Diane Duane - The Wizard's Dilemma

And when that came...

... there would, eventually, be Timeheart, where no matter what you dreamed might await you, there was always more.

If she could just last through the testing that would follow, just keep faith long enough to find out what that more would be.

"I could definitely get used to this," her mother said.

You will, Nita thought... or heard. With the words came a pang of relief mingled with pain, the two impossible to separate. It would be a long time before Nita would get used to the pain, she knew. But the relief was there regardless, and here, in this place, there was no matching echo of grief to suggest that the relief was somehow false or illusory. Nothing that happened here could fail to be real. If she felt relief here, it was justified.

"No," Nita's mother said, "I don't think I'm going to let anyone throw me out of here."

"I don't think they can," Nita said, the tears coming to her eyes, even here. She knew, as all wizards know if they know nothing else, that in Timeheart everything worth having, everything that is loved, or of love, is preserved in perfection.

And everyone?...

As usual there were no concrete answers; the place was itself an answer before which all questions faded. Except, suddenly, one.

"Honey," her mother said, "not that I object to the idea, or anything. But can you tell me why there would normally be pigs in heaven?"

"Uh, Mom, this isn't—" But Nita stopped herself; she wasn't sure. And then there was still the question of the Pig, wandering along through the meadow not too far from them and gazing, as they did, at the mountains. The Pig looked, if anything, more transcendent than usual; it did not so much glow as seem to illuminate everything around it, if indeed the luminous surroundings could be any more illuminated than they already were.

"You're here, too?" Nita said to the Transcendent Pig.

"The annoying thing about omnipresence," the Pig said, "is that everybody keeps asking you that question. At least you didn't ask me what was the meaning of life."

Nita made a face. "I forgot."

It chuckled. "You're here and you need to ask?"

She smiled then. "Mom, this is the Transcendent Pig. Chao, this is my mother." "We've met," said the Pig, nodding in a friendly way to Nita's mom.

Nita's mother smiled back. "You know, we have," she said, "but for the life of me I can't remember when."

"You will," said the Pig. It glanced at Nita. "She has

a lot of remembering to do. Not right away...but soon."

Nita's mother nodded as well, gazing at the Pig with an odd expression of slowly dawning recognition. It glanced at Nita. "They all remember me eventually," it said. "The way they all remember the Lone One. We have history."

The three of them walked along through the meadow together for a little ways. "Mom," Nita said, "I really don't want to lose you."

"I don't think we get much choice on this one," Nita's mother said. "Honey, our ways are going to part, one way or another." She looked at Nita with an expression that was sorrowful but tender. "Parents and kids do it all the time, as they both grow up. You and I are just going to have to do it faster than we planned... and more permanently. Since there's no way out of it, let's enjoy every day. Heaven only knows what may happen afterward, but they can't take away from us what we make, one day at a time, just all of us together. That, we keep...and anything else..." Her mother looked up at the mountains. "We'll find out soon enough."

Nita nodded. "But oh, Mom... I'm going to miss you so much! Always!"

"I'm going to miss you too, honey. But it won't be forever... not the kind of forever that matters. If this is where I'm going to be, I think everything will be just fine."

"It won't be the same, though," Nita said softly. "It won't be like being able to talk to you."

"You'll usually know what I would have said, if you think about it," her mother said. "We know each other that well, at least. Other than that, I'll always be around, even though you won't hear much from me. I mean, sweetheart, you started out inside me... Don't you think at the end of the process, things sort of go the other way around?"

Nita wiped her eyes and looked over at the Pig, which was looking at her mother with quiet approval. "Can't add much to that," it said.

Nita just hugged her mom; it was all she could do. "Go well," she said. "As long as you do, sweetheart... I always will."

Nita's mother slowly let her go, then looked over her shoulder, up at those mountains, towering skyward into another kind of eternity, and began to walk toward them, through the mist.

Nita stood there with the Pig and watched her mom vanish, shining, into the mist. "What happens now?" Nita said.

"What usually does. Life... for a while. Then the usual brief defeat," said the Pig. "But victory's certain. Never think otherwise. There is loss, and there is pain, and in your home frame of reference, they're real enough, not to be devalued. But today the energy's running out of things just a little more slowly... for those who trust their hearts as a measure."

Nita swallowed hard. "You'll keep an eye on her," she said.

"Of course I will. I always do. But somehow," said the Pig, looking at Nita's mother, who was moving higher and higher up the hillside, almost lost in the ever-growing light, "I don't think she'll need it."

...The light on the bedroom ceiling woke Nita, glinting through her window from a car pulling into the driveway below. Nita sat up in bed, wiped her face, and tried on a smile. To her astonishment, it didn't feel like such a terrible fit.

She got up, threw on jeans and a T-shirt, and went downstairs to tell her mom hello.