The Undead Pool

Suddenly I existed only as a thought, one eye among thousands, but a thought that could think a thousand more, unique and alone, able to be I, and us, and we. Around me was the Goddess, her trickster thoughts aligning within me. She knew how to end dreams that were unworthy of being dreamed.

She’d let me help.

Nineteen

I was both in the ley line and not, and there was no protection bubble to mute the sensation of energy flowing through the spaces in me. Around me were the collective thoughts of the Goddess, emotion being the easiest thing to comprehend. Oh, I could hear her thoughts, thousands of them all at the same time fluttering at the edges like purple wings, but comprehending a single voice was like picking out a single note in a full orchestra. Emotions were easier, broader sweeps of feeling—and most of the Goddess was pissed.

But parts of her are frightened, I thought as a blossoming of her fear gathered closer to me as if drawn by my own unease. Suddenly it became easier to pick out single frightened thoughts, mystics perhaps, fragments of a collective mind. Doubt, fear, anger, they whispered until I felt sorry for her.

Like a failing tide, the Goddess’s fear fell away, replaced by her own thoughts of compassion for the small dreams that she’d been dreaming, lost and alone. The sudden switch from fear to compassion was a shock, and as soon as I realized it, her compassion fell away, replaced by the Goddess’s own thoughts of amazement that something could exist outside of her, that unlivable mass had found a way to support independent thought.

Suddenly I realized I was attracting the parts of her that resonated with my current mood. The thought to use that to my advantage crossed me, and I wavered as the Goddess’s own crafty thoughts of trickster wish fulfillment coated me in an unreal slurry. Reeling, I felt as if I was caught in a roller-coaster nightmare and couldn’t get out. It was like trying to walk through a morass where the ground kept shifting.

Here! the Goddess thought suddenly, and when her eyes turned from me, I clawed my awareness out from under it all. My thoughts!

But the Goddess’s elation too soon mutated into confusion. They can’t hear me, rose a thousand laments. They can’t hear me!

Struggling to think through her noise, I scraped together the thinning remnants of the Goddess’s resolve. She wasn’t thinking three dimensionally, but four. I need to have mass, I said, trying to impress upon her that her straying thoughts couldn’t hear her because they weren’t in space, but mass. We have to leave the line as they did.

Line, line, she lamented. There is no line, there is only . . .

I shifted my aura and left the line, praying we weren’t underground. The Goddess felt me slip from her, and I shuddered as little claws of thought dug into my awareness. With a wrench that tore me, I felt her extrapolate from where I was, modulate what I could not, and as easy as breathing, felt myself become solid. Sort of. She was with me still, in the spaces inside me.

Surprise, elation, and understanding filled her, spilling over into me. There is a line, the Goddess thought, her conviction growing as she saw, understood, and accepted. And then she began to play with it, shifting my aura in and out, tasting what it was like to go from solid to thought, and back to solid.

Enough! I shouted. Heart pounding and lungs starved for air, I phased back into existence, the Goddess firmly embedded within me as I dropped to one knee. My hands clenched into a thick, yellow shag carpet. It was the best feeling ever, even if it was matted, and I took a moment to simply breathe. I had a tiger by the tail, and I didn’t know if I could survive a thousand thoughts-not-mine racing through me.

Not so much! I begged her. Fewer thoughts. I can’t . . . carry all of you . . . at once.

Denial met me, and I stared at the carpet, demanding that she look at it, absorb its intricacies of chaos and how they manipulated the mass around space with color and texture.

A huge chunk of her finally did, finding delight in it, and I could breathe. My connection to the ley line was unbreakable, and it flowed through me with the roar of a fire. I could hear the sound of clicking keys and low, muted voices. I stared at my sock foot, and the Goddess thought it was amazing how something solid was used to cover living mass. I am in a mass that is sentient, she thought. Impossible. Only energy can be sentient.

“Oh my God!” someone exclaimed, and the clicking of keys stopped.

I wanted to look up, but I was afraid to move, and I wiggled my big toe.

“Ah, Ayer?” a masculine voice said, and I cringed.