Hylozoic (44 page)

“But really it's a map of what you have to do,” says Beth Gimel, who's reading my mind. “That's Pengö on the left, see, and Pepple in the middle, and the Hrullwelt on the right.”

I'm like, “What do you mean,
do
? Aren't we in heaven? Can't we relax?”

“No,” says Beth, and then she starts talking about how we have to bring lazy eight to all three of those alien worlds, and how we then have to bring aktualization to Pepple.

Jayjay is into this, he's gloating over the knotty logic loops, but I'm finding it hard to focus, as my body feels double-jointed and, frankly, I'm worried about the baby. My hands keep folding around and turning inside out, for instance, and when I smile, I can feel the whole shape of my head deform.

Beth picks up on this, and she promises me the baby is going to be fine, because my essential core will go back to being the same, once the aktualization wears off, which is going to be sooner than we expect. She says she's sorry about listing all those tasks for us, but that, if we wave with it, we can have some fun.

Around then I notice that the air is filled with sweet music. No sooner do I wish I could play along, then—
whammo
—I'm holding a vibby electric guitar just like Tawny Krush has.

“You'll be the one to unfurl lazy eight for Pepple!” says Jayjay. “You'll be their mythic hero.”

“But Pepple already
has
lazy eight,” I point out.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Jayjay. “But they got it from you. You'll be showing up there a thousand years ago.”

So I'm, like,
oookay
, I can do that. And to make my manifestation the heavier and more memorable, I let my head get all long and toothy and dragon-shaped. Jeroen is scared of me now, and he makes the sign of the triangle. I puff a little fire at him just to hear him yell.

“Don't forget that one of you is supposed to unfurl Pengö and the Hrullwelt, too,” says Beth. “On the left and the right. Only for those guys, it'll be a
million
years into the past instead of a thousand.”

“I definitely don't want to help the Peng or the Hrull,” I say, and Jayjay doesn't want to either. So that puts Bosch on the spot, not that he exactly understands what any of this is
about. But Beth works with him for a minute, and he turns himself into a big, fat bagpipe, which totally cracks me up.

The Bosch bag poots off toward the giant triptych, blasting lazy eight into the left panel for Pengö—
sqwooonk!
And then he jets over to the right panel for the Hrullwelt—
sqwakooonk!

“Go on now, Thuy,” urges Beth, so I fly into that central panel, and, wow, I'm in their world for a minute, I'm a hovering dragon-headed woman with a magic guitar. I get that Lost Chord going on my strings, and as soon as they hear it, the Pepple people are wigging out.

When I land back at our little starting point by the hole in the cloud, Jayjay turns himself into a crow, and he flies into the Pepple panel where I've just been, but for him, it's only ten years ago. And instead of playing music or singing a song, he's beating his wings in this weird way that draws Beth Gimel along after him, with her curly snout stretching out forever to become a magic tornado.

The next thing I know, Jayjay and Beth have vacuumed Groovy and Lovva out of Pepple, and they're standing beside us, all green and smelly and three-eyed, and they have no frikkin' clue what's going on. It's nice to be paying them back this way—to have me and Jayjay and Jeroen be the ones with all the secrets, us coming on all sly and knowing and meaningful, while these goobs are trying to figure out what's up.

So we feed them their stories about how they're supposed to bring lazy eight and aktualization to Earth, and we send them on their way, into our past. I'm starting to feel confused, but Jayjay has it clear in his mind, and he says we're about done.

Jeroen flies for home at this point, making a detour through the Lobrane on his way, because he's curious to see what he calls “the land of the gnomes.” And Jayjay flies back into the
interbrane to fetch Chu. Me, I head for Yolla Bolly, and when I get there—like everyone already knows—I meet Chu and Jayjay, and we save the world.

 

 

Thuy fell silent. Her tale was told.

“It's all tangled up,” protested Chu, who was brooding about the muddled chain of cause and effect. “It doesn't make enough sense.”

“It's what it is,” said Thuy. “And now that I've told you this end part, I'm really not gonna bother writing that third metanovel the way I planned. Everyone can teep in to hear what I just said. This part of my story's over right now, just as it is. I'm ready for something fresh. Like having our baby.”

“Vibby,” said Jayjay. “A new life!”