Neither Nothingness nor Non-Nothingness

Chapter 3: Neither Nothingness nor Non-Nothingness

"We're the first in the office today," said Biff. "We can move this narrative along without having to do any repairing. Have you had enough coffee?"

"I can barely hold a pen," said Theo.

"That's the spirit," said Biff. "Go for it."

"I know you're the outdoorsy type, but if we want to find the founders' diaries, we should stretch our legs by touring the abandoned parts of the castle."

"Some of those places are creepy," said Luna. "Besides, if this castle was really a defensive fortification as you think, then hiding valuables outside would be more secure in case this place was ever ransacked."

"That's true," agreed Jonathan. "That scary forest was probably even scarier a thousand years ago. Do you think a treasure chest would last that long?"

"Magic."

"Indeed," said Jonathan. "The stronger the better. What's the worst part of yon woods? That's where we'll go. And we'll need a divining rod. What about a forked twig from that big willow by the castle? It's supposed to be potent."

Luna considered all the adventure to be found in the deep woods and all the excitement to be found trimming that particular willow before replying. "We needn't rush into this. We could explore a bit of the castle while we wait for midsummer before searching the woods. We can search when the forces of light shine bright."

It was a week later, and they were examining a dungeon room when Luna became uneasy. Jonathan agreed to quit for the day, but he insisted on going back the next day since the founders could have put a repelling spell on any cache. He was checking every nook and cranny when Luna, once again, begin to feel uneasy. Jonathan's head jerked up as Skippy positioned himself between Luna and the nothingness in the doorway, a nothingness through which neither man nor beast nor spirit would ever pass, a nothingness spreading into the room. Jonathan regarded it for a moment before chanting.

All conditioned phenomena

Are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow,

Like dew or a flash of lightning;

Thus we shall perceive them.

What, thought Luna.

Jonathan held one hand prayer-like in front of his chest.

No perception of self

No perception of non-self

No perception of soul

No perception of soulessness

No perception of being

No perception of non-being

No perception of order

No perception of disorder

No perception of perception

No perception of non-perception.

"Hey!" shouted Jonathan at the retreating formlessness. "Do you know where the founders kept their diaries?"

What, thought Luna.

The next day, they were in one of the abandoned towers, taking a break from the dungeons as far as Luna was concerned. But she jumped and grabbed Jonathan when there was a noise behind a pile of furniture. Their wands were out.

"It's only a mouse," she said as a rodent scurried across the floor to another hiding place.

"Don't hurt it," she cried as Jonathan flicked his wand.

Out popped a white flag with the word "Curses" in red letters.

"That's not funny," she told both Jonathan and Skippy.

After that caffeine-inspired opening by Theo, the muse herself breathed through Biff.

The sun of a northern morning fell upon the early pair as gently as a wifely kiss on her spouse's forehead, and as gently, the wizard's spell snipped a forked growth of green twigs from the top of a willow tree whose mad, thrashing branches sought to beat down the miscreant duo as relentlessly as the rays of another sun might beat down two desert travelers.

"I don't think it likes us," said Jonathan.

Luna, who had been holding her breath, pulled her companion away to a safer distance as soon as he had the leafy item in hand.

"I can feel the power in it," he said as he shaped it to his specifications.

Luna shook her head. "Completing a library set is not supposed to be life threatening, and we've barely begun."

Jonathan was puzzled. It was an adventure they had entered into voluntarily. There was potential for gain, both for themselves and for society. The old manuscripts by the founders would likely contain potent magical prescriptions. Think of the new additions to knowledge. They could shed light on an era clouded in mystery and possibly misinterpreted. Think of the scholarly revelations. The creatures that Luna was having trouble finding might be mentioned in the old works. She would be vindicated. If nothing else, it was a naturalist outing. She was equipped with both binoculars and camera. He had said he would gladly follow any sign of a new or exciting plant or animal.

Luna, for her part, found plenty to investigate at the edge of the forest. She was hugely grateful that Skippy, too, pointed them to many phenomena at the periphery.

"Oh, look," Luna would say, grabbing his arm and pulling him toward Skippy's latest find.

"We got to take this to the greenhouse," she would say, putting her hand on his shoulder in persuasion.

It was a typical morning when Luna woke, and as she showered, she remembered that they would spend the day in the library. She put on her shirt and jeans, paused, and decided to wear a skirt and blouse. She donned her usual pleated skirt with house colors and twirled in front of the mirror before giving it a critical look and exchanging it for a pencil skirt. Did it make her hips look too wide? She examined the slit in the skirt that let her move. Did it show too much leg, not enough? She brushed her hair glossy and wondered if she should use lipstick before hastening to the library where he was already seated at a table examining an old manuscript. She put her hands on his shoulders and asked what he was reading.

The next several days she was asking him where he had been and what he had done, but he answered that he was a mere roving scholar who had led a dull life. She concluded he didn't realize how interesting he was.

"No balance," said Cho upon reading the morning's work. "No balance. The boys are spending their time on a subplot, and they failed to introduce the heroine."

"You're right," said the editor.

How slowly comes the realization, if it comes at all, that an undertaking may have at its core a more serious motive and that this motive may include the darker elements even if the undertaking looks innocent and enlightening -- especially if it is a venture suggested by a person who one finds worthwhile and intriguing and even more especially if this person indicates that he finds his companion interesting and exciting.

"I'll segue in like Biff, but layer in some depth and bring in the main character," said Cho as deft fingers caressed the most balanced keys of the typewriter.

The cloud-drenched market square, like a mind occupied with the coming tasks but receptive enough to admit accompanying thoughts, did admit enough subdued rays that the girl at the table noticed the approaching shadow, and like the mind flexible enough to entertain new elements in its panorama of existence, the girl turned to greet the newcomer.

"Hello, Hermione."

"Hi, Luna."

Hermione could only relate struggling to get various reforms through a bureaucracy while Luna talked about the search for lost knowledge and founder artifacts that took her into the heart of the forest and the depths of the castle.

"Wow," said Hermione. "Are you telling me that in addition to a revision of history guaranteed to create a storm, you're getting a chance to face life-trampling monsters and soul-sucking demons?"

"That's a more accurate description of my life than I want to admit," said Luna.

After some hesitation, Luna talked about her working partner. He was incredibly intelligent, and he was kind and a good listener, but still magically powerful. And he dressed well.

Hermione noticed her friend radiated like never before, but she still asked, "Are you sure he's not a player?"

"I don't know," said Luna.

Hermione reconsidered things. "He might be the one who appreciates you for what you are."

"Now that you bring it up, I've never considered how drab I am," said Luna, realizing there were parts of her existence she hadn't considered. "I've never thought about those things before."

"You're not drab," said Hermione. "You're lovely and intelligent and kind."

But Luna only sat smiling sadly into the distance.

The next day at work, Hermione spoke to an old friend in law enforcement. "Ron, there's a suspicious person looking for forbidden material."

Having set the tale on the right path, Cho and the editor took a break for tea. Even two clueless hacks could chronicle the heroine reaching new heights.

And when the other writers returned, they did consider the continuation.

"The girls talk about sensitivity, but they're ignoring emotional consequences," said Theo.

"Even adventure writers could do better," said Biff, churning out a few words.

Jonathan was absorbed enough in his work that it took a while for him to notice that Luna was no longer grabbing his shoulder upon finding a particularly rare book, and she was looking at him quizzically instead of smiling at him from across the room whenever he looked at her. It took him longer to miss her inquisitiveness about his past life. He recalled a gardener who had never thought about a family of bluebirds with their cheerful colors and their omnivorous diet of insect pests until the day he realized they were no longer visiting his plot.

At times, Jonathan thought Luna was even viewing Skippy with suspicion.

As time passed and he did not approach her out of a polite consideration for her feelings, she picked places farther and farther away from him to restore and shelve the new volumes.

Thus, when he dusted off an ancient scroll and almost recoiled from the contents, he did not share it with someone with whom he no longer had a relationship of trust.

"Now that you mentioned it," said Theo, "they didn't give any emotional depth to the new character."

"Maybe they did, but it was too subtle for the likes of us," said Biff.

"Too subtle by half," said Theo. "Let me see if I can write something that connects with us cruder types but still doesn't offend refined feminine sensibilities."

"And I'll write it in sensitive-style," he added.

Fighting down the nagging thought that she was a stalker with the reminder that she was acting for the common good, Hermione Granger managed to be at the tea shop near the bookstore that Luna had mentioned Jonathan favored. She followed him in, and steeling her nerve with her sense of mission, introduced herself to the strange wizard in town.

"I met Luna Lovegood the other day," she said as they ordered tea, "and I thought you might be the one working with her in the library."

"That's true," he said.

"Isn't it dull?" she asked.

"It can be tedious," he admitted, "but there's the possibility of discovering forgotten history."

"History?"

"Yes, what really happened," he said. "You don't think that high academic impulses built that castle, do you, that defensive structure in a remote location?"

"It was a time of turmoil," said Hermione.

As he was nodding approval, she was patting her frizzy hair into a semblance of smoothness.

"Why did the founder's branch of magic survive to become the dominant one in the British Isles?" he asked.

"I hadn't thought about that," she said as she fumbled with the top button of her blouse.

"And now that you are thinking about it?" he prompted.

"Perhaps they integrated all the branches of magic," suggested Hermione.

Her face lit up with inspiration. "That's it. That's the reason for the split, not pure blood, purity of magic."

"Keep going," he said.

"You're going to say the story about pure blood is projecting twentieth century conflicts onto the tenth century." She paused. "More than that, you're going to say my suggestion about pure magic instead of pure blood is merely a variant of the standard story, and it might possibly be something entirely different."

"Very good," said Jonathan.

As a glowing girl tried to look into flashing eyes, her hand idly unfastened the top button of her blouse.

Later, she was back at her flat with Crookshanks and staring meditatively into the fireplace.

Theo took a deep breath before his sensitive plunge into a frizzy-haired psyche staring at her midnight ceiling.

How falsely judged are we who adhere to higher standards by those who do not realize that exemplary conduct benefits all while those who scoff and declare us cold hearted while reveling in the softer feelings do not bother to discern that our conduct is the product of a deep concern for the well-being of all and thus fail to perceive that our center is often yearning for the gentle touch that would be returned many fold upon the one who would take the care to see past the stern exterior to the gentle soul within, a soul that encompasses both great compassion and great rectitude, compassion and rectitude enough to take in even a fiery-eyed desperado whose understanding, if only he would extend it, would let a person considered stern soar to unimaginable heights of intellectual insight and romantic passion and certainly such a wanderer, with possibly a touch of dark in his soul, would benefit more from a pillar of upright behavior than from a spacey girl who spends her life chasing creatures that do not exist, especially when, just for him, the more modest one would bare all and, transgressing to do good, set aside her defenses and let him explore the possibilities beneath her impeccable attire.

Author's Note: In the dungeon, Jonathan mangles part of the Diamond Sutra.