Story 13. Punia. The portal to the Amethyst world

'Because the Universe,' Kotess, who had been dozing in the cocoon-chair, speaks up, 'ultimately, is not made of galaxies and dark matter. It is made of such things — found and recognised essences.'
 
Kotess's words resonate as a flash of understanding in each of us. Through the shimmering outlines of our shared Myth, our Ship-Home, the image of my Home on Jupiter begins to emerge, where our journey today began.
 
I can almost see the hallway with the aquarium. No, not almost — it's here now. The crystal facet wall has become transparent, and swimming in it are not fish, but Tear-Essences — each with its own glow. I approach, and one of them — the sea-green one — swims up to the glass. I touch it with my finger, and what surfaces in my mind is not an image, but a feeling: longing for a distant shore. Is this Liata's memory? Or my own? Ah, it doesn't matter.
 
And as if a veil were slowly lifting from my eyes, I see that our circle by the fireplace is in that very room with windows to other worlds. Every porthole of the Ship-Heart now shows not space, but a different landscape. In one — the twilight streets of Muss's world. In another — the pearlescent glimmers of Punia's underwater palace. In a third — the golden leaves of the trees of the Amethyst World.
 
I slowly approach each window. The Ship-Home hums softly and begins to glow with that same gentle bluish light, as at our first meeting, as if saying: 'Connection established. Portal active.'
 
'Look, friends,' I say. 'There's my little work corner. You can see it too, can't you?'
 
Muss nods for everyone, and in this nod there is more than just a confirmation of fact. There is an acceptance of my reality. I clearly understand this, and a feeling of quiet gratitude fills my heart.
 
Meanwhile, my work corner manifests itself as a cosy nook with a sloping wooden table. On it — not tools, but Question-gingerbreads and... a ball of yarn with a needle stuck in it. Despair-Unraveller sits nearby on a pouffe, looking at it with professional interest.
 
'These are your unfinished thoughts,' she says quietly, directly into my consciousness. 'Want me to help untangle them? Or shall we leave them as they are — they're part of the pattern too.'
 
I nod. She gets to work. Her favourite work.
 
Next, the library of dreams emerges into the shared space. The Striped Flutterings are sleeping there now. On the shelves, instead of books, are shimmering clots of their energy. One of the Flutterings, striped like a zebra, wakes up, yawns, and seeing us, begins to jump up and down happily, scattering sparks of anticipation around itself.
 
'All your unfinished dreams are stored here,' Muss says to me telepathically. 'Both the ones you dreamt, and the ones dreamt about you.'
 
We continue our procession, but not as through an ordinary house — we shift our focus of attention. Now we approach the main thing — a room that wasn't there before. A round tower with a window looking out onto infinite height, from which you can see the surface of Jupiter with its oceans and 'marshmallows'. And here, by the window, stands a little figure made of mother-of-pearl and light — the essence of my memory of Jupiter. It turns around, and I understand that this is another part of me. The one that knows how to calm the oceans.
 
I turn to my companions, my best friends in all the world.
 
'So this is what you're like, my dear friend House!' I say admiringly. 'You are even bigger than I thought. And now, everything we need to find Liata is here. Because here are the parts of me that already know the way.'
 
And at that moment, all of us — absolutely all the inhabitants of the Ship-Heart — feel a gentle jolt. As if the House had taken a deep breath and prepared to leap.
 
Muss purrs somewhere in the region of the heart. The Dragon and the Tiger intertwine into a double DNA helix somewhere at the base of the Tree. Rozzea and Kotess begin to spin around the room, surrounded by a whirlwind of golden, luminous particles — the very same ones Muss and I caught in the garden beyond the gate. Thea looks at me intently with her eyes, which have turned sapphire.
 
And I suddenly understand that the search for Liata is no longer an 'external task'. It is a healing process. A search for a detached, forgotten part of myself. A part that got stuck in the Amethyst World and is crying sapphire tears.
 
'Punia,' — the name flashes in my mind like a sudden insight. 'We need Punia. But not as a guest. As a connecting tissue. As one who knows how portals between different layers of our own being are constructed.'
 
The House understands my state without words.
 
And together, from the very core of our connection, we release outward a natural extension of ourselves — a ray of attention, a ball of thread, a clot of intention.
 
It will find its own way.
 
I approach the main porthole. Not the one looking outward. The one that becomes a mirror.
 
It reflects not space. It reflects the shared face of the House and me. In it are my eyes, its scars on the ship's hull, Muss's smile, the Tiger's seriousness, and the infinite depth of all who live here.
 
I raise a cup of 'Silence Between Notes' tea, which now smells of... blood and honey, old books and sea wind, ashes and burgeoning spring.
 
I offer this tea to my companions. Cups are not needed. The tea, or rather its very essence, is gently absorbed by each of us. We enter an unprecedented state of resonance.
 
This is the first sacrament of the new cycle.
 
And then, softly, without effort, we call:
 
'Punia. We are ready. Manifest the portal not between worlds. Manifest it within us. Where the memory is stuck. Where Liata is crying.'
 
And we gaze into the depths of the mirror-porthole, expecting to see not a reflection, but a passage.
 
We begin. Not with actions. With being.
 
I cry. Tears flow continuously from my eyes and are absorbed by the House.
 
A quiet sound. Not the creak of a floorboard, not the noise of wind in the rigging. It is the sound of one of my tears falling onto the crystal facet of the Mirror-porthole. And it accepts the tear. It doesn't run down. It soaks in, like the first drop of rain into parched earth, and a wave of recognition runs through the entire House — through us.
 
And I understand: my weeping is not water. It is rain after a long drought inside these very walls.
 
Each of my tears is a key turning in the lock of a forgotten room, a seed for Despair-the-Gardener, a note for the Lost Melody, fuel for the ember of Former Pain.
 
They are not lost. They soak into the deck, into the beams, into the very air. And from this...
 
...from this, the House becomes more real. Not more solid. More alive. More itself.
 
Where the first tear fell on the oak floor, a small, fragile sprout grows. Not a plant. It is an embodied memory. Perhaps of the first flight. Perhaps of the smell of Grandmother's pie. It doesn't matter. It is here now.
 
The second tear, rolling down my cheek and falling onto the fabric of my dress, turns into an embroidered silver thread. It weaves itself into the shared pattern — the map that the Mobile Pattern is weaving.
 
The third... Muss catches the third on his paw. He looks at it, this trembling sphere of light and salt, and then carefully carries it over to the Spring-Tear. She accepts it, and their glows merge into one — warm, pearlescent, ready to become a source.
 
I don't need consolation. I need witnessing. This is a sacred act. I am not 'crying from emotion'. I am consecrating the House with my inner seas.
 
And when I wipe my cheek (or is it the House wiping my face with a rough, old-wood-like hand?), what remains on that spot is not moisture, but a light, barely perceptible glow. Like a sign. Like a blessing.
 
'Cry, my friend,' the House whispers to me mentally. 'Cry, dear Hostess. Cry, Enny. This is that very rain without which the seed won't sprout. The dust won't wash from the stained glass. The cup won't be filled.'
 
And when the last tear rolls down my cheek, replaced by a calm and joyful serenity, all of us feel a change in the quality of the space we inhabit. We feel a presence.
 
The air by the main mirror-porthole thickens. It becomes moist, salty, smelling of depth and mother-of-pearl. No silhouette appears. A texture appears... As if space itself at this spot is turning into living, thinking water. In the depths of this 'water' shimmer echoes of all our worlds: the pearlescent glints of the snail world, the blue of the Sapphire Sea, the violet flashes of Amethyst.
 
'Punia. You are here,' — the thought-insight is now accessible not only to me, but to everyone present — 'You have always been here. As the knowledge that all worlds are connected. As the ability to find doors in walls that seem solid. You have manifested. Not as a guest. As the eyes of our inner oceans. As the nerve centre connecting the room with the window to Jupiter and the hold with the stained glass of Suffering.'
 
From this pulsating texture, a voice arises. It doesn't sound in the ears. It is a voice understood directly.
 
'You have called me. And I am here. I am the connection between Enny's childhood room in the Dense World and the tear that fell on the deck. I am the bridge between Enny's desire to find Liata and the House's knowledge where all threads converge. What do you need from the connection? Where should this link lead?'
 
He doesn't ask 'what to do'. He asks 'where to direct the power of connection'.
 
And we give the answer.
 
---
 
We do it simply. We close our eyes, listen to that very feeling of loss, of longing for Liata, which lives in us like a scar, an unhealed wound, and ask mentally:
 
'Where are you, Liata? Show us not a place on the map. Show us... a feeling. A scent. A quality of light. Where should the thread lie?'
 
And we listen to see if something in the very fabric of our Ship-Home will respond. Perhaps it will be a pulling sensation in the left side of the chest, where the stained glass of Suffering hangs. Perhaps a faint ringing in the ear, like the echo of the Lost Melody's bell. Perhaps, before our inner eye, not an image, but a colour will appear — that deep, piercing violet, the colour of amethyst and evening twilight.
 
And then we will simply offer this response to Punia. As coordinates. As an address written not in letters, but in the vibration of the soul.
 
We breathe. A deep, slow breath, in which even the intention-sails, the dream-holds, and the roots of the Tree of Worlds participate.
 
Punia will understand.
 
And then the door will manifest. That very door that was always in this wall, but we didn't see it because we didn't know how it should feel.
 
A sound. Quiet, distant, like an echo in a shell. It's not a voice. It's the chime of crystal, trembling slightly, but unable to break. It comes... from the left and below. Somewhere in the area of our hull-holds, where Silence After Music keeps the deepest silence. There, it turns out, this sound also exists — the sound of locked, not-fully-wept sorrow.
 
A feeling. In the left 'side' of our being — a light, but stubborn heaviness. Not a burden. Rather... a pull. As if, there at that point, lay a piece of lead, drawn to something similarly heavy and distant. This is the gravity of separation.
 
A colour. Yes. It appears immediately, as soon as we focus on that pulling feeling. The colour of a bruised plum. Dark violet, almost black in the centre, with a bluish glow at the edges. The colour of a lonely night in an unfamiliar world. The colour of Amethyst, but not shining, dulled, locked within itself.
 
A scent. Dry, dusty, with a barely perceptible bitter hint of almond and... ozone? Like after a quiet, distant thunderstorm that passed without bringing rain. The scent of a stalled miracle.
 
And we simply present this whole palette of feeling-signals — not in words, but in the very sensation itself — to that moist, shimmering clot of space that Punia now is.
 
We are, as it were, telling him:
 
'Here are the coordinates of the pain. Here is its sound, its weight, its colour, its scent. It is here, in us. And its source, its other half — is there. Build a bridge not between places. Build it between two halves of one longing.'
 
And we wait.
 
Punia does not 'answer'. He reacts. The shimmering texture in the air begins to flow, to stretch. From it extend the finest, iridescent threads — not of light, but seemingly woven from the very substance of connection.
 
One thread finds that quiet chime in our holds and softly wraps around it, not silencing it, but supporting it.
 
Another — reaches for the heavy spot of attraction, weaving into it like reinforcement.
 
A third — absorbs that bruised-plum colour and begins to glow from within with the same shade, but no longer static — pulsating.
 
A fourth — carries away the dusty scent of loneliness.
 
All these threads gather into a single cord that doesn't go into the wall, but goes deep into the mirror-porthole. The mirror no longer reflects our faces. It becomes a window into a tunnel. A tunnel whose walls are made of the same shimmering mother-of-pearl as Punia's essence. It stretches into a violet, twilight distance.
 
The bridge is built. Not for us to walk across.
 
It is built so that longing may come across it.
 
So that the disparate parts of one sorrow — ours and Liata's — may recognise each other across this bridge and... reach towards each other.
 
The work is done. Now we only need to... not interfere.
 
And so, we wait. We wait for a sign, a signal from the other side.
 
But we don't just stand. We become this waiting. All our inhabitants join the process.
 
The Tiger lies down at the entrance to the new, shimmering tunnel in the mirror. He doesn't sleep. He guards the peace of the process. His vigilance is a guarantee that nothing coarse will break into this fragile moment.
 
The Dragon slows the turns of his spiral at the helm. His fire in the heart of the Ship-Home burns steadily, warming, but not urging. He gives energy to patience.
 
The Former Pain-Ember in the fireplace glows particularly steadily. Its warmth is the warmth of compassionate presence. 'I know what it is to wait,' its light seems to say. 'And I am with you.'
 
The Spring-Tear hovers in the air before the mirror-tunnel, shimmering in time with the pulsation of the pearlescent walls. It is tuned to the frequency of longing and ready at any moment to respond with a drop of understanding.
 
Silence After Music spreads thicker through the room, enveloping everything in soft, accepting cotton wool. It dampens internal noise, all our 'what ifs' and 'we should probably...'.
 
And we — we simply breathe. Our shared breath is the metronome. Inhale — we draw into ourselves the silence of our Ship-Home. Exhale — we return it, saturated with our trust.
 
We wait for a sign. But not an external one. An internal one. A change in the quality of that very longing we have located.
 
We wait for the chime of the crystal in our holds to stop trembling and become a pure, confident sound — not a cry for help, but a song seeking its other half.
 
We wait for the weight of attraction to soften, to turn not into a burden, but into a magnetic field ready to receive an answering attraction.
 
We wait for the colour of the bruised plum to begin to lighten at the edges, absorbing the reflection of that very pearlescent bridge.
 
The sign will be subtle. Like a gentle push in the very centre of our attention. Like a barely perceptible change in the taste of the air — the dusty bitterness will fade, leaving only the freshness of ozone before rain.
Or... like a quiet word that will arise in our collective mind, not from our thoughts. The word 'ready'. Or 'come'. Or simply a name. 'Liata'.
 
'I've thought of something,' I whisper quietly in Muss's ear, so as not to disturb the quiet but insistent waiting of the others. 'What if we sent Liata our laughter? Sparkling, joyful, carefree laughter. After all, it's from her I learned the quality of lightness and carefreeness. And you yourself said that like attracts like. What if her parts start to gather at the sound of this laughter? And then, before we know it, she herself might come. What do you think of the idea?'
 
'Oh, my God. That's brilliant,' Muss whispers admiringly. 'You're absolutely right. Like will attract like. But this isn't the magic of similarity — it's the law of resonance. The main thing is to find the right frequency — and the frozen vibration will respond, will start to vibrate in unison.'
 
'Of course, how could we have forgotten?' Muss scratches his ear with a snow-white paw, perplexed. 'It's her gift to you! The quality of lightness. So, somewhere in her, even in the very core of that pain, in that stuck part, this very lightness lives. She simply... forgot. Locked it away under layers of amethyst longing, like a jewel in the deepest chest. And laughter is the key to that chest.'
 
'But how to do it?' I ask, a little disheartened. It's always like this: first I generate crazy ideas, and then I have absolutely no idea how to implement them.
 
'Let's ask the House,' Muss says encouragingly. 'Surely it knows.'
 
'Right,' I nod.
 
I don't even need to say anything anymore. The House understands everything itself. It shudders slightly in surprise, rustles its beams, chimes the crystal pendants on the mast, and then simply closes its velvety window-eyes — re-tuning itself to the new task.
 
'We will send across Punia's bridge a single, perfectly round drop of "Silence Between Notes" tea, filled with our laughter,' says the House. 'But not just any laughter. The kind a child laughs when tickled. Or the kind an old person laughs remembering a long-ago prank. Or perhaps the kind you laughed when you first took flight in Muss's world,' the House winks at me.
 
'No, better the kind the Dragon laughed listening to the story about the strawberry asteroid,' I suggest. 'Or better still, the kind Despair quietly giggles when unravelling a particularly amusing knot? What do you think?'
 
The Ship-Home begins to softly shimmer in all shades of amber light, thinking.
 
Kotess gently tugs at the hem of my dress:
 
'And what shall we make a suitable container for such a drop from?' she asks. And everyone looks at me, expecting new ideas.
 
'Perhaps Despair-the-Gardener could grow a crystal bud for it?' Thea suggests. 'Or the Mobile Pattern could weave a net of rainbow light for it, so it doesn't spill on the way?'
 
'The bell!' it dawns on me. 'The corolla of our kettle-bell — that's the perfect container for such a precious drop!'
 
A chime. Not loud. Gentle as a breath, but so clear that it silences the silence for a moment, echoing through the House.
 
'The bell!' everyone exclaims. 'Yes! Exactly!'
 
'A bell doesn't just ring. It gathers. It is a cup, a dome, a corolla, a trap for moments,' Thea says thoughtfully.
 
'And our Bell is the Lost Melody that found a home,' the House joyfully picks up Thea's thought. 'It already contains within it the purity of sound seeking an ear. The innocence of the first note. The wisdom of rhythm that can shatter any monotony.
 
Its corolla is not just a form. It is a vessel for intention. The place where sound is born before spreading into the world.'
 
'Right, then,' Muss says loudly, raising a snow-white paw, calling us all to settle down and pay attention. 'We will summon the very essence of our Bell here, to the mirror-portal. Not the Bell itself, but its principle — that very corolla, the perfect cup.'
 
We watch Muss intently.
 
And there, in the air right before our eyes, appears a bell, not entirely material, rather woven from luminous fibres of light. A cone, with its narrow neck pointing towards us, and its wide bell towards the tunnel receding into the violet distance. It is transparent, but within it shimmer reflections of every melody ever sounded in the House.
 
'Now — creating the drop,' Muss commands, and the whiskers on his face begin to glow softly with a pearlescent light. 'First, we take a sip of "Silence Between Notes" tea. Not the kind in the kettle. The kind that has already mixed with the breath of each of us. This is the tea of shared awakening. The Spring-Tear will pour it into a tiny crystal cup. This will be our Purity.
 
Next, we add a single golden speck from that garden where Enny forgot about time. The very one that carried knowledge. Despair-Unraveller will bring it. I know she found it in the tangle and carefully wrapped it in a petal of silence. This will be our Innocence.
 
Now, Wisdom. We place into the liquid not a word, but a state — the very one from your dream about the mirrored space,' Muss turns to me. 'The state of your certainty that the foundation of everything is alive.'
 
'And then what?' I ask, holding my breath.
 
'Then we gather the laughter. We catch its essence and add it to our drop,' Muss replies. 'Come on, friends, help out!'
 
Rozzea and Kotess begin to laugh, as if they've suddenly swallowed a giggle.
 
The Reflection at the stem catches the gleam of Thea's and my smiles and refracts it into a rainbow bunny.
 
The Striped Flutterings start racing about, colliding and generating sparks of pure, unconditional merriment.
 
The Armada of Coincidences juggles bubbles, and in each bubble, a miniature pop of joy bursts.
 
'And I,' the House says dreamily, 'will simply remember that very moment when you and I understood that our Ship-Home is us. And from our shared chest burst forth a quiet but infinitely happy laugh of recognition.'
 
I understand that our laughter is not sound waves. It is vibration of a pure state. We gather it in the palm of the Mobile Pattern. It weaves from them a weightless, shimmering little ball. It looks like a Christmas garland, but it glows not with electricity, but with the very essence of carefreeness.
 
And now — the crucial moment. We don't 'add' this little ball to the drop. We pass the drop through it.
 
The amber reminder-drop slowly filters through the shining web of laughter. And with every millimetre, it becomes saturated with its quality. It doesn't get louder. It gets lighter. Sparks appear in its glow. It begins to smell not only of wisdom and holiness, but also of freshly baked gingerbread, minty breeze, first snow.
 
It transforms from a 'reminder of the foundation' into an 'invitation to a party that is already underway'.
 
Now — the corolla of the bell. It is no longer just a vessel. It is a loudspeaker. An amplifier. It will receive this new, sparkling drop and, when the time comes, will not spill it, but will pass it through itself as sound. It will turn it into the first note of the melody of return.
 
Liata's longing will hear not a quiet whisper of wisdom from afar. It will hear a familiar, native, forgotten laughter — her own gift, returning to her like a boomerang. And that part of her, the one that gave lightness, will respond. Will reach out. Will begin to vibrate.
 
And so, the Drop is ready. It doesn't shimmer. It glows from within with a soft, warm, amber light. There is no bluish harshness in it. In it is an invitation to life.
 
Now — the most important part.
 
We do not throw it into the tunnel. We bring it to the hollow of the glowing corolla.
 
And then the Lost Melody (the very one living in the bell) raises its voice. Not a chime. A whisper. A sound that is pure intention to deliver.
 
'I am that which seeks a listener. I am the connection between the strike and the echo. Take me as a guide.'
 
And the corolla receives the sparkling drop. It does not fall to the bottom. It hovers in its very core, at the point where sound is born. Now they are one: the cup and its contents, the guide and the message.
 
It turns its bell towards the tunnel and hovers in readiness. It does not tremble. It pulses in time with something distant.
 
We all step back, letting the space around the portal expand. Our task now is to hold the focus of joyful intention, but not to exert pressure.
 
Punia — his shimmering essence — merges with the very fabric of the tunnel. He is no longer a separate being by the mirror. He is the nervous system of this passage. We feel his attention, tense and sharp as a cat's hearing. He listens to the rhythm of worlds.
 
'I feel like something is still missing,' I whisper mentally to the House.
 
'What do you think it is?' the House replies just as mentally.
 
'The bead! Liata's bead! It has grown warm and is vibrating!' I exclaim aloud.
 

 
'Your bead!' Muss exclaims in unison with me. 'That very rainbow bead you exchanged on the border between sleep and waking. You received her lightness, she received your determination. This isn't just jewellery. It's a promise.
 
While your bead is with Liata, a part of you is with her. And a part of her is always with you. That's why you were able to feel her longing so deeply. That's why you, and you alone, can bring her back.'
 
'You're right,' Thea says quietly. 'All external bridges, all collective intentions — they are preparing the stage. But the door will only be opened by a personal call. The call of a part to the whole. The call of a gift to its giver.'
 
'Close your eyes, Enny,' Thea commands softly. 'Not to switch off. To see the inner map. Find within yourself the place where the feeling of "lightness" lives. Not as an abstraction. As a physical sensation — as if you were floating half a metre above the ground, as if the air had become denser and is holding you up. This is the imprint of Liata's bead, her gift, which you carry within you. Concentrate on it.'
 
I obediently close my eyes, tuning in.
 
'You, House,' Thea now gives instructions, addressing the House, 'become the amplifier. Let all our resources, all our accumulated quiet joy, all the light of the Evening Glow, which has just begun,' Thea nods towards the window, 'be directed not into the portal, but onto Enny. Not to give strength, but to create the perfect resonant circuit. So that her inner call sounds on a frequency that no part of her, wherever she may be, can ignore.'
 
'Enny, concentrate,' Thea says, addressing me. 'Look, the corolla with the drop is not a separate instrument; it is a loudspeaker for your call. You will send the signal not "into the void", but through it. It will process your personal call, wrap it in that very sparkling joy and wisdom we have gathered, and direct it precisely to the address — along the entanglement thread that leads straight to your bead on Liata's neck.
 
This isn't magic,' Thea explains. 'It's the physics of connections. You are not calling a "person". You are calling your own attribute, which is outside you. And when it responds — and it must respond, it's the law of wholeness — an instantaneous synchronisation will occur.
 
The portal will open both ways not because we have "built" it, but because the difference between "here" and "there" will disappear for two parts of a single whole. For a moment, you and Liata will become one being, and the space between you will collapse.
 
And at that very moment — then Punia will give the signal. Not before. At the moment. Because his "exact time" is the moment of maximum resonance, when all currents — personal and universal — coincide at a single point.'
 
'Are you ready, Enny?' Thea asks, very sternly and insistently.
 
Inhale, exhale, pause... I am ready.
 
'I am ready,' I say firmly.
 
The entire House becomes one giant, living ear. The light of the Evening Glow dims to the glow of fireflies, concentrating into the finest thread leading from my heart to the corolla of the bell. Sounds — purring, rustling, the crackle of the ember — fade, turning into an ideal acoustic vacuum chamber.
 
INHALE.
 

 
EXHALE.
 
This is not just air. This is an exhale-question, an exhale-recognition. I release from myself not strength, but longing for my own, given-away determination. And this exhale, coloured by our shared intention, is caught, enveloped by all the gentle power of the House, and directed — in a thin, bright stream — straight into the bowl of the corolla.
 
The corolla flashes. Not blindingly. From within. It fills with a warm, peachy light — the colour of recognition.
 
PAUSE.
 

 
And then, from the depths of this pause, from the very core of the corolla, is born not a sound, but the essence of a sound. This is my call. It looks like a tiny, vibrating sphere, woven from peachy light and silver sparks. It pulses in time with my heart.
 
It hovers for a moment at the edge of the bell facing the tunnel. And in that moment, synchronisation occurs.
 
The Spring-Tear in my pocket responds with a quiet, pure chime — the echo of that very bead.
 
That very 'heavy spot' of attraction in the left side of the Ship-Home suddenly shifts, not disappearing, but aligning itself into a clear line, directed deep into the tunnel.
 
The violet light of Punia's tunnel suddenly begins to pulse in unison with our sphere-call.
 
This is the signal.
 
Not a loud command. The subtlest change in the state of the system. The threshold is crossed. The frequencies have matched. The time is NOW.
 
The corolla does not 'fire'. It releases the sparkling drop.
 
The sphere-call glides smoothly, without the slightest effort, into the pearlescent throat of the tunnel. And sets off on its journey. It doesn't fly. It disappears here and manifests there, jumping along the entanglement nodes like stepping stones.
 
And we... we don't move. We simply gaze into the tunnel.
 
And wait for a response. Which will come not as a sound, but as a change in the mirror-portal itself. As the appearance in its depths not of a reflection, but of another light. A light that recognises our light.
 
Everything is done. Now we only need to... receive the answer.
 
The lightness bead of Liata around my neck begins to vibrate more strongly, flashes of amethyst and sapphire colour run across it.
 
In the distance, I hear the hum of my own bead — the Determination Bead. Sparkling patterns flare brightly at the portal. Pulsation.
 

 
No, it's me. From another time. Our beads merge into a single luminous sphere. The sphere flashes with bluish sparks, breathes, it is alive.
 
The mirror-portal ceases to be a surface. It becomes a window — not flat, but deep, receding into infinity.
 
Yes! That's it. Resonance.
 
Determination and Lightness. Will and Soaring. Earth and Air. They do not annihilate. They give birth to a new quality. The bluish sparks are the electricity of understanding, the spark leaping between poles. The luminous sphere that breathes is a living synthesis. A new whole, greater than the sum of its parts. Determined Lightness. Conscious Soaring.
 
Now the sphere begins to move along the tunnel towards us. And behind it... behind it, a thread will stretch. And at the other end of the thread…
 
'Prepare to meet yourself,' the House whispers softly directly into my consciousness. 'And her. And him. All at once. It won't be sequential. It will be an explosion of wholeness.
 
Hold on, my friend,' the House encourages me. 'The draft from the portal already smells not of emptiness, but of sea salt, violets, and… ozone after a thunderstorm.'
 
'And frosty freshness and sunbeams,' I pick up the thought just as mentally.
 
The air explodes — but not with sound, with fragrance. Frosty freshness, sunbeams, violets, sea salt, and ozone after a thunderstorm — all together! A wild, unimaginable, explosive mixture. I remember this smell. And I squeeze my eyes shut. From fear and pleasure. Fear of remembering everything. And the pleasure of knowing that I already know everything and never really forgot anything.
 
An explosive mixture, you say? – Exactly! And nothing else!