Chapter 27: Baptism

The path to the lake wound through a part of the Dreamspace that Allison hadn’t seen before. Here, away from the mosaic and the ooze’s corruption, the land was greener. Wilder. The willow she sat beneath the first time she was brought here seemed taller, its branches trailing low.

As Allison and Thimble walked beneath them, the lush willow tendrils parted on their own, like the curtains of a theater stage on opening night. The fireflies drifting through the canopy here seemed healthier—brighter, more purposeful, more confident.

The atmosphere changed, too. The tarry scent faded with every step, replaced by something clean and fresh—moist ground, green leaves, the smell of gently moving water. The Dreamspace was less damaged here, as if the lake existed in its own little pocket of space and time, protected by its own special magic.

Thimble walked sure-footed along the mossy path, her eyes taking in the trees and the sky with confidence. She knew these woods the way Allison knew the streets of Gettysburg. She was quiet for a few minutes, letting the walk do its work, letting the forest air, with all its natural perfume, birdsong, and the greenery under their feet, ease Allison out of crisis mode and into something softer.

Then she spoke.

“My mother did this with your grandfather and your father,” she said. “Traveled this same path. Stood on the same bank. Guided him through the same cleansing before his declaration.” She looked up at Allison. “It’s tradition. Sparkkeeper and guide, walking to the water together. It’s been done this way for longer than I’ve been alive.”

“Your mom was a guide, too?”

“She was the guide before me, as she was to her mother. They’re both gone now. Have been for a while.” She didn’t elaborate further. “She taught me everything I know about the rituals, the magic, and the herbs. How to interpret the Dreamspace’s moods and mannerisms; how to know when a Sparkkeeper is ready.” Thimble's voice went soft. “She was better at it than I am. More patient. Wiser. She possessed a knack for making you feel like the most important person in the world without saying a single word.”

“Sounds like my dad,” Allison said quietly.

Thimble looked up at her and nodded in an ‘I knew him, too’ way. Their eyes met briefly, sideways, the way Allison could manage, and something passed between them that didn’t need words. Two beings shouldering the weight of inherited roles, walking in the footsteps of parents who had trodden the same path.

“She would have loved you so much,” Thimble said again.

Allison could tell Thimble’s words carried the weight of someone who meant them with her entire heart.

The lake appeared through a break in the willows, suddenly, still, and breathtaking.

It was larger than Allison had expected. Grandpa’s creation: a wide, calm body of water ringed by old trees, their roots reaching into the shallows like fingers testing the temperature. The surface was glassy and perfectly still, except for a few ripples from splashing fish; otherwise, it reflected the injured dome and the serene setting like a mirror.

In the center of the lake, a small island rose, crowned by a single, massive weeping willow whose branches cascaded down like thick, concealing draperies, their tips just touching the water’s surface. The tree was enormous, its trunk knotted and whorled, and even from the shore, Allison could sense its presence, a silent authority, the sense of a very old living thing which had seen a great deal and chosen to keep its counsel.

The willow’s branches swayed in a breeze; the movement sent soft ripples across the lake’s surface, breaking the watery mirror image into gentle, moving fragments.

“The island. Oh, and that little Japanese-style bridge to get across,” Allison breathed. “Grandpa built that, right? It looks just like something he’d make. He was always very handy at making stuff and landscaping.”

“He did,” Thimble confirmed. “It was one of the first things he created. He said everyone needed a secret hiding space.” She smiled. “Your grandfather valued alone time and privacy. And the need for a good thinking spot.”

They stopped midway over the bridge to peer into the crystal-clear water, watching the fish dart to and fro beneath them in their game of water tag, before they made it to the other side, where the bank was soft, mossy, and cushioned with years of decayed leaves that had composted into something springy and fragrant. The air smelled of water, trees, mushrooms, and soil—and of the sweetness of natural decay, the forest floor renewing itself as old things die.

Thimble set down her satchel and reached inside. What emerged, in order, was: a large, fluffy towel in robin’s-egg blue; a smaller towel; and three swimsuit options, folded neatly in a stack, with varying levels of coverage.

Allison stared at the swimsuits, then at Thimble, then back at the swimsuits.

“Thimble.”

“Mm?”

“Your satchel is twelve inches long.”

“Fourteen, actually.”

“There were three swimsuits in there. And a bath towel.”

Thimble arranged the options on the bank, with serene precision. “The Dreamspace provides what the Sparkkeeper needs.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I know,” Thimble said pleasantly. “Now, you have choices. Full one-piece, two-piece with coverage, or you can skip the suits entirely and go in your own undergarments. Or nude, if you prefer. I’ll happily turn my back or go behind a tree. There’s no wrong answer here. Whatever makes your body feel safe.”

Allison looked at the water. On the still, glassy surface, the sky and the willow on the island reflected, swaying in the gentle breeze. She thought about what she’d be comfortable with. Swimsuits she hadn’t worn before meant new clothing she didn’t know: a new cut, fabric, and fit. No, she thought better of it. Her own clothes were known, safe, predictable. The last thing she needed during such an important time was unknowns. She could control it, and she needed to hold on to that control.

“I’ll keep my sports bra and underwear,” she said. “They’re already broken in. I know how they feel. Thanks for the options.”

“Perfect,” Thimble said, with the plainspoken acceptance of someone who understood that clothing decisions were sensory decisions, and sensory decisions were never trivial.

Allison pulled off her shoes. Her socks. Her T-shirt. Her jeans—folding them neatly on the bank, because even at the edge of a ritual cleansing in a magical dimension, she still didn’t want to throw her clothes around like an uncouth trash goblin. Her shirt followed. The air on her skin felt warm—the Dreamspace’s ambient temperature, comfortable as a beach day—and she stood on the soft bank in her sports bra and cotton underwear, barefoot, exposed, feeling simultaneously vulnerable and free.

“Okay,” she said. “Now what?”

“Now,” Thimble said, settling on a raised root at the water’s edge like a high priestess taking her seat, “we ground.”

Her speech had shifted back into the teaching register Allison had first heard during the invocation lesson. Steady, calm but firm, carrying authority without force.

“Stand at the edge. Place your feet in the moss, toes just touching the water. Feel the earth beneath you: the soil, the roots, the stone underneath. Now, step forward a little so your feet and toes touch the water’s edge. Feel it, really feel it. You’re standing at a threshold, a truly enchanted liminal space between earth and water, and for the next few minutes, you’re going to use both.”

Allison positioned herself as instructed. The moss was cool and damp beneath her bare feet—a pleasant, grounding texture, like standing on a living sponge. Her toes found the water’s edge and dipped in. The lake was warmer than she’d expected: a little cooler than body temperature. Perfect for swimming, or the occasional ritual bath.

“Close your eyes,” Thimble said. “Breathe. Three deep ones. You know the rhythm by now.”

Allison breathed. In through the nose. Down into the belly. Out through the mouth. Three times. The world softened. The sounds of the Dreamspace—the distant carousel, the fireflies’ hum, the gentle lap of water on stone—faded to a murmur.

“Good.” Thimble beckoned her a little more forward so she was ankle-deep in the water. “Now I want you to visualize something. In your body, everywhere, in every muscle, every joint, every cell, negative energy exists. Old energy. The residue of every unkind word you believed about yourself, every doctor who didn’t believe you, every teacher who called you ‘stupid’ in front of the class, every bully who made you small. Picture it. Give it a form. What does it look like?”

Allison’s jaw tightened. The image came immediately because she’d lived with it so long it had become furniture. The negative energy wasn’t abstract. It was specific. Black. Oily. Viscous. Exactly like the ooze at the portal. Of course, it looked like the ooze. The ooze was made from this. They were the same substance.

“It’s black. It looks just like that disgusting thing that ate the portal,” she said. Her voice was tight. “Like liquid tar. It’s… everywhere. In my chest. My stomach. Behind my eyes. In my throat. I can taste it.”

“Good. You can see it. Now, imagine it moving. Slowly. Draining through your body like water through sand. From your head, down through your chest, your belly, your hips, your legs. All of it flowing down, pulled by gravity, gathering at your feet. And from your feet through the moss, into the water. The lake will take it. The lake converts negative energy into neutral energy; That’s what water does: it transforms. It doesn’t destroy. It receives and changes and heals.”

Allison breathed. She visualized the black liquid goop, lazy, thick, and reticent. It didn’t want to leave. It had been comfortable in her body. It had lived there for decades, settled into corners and crevices, made itself at home in the spaces between her ribs and the hollows behind her eyes. Telling it to move was like ordering a squatter to vacate a building they’d occupied for years.

But she asked. And slowly, reluctantly, begrudgingly—it began to drain.

She could almost feel it; the sensation was physical. A heaviness moving downward through her torso, through her hips, down through her thighs and calves. It made her nauseous, feeling the thickness as it moved out of her body. A warmth in its wake. The hollowness it left behind.

Her visualization game was so strong that she could see the black liquid pooling at her feet. She felt it pass through the soil, into the lake. The water at her toes rippled—a faint, dark swirl that disappeared almost instantly, the lake accepting the offering and transforming it, the way Thimble had said it would.

“Now,” Thimble said, her voice softer. “Look deeper and upward. In your mind’s eye, above you — our sun. Not your sun. The Dreamspace sun is really the dome’s light at its brightest and most whole. Imagine it pouring down. A warm, bright, golden-yellow light falling from above enters through the crown of your head, as if you were filling a pitcher with water. Let it flow into all the spaces the darkness just left.”

Allison angled her face upward, eyes still closed, and felt it.

The light.

It entered through the top of her head—warm, liquid, gold. It poured in like morning sunlight through a window. It filled her skull first, a brightness behind her closed eyes, loosening the permanent tension headache she’d carried since the portal sealed. Then it overflowed into her throat, where thirty years of swallowed words had built a wall. Then it spilled over into her chest, where grief and self-doubt had compressed her breathing into shallow, anxious sips. Then into her belly, where anxiety had lived like a frenemy for as long as she could remember.

The warmth itself filled every space the blackness had vacated. As it filled her, it didn’t stop at her skin; it pressed outward, gently, past her body’s boundary, forming a sphere of bright light around her. She felt it: a warm, shimmering boundary, like standing inside a soap bubble made of sunlight. It held for a moment—visible, radiant—and then eased, cleared, and became transparent. Still there. Still protecting. But invisible now. Part of her rather than around her.

Then, the fireflies came.

They drifted in from the trees, the lake’s edge, and the willow on the island, drawn to the energy, as if they’d always been drawn to her magic. They orbited her in loose, gentle orbits, their golden glow pulsing in sync with her heartbeat. Unhurried. Joyful. Curious. Welcoming.

Allison opened her eyes. The world was in 4K. The colors of the lake, the trees, and the sky seemed more vibrant than she’d ever seen them. It was turned up, as if someone had cleaned the dust from a computer screen she’d been looking through her whole life.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Thimble's dark eyes were shining. “There she is,” she uttered. “Now into the water you go.”

The water received her as it always had wherever she went. It was as if the lake remembered her. 

Water, whether natural or man-made, gave her pressure, sensation, and the full-body embrace she had been drawn to her entire life, in a way that went beyond preference. It was spiritual. Primal. The pressure on her skin, the resistance against her muscles, the way water held her, moved with her, and made her feel simultaneously weightless, contained, and protected. It was the greatest sensory regulation tool she’d ever found. Better than weighted blankets. Better than compression garments. Better than anything the occupational therapists had ever recommended.

She waded in slowly. The lake floor was smooth, flat stones and soft sand, nothing sharp, nothing unexpected. The water rose past her ankles, calves, knees, and thighs. Each inch of submersion sent a wave of sensation through her body. Deeply, thoroughly present. The water knew she was there. She felt it adjust to her, as the Dreamspace adjusted to everything she did. It recollected who she was long before she remembered herself.

At waist depth, she stopped. She let the water hold her hands, caressing each finger, supporting the wrists that ached from hours of writing. The lake was so still that standing in it felt like being embedded in nothingness; the world above and the world below mirrored perfectly, and she was the point where they met.

“Deeper,” Thimble called from the bank. “Submerge your head. Just for a moment. Let the water touch everything.”

She didn’t have to be told twice. She bent her knees and let the water submerge her shoulders, then, in the next instant, she took a deep breath, kicked up from the bottom, and dove in, pumping her legs up and down like she did when she played mermaids in the community pool with her friends as a kid. 

The hush was immediate and absolute. The lake closed over her head and every sound — every firefly hum, each distant carousel creak, every whisper of the damaged dome — vanished. There was only water. Only pressure. Only the vast, encompassing quiet of being fully held.

She held her breath as long as she could, because she hated coming back up and would rather stay under for a lifetime, in the peaceful weightlessness of her body. It was also the only place where her mind would be absolutely silent. She relished it.

Finally, she surfaced and gasped. The air hit her wet face, and the sensation was extraordinary, clean, sharp, bright, as if she’d never really breathed before and was only now discovering what oxygen tasted like.

“Now,” Thimble said from the bank, her voice carrying across the still water with perfect clarity. “Repeat after me.”

Allison stood in the lake, water at her chest, her hair streaming, her skin alive with sensation. She listened.

“I wash away all negative energy from my body,” Thimble began, her voice bearing the cadence of something spoken many times before, by many voices across many generations, “inside and out.”

“I wash away all negative energy from my body,” Allison repeated, and her voice surprised her — clear, steady, resonant. “Inside and out.”

“From all planes, and from all creatures and beings.”

“From all planes, and from all creatures and beings.”

“May it be returned to nature, to be transformed into something useful, nurturing, and kind.”

“May it be returned to nature,” Allison said, and felt the words settle into the water around her like stones dropping gently to the lake floor, “to be transformed into something useful, nurturing, and kind.”

The lake responded.

A ripple spread outward from Allison’s body. The ripple traveled across the entire surface of the lake, reaching the shore, the island, and the roots of the willow, and when it reached the edges, it didn’t bounce back. It was absorbed and taken in. Transformed.

The water around her cleared of stirred-up silt and became luminous. The lake glowed from within, a soft, warm gold rising from the depths and surrounding her in light. The fireflies above responded—brightening, multiplying, their orbits widening until the entire lake was rimmed with lustrous light, and Allison stood at its center, chest-deep in water that shone like liquid sunrise.

Something profound inside her changed. The very last barrier, the thin, stubborn wall she couldn’t reach alone, buried so deep beneath the others that it had survived every incantation and every flow-state entry, dissolved like sugar in warm water, becoming part of the whole, invisible, integrated, and gone.

She felt it go. She felt the space it left behind. And in that space, the clean, open feeling was ready for whatever comes next.

When she finally waded out of the lake, Thimble waited at the water’s edge on a high, arching root, holding the large blue towel open between her small paws, arms stretched as wide as they could go; the towel flopped over her head like a hooded cape. She looked tiny next to the absurdly large towel.

Allison crouched and let Thimble try to wrap the towel around her shoulders. The fabric was thick, soft, warm, as if it had been sitting on a towel warming bar. Allison took the towel from this little creature she was reluctantly beginning to love and pulled it tight around her body, water dripping from her hair, the lake’s warmth still clinging to her skin.

“How do you feel?” Thimble asked.

Allison paused. She scanned her body the way she had learned to: checking in, taking inventory. The headache was gone. The tension in her body was gone. The perpetual, low-grade nausea of anxiety that she’d carried so long she’d forgotten it wasn’t normal — gone. In their place: warmth, openness, lightness. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so free in her own body, as if she’d been wearing a lead vest and someone had finally unbuckled it.

Beneath it all, her spark was stable, hopeful, present, and finally hers.

Thimble was looking at her with pride and awe.

“What?” Allison asked.

“Your eyes,” Thimble said quietly. “They’re different. Brighter. Something’s shifted behind them, something fundamental. The last wall came down in the water, didn’t it?”

Allison nodded. She couldn’t explain it better than that.

“Good,” Thimble said. “Because what comes next requires every bit of who you are. No walls. No armor. No hiding. You’re going to stand in front of an altar and declare yourself to the Dreamspace, and the Dreamspace needs to see ALL of you.” She placed a paw on Allison’s damp knee. “The Sparkkeeper has truly begun to awaken, Allison. Everything is about to change.”

Allison towel-dried her hair. She pulled her jeans back on over damp skin, uncomfortable but manageable. Her shirt. Her shoes. Each layer of clothing went back on over a body that felt fundamentally distinct from the one that had taken them off.

She looked out over the lake one more time. At the willow on the island, its branches were swaying. At the golden glow fading slowly from the water’s surface. At the fireflies still orbiting the space where she’d stood.

And then she smiled.

It started small, a twitch at the corners of her mouth, barely there. Then it grew. Spread. It widened until it reached her eyes and kept going, until her whole face was involved, until she smiled so hard it almost hurt, and she couldn’t stop, and she didn’t want to.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled like this. A real, full smile. The kind that comes from somewhere deep inside, from someone truly coming into herself and being proud of it.

She felt clean. She felt light. She felt ready.

“Come on,” she said to Thimble, and her voice sounded different to her own ears—warmer, resonant, more familiar, like a friend. “Let’s go meet the others. I have a declaration to write.”

Thimble looked up at her—at the smile, at the brightness in her eyes, at the woman standing on the bank of a lake in a magical world she was about to formally claim as her own—and her whiskers twitched playfully.

“Yes,” Thimble said softly. “Let’s.”

They sauntered happily, almost skipping together through the willows, toward the far side of the lake, where the Japanese maples waited, a fire pit flickered, an altar was being prepared, and two more friends waited to witness something more magical than anything the Heartwood could conjure.

Allison’s smile didn’t fade. Not through the walk. Not through the willows. Not through a single step. Thimble would later tell Sol and Felip it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.