All of us screamed, only there wasn’t any sound, because there wasn’t any air to carry it. Of light, there was none, nor weight, nor heat, nor cold, nor smell, nor touch. We were in a place beyond up and down: a great void—an unbegotten place. Mr. and Mrs. Plotsky’s minds drifted in the underdark, like grains of sand trapped in a glass, darkly.

It was very disconcerting, and I very much wanted my body back, and I knew the Plotskies felt the same. Their thoughts flashed through my mind’s eyes like heartbeats on an ECG. They wanted their bodies. They wanted to speak. They were scared and confused.

As was I.

I focused.

We need our bodies. We need our voices.

And so it came to pass: in the perfect darkness, our bodies suddenly returned to us. Without seeing—for none of us could see—I knew that the Plotskies had been given back the forms they’d inhabited when their spirits had first appeared to me. And, as for myself, a strange pulse beat through me, traveling in waves. It took a second for me to realize what it was: my heartbeat thrummed in me once more. Suddenly, the feeling went from being a strange visitor to a long-lost friend.

I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it. I felt the comfort of my clothes, clean and fresh, unsullied by ooze and sweat. I wiggled my toes in my socks, my feet snug in my loafers, atop my orthopedic inserts. My tail was just a memory—a phantom; it haunted me only if I thought about it.

I drew in breath, even though there was nothing to breathe.

“What is this place?” Jed asked, speaking even though there was no medium to carry his words. He communicated to me at the level of pure thought. No sound, no tone, just information, distilled into its most concentrated form.

“At the moment,” I said, “literally nothing.”

“Can you make the dark go away?” Babs asked.

“This is very scary Mr. Genneth! Andalon does not like this!” She “sounded” near tears. “Make the dark go away!” she pleaded. “Please! Please! Pl—”

“—Let there be light!” I said—and so it came to pass. The motions of my lips and tongue were transfigured into pure will, from there to the essence of creation.

We yelped.

“Fudge!” I hissed, snapping my eyes shut. I covered my face with my hands.

The void of pre-born creation was void no longer. Light filled it. Light, pure light, without heat or anything else. I turned around to see my dark silhouette punched into the streaming effulgence that poured forth from the center of my new universe.

Ow! Andalon winced. Ow ow ow ow ow ow!

I covered my face again. “Too much light! Too much light! Less, please!”

And so it came to pass. The heatless illumination bleeding through my covered vision dialed back.

Removing my hands, I cautiously opened my eyes.

Everything was gray, and a peaceful gray, at that.

“What’s going on?” Babs yelled.

“I’m sorry!” I apologized profusely. “I’m sorry! I’ve never done this before!”

Maybe I should just give up, I thought—only for my thought to ring through the great gray expanse.

I ran my hands through my hair, blushing in shame.

“Again,” I apologized, “sorry. You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“Just get on with it,” Babs snapped. “I don’t want to be stuck here for all eternity!”

That was a reasonable request, right?

For a moment, I turned my back to them and fidgeted my bow-tie. I whispered under my breath. “Dad… wish me luck.” And then I clenched my fists and got to work.

First thing’s first…

“Uh…” I paused until it came to me. “Air!” I said, “we need air—an atmosphere. Preferably a comfortable one,” I added, softly.

And so it came to pass: air breathed into the void, and sound was born. Pressure buffeted me as my universe’s atmosphere came into being, and I could taste the nothingness from whence it came.

I cleared my throat. “Some, uh… some ground to stand on would also be nice.”

And so it came to pass: an invisible floor came into existence beneath me, indistinguishable from the rest of the expanse.

For whatever reason, the first thing that came to mind was WeElMed’s parking garage—its masterful mosaics of sea-scenes. And then—and this was pretty wild—I got to watch my will become reality. The gray expanse rippled beneath our feet. Tiles flew together from nowhere, in a widening wave of coalescence that tessellating a mosaic ocean onto this new world in a mosaic ocean from horizon to horizon: urchins and otters, kelp and coral, sharks and rays and crabs and shells and roving cephalopods, stylized and tile-ized. The further I looked, the denser the details grew, until my eyes reached the horizon, and the details merged with the gray line of infinity.

And through it all, we hovered above it, untethered from the world.

Of course!

I’d forgotten to add gravity.

“Hold on everyone,” I said, “I’m adding the gravity… now.”

We landed on the ground with a soft clack. My legs were mine again, alive and not lagging in the least. I stomped my loafers on the ground several times, relishing in my body’s weight pressing down on my legs.

Andalon looked around, curious as ever; meanwhile, the Plotskies stared at me, worried and disturbed, and so, for a third time, I bowed to them, and this time, I lowered my body ‘till it was nearly horizontal. “Again, I’m sorry.” I shook my head as I stood up straight. “I should have practiced this earlier.”

For a moment, Babs stared off into the distance. “It…” she looked back at me, “does it go on forever?” she asked. “It looks like it does.”

I shook my head again. “I don’t know.”

It really was disconcerting to look at. It seemed too geometric to be real. So, for everyone’s benefit, I decided to hide the horizon behind some trees and tall terrain. I imagined mountains rising up from the ground all around us, with a forest of cypresses sprouting up from the tiled earth to fill the great emptiness in between.

And so it came to pass.

Mountains emerged from the ground, and they were tiled, just like it was. Their colors and textures were a mosaic rehash of the voxel cliffs I’d seen in Greg’s world. The trees followed soon after, shooting up from the ground in grand waves that rushed toward us in every direction. The trees were hybrids, part living thing, part mosaic come to life, and in the same, angular, geometric late new-old style of WeElMed’s garage, or like something you’d see on one of the murals in the Bealsthiller theater. Here and there, with flicks of my hands, I dashed out sprigs of grass in patches or sparse trails, to make the ground seem a little more real, though the overall effect was nothing short of surreal. Like the trees, the grass was half and half; their mosaic roots blended into living green blades where they rose from the ground of my new world.

Jed looked around in fear at the otherworldly forest’s oppressive silence. “Why is it so quiet?” He asked.

He was right; the silence was uncanny.

Add a mild breeze, I thought. And birds.

I spent a moment trying to decide which birds to add, when I suddenly thought fudge it and just added them all.

And so it came to pass.

Suddenly, the silence crumbled away, pecked through by the twitter and flitter of sacred birds filling the trees: hummingbirds and blue-jays, robins, mallards and doves, owl and raven, eagles and quails.

Andalon spun around, wonder-struck, drinking it all in like an ice-cream float from O’Malleigh’s.

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“Yay, Mr. Genneth!” she cheered. “You did it! You did it!” She waved her arms, jumping up and down.

“Thanks, Andalon, but…” I shot a furtive glance at Ileene’s parents and then cleared my throat, “don’t count your eggs before they’ve hatched.”

Her brow furrowed. “Andalon does not have eggs.”

Out of sheer habit, I took a deep breath. The air tasted of porcelain and pine.

“I feel like I’m in a nightmare,” Jed said.

I bit my lip. “Babra, Jed… I’ve got some news for you, and—all things considered—you might as well call it ‘good’.” I looked them in the eyes. “Ileene is here. She died and got uploaded into my mind along with the two of you. That’s how I know her thoughts.”

Mrs. Plotsky stiffened. “What did you say…?” She brought her hand to her bosom, to the pearls chained around her neck.

Mr. Plotsky was aghast. “Ileene is… dead? My little girl…” he shivered, “dead?”

Nodding excitedly, Andalon stepped forward and spread her arms wide. “You should be happy! Now, you all get to be together!”

I glanced down at her. “Andalon, that… it isn’t helping.”

“H-Happy?!” Jed stammered. Eyes bulging, his stare trained on Andalon like the crosshairs of a gun.

Andalon skittered back, looking to me for support.

I stuck my palms out in a calming gesture. “Andalon is a tad bit overzealous, but, she’s not wrong. It’s true. Your daughter is here with me—with us—and in the same way that the two of you happen to be.”

Mrs. Plotsky bit her lip and then looked half away. “Doctor, I was starting to give you the benefit of the doubt, but now I think you might be a demon after all.” She shook her head. “I don’t care how earnest you seem; I can’t shake the feeling this is some kind of cruel, sick joke.”

Babs staggered about, staring in shock. She was still struggling to process everything that had happened.

“I’ve lost my mind,” she muttered, pressing down on her blue pillbox hat. “That’s the only possible explanation for this.”

“I wish it was that simple, Mrs. Plotsky,” I said. “I could actually probably help you with that.”

Jed straightened his dark green jacket and shook his head. “I’m sorry Doc,” he threw an askance glance at his wife, “but you’re not gonna get through to her.” She sighed. “My wife has a persecution complex to end all persecution complexes. Even Nighttouched Sakuragi would tell her to take it easy.”

Unseen to us all, the Ileene’s formless spirit raged and writhed. Her parents’ bickering stung her like jabs from a hot iron.

Well, fudge.

I guess it’s time to let out the cavalry.

Raising my arm, I sliced my hand down through the air, opening a tear in space. Both parents’ jaws fell. The Plotskies watched, spellbound, as their daughter stepped out through the hole that flared with light that seethed like billowing fire. It was like droplets of bleach had dripped into their eyes. The young woman looked like a corpse that had just risen from their open casket, clothed in death’s starchiest fineries. Her flare-hemmed one-piece dress—the color of raw wine—looked brand new. Her face was moribund, glazed over in alabaster disbelief, and a welter of half-dried tears. Her blue eyes gleamed like the light-fire, though the latter was snuffed as I sealed the rift in the air behind her.

Mr. and Mrs. Plotsky shouted their daughter’s name as they ran forward to embrace her, but the young woman stepped back and pulled away.

“You’ll never understand how I feel,” Ileene said, staring her mother down. “I’ve long since given up on trying.”

“How… how can you say that?” Jed pleaded, heartbroken. “After all we did—”

Ileene stared her mother down. “Even in death,” she said, shaking her head, “all you can do is make us miserable.”

“Ileene!” Jed stepped toward his daughter, but she stepped back.

Babs returned her daughter’s glare, her eyes tearing up as her lips twitched, searching for the right words. “There you go again. It’s like you never left. I should be happy right now, overflowing with joy beyond joy, but instead, I’m angry again. We’re fighting again. Goddammit!” Babs shouted. “Why is this happening!? Everything I do is wrong. “ She glared at her daughter. “Nothing I do is ever good enough, not for you, not for your father, not for my family.” The woman turned around, looking at us all. “You all think I’m a wreck!”

“—There you go, again,” Ileene said, “making it all about you.”

The young woman’s pain and rage was heartfelt, so much so that I could feel it swelling within her. Her parents were still thinking of themselves as they had when they’d been alive, but Ileene had been adapting to her existence as a spirit.

Ileene’s feelings strained against her body, and, curious, I let her emotions have their way with her. The result was almost… poetic.

We all had people we became when our emotions seized us; when depression plunged us into gloom; humor into rowdy impishness; anger, into a mallet ready to swing. Ileene’s form creaked, cracked as it grew. Her auburn hair puffed out into a short mane of feathers as talons split her shoes and dug into the mosaic floor. A great tail lashed behind her. Her body grew scaly, with traces of vertical stripes on her flanks in brown and yellow.

“Hallowed Beast!” Babs screamed, “What’s happening to her!?”

“You’re seeing how she feels,” I explained.

An important part of family therapy was ensuring that everyone got the chance to voice their frustrations. The problem—as ever—was that people all too often failed to listen.

Maybe this might get them to finally pay attention.

Ileene’s rage was infectious, and my laissez-faire stance did nothing to counter it. Rocks and dirt split open the mosaic tile underfoot, growing stalagmites as Ileene’s surroundings attuned to her unbound feelings. As she swelled in height—ten feet to the hip, then more—her emotions literally projected themselves onto her parents, as did their reactions to her changing appearance.

The young woman’s head grew like rock crystal, in angles and spurts, bulging into a grand drake’s blunt muzzle. “You’re a bully!” Ileene said, snapping her swelling jaws, flashing fangs as long as a man’s arm. “Your whole family is,” she added.

Babra had fallen back to the ground, and was so horrified by the sight in front of her that she didn’t notice her own changes, even as her own rage spurred them on. Her head popped out into a panther’s snout—pearly fanged—as she snarled at her daughter. “You take that back!” Her suit melded into her, bristling as it took root as navy blue fur.

“Ileene!” Jed snapped, fearful and furious. His voice shook. “You stop this, right now!” His lips merged with his nose as the flesh twisted and jaundiced, hardening into a beak. “Listen to me, I’m your father! You don’t get to talk to your mother that way!”

Mr. Plotsky had no need to puff himself up to look intimidating. His body did it for him. Beige feathers ruffled across his face as it flattened into a dish-like plate. Brown fur burst out from beneath his green suit as his back swelled into a mountain of muscle and bone.

I blanched. Jed was turning into an owlbear. Ileene’s troubles with relating to her parents were engaging aspects of my mind in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Of course, the irony of what owls represented in auguring—silence; mystery, communication trouble—was not lost on me. I don’t think it was lost on any of us.

“Oh, look at you,” Babs snapped, viciously, “the minute you finally grow some balls, it’s only because you’re turning into a monster, but, even then, it’s an owl.”

Ileene growled at her mother. The sound was deep and thick; it seemed to ripple through the air. “You only see the thorns in the world, not the roses,” she said. “I was blind like that, too—blinded by false love.” Ileene turned her muzzle toward where she thought I was, only to find me after looking down, surprised at how small I’d seemed to have gotten. “Until the doctor showed it to me.”

Babs crawled forward on her paws and knees, away from her growling, hooting husband. “All we’ve done for you, it means nothing to you, doesn’t it?” She raised her head, looking up at the monster her daughter had become, even as that monster’s shadow loomed over her; even as Mrs. Plotsky’s own body grew and stretched. “Look at what you put us through,” she growled, “look at—”

—But then Mrs. Plotsky screamed as the sleeves of her merging suit ripped open to make way for a second pair of feline arms. Her feet lengthened and turned clawed; tendrils tipped in toothed flypaper whipped out from behind her shoulders. Her figure began to flicker about, as if she was in multiple places at once.

With a flick of her tail and a stomp of her three-toed feet, Ileene rammed her head into her mother, knocking the growing monster back. The grand drake rumbled and roared.

And then, to my surprise, Andalon ran into the middle of the three loathsome beasts, thrust her fists down and yelled her heart out.

“What’s wrong with you! You’re all horrible!” She wept. “Andalon doesn’t have a family, but you do, and look at you! You’re all meanies! You don’t re-she-ate whats you have!”

“Stay out of this, kid,” Ileene snarled, deep and resonant.

She shut her eyes. “Why do you get family but Andalon doesn’t?! You don’t deserve it. It’s not fair! It’s not fair!”

“Stop it!” Babs howled. The sound from the gigantic displacement beast—nearly as large as the grand drake Ileene had become—scared the sacred birds. Wings fluttered up from the trees. “Shut up!” she roared. “Shut up!” Mrs. Plotsky’s tail lashed out behind her.

“No!” Andalon yelled. “You shut up!”

The six-legged panther-monster pounced at Andalon.

On those rare instances when I ended up working with entire families, I strove to be a mediator, not an arbitrator. Mediation meant serving as a neutral go-between, in the hope that the better parts of the patients’ natures would rise to the occasion and help bridge the gaps between them and their understandings of one another. Arbitration, however, was just a decision rendered from on high. It was the voice of the stern judge announcing their judgment to the quarreling parties. They got no input; they had no chance to change for the better.

But sometimes, arbitration was necessary. Someone had to step in to stop the vicious cycles, just to keep people from getting hurt.

“That’s enough!” I said, willing my voice into a great sound like booming thunder.

It was high time I let them know how small they were being.

I grew. No change, just growth—exactly as I willed it. It was my mind, after all. My head and shoulders crested over the tallest treetops even as I bent down onto one knee. My loafers rent furrows in the mosaic floor behind me as I grew. Half-art trees snapped and fell, and my shadow loomed long beneath the sunless, gray sky. But I didn’t feel powerful. I didn’t feel free.

I felt pity.

Beneath me, the beasts looked up and yipped, growled, and snarled, but their noises were little more than mewls to my ears. They looked up at me, and their feral eyes suddenly flickered with fear.

With a single grasp, I reached down and grabbed them all at once, holding them in my hand. I stood up tall, and grew larger still, until the treetops were like blades of grass against my shoes. Their bodies froze stiff in my grasp.

“None of you are really listening to one another.”

I knew it to be true. I knew their every thought and history as if I’d written them, myself.

Above the ruined, claw-ravaged tiles, Andalon stood like a sapphire firefly; a grain of sand, streaming out waves of light.

I held the Plotskies at eye level.

“Andalon’s right, you know,” I said. My voice was the avalanche and the tempest. But even it broke. “You don’t appreciate what you have. There’s always going to be pain and tension and friction. But you use it as an excuse to wash your hands and find someone to blame, or a bigger bully to kowtow to.” I wept, and the skies of my world wept with me. “The only certainty in this life is that we have each other, and you’re so close to seeing that, but you don’t.” I shook my head. “When I look at you, I see my own family, our struggles, my failures.”

The beasts writhed in my grasp. They snapped at me, and pleaded and yelled.

Oh God.

I breathed in deep. The atmosphere whirled.

“Fudge,” I said, “I’m screwing up again, aren’t I?”

“I can’t reach you, just like I can’t reach Pel, Jules, Rayph,” my voice broke again, “my Dad…”

I shook my head. “This was a bad idea. A bad, bad idea.”

I clawed a rift into the air, stuffed the Plotskies into it, and smooshed it shut with a swipe of my hand.

I ran my fingers through my hair.

“Oh fudge…”

I felt like an idiot and a fraud.