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I’m sitting here with God in an intoxicating silence like deep deep snow.  I smashed my index finger on my right hand in the car door last night while unloading my things from the trip.  It was so good to be home and

Hello God…thank you for the sunshine, thank you for the sticks of budding life called trees.  Thank you for monica’s house, and my couch and levi and luc and chloe.  There is something forming inside me; I know it because I feel it.  I was starting to say above that it hurts to type.  the tip of the index finger on my right hand is swollen and angry.  I might lose the nail and its tender when I strike the keys.

But something needs to come out.

As I rose from my bed this morning, I was excited for another new day in Twisp, a great cup of coffee and jazz music.  But right now, my ears are starved for silence and it rings in my ears with weight.

What are you trying to tell me God?

In my mind, when I say God, I am speaking to all 3 of you, though there are times it’s Jesus or the Holy Spirit or the Father, specifically.  But today is all 3, and I wonder what that means?

I see books, I see candles, I see the word ‘word’ I see baskets, I see colored pencils

I hear a clock, a distant car, electricity, the transmission of thought from my right ear to my left…

I feel empty yet full, old, soggy, peaceful.  No, I feel ready.

WE ARE RIGHT HERE MOLLY.  GO

Go where?  Go how?

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS THE WORD AND NOW THE WORDS ARE IN YOU.  BE WORDS

Nothing like a clear message from God.  What?

SUBMIT 3 TO THE CONTEST:  MY GOD, GMG AND CALDRON

Which?   Where?  What parts?

YOU WILL SEE (that was the holy spirit)

What I see is Quire (note added: a character from the Caldron series) stranded out in the Anterior (the name for the world outside of time).  Standing on the edge of a dark field which out there looks like a transparent thin cloud.  She’s looking down and out and wondering how she let herself get this far out without a solution.  She’s used the last of the pink crystals, the ones her Father had grown for her in the tunnel and out here the bigger ones were of no use. 

You have to back up in the story where I describe what its like out here.  Nothing is what it seems, or looks.  What you can see with your eyes is infinitesimal.  If this were a big screen movie, you would see Quire standing on nothing, floating in space.  That’s not what’s happening.  Quire is travelling from her home in five-seven through eight-ten to eleven-thirteen.  She has stalled out in the dead space between 8-10 and 11-13.  This is not where you want to be.

She thought about her father, and wondered what he would do.  Beo had a quiet solution for everything.  She thought about the tunnel and the time he spent building that, late, after she had gone to bed.  She was mad at herself for getting this far, and not having a solution.  Too, it was amazing she got this far.  Beo was from 11-13 and she would be welcome there, if she could locate the right field.  Her mother, Mateao, is native to 5-7 and the crystal farm that had been in her family’s linage for eons was gone.  Most likely.  Her father had shoved her into the tunnel just as the Dreaorgs arrived when she heard clank!  And then click.  And never saw her father again. 

Out here, nothing is visible until it’s right there.  Bang!  Or Flash!  Or fizzzzz…. There is always a sound before the object or being emerges.  But the time between the sound and the presence varies.  That’s one more thing you have to become skilled at: sensing the time variable between the sound and the presence and responding appropriately.  Obviously, split seconds matter.  You would think that the scariest entities revel instantly with almost no space to prepare, and often this is the case. But the worst are the ones where the sound and its emergence spread out in front of you, with endless space, leaving you there waiting.  You don’t know where to run or how to respond.  But you can’t do nothing.  You know it’s coming.  This is how you know evil, but you rarely know what to do about it until you face it, and you don’t want that.  Evil can and will find you, if you leave yourself exposed. 

Which is why Mateao Crystals are the most sought-after. Dwellings are created and even collectives or cities, but this is rare and occurs slowly and quietly over long periods of space.  All little ones are taught response skills in their first moments of existence, when they are raw and new.  And thus reveal their innate capabilities. 

Remember, I already told this story.  Beo had 3 balls of light:  green, red, white.  And he threw them at her, first the green, then the red, then the white.  The green exploded, the red exploded and the white shrunk tight and hung there, right in front of her nose and the tiny being seemed to hold it there.  And study it.  Beo and Mateao were immensely pleased.   But of course, they would be given a being like this.  Given who they were how could they get a being with slow responses. 

And then they saw something they had never seen.  This tiny being, just in their arms, held the small circular white light at the tip of her nose and then ever so slowly, started to move her head in circular motions.  The light followed.  She stopped and the light stopped.  But then the tiny being closed her eyes and took a deep breath in through her nose, and the light followed.  She breathed in until it was gone.  Beo and Mateao watched the light enter and disperse inside.  And the bright light filled her.

What could this mean?  They looked at each other, part delighted, and part concerned.  The tiny being glowed in Mateao’s arms.  Would she always be visible?  That can’t be good.  But she seemed so comfortable with the light and well, in command.  If more than her guardians could see her, how would they keep her safe?  Confusion about her creation quickly ended.  The being started to cry and they realized they had been thinking too much.  All the what ifs and fears about what lay ahead.  They each cleared their mind.  Mateao thought about her growing fields and her mother and mother before that.  Beo thought about the waterfall that fed the top tier, spilling over to the tiers below.  This delighted the tiny being and she immediately calmed.  Her guardians looked at each other and came together, having the same thought at the same time. 

“Quire!” they said in unison.  And they rested here, together, for a long time.

 

So that explains the disappointment that Quire felt standing there not knowing what to do.  She should know better.  She did know better. 

And then she heard a sound she didn’t recognize.  Far off in the distance.  She was already crouched down, automatically.  And all of her protections switched on.  Nothing came.  The sound was jumpy.  Almost sputtering.  She relaxed a little.  The sound was there and the not there.  There, and then not there.  And then there was a skidding clank and plot and plunk and then she saw it.

“What the…”