“I believe in … something,” Jeffery said. “But there’s some writing I have to do just now. I don’t mean to cut our conversation short, but there’s something I must finish.”

“I thought there might be,” Ram-Ram said.

Then Jeffery wrote this chapter and the previous one. He wrote all night, no longer astonished as his own experience wound through the narrative and was reshaped, turned endwise and sidewards, focused and unfocused, his and yet more than his … and … Will’s.

And then, after a brief sleep, he continued.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Oversoul Seven Keeps His Promise to Lydia and Begins Tweety’s Education

Oversoul Seven said, “I’m going to start Tweety on Sumari right away and really give her an excellent education, because I promised Lydia that I would. Besides, I’ve thought of a terrific idea.”

“First, you’ll have to explain what Sumari means,” Cyprus replied.

“No problem,” Seven said. “I’ll tell Tweety that Sumari means many things, but we’ll be using it as the name for the inner lands of the self.” He paused expectantly and said, “Well, aren’t you a bit curious about my brilliant idea?”

“I’m waiting for you to tell me,” she said, again looking nowhere in particular.

“You probably know already,” he said reproachfully.

“No, I know you like to surprise me …”

“Well, what do you think of Seven’s Little Book?” Seven asked, unable to keep the secret any longer. “It will be a book just for Tweety—not a physical book, of course, but a dream book. I’ll read some to her each night when she’s asleep. I’m going to start with Sumari Geography; you know, the inner lands of the self and their, uh, subjective locations. Well, what do you think?”

“Truly inspired,” Cyprus said. Her woman teacher image positively glowed, and Seven’s fourteen-year-old male form glittered happily around the edges.

“Lydia wrote books, you know,” he said. “So I thought it would really be fitting to do a book for her; I mean, for Tweety. It will have all the important things about life in it. And because it will be a dream book, her subconscious will, uh, lap it up like cream.”

Cyprus started laughing. Lost in her humor, she forgot to hold her image, so that she started changing from a woman into a man and back again so quickly and in such hilarious fashion that Seven’s head was almost spinning. “Stop that,” he said indignantly.

“Oh, Seven, I was laughing with you, not at you,” Cyprus said.

“Well, I wasn’t laughing,” Seven said glumly. “You just made me remember something that I forgot to put in the book. How am I going to explain that we aren’t really male or female? I’ll have to do a book on Sumari Sex, but maybe I should wait until Tweety is older.”