And think about it: Jonas wanted her voluntarily, which meant that he either had no wish to drag her into the alembic with him or, more likely, he could not envision the necessity. She needed to see the basement, to examine the alembic itself and to see if there was any sign of a nitrate bomb. She would have to convince him of her need to see his workshop, just as she had convinced him that he needed her as the key to his great transformation. Work herself in to his side, hope he left open his telephone or—better—that modemed computer, and get a message to Glen.
Yes, she had to have help. Agreed, there was no way she could do this alone for more than another few days. The best way of obtaining that help was the same way she always did: write a journal entry for Glen.
Only this time she'd have to make damned certain that nobody found it, because there would be no pretty subterfuge here. Write down the truth, in all its detail, and then she would either get herself a map of the estate and sneak off to a mailbox, or feed the pages through Jonas's scanner and slap the result into an e-mail to Glen. That would take less time than Jonas had been gone to urinate.
Buy time, call for help, act normal.
And the hardest of these is normality.
Chapter Twenty-nine
proposed article on theological synthesis
titles: Dream Logic
Signs and Portents
The Apocalyptic Mind
Intro: One of the
(Examples: —Judaism & the minutiae of kashrut rules—holiness is in the details
—Post-resurrection Christianity, sifting the life of Jesus for symbols and unseen prophecies
—Modern examples-Heaven's Gate, etc.)
To the apocalyptist, who literally awaits the Great Uncovering, all coincidence is synchronicity, all accident revelation.
(note: intro ideas of archetypal/depth psych?? Examples in therapeutic situations, or Biblical dream interp???))
… It is the same logic one finds in the interpretation of dreams, where all events are related, where enlightenment comes with the understanding
What would seem to most of us a coincidence of minor importance, to the searching mind becomes a road sign to holiness. The unpredictability of these minds makes it very difficult to forecast where Meaning will be found.
If we wish to understand, we must contrive to stand over this person and look over his (her) shoulder, listening to his inner dialogue and duplicating his close scrutiny of his surroundings, before we can even begin to predict his interpretation of events, his understanding of portents. Like the chemist who knows what reagent will set off a certain reaction in his beaker-and even then, the being human individuals rather than simple chemicals, the variables are great, and it is easy to be very wrong.
From the notes of Professor Anne Waverly
The smell of food in the dining hall filled Ana with nausea, but she craved something hot to drink. She took a mug and filled it from the big urn, added sugar, and took it to her corner, where she cupped her hands around it as if the tiny heat it gave off would drive away the coldness of her bones. Three mugs later her thirst was slaked but she was still shivering in the warmth of the dining hall.
Then she looked up and saw Dulcie, and one glance at the child's expression cut her shivering off. Dulcie needed her; there was no time for weakness.
"Hello, Dulcinea," she said gently. "How's my squire this evening?"
The child shrugged, a motion so like her brother that Ana wanted to reach out and pull Dulcie to her, burying that sad, remote little face in her embrace. Instead, she put her mug down on the table and stood up, casually holding out her hand to the girl.
"Why don't you show me your room, Dulcie? Then I'll show you where mine is. Sorry my hand's so rough and covered with Band-Aids—I spent the afternoon digging and I got a bunch of blisters. I shouldn't call them Band-Aids, though, should I? Here they're sticking plasters. I wonder why they call them plasters? Plaster is that white stuff they cover walls with, that turns really hard and you can paint it. You remember that gray mud that Tom and Danny were using back in Arizona, that would get big blobs in their hair and when they came to meals they'd look really funny? Oh my little sweetheart, what's the matter?"
Dulcie had drifted to a halt halfway up the stairs and was now just standing, one hand limp in Ana's, her shoulders drooping and her head down. She was crying. Ana sat down on the upper step and pulled Dulcie to her. The child was pliable but unresponsive, weeping as if she were too tired and dispirited to do anything else. Ana crooned wordlessly and rocked her, oblivious to the people coming and going on the stairway, aware only of the small, warm head of hair tucked under her chin, and the slack hopelessness of this young body, and eventually the shuddering intake of breath as the tears tapered off. When the tears ended, some of Ana's own hopelessness seemed to have worked itself out as well.
"Where is your room, Dulcie?" she asked. The child stood without speaking, and they continued up the stairs and down the hallway, Ana's hand resting on the back of Dulcie's neck. Dulcie chose a door and Ana followed her in. She picked up the child and sat her down on the bed with the teddy bear from the pillow, and then sat next to her. Dulcie leaned into Ana's arm.
"What's wrong?" she asked the child again.
"I want to go home."
"Home to Arizona? To where Steven is? Or home—?" Where was the child's home, anyway?
"To Steven."
"Why are you unhappy here? Jason's here."
"No."
"He isn't?" Ana looked quickly around the room: shoes in the corner, a familiar plaid shirt over a chair, books and papers on the desk—all reassuring signs that a teenager lived there.
"He's always doing things. Talking to Her, or That Man."
"Jonas, you mean? And who's 'Her'?"
" The girl." Dulcie's voice vibrated with disgust.
Ah. "Do you mean Dierdre?" Dulcie nodded. "Dulcie, listen to me. Jason loves you. He's just excited to be in a new place, and it's hard for him to keep his mind on things. I'll have a talk with him, okay? Ask him to settle down a little?"
Dulcie nodded, then said, "But I still want to go home."
Ana thought for a minute and decided it was best not to bring That Man into it at all, but, rather, to dwell on the positive side. "There are some nice things here. Have you seen the barn with the horses? And there's lots of kids."
"I can't understand them."
"Their accents, you mean?"
"They talk funny. Like on TV."
"You know, I'll bet they think you talk funny like TV, too. There's a lot of American shows on English television." Not that the Change kids saw much TV, come to think of it, but never mind. "Come on, let's go see the horses go to bed."
Ana spent the next hour coaxing and amusing the child out of her feeling of abandonment. Dulcie found the horses beautiful, the lambs amusing, the cats still at the kitchen door, and the voices around her not quite as unintelligible as she had thought. At the end of their tour they went to see Ana's room. Ana let her look around, bounce on her bed, and paw through her meager belongings, and then told the child that she could come to visit anytime she wanted.