CHAPTER SIX

The Weenie Roast

IV

Ez cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Did you say you… are a vexpid?” she asked.

“Yep,” Wilburn said proudly. “I’m not crazy,” he added, which was precisely what Ez had been wondering. “I know I’m a boy. That’s why I had to be the one to finish the ritual. If I’d waited for Her to do it, I wouldn’t be Wilburn anymore. I’d just be Her, like the rest of the hive. I guess I’d basically be dead, because my mind would be erased. But since I chose to serve, I get to keep myself. Except… myself is part of Her now.”

“Part of who…?”

Wilburn’s eyes went a little round. “Her Majesty,” he said, with such reverence that, in spite of the day’s warmth, Ez felt goosebumps prickle up her arms.

“And who is this… Her Majesty?” she asked.

“God,” Wilburn said simply.

It was Gramma’s turn to clear her throat. Wilburn and Ez both looked at her. “No,” she said. “You’re wrong about that, boy. She might be a god, with a lowercase g, but she ain’t the God, although I’m sure that’s what she wants you to believe.”

“She is too God,” Wilburn said stubbornly. “You didn’t meet Her.”

“And I never will,” Gramma said wearily, “because I can’t Astral project. Now go build up that fire, boy. You still owe me a weenie. And roast one for your mother while you’re at it. And Wilburn?”

“Yeah?”

“Just skewer ‘em on a stick. Magic’s more trouble than it’s worth sometimes.”

Wilburn looked disappointed, but he moved to obey. While he was working, Ez limped closer to Gramma and asked softly, “Is he going to be all right?”

“Hardly,” Gramma said, not lowering her own voice. “You’d better sit down, Ez. We’ve got a lot to talk about. And there’s no point trying to do it quiet; the boy can read your mind.”

“He… ?” Ez said, thinking she must have misheard.

“You didn’t,” Wilburn said, from several yards away.

I must have misheard Wilburn too, Ez thought a little desperately. Wilburn can’t read my mind. If he could read my mind… he’d know I’m thinking this right now… why—it was the easiest thing in the world to disprove! Ez picked a random number.

“Nineteen,” Wilburn said, somewhat apologetically.

Sitting down... yes, that sounded like a very good idea. Ez did so stiffly and leaned back against the tree trunk. She waited for someone to explain.

“You’d better do it,” Wilburn said.

“Do what?” Ez and Gramma asked in unison.

“Explain,” Wilburn said. He blinked. “I guess Mom didn’t say that part out loud. She needs us to explain about that… psycho… thingy. But I can’t, but because I kind of zoned out while you were talking. Sorry.”

Gramma massaged her eyebrows, sighing through her nose. “All right,” she said. “Just… focus on roasting them weenies, Wilburn. Maybe if I can make your mother understand, you can read her mind… then maybe you’ll understand.”

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“Why can’t he read your mind?” Ez asked, feeling this was exceedingly unfair.

“Because I’m too lousy a psychovate to lower my mental shield on command,” Gramma said. “Guarding my mind is an unconscious habit. Took years of meditation to ingrain it, and that was going on five decades ago. I reckon it would take another decade to break the habit, but that would only put me right back where you are, vulnerable to any psychovate who cared to tamper with my mind.”

“What’s a—”

“Psychovatry is mind magic, one of the five fundamental arts. Remember how I told you every magician has a knack for one of them? Well, Wilburn has two knacks. He’s a psychovate as well as a kineturgist. That’s rare. So rare it’s practically unheard of… at least, in humans. Sounds like a blessing, but it ain’t. Part of the reason double knackers are so rare is they run twice the risk of accidentally killing themselves. Yeah. You should be worried.” Gramma nodded at Ez’s alarmed expression. “Now get ready to worry harder, because psychovatry is a sight more dangerous than kineturgy. At least with kineturgy it’s only your body that’s at risk; worst case scenario you die, which we’re all bound to do eventually anyway. But with psychovatry, you risk your very mind, maybe your soul too. They say the ever-present peril of psychovatry is madness... of a thousand different stripes.” Both women glanced sidelong at Wilburn, who was busily snapping sticks over his knee. Sensing the attention, the boy made a ridiculous face at them, and said, “Bleh-leh-leh-leh-leh-leh-leh.” This reassured Ez somewhat, for it was classic Wilburn behavior.

“Unfortunately,” Gramma went on, “I’m only a yellow hat in psychovatry, which I’m afraid means I won’t be much help to the boy there. Kineturgy, sure, I’m a purple hat. I can teach him the basics, and far more. I can practice with him, correct his mistakes. Most importantly I can keep him safe—well, relatively speaking. But I can’t do any of that with psychovatry. I never learned to Astral project. I can’t even tell what’s happening on the Astral Plane, much less do anything about it.”

“Mom’s lost,” Wilburn announced. “The hat thing threw her off.”

Gramma made an impatient gesture. “Hats are like ranks for magicians. The color shows how good you are. It goes white, yellow, orange, red, blue, green, purple, black. A black hat is a master. I’ve got a black in vivopathy, and purples in the other arts except psychovatry. Having a yellow hat means I’m barely less ignorant than you are, Ez.”

“So what’s the Astral Plane?” Ez asked, ignoring the jibe.

“Ah, well, that’s trickier to answer. I’m afraid it has to do with the nature of the universe, a subject I detest above all others.” Gramma clucked her tongue, and shook her head. “I’ll admit, I have very little patience for philosophy, and even less for philosophers. But, I suppose I ought to try to give you some idea at least. Hm… I suppose, the easiest way to understand it is—what’s the last dream you remember?”

A mishmash of images flickered across Ez’s mind. A country lane… a honey sun… Jack’s grinning face… Wilburn looked over at her sharply, his eyes wide with understanding. With a jolt, Ez realized that he had, technically, just seen his father for the first time in his life. Oh, this was bizarre. She expected Wilburn to say something, but all he did was snap another branch over his knee and toss it in the fire, which was beginning to crackle back to life. Of course, Wilburn was aware that she didn’t want Jack brought up in the present conversation. He was listening to her thinking this… Could she possibly get used to such a thing? “I was walking through the countryside,” Ez said. “That’s all I remember.”

Gramma nodded. “Good enough. Walking. That means you’re moving in four dimensions. Left, right, up, down, forward, back, and time—but we don’t have time to talk about time. Point is, you’re experiencing a physical and temporal world, your body, a countryside, a sequence of events. Of course, we both know what I’d find if I sliced open your head while you were sleeping, and it wouldn’t be no countryside. That’s because Dreamspace isn’t in your brain—it’s metaphysical—it’s in your mind. But where is your mind? Where is it when you’re dreaming?”

“I suppose,” Ez said, when it became clear Gramma was waiting for an answer. “I suppose… it’s… in the dream.”

“Exactly. Your mind is in the dream, but the dream is in your mind. Well, according to the philosophers, that’s pretty much how the entire universe works. Dreams within minds within dreams within minds, on and on and on and on and on. They reckon time and space are really a continuum, which they call spacetime, and they reckon mind is another continuum that permeates spacetime, and each of our individual minds is part of that continuum. Now, spacetime’s only got the four dimensions: left, right, up, down, forward, back, and time. But really conveniently there are—or so the philosophers claim—infinite mental dimensions. One of those dimensions is what we call Real Life. Everywhere else,” Gramma sighed heavily, “is the Astral Plane. In other words, it’s the vast majority of the universe. But ordinary people like us can only operate in three Astral dimensions: Thoughtspace, Moodspace and Private Dreamspace, although apparently we exist in many others.

“There’s an Astral enforcement agency in charge of kicking psychovates out of other people’s dreams; that’s why we call it Private Dreamspace. Thoughtspace and Moodspace, however, are public property. Like air. They feel private because we normal folks can only perceive ourselves in those dimensions, our own thoughts, and memories and feelings, and only a few of those at a time—but we don’t have time to talk about time. Thing is, a psychovate like Wilburn perceives Thoughtspace and Moodspace all around him, unless something specifically blocks him from doing so. It gets really, stupidly, annoyingly complicated, but that’s the nutshell of it. That’s why the boy knows what you’re thinking.”