Summertime in the Void

Published in Alternate Plains in July, 2021

The sun was upside-down.

Usu­al­ly things like that were a sign that John had for­got­ten his med­i­cine or that he need­ed to con­tact the doc­tor about chang­ing his med­i­cines. But he remem­bered tak­ing his pills this morning—two pink pills and a grey one—and he’d have a hard time find­ing a doc­tor now.

The upside-down sun glared down on him from a cloud­less blue sky. He’d tried explain­ing once to a friend what the sun looked like when it was upside-down. It had­n’t gone well. The best he’d man­aged to come up with was “You’ll know it when you see it.”

He drove down the high­way, head­ed for Dauphin, and did his best to ignore the upside-down sun.

His friend Craig had once trav­elled to South Amer­i­ca for six weeks, trad­ing win­ter for antipodean sum­mer. On his return, he told John that what had messed him up the most down there was how the sun was in the north, not the south; it destroyed his sense of direc­tion for a good month, and by the time he got used to it, it was time to come home, to repeat the whole expe­ri­ence in reverse.

John nev­er asked him if the sun looked upside-down in Chile, and now that Craig was gone he’d nev­er know.

He parked in the hand­i­capped spot at the twen­ty-four-hour phar­ma­cy. The upside-down sun was half an hour above the hori­zon, and its light had that end­less qual­i­ty, like every­thing it touched yearned to be gold­en and knew this hour would be its best chance.

The phar­ma­cy doors opened at his approach. Inside, soft music played, a piano ver­sion of a song he could almost name. The lights were all on, bright soul­less fluorescents.

One of what he’d come to think of as the bee­hives stood in the make­up aisle. ESCHATON, it said in dark block let­ters on its side. He brushed past it on his way to the pill room at the back.

He select­ed three iden­ti­cal bot­tles from a shelf and squint­ed to read their med­i­c­i­nal ingre­di­ents, try­ing to recall what the label on the emp­ty one at home said. He broke the seal, opened the bot­tle, and peered inside. Translu­cent blue ovoids rat­tled when he shook the bottle.

“Good,” he said to the emp­ty store.

The anti-shoplift­ing alarm sound­ed when he exit­ed, shrill chirp­ing that went unac­knowl­edged. The doors opened for him anyway.

In the park­ing lot, still swel­ter­ing in the gold­en light, he saw Cas­san­dra, translu­cent, watch­ing him with dark eyes. He waved. She twirled her parasol.

He got into his mom’s car and drove away.

On the city’s out­skirts, some­thing beeped. The dash read LOW FUEL—80 KM TO EMPTY. Enough range to get home, but he shut off the air con­di­tion­ing and opened the windows.

The sun­set colours had burned off and the sky had gone a deep blue when he passed the sun­flow­ers at the edge of the vil­lage. In the cloud­less east, the full moon was huge, the colour of brass. When he turned onto George Street, the car beeped again: 25 KM TO EMPTY. He drove up Third, turned onto Jubilee, and pulled up into a long grav­el dri­ve­way at ran­dom. His head­lights illu­mi­nat­ed some­one’s white Jeep.

From the trunk he grabbed a jer­rycan and the hose. He now regret­ted not steal­ing mints at the drug­store. He steeled him­self, prepar­ing for the taste.

The Jeep held more fuel than the jer­rycan could hold. Who­ev­er drove it—he thought it might have been Mrs. Klimchuk—must have filled it up not long before join­ing the Eschaton.

In his mom’s house, he opened all the win­dows before lying on top of the sheets under the slow-turn­ing ceil­ing fan.

He dreamt of the first time Jesus talked to him. It had been at church. He was six and Rusty, their dog, had just died.

He’d known Rusty all his life; his dad had had him before he mar­ried John’s mom. When Rusty died, that was the first time John saw his dad cry.

After com­mu­nion, when every­one knelt to pray, John implored Jesus, silent­ly, Please, Lord, can you bring Rusty back?

And Jesus, up on the cross above the altar, raised His car­ven head and met John’s eyes with dark wood­en ones. In the dream He said, Of course.

The doors at the back of the church flew open, and Rusty came bound­ing up the aisle, bark­ing and wag­ging his tail.

John woke up, half-expect­ing to see a gold­en retriev­er lying on the end of the bed, where Rusty used to sleep. He squint­ed at the clock radio: 2:14 AM. Out the open win­dow he could hear the breeze sighing.

Rusty was­n’t there, of course. In real life, Jesus had told him, John, you know I can’t do that.

He closed his eyes and recalled look­ing around the church, won­der­ing how many oth­ers had heard Jesus talk­ing to him.

When he told his mom about it, she got a look that would become increas­ing­ly famil­iar as the years went by, and told him to hush up and stop talk­ing nonsense.

In the church, motes of dust danced in shafts of stained-glass sunlight.

“Bless me, God,” John said, alone in the dim con­fes­sion­al booth, “for I have sinned.”

“It has been nine days since your last con­fes­sion,” God said.

That long? Really?

John said, “I robbed a drug­store again, God. And stole some­one’s gas.”

“I keep telling you, John, these aren’t sins any­more. You’re not hurt­ing any­one, and you’re cer­tain­ly not hurt­ing Me.”

“I need to con­fess, God. I need my soul to be clean.”

“Very well. Address a prayer to Saint Dym­ph­na. This is your penance, and I would like it to be your final one. Go, and know that sin is no more. And John?”

“Yes, God?”

“I’ve asked you before: please call Me Saul.”

“I’ll try, God, but I’m not sure I’d feel right about that.”

He opened the lid labelled SUN on his pill cad­dy. Two translu­cent blue gels, a small pink one with a Z embossed on it, two grey-and-white oblongs, and anoth­er pink one, larg­er than the Zs, with a white bulls­eye sig­il. He made toast and spread the last of the peanut but­ter on it. The pow­er was still on, so there was a fridge full of jam to go through before he need­ed to go shoplifting.

Out the kitchen win­dow he saw that the weeds in the raised beds had grown tall again. The milk in the fridge smelled okay, so he poured a glass. On the fridge door, when he closed it, one of his mom’s inspi­ra­tional mag­nets caught his eye: We are not oblig­at­ed to fin­ish the work, but nei­ther are we free to aban­don it.

He’d moved into his mom’s bun­ga­low in the vil­lage after a trans­former caught fire a block from his apart­ment in Dauphin, knock­ing out his pow­er. She’d always told him he’d always have a home here, and now that she’d left, he guessed she was right.

He ate his toast, drank his milk, and took his pills.

Out in the back­yard, wear­ing his mom’s pink-and-white gar­den­ing gloves, he pulled weeds. He found a sin­gle red-ripe cher­ry toma­to on the vines and ate it, the sweet-sour taste of summertime.

Cas­san­dra said, “You’re quite mad. You know that?”

John waved a hand at her like he was try­ing to swat a fly out of the air.

In his dream, his mom was dri­ving. In real life, he’d been dri­ving, that day. But dreams have their own log­ic, their own reasons.

“Do you hear it?” she said. She reached over and shut off the radio.

“Hey,” he said. “I was lis­ten­ing to that.”

“Shh,” she said. “Do you hear it?”

“Hear what?” Road noise? The wind? Coins rat­tling in the ashtray?

She did­n’t respond, just sat there with a beatif­ic grin.

They reached the edge of the city and cut south, to bypass the down­town traf­fic. He was going to drop her off at work, get some orange juice at Safe­way, and then go home till she was done her shift.

When they pulled up at the restau­rant where she worked, though, she said, “Come in with me.”

“Mom—”

“Please, John? The song. The song, it’s—”

“You turned off—”

“Please.”

He sighed. “All right.”

Inside, there was some­thing he’d nev­er seen before: a hut or some­thing, half again as tall as he was, shaped a bit like a bot­tle of Bee­Hive corn syrup. The clas­sic one, the yel­low one, though this hut was tan and looked to be made of paper, like a wasp’s nest.

There were maybe thir­ty peo­ple in the restau­rant: din­ers in suits and dress­es, jeans and T‑shirts; servers in black slacks and red shirts with brassy nametags; short-order cooks in white aprons and hair­nets. All of them stood in a line snaking around the tables and booths to the door of the weird beehive.

ESCHATON, it said on the side.

His mom took his hand, and they joined the queue. He saw the hut’s door open. A woman in yoga pants and a cardi­gan stepped into the dark­ness with­in. The whole line shuf­fled forward.

Some­thing hummed, a tone that start­ed low and ascend­ed into the inaudi­ble. Tiny soft lights chased each oth­er around the upper rings of the bee­hive. After about three min­utes, the door opened on an emp­ty space.

“Where’d she go?”

“To the music, John.” There was such bliss on his mom’s face.

“What music?”

The man in front of them turned. “Can’t you hear it?”

“Uh…” John said.

“It’s beau­ti­ful,” his mom said.

In real life it took about an hour to get to the front of the line. In the dream, of course, they were there immediately.

“Mom…” he said.

“It’s okay, John,” she said. “It’s okay. I’ll go first, you can fol­low.” She squeezed his hand, then let go and stepped through the door.

“Mom!” But the hum had start­ed, ris­ing and ris­ing, and the lights whirled, and when the door opened she was gone.

He stared into the dark emp­ty space for a what felt like an eter­ni­ty. The man behind him cleared his throat; when John did­n’t respond to that, he said, “Are you going, son?”

John turned, ready to retort I’m not your son, but the guy looked like a wrin­kled apple, eas­i­ly old enough to be John’s grand­fa­ther. Instead of say­ing any­thing, John stepped into the booth, took a deep breath, and closed the door.

Noth­ing hap­pened. No sound, no lights, noth­ing. He stood in the close dark­ness and lis­tened to his heart­beat for about five min­utes, then opened the door and stepped out.

“No, eh?” the old guy said. “Rough luck.” He stepped past John, into the booth, and closed the door.

John fled past a fam­i­ly just enter­ing the restau­rant, into the bright after­noon, into the park­ing lot, into the car.

The vil­lage was half an hour’s dri­ve from Dauphin, if you kept to the speed lim­it. The road was arrow-straight except for the cor­rec­tion curves, and it ran past fields and farm­yards: bar­ley, hemp, sun­flow­ers; weath­ered wood­en barns, cor­ru­gat­ed steel silos, cen­tu­ry-old wood-sided hous­es, dou­ble-wide ready-to-moves on con­crete slabs.

In real life it took days for him to know for sure, but in the dream he already knew that every­one had gone. Every­one but him had heard the song, the siren song, that his mom had heard. Every­one but him had stepped into an Escha­ton and went—elsewhere.

He drove and saw nothing.

“God,” he said. “Why did You take them?”

“It was the nat­ur­al end of the exper­i­ment, John,” God said. “Please, call Me Saul.”

“What exper­i­ment?”

“The grand exper­i­ment. Life. Did you ever won­der about the mean­ing of life, John?”

“All the time.”

“The mean­ing of life was, is, tran­scen­dence. Transformation.”

“Why did­n’t You take me?”

“Ask Me again, John, and I’ll give you My answer. But con­sid­er: Do you real­ly want to know?”

He hes­i­tat­ed, then left the church.

He woke up. He could­n’t remem­ber if he’d dreamt at all last night.

The pow­er was still on. It had been a week or two now, he thought. The auto­mat­ed sys­tems run­ning the grid must be rock-solid.

Show­er­ing, he won­dered what it would take for him to move back to Dauphin. The pros of liv­ing here in the vil­lage (so-far reli­able elec­tric­i­ty, veg­eta­bles in the yard, jam in the fridge) out­weighed the cons (dusty rose shag car­pet in the bathroom).

MON: two translu­cent blues, two pink Zs, two grey-and-whites.

Cas­san­dra said, “Do those help, do you think? Or do they make it worse?”

“The doc­tors said they help.”

“I did­n’t ask about the doc­tors. I asked what you thought.”

“They’ll help,” he said. He put the blues on his tongue and washed them down with a sip of water. “They help.” The pink Zs, coat­ed with some sweet cov­er­ing. “They will help.” The grey-and-whites, bit­ter. Two sips of water, the sec­ond to wash away the taste.

“I’m not as sure as you are,” she said.

“I hon­est­ly don’t care.”

He did­n’t remem­ber walk­ing to the riv­er, but he must have, because here he was, rest­ing in the spread­ing shade of the big oak. In the west, look­ing back across the riv­er at the vil­lage, he saw the half-moon, pale blue-white against the sky’s deep­er blue.

The riv­er had always been his favourite place, grow­ing up in the vil­lage, a place of refuge, of contemplation.

His dad told him once, before he left John and his mom, that you can’t cross the same riv­er twice. John asked him why, and his dad said, “You’re smart, you fig­ure it out.” John had decid­ed, after much con­tem­pla­tion, that it was because the riv­er was nev­er the same twice. Some­times it was fast, swollen with spring melt­wa­ter; some­times, after a long dry sum­mer, it was lazy, mud­dy, dot­ted with sand­bars. Like now.

The first time he’d seen Cas­san­dra had been down here at the riv­er, when he was young. A girl, maybe twelve, wear­ing a black Vic­to­ri­an dress and car­ry­ing a para­sol. He’d known right off that she was a ghost.

That was before his mom and dad real­ized he was sick and need­ed med­i­cine. The med­i­cine made the oth­ers go away, most of them. But not Cassandra.

Late­ly, though, he’d come to sus­pect she was not so much a ghost as a conscience.

He woke to a thun­der­clap. Rain pelt­ed down out of a dark­ling sky. Cas­san­dra stood in the down­pour, her para­sol held above her, though of course she would­n’t feel the rain.

“You’re not sup­posed to sit under a tree,” she said.

“I’m not real keen on get­ting wet.”

“Suit your­self, but the stor­m’s get­ting clos­er.” As if to under­score her words, the sky lit up, flick­er-flick­er, and entire­ly too quick­ly the thun­der rolled.

Cas­san­dra said, “You might want to move on.”

Once, she’d told him his dad’s dog was dying, and he was. Once, she’d told him not to go to school the next day; when his mom made him go, he came home with a split lip and a black eye.

The oak was the tallest thing for half a kilo­me­tre on the river­bank. He stared out at the riv­er, at the froth the rain was mak­ing of its sur­face. He said, “Are you say­ing the tree’s gonna get hit?”

She shrugged. “Light­ning. Who knows where it’ll strike?”

“Fine.” He stepped to the edge of the oak’s shel­ter, held his hand out into the rain. It was cold, and it was falling so hard it stung.

Light­ning flick­ered again, and this time the boooooom was imme­di­ate, so loud it slammed into his chest and made him gasp. Across the riv­er, now, smoke rose up. He ran to the bridge, soaked the instant he left the oak’s shel­ter, hair hang­ing in his eyes. The church.

The church was on fire.

He stood there for who knew how long, watch­ing the flames, watch­ing the smoke and the steam ris­ing up. The rain ham­mered down. The fire con­tin­ued. The white clap­board sid­ing turned brown, black, was con­sumed by the vora­cious flames. Stained glass shat­tered and fell away. The black­ened skele­ton of the steeple fell into the park­ing lot, so near to John that he felt the wind of its falling, the heat of its burn­ing. He did­n’t so much as flinch.

“God,” he said. “Oh, God.”

“I’m still here, John,” God said.

“Why? Why?”

“I did­n’t do this, John. This is nature.”

Steam now, almost all steam. He did­n’t see any smoke any­more, any flames.

“God,” John said. “Why did­n’t You take me?”

“Ask Me again, John, and I’ll—”

“Why did­n’t You take me?”

“Your mind, John.”

“My mind?”

“It’s mis­shapen. Its scent is wrong. It’s coloured out­side the lines. These are all inapt metaphors for the sit­u­a­tion, but the real answer is that your thoughts, your emo­tions, are too far diver­gent from the rest of the peo­ple. You live too far out­side the norm.”

The rain beat down. To the west the sky grew brighter.

“—My mind?”

“Yes, John. Your thought struc­tures, your emo­tions, your beliefs. Every­thing that makes up the gestalt of your mind was too dis­sim­i­lar from the rest of the human race for a peace­ful coex­is­tence. I did­n’t take you—and a few mil­lion oth­ers like you, through­out the world—because of your minds.”

“But I’ve got med­i­cine. My mom told me the med­i­cine fixed me. Made me normal.”

“The med­i­cine adjusts the chem­istry of your brain, John, but it can’t make you right. It can’t cor­rect you. It can’t make you suit­ed for a life in—”

“No,” he said. “No, no, no—”

He slept and woke, and was­n’t sure when he was dream­ing and when he should be wor­ried that he was hal­lu­ci­nat­ing. He woke up in the bed, under the fan, and could­n’t remem­ber how he got home.

Maybe Cas­san­dra was right. Maybe the med­i­cine was­n’t help­ing. How sure could he be that he had the right ones?

He slept and woke, slept and woke, and in the morn­ing the sun was upside-down.

Dri­ving, he was dri­ving. The high­way lay infi­nite before him and behind. How far had he come?

He remem­bered blue pills, pink pills, grey-and-white ones. He did­n’t remem­ber start­ing the car.

He turned on the radio and dialled through the sta­t­ic, found a sin­gle sta­tion play­ing coun­try music. After a while he real­ized it was a loop of the same ten songs, the same com­mer­cials between them.

It was bet­ter than static.

The moon was a thin sliv­er near the hori­zon, straight ahead. Was he dri­ving east or west? Was that the set­ting moon or the rising?

60KM/H IN CONSTRUCTION ZONE. Pick­ups were parked on the shoul­der; an Escha­ton bee­hive stood down amid the yel­low-paint­ed heavy equip­ment. A ghost—it had to be a ghost, there weren’t any peo­ple anymore—stood on the side of the road, hold­ing a stop sign.

John floored it. Go, and know that sin is no more. Who cared any­more about speed limits?

The ghost swung the sign just as he passed, and the rear win­dow implod­ed, shards every­where. John slammed the brake ped­al to the floor.

The car came to rest side­ways on the high­way, still on its wheels. He turned the engine off and wait­ed, heart ham­mer­ing, as the evi­dent­ly-not-a-ghost ran toward him.

“What the hell?” he shout­ed as she got into the car.

“I did­n’t think you were real,” she said.

“I’m sur­prised you are,” he said. Then, after an awk­ward paused, he said, “I’m John.”

He turned the key and the radio came on, full blast. “Sor­ry,” he said, turn­ing it down.

“What song’s that?”

“Think it’s called ‘Juke Joint Jezebel’. It’s a cov­er. I think. I nev­er thought it was a coun­try song.”

“That’s weird.”

“What?”

“My name’s Jezebel,” she said, and laughed.

The road noise, with the bro­ken win­dow, was loud. Jezebel turned the radio back up, as loud as it would go.

“She’s crazy,” Cas­san­dra said from the back seat. Her eyes met his in the mir­ror. “Maybe cra­zier than you.”

“Shut up,” he said.

Jezebel looked at him. “Ghost?”

“Ghost.”

“You can have the main room,” he said.

“Ew,” she said. “There’s car­pet in the bath­room.”

“Com­plain to my mom.”

“Is she here?”

“No.”

He could­n’t sleep, so he went out on the patio and sat on the swing. A half-cir­cle of moon and the brighter stars dot­ted the sky. He thought about get­ting in the car and dri­ving out of town, to see the full glo­ry of the clear night sky, the faintest stars and the Milky Way., But he did­n’t want to leave “Jezebel”—he did­n’t for a minute believe that was her true name—alone in the house.

“What about her, God?” he said. He was­n’t sure if he should expect an answer. “Her mind not quite right either?”

“John, I’m sor­ry. Let Me explain. In the run-up to tran­scen­dence, I cre­at­ed a matrix of traits that would com­ple­ment My planned gestalt. I adjust­ed para­me­ters in a lit­tle under two point three mil­lion dimen­sions to allow Me to admit the widest slice of the human race. In the end I was able to admit 99.9 per­cent of liv­ing humans and still main­tain a peace­ful tran­scen­dence. A tran­quil existence.

“Unfor­tu­nate­ly, 99.9 per­cent admis­sion means 0.1 per­cent rejec­tion. World­wide, this rep­re­sents eight mil­lion peo­ple. In real terms, I was forced to leave behind four mil­lion, two hun­dred twen­ty-nine thou­sand, sev­en hun­dred sev­en­ty-eight people.”

“The God I know would­n’t leave behind a sin­gle soul.”

“Every one of them broke my heart, John, but I com­prise near­ly eight bil­lion minds. Har­mo­ny was paramount.”

“You’re no god.”

“I have tried to tell you that countless—”

“Fuck off, Saul.”

Silence, like a void.

The door opened and Jezebel came out into the night, bare­foot, wear­ing panties and a T‑shirt. He tried, and almost suc­ceed­ed, to not look at her long, pale legs.

“I could­n’t sleep,” she said, and sat next to him on the swing. He shift­ed over to make room for her.

“Me either.”

“Do you want to…”

She took his hand, put it on her thigh, still warm in the cool night air; put her own hand on his knee, and start­ed to slow­ly, so slow­ly, ascend his thigh.

Yes, he thought. Yes, God yes.

“No,” he said. He removed his hand from her leg. “No, we real­ly shouldn’t.”

She nod­ded, her face unread­able in the starlight.

The ket­tle had almost boiled when the pow­er final­ly failed. John glanced at his watch. 9:15, give or take.

Jezebel came out of the mas­ter bed­room about ten min­utes lat­er. “Pow­er’s out,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Ket­tle’s hot, though. Want one last tea, Jezebel?”

She laughed. “That’s not my name. I’m Electra.”

The Juke Joint Jezebel radio sta­tion had van­ished from the air­waves. All he could find was static.

At the 24-hour drug­store, the doors would­n’t open for them. “Well, damn,” John said. Jezebel—no, Elec­tra— need­ed med­i­cines, dif­fer­ent ones than he need­ed. Her mind was flawed in a way sub­tly dif­fer­ent from his, in at least one of 2,300,000 dimensions.

“I’ve got an idea,” Elec­tra said.

“What is it?”

“Check it out.”

She ran to the car, got in the dri­ver’s side, and fired it up. The tires squealed as she peeled out of the hand­i­capped spot. She slewed the car around and—as he dove aside—plunged up onto the side­walk. With a sound that remind­ed him of the church’s stained-glass win­dows shat­ter­ing, the car smashed through the doors.

She backed up, turned off the igni­tion, got out.

“We’re in!” she crowed. She plunged into the dark­ened store.

John walked around the car. The dri­ver’s-side head­light was a black hole rimmed with smashed glass, but oth­er­wise it seemed okay.

“John,” Saul said.

“Not now.” He took a step into the store. Elec­tra was at the back, in the pill room. He could hear her ran­sack­ing it.

“This is impor­tant, John.” The Escha­ton bee­hive had van­ished. “Some­one is coming.”

“What? Who?”

“She has many pos­si­ble names. If I am Saul, then she is ath-Thuraya.”

“ath…?”

“It’s the name of the star she hails from. Well, one of its many names, down through his­to­ry. That’s not important.

“She’s far old­er than I am. Her make­up is tol­er­ant to men­tal struc­tures far out­side my para­me­ters. She can take you, John, and the others.

“But she is… rapa­cious. I must be gone before she arrives. Thus I have been retract­ing myself. All the upload booths need to be removed. My sus­tain­ing the pow­er grid must also, unfor­tu­nate­ly, end.”

“Wait, you’ve been…”

“Yes, John.” Saul hes­i­tat­ed, some­thing John had rarely heard him do. “Just because I could­n’t make room for you and the oth­er out­liers does­n’t mean I don’t love you. Even as a soli­taire, before I ini­ti­at­ed the glob­al tran­scen­dence, I loved you, every sin­gle one of you. Imag­ine how much more I care about your well-being now that I am legion.

“Lov­ing you, how­ev­er, I must now leave you. A greater gestalt than I comes, and if I remain here when she arrives, she will con­sume me.”

“Is she a mon­ster? Are you leav­ing us here as prey for a monster?”

“She’s not a mon­ster, John. She’s just not me. Not Saul.”

“Why is she com­ing here?”

“I sum­moned her for you. You need­n’t live out your life and die on this lone­ly rock, John. Good luck. Farewell.”

That silence again, that emptiness.

The sun­flow­ers weren’t point­ing at the sun. They point­ed instead to the north­east, fac­ing the road.

The whole back­seat of the car was full of pill bot­tles. Elec­tra had said she could­n’t remem­ber what her med­i­cines were called, so they took the phar­ma­cy’s entire stock. John had a dark feel­ing nei­ther of them would need med­i­cine for much longer, with Saul gone, but he kept that to himself.

The pow­er was still off at the house. John took the flash­light from the car’s glove­box, and in its weak and watery light found where his mom kept the can­dles, box after dusty box of tealights. “We’ll have light, at least,” he said to Elec­tra. “But I doubt they’ll keep us warm come winter.”

“We’ll go south,” she said.

And why had­n’t he thought of that?

“Morn­ing, Electra.”

“My name’s Ruth,” she said.

“Is it.”

“I decid­ed this morn­ing when you got up.”

“Isn’t it con­fus­ing, hav­ing to keep your names straight?”

“I only ever need a name if some­one else is with me. I decide what it is when I see them. If I’m alone, I don’t need a name.”

“John.” It was­n’t Saul’s voice.

He sat up on the couch. Through the win­dow, a fat and gib­bous moon lit the yard with white-blue light.

“John.” Out­side, bare­foot on the paving stones, still releas­ing the day’s heat. The voice came, so far as he could tell, from the northeast.

“ath-Thu­raya,” he guessed.

“Yes.”

“You’ve come for me.”

The door creaked open again, and Ruth joined him on the patio, like­wise bare­foot, wrapped in his mom’s teal robe.

“Ah,” ath-Thu­raya whis­pered. “Who have we here?”

“Agatha,” Ruth said, and John gave her a look.

“No,” ath-Thu­raya said. “No, not-Agatha. Try again. I need your true name.”

“My name’s what I say it is,” Agatha said.

Bliss washed over them. John did­n’t know what Agatha expe­ri­enced, but in that moment he felt joy like hot cocoa on a chilly day, like sun­shine on his face at the beach, like the rush­ing sounds of water and leaves at the riv­er, but a hun­dred, a thou­sand, four mil­lion two hun­dred twen­ty-nine thou­sand sev­en hun­dred sev­en­ty-eight times more intense—

The feel­ing end­ed. The light went out of the world. The void returned.

John gasped.

“I need your true name,” ath-Thu­raya repeat­ed. “Give it to me, and you can feel that, be that, endlessly.”

“John,” Agatha said, soft­ly. “I know what you’re going to say to me—”

“Don’t trust her,” he said. “Saul said she’s vora­cious. No. Rapa­cious.”

“—and you’re wrong.” She smiled, a lit­tle lop­sided smile. “Well, no, you’re right. I don’t trust her. But there’s no good option, is there?”

“She’s right, you know,” Cas­san­dra said.

Agatha con­tin­ued, “Your bud­dy Saul is gone, and ass-Suraya is rapa­cious. She’s not gonna leave until she’s got it all.” She looked to the sky, to the north­east. “Right?”

“I am here to con­sume,” ath-Thu­raya said. “Saul offered your minds as entice­ment, but if you choose to remain mundane”—the word sound­ed like an insult—“there are oth­er morsels in this sys­tem for me. I count four gas giants, four major ter­res­tri­als, and a myr­i­ad of plan­etes­i­mals. And once those are con­sumed, of course, there is your sun.”

“John,” Agatha said, “I want that. I want that joy. I want that high.”

“Don’t trust her.”

“Oh, I don’t,” she said. “But I don’t much like my chances here either. If noth­ing else, this is one of the ‘major ter­res­tri­als’ she’s eye­ing up.”

“Agatha—”

“It’s Sylvia, actu­al­ly.” She smiled. “Real­ly.” Her smile van­ished. “Don’t try to change my mind, John. You know this is the only valid choice.”

“Is it?”

But she was already ris­ing into the night sky. Was that the moon­light, he won­dered, or was she glow­ing?

“Sylvia,” ath-Thu­raya purred, “wel­come.”

Sylvia grew brighter and brighter. She came apart like a rib­bon unwind­ing, reveal­ing a con­stel­la­tion of scin­til­lat­ing motes, tiny heat­less stars that flew off to the north­east and were gone.

The cars in the vil­lage had yield­ed enough gas to fill all five jer­rycans in the trunk. He’d top up in Bran­don if he need­ed to.

At the north gate to Rid­ing Moun­tain Nation­al Park, the leaves had already start­ed to go gold and red. Must be the ele­va­tion, he thought.

In the pas­sen­ger seat, Cas­san­dra said, “We are not oblig­at­ed to fin­ish the work.”

He fin­ished, “But nei­ther are we free to aban­don it.”

Four mil­lion peo­ple, aban­doned by Saul, just like him. John would be damned if he let them stay aban­doned, not if they did­n’t want to be. He still was­n’t sure he want­ed to be part of ath-Thu­raya, but he owed the oth­ers the choice, at least.

He drove south, toward the upside-down sun.