Seven shook his head, figuratively speaking, and said, “I’ve just been through enough without you trying to confuse me further.”

“All right,” Cyprus replied. “I’ll take pity on you and help you out. If instead of saying, ‘Here I am,’ you say, ‘I am here,’ and if you realize that here is a noun synonymous with I, then you’ve really learned something.”

Seven knew that he’d really learned something vital in his other-side-of-the-universe adventure. He knew that he knew, but he didn’t know how to make the knowledge available. Still, he tried. He said. “You’re trying to tell me that where I am is always here. No, that isn’t it. You’re trying to tell me that here is where I am, no matter where that is.” His voice trailed off. “No matter what it is?”

“No,” Cyprus said. “You’re making it hopelessly complicated.” She paused, waiting. Seven felt as if she was drawing the knowledge out of him; as if she reached down into some invisible closet of wisdom he didn’t even know he possessed, and was pulling this seed of knowledge upward. He felt very odd, as if he should go (down?) there and help her. So he did.

Everything that he had felt and sensed in his other side of the universe experience was happening all over again, only the waves and particles that spread out into unknowable horizons were … forming his consciousness, and his thoughts were growing out and up and emerging as his words to Cyprus.

“I am here,” Seven shouted triumphantly. “Here always happens for me where I am. Or, here and I are one.”

“So if Will decides to commit suicide, he takes his here with him,” Cyprus said gently. “He turns into a new here, that then knows itself.”

“And if Lydia doesn’t decide to be reborn as Tweety? Or if she changes her mind?” Seven asked, and added, “Not that she would, of course.”

“That’s enough questions for now,” Cyprus said. “For that matter, I’d see just what Lydia was up to if I were you. And Josef. And—”

“I’m going,” Seven cried.

Chapter Twelve

A Mother-to-Be Gets a Midnight Surprise

Dejectedly, Lydia wandered through the giant halls of the Gods’ Rest Home, her footsteps echoing against the marble floors. She trailed her fingers along the mosaic walls as she passed, frowning vaguely at the gargoyles, busts, and statues of gods and goddesses that lined the hallway. She’d never been so lonely in her life, she thought; well, at least not in the last life, which was the only one she remembered clearly, and probably not in any of the others that she hadn’t remembered yet.