed. She looked at the bag, considered opening it, but knew if she did she would cry and not be able to stop.

Instead Althea flopped down on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor.
I have never felt so alone in my life as I do right now,
she thought
.
Her eyes were drawn to the small stack of books piled neatly underneath her vanity. She uttered a deep shuddering sigh, her shoulders quivering despite the hot humid predawn air. She slipped on her shoes, picked up the books and went outside.

She walked around to the back of the house, down a small trail which rose and fell over a small hill. Beneath the hill was the household burn pile. She stood before it, contemplating, her lower lip trembling, a knot the size of a a small pony in her throat.

I’m not going to cry like a big stupid baby,
she told herself.
I just won’t do it.

But she did as she dropped the books on top of a heap of cinders, fished out a book of matches from her skirt pocket that she had snitched from the mantle and set the books on fire. The paper caught, and a small fire blossomed. The pages that she had anchored her dreams to curled to black ash, rimmed only by a red gold thread of flame. It reminded her of what Lindt showed her in his on strange and miraculous way.
That’s all we are,
she thought as she watched the sparks flicker and die in the early dawn light.
We’re nothing more than sparks riding on the wind. There is no point to anything. Everything lives then it turns to ash, only to be reborn like the phoenix over and over again, and for what? To hurt and yearn and love and be unloved in an endless dance that has no meaning?

She reached out with her mind, searching for her friend, her teacher, for the only man with whom she remotely had a connection. Without realizing it, Lindt had become someone she could lean on, someone she could trust. Someone who was wise and kind and, most of all, someone who could truly understand her for whom she really was.

Damn you,
she thought, feeling deeply angry.
Damn you, old man. What good was it to show me all of those things and leave me here alone to face my mother and all those people in a few hours?

Althea had hoped and yet had not, that he was somehow still tucked away in her mind. But he was not. That link was severed as soon as he stepped into the sedan. She searched her thoughts, her feelings, and found only an empty place where he once resided in her heart.

She sat on her heels, her arms wrapped around her belly, and wept.

Althea didn’t know how long she sat that way, weeping, grieving: over the loss of her childhood; for Lindt, who couldn’t stay but was on the lam from forces she couldn’t comprehend; for a life that he showed her but didn’t stand by her, to give her the strength and courage to go through with the plans she made. While they sat on the porch and talked, everything seemed so reasonable, so easy and effortless to do. Now that the sun was just beginning to give the rich violet sky a pinkish tinge, Althea wasn’t sure she could go through with it.
If only Lindt had stayed just a little while longer,
she mourned
. Just long enough to stand with me when I say no to everyone in a few hours time, I could be strong. I could do it. What’s a few more hours? Why couldn’t he have stayed with me just that much longer?

“I need you,” she whispered. “I need you now more than I’ve ever needed anyone in my life.”

A profound coldness pierced her. Althea looked up at a predawn sky that was still heavy with stars. She wiped the goo from her eyes and stood, her calves tingling from crouching for so long. Her mind was clear, her eyes sharp. No sound came from the forest and swamps beyond. Even the plaintive cries of bachelor birds were silenced. Even though she couldn’t see anything abnormal, Althea knew she was being watched.

The fire was almost out. A few small flames licked the backs of scorched book covers. But something very strange was happening to the fire. It looked as if it were turning into a liquid. Startled, Althea realized that the nearby grass, heavy with dew, was freezing. Her breath came out in startled frozen puffs. She shivered, stared down at the fire again, shocked when she realized that the flames, as well as the embers beneath, had frozen. She bent down, and broke off a piece of a flame, hunkered down and considered it.

It was cold and yet warm at the same time. Althea regarded it as if she were inspecting a gem. The flame was still there, yet encased in ice that did not thaw. The fire was still there, yet warm, and dare she think it? Alive.

“Did you do this?” she asked aloud. “Lindt? Are you still here?”

The wind picked up, hot and moist. In the distance, thunder rumbled. And as the thunder echoed, she heard her friend’s soft laughter.

****

”I’m not going,” Althea announced at the breakfast table. “I’m not getting married and you can’t make me.”

“Wedding jitters,” Ruby said. “It’s okay, darling, It’s almost over.”

“It’s not almost over, it is over, you stupid old hag,” Althea shouted. Don’t you get it? I’m a grown woman. I’m legal. There’s nothing you can possibly do to make me walk up that aisle.” She glanced at Cally, hoping for some moral support from her aunt, but it was obvious by the crushed look on Cally’s face that she had other things on her mind. She was huddled in her chair, holding a cup of coffee and gazing into it as if the brown liquid inside held the answers to her deepest desires.

“Well?” Althea asked, her tone a perfect replica of her mother’s. “Aren’t you going to say anything
Tante
, or are you just going to sit there like a lump?”

“He’s gone,” Cally whispered. Her shoulders quivered, her face gray, her eyes red from crying.

“Who’s gone? Hank?” Ruby asked, looking alarmed. “That little bastard had better not—.”

“Relax. Your bird didn’t fly the coop, mother dearest,” Althea said. “His parents picked him up just before you dragged your ass up out of bed this morning.”

“Oh, of course,” Ruby relaxed. “What was I thinking? He can’t see the bride before the wedding.”

“When will you get it into your thick head that there’s not going to be a wedding today, you hammer-headed old
Couillon
?” Althea said. Ruby’s arm jerked up, her eyes blazed. Althea held her ground. “If you do I swear to God I’ll go upside your head.”

“Quit sassing me,” Ruby snapped, lowering her hand. “Look, it’s almost over. You get married here in a bit and afterwards you and Hank will go on with your lives.”

“In other words, you could go on with yours,” Althea retorted. “You’ve been trying to get rid of me since I was a kid. So what’s the deal? If you hate me so much, why did you bother to keep me in the first place?”

Ruby sighed. “It’s not like that.”

“Just what is it like? Tell me why you hate me so much you can’t wait to be shed of me then.”

“Stop it,” Cally wailed, “stop it.”

Ruby and Althea stopped in mid-bicker to stare at Cally who grabbed her coffee cup and threw it as hard as she could at the wall. The white porcelain cup shattered against the wall, the coffee leaving an ugly brown stain as is spilled down onto the floor.

“You two are so wrapped up in yourselves, it’s sickening. You’re both self-centered and pathetic. Day in and day out all I hear is the two of you squabbling. You don’t care about me. You don’t care about anyone but your sad little selves. Don’t you understand? He’s gone...
He’s gone.”

Cally folded her arms on the table and lowered her head into them. She uttered deep heaving sobs, her shoulders shaking with the effort. Ruby and Althea were stunned to silence.

“Cally,
bay-bay
,” Ruby soothed, reaching across the table and caressing her sister’s hair. “I’m sorry,
cher,
I’m so sorry.”

“I’ve been alone so long,” Cally wailed, “I’ve wished and prayed, but I’ve never had a real man of my own. Certainly not like him. He was so wonderful, so kind and gentle.
And now he’s gone
...And you two bickering and fussing over this stupid wedding—”

“He’s a cad. A swine like all men,” Ruby dismissed, her face hardening. “Look at the state he left you in. You’re a mess, and over what? Some stupid sweet nothings he whispered in your ear? Pull up your panties, sister-dear, and get on with your life.”

“Well if that’s true, then why are you forcing me to marry Hank?” Althea snapped.

“That’s entirely different, that’s—”

“Oh for God’s sake shut up about your goddamned wedding,” Cally screamed. “She’s grown, you stupid bitch. Hasn’t Althie been trying to tell you that for weeks now?”

“Althie, go upstairs and get dressed. I laid out that green dress for you go to church in. Go put it on, and then sit up there and wait for me to come get you,” Ruby said quietly.

“I won’t”

“Go do it now,” Ruby hissed, her eyes huge, like a cat’s. Althea felt her courage retreat. Ruby stepped toward her daughter. Fear clattered up Althea’s spine. She slowly stood and walked away.

Althea paused halfway up the staircase, listening to Ruby and Cally as they shouted at each other in Cajun. Althea could understand some of it, but not all, which, she was sure, wasn’t a bad thing. The only thing she was completely sure of was that Cally was devastated, which was already obvious, and Ruby’s inability to understand what her sister saw in what she perceived to be a shabby little man in the first place.

Althea retreated to her room. She sat on the bed, next to the suitcase that her mother packed for her. The wedding dress, the expensive white satin horror that she so despised, hung like an indictment in its plastic garment bag on the closet door. She fought an impulse to shove a knife deep into the bodice.

A car horn broke through her morbid thoughts. She went to the balcony and saw that Mrs. Bristow’s caddy and driver, complete in a formal chauffer uniform, had arrived.

Her heart sank.
Oh God, it never ends
.

“Althea!”

“I’m not going!”

“Get down here, or so help me I’ll drag you down by the hair of the head.”

Snarling, Althea pulled the wedding gown from the door and tossed it across her shoulder, letting the train drag along behind her as she stomped down the stairs.