I could tell she didn’t believe me. No matter; I wasn’t leaving. I finished cleaning the floor, which was made from some kind of smooth brown tile, and tipped the rubbish into a bag. Then I went to the bedroom and started to take off my clothes.
“Why do you have your eyes shut?” I said as I dropped the shapeless black overgarment onto the cluttered bedroom floor.
I don’t want you watching me, said Jumps.
I had to laugh. “I’m in you. I know what you know. I feel what you feel. You think that closing your eyes will change that?”
That shrug again. Whatever.
“Okay.” I waited until she was dressed again, this time in a shapeless pink garment—nightie—printed with pictures of penguins. I opened my eyes. The light was still on. Jumps picked up an object—phone—with a little picture screen. For a moment she blinked at the screen. I watched her fingers move quickly over the pads that she thought of as keys—an apt term, I thought, for a thing designed to unlock secrets. I quickly understood that these keys were made to open windows—windows marked with mysterious names like SNAPCHAT, e-mail, and instagram. I lingered over one marked facebook, but Jumps passed over it quickly. Instead she opened a window marked MUSIC. I sensed her impatience, her desire to keep me from the Book of Faces. I understood that there was some kind of equivalent of this book in her mind, which, if I were to open it, would give me access to family, friends—everyone in Jumps’s life. But Jumps was not ready to share it with me. Perhaps she never would be.
Now, fixing something over my ears—headphones—I heard music—not the kind I was used to, but something soft and melancholy. I could hear words, a kind of lament, although much of the idiom was strange; and the instruments were new to me. At least there are no lutes, I thought. That had to be a bonus.
“Trying to lull me to sleep?” I said, fully intending to stay awake—I had no idea how my reborn self would function in this Aspect, or how much control I would lose if I gave myself to Dream.
Jumps just gave that shrug again—a combination shoulder-shrug and adolescent head-waggle—and closed her eyes without a word. I suppose I could have opened them, but the bed was warm and soft, and the pleasure of once more being in the flesh was enough to dim my fears. Sleep would be so good, I thought. Sleep would be so very good. But would I awaken in the flesh, or back in the dungeon of fallen gods? Still fighting, I slipped into the dark, and awoke to the sound of Jumps saying:
Fuck!—
I’d survived my first night.
7.
Fuck!” repeated Jumps, out loud. “Why did this have to happen today?”
I stretched, enjoying the sunlight. The phone sitting by the side of the bed showed me some blinking numbers. I could feel Jumps wanting to hurry, but I was still half-dazed with sleep, and saw no reason to move as yet. Had I dreamed? I thought I had. Something half-remembered seemed to linger in my consciousness. The memory of a hill, some runes, and then an object that shone like the sun—
At the back of my mind—our mind—Jumps was repeating: You can’t be here! You were supposed to be gone by now. I can’t have you here with me. Not today—
I took a deep breath. The dream was gone. Twelve more waking hours lay ahead, all gleaming with potential. Twelve more hours of freedom, I thought. Twelve more hours of precious life. I stretched again. I was hungry. But though Jumps shared my appetite, it wasn’t a priority.
What’s happening today? I thought. I was thinking breakfast, then maybe a nice long bath, then maybe some clothes that don’t look like they’ve been designed for a cave-troll—
“I have to get to school!” she said.
School? I looked up the reference in Jumps’s inner lexicon. The section marked SCHOOL in our shared space was hidden in the shadows. Many conflicting emotions seemed to coexist in this area. I wondered why she wanted to go when clearly she didn’t enjoy it.
It looks terrible. Let’s go with Plan A.
“There is no Plan A. I have to go.”
But I could feel her ambivalence as I searched her mind more thoroughly. On the one hand, there was the fear of authority—never much of an influence wherever I was concerned, of course. On the other, there was the growing fear that I might somehow reveal myself in front of people who mattered, people who would judge her because of what I did. Her peers seemed to matter enormously, especially a person named Stella, whose name seemed at the same time to conjure both admiration and venom. Most of all, there was something called EXAMS, which seemed to matter even more than the Stella person.
“What’s an ‘exam’?” I said.
She growled and tipped the phone onto the floor. “Oh, why are you still here?” she said. “Why can’t you just be a dream?” She dived into the mess at the foot of her bed in an attempt to retrieve the phone. I noticed that much of the floor space seemed occupied by objects of a similar sort, the nature of which was strange to me, but all which seemed to run on cantrips of one sort of another.
“Cool gadget,” I told her, slipping into her idiom. (This was easy, given our proximity and my access to that internal lexicon.) “Order or Chaos?”
The question was moot. Her insistence on cleaning the kitchen suggested the former, but honestly, the state of her bedroom floor was hardly Idun’s boudoir. Not to mention the pictures—posters—on the bedroom wall, most of which seemed to feature some kind of bastardized Aspect of Thor. Of course, the Thor I knew was a lot less well-groomed and would never have been seen dead in that golden armour, but at least the hammer was recognizable enough. Call me vain if you like, but I couldn’t help wondering what I looked like in this fantasy version of Asgard.
“Order or Chaos, what?” said Jumps, trying to struggle into her clothes without opening her eyes.
“What’s the source of your power?” I said. “Because if it’s Order, this place needs a clean, and if it’s Chaos, then I’m toast.”
I felt her struggling to understand. “Power? I don’t have any power,” she said. “I’m a seventeen-year-old girl. I go to school. I hang out with my friends. Most days I barely get to control the TV remote. What are you talking about, power?”
She couldn’t lie to me, of course. I was in her consciousness. She really believed what she was saying, and yet, I could sense it in her, the glam: what we in the old days called the Fire. But the Fire that drives the Folk is a different element. They burn so bright, and yet they are so completely unaware of the power within their control. Their dreams created the river that runs through all the known Worlds, and at the same time they seem completely ignorant of their inner resources—a power that dragged me out of Dream and here, into this stolen skin.
She must have caught a part of my thought. In any case, I sensed mistrust. I could tell she still didn’t quite believe in my existence, still thought I might be nothing but a casual visitor in her mind.
Opening her eyes again, she picked up the phone from its place on the floor. “I’m texting Evan,” she said aloud. “If he’s behind this, I’ll kill him.”
It was a forlorn hope, at best. I could tell even she wasn’t convinced. But this Evan sounded okay, and besides, the sooner she could be persuaded I was real, the sooner I could work on my own plan, both of finding more permanent quarters, and fulfilling my oath to the Thunderer.
I know. With a day of freedom ahead—and with breakfast imminent—my oath to Meta-Thor should not have been a priority. But I had sworn an oath on my name—on all my names, to be precise—and that kind of oath is binding. Even in another world and wearing someone else’s skin, there was no escaping my oath, or, if I broke it, the consequences. I had to free Thor, if I could. But was it even possible? I looked around the bedroom. Thor’s face—or at least this World’s version of him—continued to stare out at me from half a dozen clippings, drawings, and posters.
Why couldn’t you have been him? said Jumps. Why did it have to be you?
I sighed. Joined as intimately as we were, tact was not an option.
“I g
et it,” I said. “You don’t like me. Join the club.”
It isn’t that. It’s just—
“I know when you’re lying, Jumps,” I said.
“I’m texting Evan,” she said. “Do you mind? We’ll talk about this later.”
I watched as Jumps summoned cantrips on her phone. The language was unfamiliar, but given that I knew what she knew, it wasn’t hard for me to translate.
Meet me at your place. NEED TO TALK. J x
“So what about ‘exams’?” I said.
“I don’t have to be in until later,” she said. “I’ve got English Lit in the afternoon.”
She pulled on a pair of ankle socks with little cats printed on them. What with the penguin nightdress, I guessed she must really like animals.
“So, I’m free until then,” she went on. “And we’re going to talk to Evan. And then, whoever the hell you are, you’re getting the fuck out of my mind.”
8.
The way to Evan’s place led us through a series of streets and alleyways that Jumps simply thought of as the Village. Its name was Malbry, I understood—pronounced to rhyme with strawberry—and Jumps had lived here all her life. I’d spent less than twenty-four hours in her mind, but I could feel my awareness of all things Jumps growing at a startling rate: her idiom was no longer strange, her body no longer unfamiliar. And now, as we crossed the Village, there were memories at every turn: on every piece of stonework; in the park, with its ancient climbing frame and the swing on which she used to sit while her father pushed her and they laughed—
Stop that!
“What? What did I do?”
Poking around in my memories. Those things are private. Leave them alone.
I gave an inward shrug. “Okay. If that’s the way you want to be.” I sent her a mental picture of myself, sitting bolt upright on a sofa, the cushions of which were covered in transparent plastic sheeting. A woman with hair that seemed to be carved from a single piece of blond driftwood glared as she handed me a glass filled with some kind of beverage. Stay there, sit still, and don’t spill your juice, the woman said. And don’t you be touching anything.
“That’s my Auntie Cora,” said Jumps. “How did you even know about her? She moved to Australia when I was six. I haven’t thought about her for years.”
I pointed out that her memory was now largely a shared resource. “I can’t sit still and not touch anything. I may be a visitor in your mind, but I know what’s in the cupboards. So, you’d better get used to it, Jumps. I won’t put my feet on the furniture, but I’m damned if I’m going to ask you every time I need a glass of water.”
I let that register for a moment. When she finally replied, it was in a subdued tone. “I don’t want you in here,” she said. “Can’t you just go somewhere else?”
I had to laugh. In her mouth, the laughter sounded strange and a little mad. “I wish I could,” I told her. “But I’d need somewhere else to go. Preferably somewhere that isn’t designed to keep my disembodied self in a state of perpetual torment. And that, dear Jumps, is the rub. Until I find more suitable accommodation, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
She didn’t believe me. I could tell. There was still something hidden in there, some kind of a plan that she wasn’t ready to reveal. Evan was a part of it; I sensed that much, although his face was obscured by clouds. Funny, that: I could see Auntie Cora in detail, and yet her best friend was a mystery. I reached for the Book of Faces, but once more Jumps was ahead of me.
“I can’t see into your mind,” said Jumps. “Why should you see into mine?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to,” I said. “Thirty seconds in there, and you’d probably go crazy.”
That was true. I knew that much. My mind was a whole lot bigger than hers, with entire rooms full of directories given up to torment, rage, wickedness, pain, and various kinds of insanity—well, that’s Chaos for you, of course—as well as some somewhat complicated personal issues, involving sex, guilt, and feelings. I wasn’t about to let one of the Folk loose among my demons, especially as her mind, such as it was, seemed to consist mostly of funny cat videos, penguin socks, and vague nostalgia for childhood—plus Book of Faces, existential angst, mean girls from school, and acute public embarrassment, with long and unnecessary compendia given over to images of physical perfection, along a whole lot of needless guilt regarding the consumption of food. Which reminded me—
“Breakfast.”
“I never have breakfast.”
“Well, I do.”
We passed a woman walking a dog, who looked at us in a peculiar way. The dog didn’t look too impressed, either. From Jumps’s reaction, I gathered that people talking to themselves wasn’t generally approved of in Malbry.
Must you? thought Jumps, reverting to our initial, less public form of communication.
“Must I what?”
Be so bloody talkative!
I shrugged her shoulders. It felt good. I shrugged them again, for the fun of it. “I haven’t had much to talk about during the past few hundred years. I’m rather enjoying the novelty.” I sent her a mental picture of one of the less traumatic antechambers of the Black Fortress—not a very clear picture, and only for a moment. But I sensed her horror and disbelief, along with something else I might use, and I grinned in secret to myself.
“See, Jumps,” I told her. “You can see into my mind. If I want you to, that is.”
I don’t, said Jumps. Not ever again.
“We’ll see about that, shall we?” I said.
We walked in silence the rest of the way.
9.
Evan’s place was a dun-coloured box made of something called concrete. It was very high, and we entered through a portal (lift), powered by arcane and complex mechanisms that Jumps barely even noticed.
I had to say, I was a little surprised at her casual attitude. Her world was filled with energies, glamours, and cantrips, and yet her mind—such as it was—still dwelt mostly on clothing, school, and objects shaped like animals. It made no sense. In fact, I was starting to believe that she had no right to the body we shared, and that I would be far better off as its only occupant.
I could probably take it by force, too, if it came to a mental fight—and yet I needed my annoying host, at least until I learnt to manage in this world without her. My history of fitting in to social groups was patchy at best, and if others learnt of my illegal occupancy, it was likely that Jumps and I would find ourselves imprisoned in what the inner compendium referred to as the Nuthatch, which upon investigation, seemed considerably less pastoral than the name suggested.
I filed the plan for another day. Jumps could feel my thoughts, to a point, and I didn’t want to make her even more suspicious than she already was. Instead I tried to stay quiet, even though I was filled with questions, not least about the individual we were on our way to consult. The image Jumps had given me of her friend Evan was of a character not unlike me. Her respect for him was beyond doubt, though he also seemed prone to practical jokes. I felt we could be soul mates. Which made it all the more of a shock, when we finally reached the door to Evan’s flat (flat—an odd name for something that towered above the rest of the place like Bif-rost), to find not a sage or a warrior but a young man in a metal chair, who did not stand up when we entered, but fixed us with a cockeyed grin and said, “So, what’s with the drama?”
I looked around the flat. Compared to Jumps’s house, it was sparse. Most of the walls were covered in books—more books than I had ever seen. A desk—also piled with books. A computer by the window. A kitchen area, open plan, with a kind of island for serving food, and, to my delight, a fridge. I understood that the boy lived with his mother, who, according to Jumps, worked at the local hospital. I could see an animal of some kind—maybe a dog—sleeping in a basket. A series of mental images behind a door marked EVAN served as an introduction: some younger versions of the boy, some with the metal chair, some not; a lot of game, computer, and RPG references that I glosse
d over as tedious; a great deal of affection; some awe; an inexplicable sadness; some practical jokes (including one rather good one involving a duck, some pastry, and a school fire hose, which I filed away for later), plus an assorted variety of snippets and scenes from Jumps’s past, many featuring that mysterious chant of Land whale, land whale—which seemed to affect her so profoundly.
Nothing much to interest me there. I turned to my environment. In spite of Jumps’s reluctance, breakfast had been much on my mind, and I was sure that Evan would have something suitable tucked away. I made for the fridge, sidestepping his chair. And then, looking out the window, I saw something that raised the hairs on the back of my neck (you see, I was already starting to think of Jumps’s physical Aspect as my own) and sent little flashes of energy racing all over my body.
It was just a hill, that was all. A hill with, at its summit, a square stone tower of some kind, flanked with green slopes, behind which lay a mountain range, with seven peaks wreathed in mist, on the horizon. All of it perfectly ordinary. But it gave me a shock somehow, a galvanic kick of recognition that went right down to my boots. I’d seen these things before, I knew. Perhaps in a dream. I was sure of it.
“What’s that?”
Jumps said, Please. Will you just shut up? Anyone would think you hadn’t ever seen a hill before.
Evan wheeled his metal chair over to the window. “What’s what?”
“Nothing,” said Jumps quickly. “I just—”
“How about breakfast?” I went on, taking over the sentence before Jumps could move in to stop me. “I’m starving.”
Evan raised his eyebrows. “Okay? Well, there’s toast—”
“Yes, toast,” I said firmly while Jumps protested vainly in my mind. “Toast and—cheese, and chocolate. But you can leave out the yogurt. That stuff makes me want to puke.”