1 Take Your Time

"Go ahead and cry," he says, draping a blanket over my shoulders. His gossamer shawl opens like a sunflower in the breeze, creating a sheer room around us for just a moment. The mirror I'm holding up shakes with each ragged inhale, but the hand-print bruises branded on my neck have long since ceased to hurt. "I can't give you much, but I can give you all the time you need."

"Will my mom be okay?" I ask between sobs.

"Yes. It'll be hard on her, but she'll start helping your brother with his therapy. She'll go to a lot of therapy herself, but she'll be okay."

"What about my brother? Will he be okay?"

At that, the god gives a crooked smile, tucking a wave of his long, white hair behind his ear.

"He'll be charged guilty of your murder and incarcerated. There, he'll learn coping mechanisms for resisting urges and anger management skills." He cocks his head. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Yeah." And that's the last word I say for a long time.

The days pass in this wide-open space that the god created for me to grieve. Sometimes, he sits with me under the blue, domed sky, patting soothing circles into my back while I wipe away my tears with his red blanket. Other times, he quietly fills out his paperwork nearby, sitting at an ornate mahogany desk set out on the short, cool grass. The dining table and its two chairs seem like a matching set. The bookcase is crammed with an ever-changing selections of novels and strange glowing crystals that smell vaguely of fire. Later, I start wedging myself into the plush velvet armchair with a book in hand, not reading, but slowly tracing the gilded title composed of an alphabet I have never seen before. The pages, when I take a quick lick, taste salty. Or perhaps they don't.

At night, a futon materializes on the ground, and I watch the dizzying array of stars from under the covers, the red blanket clutched in my arm. We are alone here, the god and I and his wall-less office, surrounded by gently rolling slopes and sharp blue mountains in the far east.

Forty days pass; I stop crying so much.

One day, I pull up a chair next to him while his pen scratches on paper. I try to decipher the letters that he's writing. His fingers are long and slender, with a ring on his right pinky. It makes a small metallic noise whenever he signs a document. Finally, he turns to look at me, smiling, his red eyes shining like muted currants and his dangling feather earrings sway when he reaches out to smooth down the ends of my black hair.

"Who are you?" I ask. For once, my eyes aren't puffy and red and damp. At this, the god stands up and bows slightly, his hair shining under the lukewarm sun like snow. I realize that he doesn't cast a shadow, and my shadow sits alone on the green grass.

"My name is Rida," he says. At the sound of his name, the wind suddenly quiets. "I am the god of boundaries."

"Boundaries?"

"Of boundaries. Of meeting points and overlaps, of crossings, parallels, perpendiculars, and borders. Patron of the transmigrated, the reincarnated, and mathematicians," he recites smoothly. "And you are Alexandra Ming-Zho Shu, right?"

"Alexa," I say.

"You have been put under my care until you're ready to be transmigrated."

There's a beat of silence as he shuffles through the files on his desk. I help him gather some papers into a pile and drop some of his loose pens into a silver cup. He snaps his fingers. A small space on the desk warps slightly, as if twisting, and then folds back into place, now with a glittering glass teapot and two teacups rimmed with silver. An entire yellow flower floats and unfurls in the hot water beside fingertip-sized leaves. He pours out two cups.

"My brother wouldn't have killed me." My voice is much more uncertain than I intended.

Those memories swirl in the corner of my mind -- the crushing press of hands cutting into my windpipe and the bubbling roar of joy rushing behind his eyes as he held me down. My stinging palms hitting his arms and face. The gurgling noise I made as everything grew unfocused. Darkness.

The steam from my tea curls up, up around my face, and then dissipates into the air.

"He wouldn't have," Rida agrees, "Your brother is usually very good at withholding urges. And if there hadn't been interference, he wouldn't have given in for the rest of his life. That being said," and here, he drains his cup as if he can't feel the heat on his tongue, "he heard a Whisper."

"From who?"

"From everyone. From no one. You know, Alexa, there is very little that is constant in the world, and that unnerves the Conscious. All that doubt. That skepticism and paranoia — sometimes, in manifests into Whispers. Like believing a voice that goes against experience or logic."

"Has it always been like this?"

"Yes and no. Whispers have always manifested in this world, but in the last 500 years or so, they've started to appear more and more, influencing more of the Conscious. And for the first time in recorded history, they breached into another world — your world — which is why I'm doing all of this." He gestures at the piles of papers on his desk. "This isn't even all of it," he mutters.

"So do I have to defeat it?

"What?"

"Am I the Chosen One, or something like that? And you brought me to this world to fight it?"

His laugh sweeps across the hills, pooling around the dips in the ground and the darkness left by clouds. But it isn't a mean laugh.

"You're a good child, Alexa. Cooking for your mother every day. Helping your brother with his assignments, even though he was older than you." The corners of his eyes relax some of the tension that I didn't notice he carried. He takes my hand, and grips it with a strength that's warm and loving. "But maybe you're a bit too serious. I transmigrated you into this world because you were a casualty of a phenomenon that should have stayed here. You should live your life how you see fit from now on." At that, he pulls out a sheet of paper from his stack. "I said this before, but I can't give you much; I'm only the god of boundaries, after all. I'm sorry I can't boost your skills by a crazy amount, or something like that. But it is within my jurisdiction to grant you language as an asset."

He jots something down on one of the blank section of the paper. As soon as he finishes the last letter, the sentences seem to flip inward and then outward again, and suddenly, the random symbols string together into startling clarity.

"I can give you knowledge about the world, and the continent you'll wake up on. Two gold coins is the starting point for all the transmigrated and reincarnated. You'll have basic equipment, including a dagger. And maybe, beginner magic?" He taps the end of his pen on the desk. "Anything else?"

I open my mouth hesitantly and then close it, overwhelmed. He doesn't push me, though, and pours himself another glass of tea.

"Take your time," he says. "There's no rush."

So, I do. The tea is probably the best thing I've ever tasted, floral and somehow sweet without sugar. Under this late afternoon light, the robe he's wearing shimmers in a color I've never seen before.

"Then, maybe some food? Just until I get my feet under me?"

"I can do that."

"Some... some extra clothes?"

"Of course."

I rub a corner of the blanket in between my fingers, thinking. It's soft, and smells like Rida does — like incense and estuaries.

"Could I keep the blanket?"

The corners of his mouth twitch in amusement and he leans forward to rest his cheek on his fist. "You know, you're much less demanding than my last charge. What about asking for something extravagant so that I can turn you down because it's not within my jurisdiction?"

Then, the memories of my brother carefully, carefully monitoring my phone usage. Of him listening in to every conversation I had in school. Of sitting alone on one side of the cafeteria, the entire blue, plastic table to myself. Of wearing a GPS tracker wrapped neatly around my wrist, twisted together with silver heart charms. Of him once, and only once, hitting my mother when she tried to take the tracker off my arm. The bruise on her face stayed for a week.

"I'd like a friend." I scrub my eyes with the back of my hand, hard. I've already cried too much in the past month; I'm not going to start again. "I'd like to meet someone I can talk to, that can talk to me back. Maybe we can eat lunch together."

At this, a great breeze starts to blow, scattering papers and knocking over the pen cup on Rida's desk. When I glance at him, startled, his eyes are soft. He moves closer to me, pushing his chair aside, close enough that locks of our hair intertwine in the wind. He places a slow hand on the back of my neck, and the spot where he touches burns pleasantly warm, like a kiss.

"My name is Rida." And although the wind blows louder and louder, whipping his robes and earrings in every direction, his voice cuts through the noise, low and comfortable. "I am the god of boundaries, of meeting points and overlaps, of crossings, parallels, perpendiculars, and borders. Patron of the transmigrated, the reincarnated, and mathematicians. I can't give you a friend, because that's outside my jurisdiction." He scrunches up his eyes when he laughs this time, full and loud, echoing in all four directions of my time with him. "But, Alexa Shu, I give you the blessing of meetings. From now on, plenty of Conscious will cross your path, both future friends and future enemies. May your horizons expand without judgement or concern." The furniture around us starts to shatter and then dissolve into the raging tempest. When the chair under me buckles, I stiffen and grab onto his robe in alarm, and he wraps both of his hands around mine, soothing. "It's okay to be scared. It will always be okay. May you live your life how you see fit, Alexa. May I be the buffer that keeps you safe. I'll be watching you."

With one final blast, he scatters into the wind, leaving only the lingering heat of his hands on mine. I feel my consciousness melt into that lofty sky and close my eyes.

Illustration: https://www.deviantart.com/grottofied/art/i-lost-my-marbles-coloring-this-767127422