Читать онлайн «The Wizard's Dilemma»

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.