Heart of a Chalyn: Chapter 22

Wow. What just happened?

At least, that’s the reaction I was hoping for when writing this chapter. It was one of those I didn’t see coming. It just sort of wrote itself once I got Tobias and company to the island. The threads that come together on their own are sometimes the best of all.

Let’s start with Mama Neffa. Who is she? Other passages in the series refer to her as the First Mother, or the One.

When Masaki unleashes Hell’s Fury, his doomsday weapon ends our cycle. But the nature and magnitude of the destruction is unprecedented. The collective life-force energy leaving billions of us in the same instant has nowhere to go, no release in a universe that demands matter-and-energy balance.

The life-energy channels back where it came from, and forms the world of mists. Parallel to our world of substance.

“You are here seeking answers in the Book of Names. A name is a memory a spirit carries into the mists. Some cling to their names. Some return them to the nameless One.” Neffa sighed, and the candles dimmed. “I am them.”

Neffa is explaining that she is not one entity. She is the collection of all those who don’t hold on to their individuality. Think of the hive mind. The collective. The safety of the herd. Or if you’re a Star Trek fan, a benevolent and voluntary rendition of the Borg.

Other characters from the mists have “remembered their names.” Mouse’s companions Yonah and Fia. Joren. Masaki. Some have returned. Seth and Dara.

But in the Rootstock world, not everyone is a Reborn. Most, by far, are Newborn. Fresh new beings “scooped” from the blended essences of the One.

Holding on to a name or returning to the One is a choice open to all.

Neffa appears again in Heart of a Chalyn, though rarely. Crossing from mist to substance comes at a cost, even for her. The cost is life-energy drawn from the One, spent and gone.

She chooses her battles.