“That’s what’s next,” Charlene surmised. She was panting as much from excitement as exertion. Gwen heard a low beeping tone in her ear, and she glanced over at Ollie.
His left hand was covering his ear, as he listened to medical reports from Central Processing. With his right hand he signaled her: a finger pointing to the ground, followed by a horizontal palm: slow down.
It might be that Charlene’s vital functions, picked up and broadcast through mesh underwear, had alerted Central Processing. Maybe it was the heavier Sands brother. For all Orson’s jolly sarcasm, Ollie thought he looked ripe for a nice, juicy cardiac incident…
So Gwen’s eyes unfocused, and her hand closed powerfully on Orson’s wrist as he was about to speak. “I hear them,” she said, “whispering,” rolling her eyes, “the Gods. They-”
She waited for their attentive silence, then squeezed her eyes shut and made a happy pout. “They are most pleased. They say that they will bring us gifts!”
Through the darkness at the cave’s unimaginably distant roof there shone a shaft of golden light. It pierced the black and danced palely on the far side of the gap. The beam was broken up by a fluttering motion, something like fat snowflakes… but every “flake” was a living thing, reflecting and adding to the light.
Trianna said it first. “Butterflies!”
Exactly right. White butterflies. They drifted this way and that, creasing the light, reflecting it, questing into the darkness for a moment, then returning to coruscate and sparkle anew.
They landed in a cone, prancing and fluttering in heaps, and covered the ground as if huddling together for warmth against the winter. They crawled over each other in a churning Brownian movement. Any trace of individual identity was submerged in an amoeboid tangle.
Gwen watched the Gamers’ eyes, squeezed Ollie’s hand in acknowledgment and thanks for his signal.
Then the butterflies took to the air again, leaving behind them A huge platter heaped with apples and grapes and pears. There was a small mountain of crackers and breads, four wide-mouthed jugs, and some miscellaneous cans.
“Lunch!” Johnny Welsh said reverently. “My stomach was about to sue me for desertion. Wait a minute-”
The Paija had shattered the stone bridge. They looked at lunch across an eight-foot gap. Kevin asked, “How do we get to it?”
Orson said, “Why don’t we just twist you into a rope bridge and walk across?”
“Ha-ha,” said Johnny Welsh. “Humor makes me hungry.”
“Listen to me,” Gwen said. “The stone bridge is destroyed, but in conquering the Paija, we have all gained great power. You must now have pure intention in order to use it. You must truly desire the food.”
They were looking at Gwen warily: crazy and dangerous. “Believe me, honey,” Hebert promised. “That food and I are going to share a deep, spiritual communion.”
“Do you remember the lessons you learned from the food last night?”
Sheepishly, Trianna raised her hand. “We need to treat the food like a living thing.”
“Is that different from the way you usually treat it?”
She hunched her shoulders. “I remember the lectures, dear. I love food, but it’s like building blocks to me. I can make pretty, tasty things out of it-”
The pile of food rustled, and a bunch of grapes turned into butterflies and flew away. Gwen said, “Watch it! The food here is very sensitive.”
“I pay honor to the Inua of the food!” Kevin said. Perfect.
“I’d be surprised if he eats at all,” Orson growled.
“Did you say something, Mr. Sands?” Gwen made her voice deceptively sweet.
“Well…” Puzzles. Orson had to solve puzzles. “I pledge that if this food will, will serve me… ” He paused to hunt for the right words.
“Then we will serve the food,” Johnny Welsh said solemnly. Hippogryph, blind-sided, burst into helpless laughter.
But Orson had his lines worked out. “I will pay honor to it, and attention to what I eat, and only take into my body what I need for nourishment.”
Gwen’s eyebrows went up. “Can’t argue with that.”
Max leaned over to Bowles and stage-whispered, “Did you pack your hip boots?”
A shaft of light shone down from the heavens, directly upon Orson.
“Step forward, Orson. If that was the truth, I think it’s mealtime.”
“I meant it-” Another bunch of grapes started turning white, and Orson shrieked. “All right! All right! Give me a minute, will you! Damn.” He was the picture of frustration. He glared menacingly at Gwen. “How’d you know?”
“The Great Spirits. Or maybe a lucky guess. You have that kind of face.”
“Don’t I know it. All right.” He forced his shoulders to relax, and then shrugged. “I haven’t done it until now. I was just testing. But I will try, for this meal at least. I promise.”
The butterflies fluttered back into the light, settled, and transformed back into grapes.
“If you told the truth,” Gwen said, “step out. The Great Spirit will support you.”
“You want me to step out on air?”
“No.” She said piously, “On faith. Heh-heh.”
Orson peered out over the precipice. His lips made a wet, unhappy sound. He took a step, feeling out over the gap with his toe, the rest of his balance safely held in reserve.
His foot was balancing on nothing. He breathed a sigh of relief, and took another step. Then Orson Sands was by God doing magic, walking on air like Gene Kelly. All he needed was Jerry Mouse dancing alongside.
He stopped in the middle of the gap and looked down past his feet, down into the depths where the Paija had vanished, and then back at them with a smile that showed every tooth. When he crossed to the other side he salaamed deeply, damn near kissed the ground, then did a little jig-step which took him over to the food.
Orson prodded a grape with one heavy finger. The sun came up behind his eyes. “It’s real!”
He plopped down and grabbed handfuls, a pear in one hand and a bunch of purple grapes in the other Then he set the pear down and began eating grapes one at a time.
Gwen beamed. “Next?”
One at a time they went through the ritual. The “Great Spirits” seemed to know when they were lying and when they weren’t. Gwen savored their bewilderment.
Now that they had enough of a break to realize how long it had been since breakfast, hunger was a raging fire. The butterflies returned every time a lie was told, and Gwen called them on it.
Trianna swore she would honor her food, but she was lying. Gwen knew it, Trianna knew it, and most importantly, the technicians back in Gaming Central knew. They knew from reading body signs from the mesh underwear: blood pressure, skin ternperature, galvanic skin response, heartbeat and respiration rates.
Tears streamed down Trianna’s lovely face. Her shoulder-length blond hair seemed flat and lifeless. “What do you want from me? I love food. How can you say I don’t? How do you think I got this heavy if I didn’t?”
“Do you love it,” Gwen asked soberly, “or do you use it? You hide in your body, Trianna.”
Trianna was so upset that she was actually bawling now. “What do you want me to say? I–I… shit!”
Kevin took her shoulders. “Just slow down and notice your food.”
Her eyes raked him; they should have raised welts. “And you? You damn skeleton, when did you ever notice food? You look like nobody ever told you about that part.”
Those words had hurt: Kevin blinked his hollow eyes against the pain. “I’m here too,” he said quietly. “We’re pretty much the same, Trianna. Both of us need to be okay with not being perfect. I’m tired of being scared.” He smiled tentatively. “Aren’t you?”
Trianna swallowed hard. Gwen felt sympathy but bit it back. Trianna ate sedately enough around the group, but it was increasingly easy to picture her at home, alone in her apartment. A mindless Oreo cookie zombie, shoveling food into her mouth as if that gorgeous face and that lumpy body lived in different zip codes. Deli of the living dead.
Trianna said: “I swear I’ll try. I want to tell the truth about it.” Her voice was a little girl’s, barely a squeak. “I want to.” This time Gwen didn’t get a warning beep in her ear. Trianna tottered across the bridge and sat, snuffling quietly, and picked at her lunch.
