Set This House in Order (12 page)

When I'd verified to my own and my father's satisfaction that the bedroom was safe (with the windows all shut tight, and latched) I lay down on the bed, arranging myself comfortably on the mattress.

Julie once asked me what it feels like to leave the body. “Do you contract into yourself, or float away, or what?” After several mangled attempts at a description, I came up with the following exercise, which, while not perfect, at least conveys the general idea: Tilt your head back as far as you can. You will feel a tension in the muscles at the back of your neck that quickly becomes painful. Imagine that tension spreading outwards, wrapping around the front of your face and shooting down into your torso, arms, and legs, turning your whole skin into a rigid shell like a suit of armor. Now imagine stepping backwards out of that suit of armor and finding yourself, not behind your body, but somewhere else entirely. Imagine all of this happening in the space between two heartbeats.

That's what it's like, more or less. Or at least that's what it's like for me; from exchanges I've had over the Internet, I know that some multiples experience it a bit differently—and of course, what happens to you after you've left the body depends on what your internal geography is like, something that is different for every multiple.

The map of the geography inside Andy Gage's head looks like this:

The X at the bottom of the map marks the spot where I appeared, beside the column of light that is the conduit between inside and outside. The column of light touches down on the crest of a hill above the south shore of the lake; from it, a path curves west and north around the lake's perimeter, eventually splitting into three branches. The rightmost branch leads down to a boat dock on the western lakebank; the middle branch runs straight and level to the pumpkin field; and the left branch goes up another, broader hill to the house. The question of distances gets kind of metaphysical, and I will return to it presently, but let's just say for the moment that the length of the path from the column of light to the front door of the house appears to be about a mile.

Colors, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations are all exactly the same inside as they are outside. The house looks and feels just like a real house; the hills, rocks, and trees just like real hills, rocks, and trees. The only obvious difference is you, since when you're inside, you're not wearing the body—so depending on how tall your soul is, for instance, your eye level may be shifted up or down.

The geography has a sky above it just like the real sky, with a sun, moon,
and stars. The motions of these heavenly bodies are all controlled by my father, who for the most part keeps them synchronized with their real-world counterparts: generally, when it's day outside, it's day inside, and ditto for night. The geography also has weather—this, too, controlled by my father—which is definitely
not
in sync with real-world weather, or at least not real-world Pacific Northwest weather: day or night, the sky in Andy Gage's head is almost always clear, and it never rains. Sometimes, around Christmas, my father will stage a brief snowstorm for Jake and the other kids.

As for the laws of physics that apply to the geography…well, it's complicated. Because the geography doesn't really exist, certain things are possible inside that are not possible outside—but because I am used to these impossibilities and consider them normal, it's hard for me to list them on demand. One impossibility that I've already alluded to, though, has to do with distances inside: they're optional. Inside, when you want to get from point A to point B, it isn't strictly necessary to pass through all the points in between, the way it is when traveling from A to B in the real world. For instance, if you're on the hilltop beside the column of light, and you want to go to the house, you
can
get there by following the path, but you don't have to—if you're in a hurry, or don't feel like walking, you can just decide to be in the house, and quick as thought, there you are.

Today I wasn't in that much of a hurry, even though I knew that the others were all waiting for me. I stood on the hilltop for a while, staring out across the lake. Inevitably, my gaze was drawn towards Coventry, the lake island where Gideon was imprisoned. There wasn't much to see: a mist had risen from the deep waters in the middle of the lake, reducing the island to a vague outline.

I said that my father controlled the weather inside the geography. He did not control the mist—he didn't summon it, and he couldn't make it go away. In hindsight, it's clear that this should have been cause for concern, but because it was associated with the lake, rather than, say, the forest or the pumpkin field, my father chose to regard it as a harmless anomaly rather than a potential danger sign.

Like the column of light, the lake predates the geography. Originally it was a kind of void, a darker area in the dark room in Andy Gage's head that occasionally vomited out new souls. In the course of constructing the geography, my father tamed the void somewhat—he made it resemble a body of water, which was better than having a gaping black hole in the landscape, and he also learned how to call new souls, like me, out of it at will. But he
never fully mastered it. Since the lake was still technically its own entity, it was not completely outrageous that it should act of its own accord, and so my father chose not to worry about it when it did. And since he didn't worry about it, neither did I—but I was curious.

“Andrew,” my father said, appearing beside me on the hilltop.

I nodded hello, but kept on staring out across the water, trying to catch a clear glimpse of Coventry in the whiteness. “Does the mist come more often now than it used to?” I asked. My father didn't answer, and I could tell he was growing impatient. Still, I went on: “I think it does come more often. Back when I first came out of the lake, it hardly ever—”

“Andrew.”

“Right, I know: the meeting.”

“Yes,” my father said, “the meeting. Let's go.”

We went: thought about being at the house, and were there.

The floor plan of the house in Andy Gage's head looks like this:

As you can see, it is a fairly simple structure. The first floor is one big common room. A staircase in the southwest corner goes up to a gallery that overlooks the common room on all four sides and gives access to the bedrooms and the nursery. A short hallway off the gallery's east end leads out to the pulpit.

In preparation for the meeting, a long table had been set up in the middle of the common room. The table was wider at one end than at the other, and my father, as head of the household, took his place at the wider end. I sat to my father's right; Adam to his left. The next two seats on my side of the table were occupied by Aunt Sam and Jake; Seferis sat next to Adam. Farther down the table were Simon, Drew, and Alexander; Angel, Annis, Arthur, and Rhea; Sander, Archie, Seth, and the two Samuels; Silent Joe the Gravedigger; and Captain Marco. Many of these were souls who, like my father, had grown weary of dealing with the outside world, and only rarely occupied the body anymore. Silent Joe and the Captain had never been outside; they were helper souls, called out of the lake by my father to perform specific functions within the geography.

There were still more souls up in the gallery, scores of them: the Witnesses. The Witnesses were what impolite psychiatrists like to call “fragments”—fragmentary souls created by a single traumatic event or act of abuse. Living embodiments of painful memory, they resembled small children; more than a few of them were dead ringers for Jake. But they lacked Jake's depth of personality, most having been outside only the one time, in the awful moment that made them. They had sad eyes, and rarely spoke. It was unlikely that they would have anything to add to the proceedings, but because they were members of the household, they were allowed to attend the meeting; they lined the gallery banister, some sitting, some standing. Three adult helper souls circulated behind them, ready to whisk them back into the nursery if they became bored or upset.

My father called the meeting to order.

“We're here,” my father said, “because a series of threats has been made against Andrew by one of his coworkers at the Reality Factory. And since some of these were physical threats against the body, they potentially affect all of us…” He went on to describe what had been happening with Penny. By the time he finished, more than half of the Witnesses had vanished from the gallery, and a couple of souls at the table had become hysterical. When he got to the part about the protector chasing me in the Buick, Annis clapped her hands over her ears and ran upstairs to her room, and a moment after that Arthur bolted out the back door of the house in the
direction of the forest, probably intending to work off stress by chopping down a few stands of trees. My father took all of this in stride; such reactions were perfectly normal for a house meeting. “…so that is what has been going on,” he concluded, “and now we need to discuss what should be done about it.”

Simon raised a hand. “How dangerous is this Penny Driver?” he asked. “Would she really hurt the body?”

My father turned to Adam. “The soul we saw today is capable of real violence,” Adam said. “Seferis and I are sure about that. We don't think it actually wants to hurt us, but it might, if it got mad enough.”

“Well then,” said Simon, looking directly at me, “
somebody
ought to call the police. There's no reason why we should have to tolerate even the possibility of violence.” Several other souls around the table murmured agreement.

“Andrew?” my father prompted me.

“I don't think we need to get the police involved,” I said, startled by the suggestion. “I mean yes, what happened today was upsetting, but I think Adam's right, the intention wasn't to hurt us. It's just…they want help. This isn't about harming us, or making us feel bad. Penny's souls want help, and for better or worse they're convinced that we can give it to them, and I guess they're a little desperate about it.”

“That doesn't justify threats!” exclaimed Simon. “Or chasing people in cars!”

“
We
needed help,” I reminded him. “Are you going to tell me we were never so demanding that it scared somebody?”

“What are you suggesting, Andrew?” my father asked. “Are you saying we should overlook Penny's…desperation…and try to help her?”

“Well…”

“Because that isn't how you've been acting. You've been acting like you don't want anything to do with her.”

“I know,” I said. “But maybe…maybe the fair thing, if we could just
get
her some help, at least point her in the right direction—”

“LIAR!” Adam's shout spooked another dozen Witnesses into flight. “‘Maybe the
fair
thing,'” he mocked. “This isn't about what's fair, or nice—the truth is you don't give a damn about Penny. This is about
Julie.
”