They say that when Blackberry Theology came down off of the mountain, she didn't know no more English than a new fawn, but came a'trippin down between the pines with the same grace.

Old Carter - not Young Carter, that's his nephew - was the first to see her, they say, being as how he sits on the bench all the time and stares off into the woods, and watches the seasons change and the leaves turn gold on the hills.

"Hello, miss." He tipped his hat to her, politely, and looked at her - just long enough so that it wasn't rude, but enough to show his curiosity at this girl, this young thing looking about twelve, with hair so bright and bringing the smell of pine needles after her. "Where're you from?"

She spoke, but it wasn't English she was talking to him.

"'Scuse me? You'll have to say that louder. I can't hear so well as I used to, I'm old -"

She looked up at him then - her eyes had been on the ground so far - and he saw that she had no pupils in her eyes, and they were as green as the moss after a rain.

He couldn't feel old anymore, not with those eyes old as sky looking at him. And so with the impetuousness of youth coming back to him, he invited her home for supper, because the sun was setting behind the mountain.

"Who's this?" Ms. Ginny Carter turned around and smoothed down her hat with floured hands that left white marks in her gray hair before she brushed them off on her apron.

"This is... er, Blackberry Theology," he said, as it was the first name that came to him: they were having tarts for dessert, and it was a Sunday.

Ginny, as everyone called her, looked the girl over. "Strange name."

There was a silence while the potatoes popped and sizzled over the fire.

"She came from the woods, didn't she, Carter?"

Carter wondered if his wife'd got a queer turn about the girl - she hadn't used his given name. So he said only, "Auyh."

"Well." She set another plate out, slowly, and silverware, then straightened up and turned back to the meat in a brisk manner. "You and I both know what they say about the people that live on the hill, but as long as she washes her hands like any other guest, I don't care what they say."

And so they settled down for dinner that first night, and Blackberry Theology ate well enough, though she did act like the silverware was a bit too hot to touch properly.

In time, though, she learned to use silverware, and speak proper, and went to school, where she learned things fast, though she didn't learn from her books as fast as the children of the valley learned from her, and the things she taught them weren't the kind of things they teach in school.

And so when the plague of rats came, and ate up all the crops and left the few cats that there were in the valley (being so close to the hill) so beat up that they lost heart and sulked in front of fireplaces where Doc Oliver the ferrier had to come and see to their bites, the village wasn't caught completely unprepared.

Though it was a surprise when little Petunia Delmer, bored in church after listening to the second sermon in a month about famines and perseverance, sat up and said right out loud in the middle of Job, "that rat over there in the corner is a little boy! And he doesn't have any clothes on either."

And half the congregation--the children mostly, though some of the adults too, and Reverend Peters, who was a firm believer in "using the talents that God gave us"--saw it then too, and church was concluded with the hastiest ever Communion service in the history of the valley.

Blackberry and everyone set about collecting the rats in boxes, and the ladies' aid society started sewing lots of clothes for small children, after voting to put the annual spaghetti dinner night plans aside.

And it was Tuesday before the man dressed all in motley came over the hill and came near enough to the valley that he could see the inn cat sitting contentedly on the paving stones outside of the Holly and Ivy with not a rat in sight.

He shooed aside the cat and went inside the inn, and Blackberry followed him.

A woman, young and beautiful, stood in front of him.

He sat down at one of the long tables by the fire and nodded to her. "Do you work here, girl?"

"Yes," Blackberry said, for she worked everywhere.

"Then mayhap you could get me some wine, or a mug of beer?"

"We don't have any, sir. The rats ate up all the grain this year, and the grapes never came in from Regath. We never heard why from them."

"Ah." The stranger's brows unknitted slightly at this, and the bells on the motley jingled as he shifted his weight when Blackberry came to sit down next to him. "So there were rats, then? It was a bad year for them."

"Yes. No thanks to you."

"What do you mean? I simply provided services to townsfolk in need. If you'd like, go speak to the people in Hamlenn. My record there is excellent."

"So the children said, though it seems like maybe you gave them other things as well, when they didn't pay your price."

He said nothing, just reached for the flute hung at his side. When he did not find it, he knew, and felt rather than heard the snap of his flute as she broke it into two halves and tossed it into the fire.

The valley turned out to watch as the man in motley walked back over the hill, followed close by the cat from the Holly and Ivy. Later, the cat came back with a piebald rat in its mouth and its tail held high, triumphal-like.

They say that though that winter was hard, the valley got through it somehow, and the spring after that was the best they'd ever seen and it kept going on that way, and Blackberry was the cause of it all. Some other folks hold that eventually Blackberry settled down and raised a family with the Reverend's son, and the child that they had was bit something awful by a rat when he was three and nearly died. There's more that think Blackberry herself died a while back when she went to take a trip over the hill for her own reasons. But if you hear someone saying that, you ought to know that they're a fine fool, because people can talk all they want about me, but only some of the things they say are true.

Callie slowly walked up the steps to Bring Your Own Muse, a large brownstone, a former school that had at one time been renovated into an apartment complex for dancers. She had bought it almost a year back, a little while after her reality portal had phased into Nexus. Most of her family had stayed in her home reality, although her cousin was a technowench at a nearby retro bar. Bring Your Own Muse had sprung full-blown into her brain after a crafting session back home. She had noticed a definite difference in between some of her classes as the time commitment and equipment needed slowly progressed. Those activities that could be done easily in a small space, such as an apartment, with a minimum of mess were very popular. But as the mess and needed space increased, the apartment dwellers faded away. The studio space had a limited number of benches and time for crafters. In fact some places only allowed students currently taking classes to have studio time. Seeing this, Callie envisioned a place were artists and crafters of all types could come together and work on their projects, both together and separately, feeding off of each other's creative energies, disregarding constraints brought upon by living conditions. Bring Your Own Muse was a fulfillment of that dream.

After passing through the front door, she paused by the full-length mirror on one of the walls. Everything still seemed the same, the vacation hadn't really done anything to change that. Same hair that was only a color that called the description of 'brown' to mind, same eyes although there seemed to be less stress and worry in them than the last time she had checked her reflection, same everything below the neck. She took a deep breath and entered the building fully.

She passed her way through the gallery hallway toward the main room which used to be the gymnasium. Coming in from the east entrance, the hallway was dubbed the Hall of Music. All of the subjects dealt with music or were inspired by some song or lyric. Callie stopped in front of some new works of her favorite patrons that had appeared during her vacation.

Bill had a new edition of his "Outstretched Hands" series out entitled "All I want to hear is your voice...". This one was of a man's hand reaching toward an answering machine. The red eye of a waiting message was just at its peak; you could almost see it beginning to fade.

Allison had a tribute to Neil Gaiman's character Death she called "She Talks to Angels." The serenity in her eyes was matched by her sweet smile. Allison's friend Stephanie had a piece right next to it. A photograph of a woman standing in a street newly washed by the rain that night. She was staring up at the top floor of a house where a ghost of a light showed the hint of a shadow in a window. The light had been colored in with a photomarker, giving it an eerie glow in the black and white photograph. The piece was called "And I miss you."

A pencil sketch of a woman holding her head in one hand and the other hand wrapped around a drink with only ice cubes left, a photo collogue of friends holding up their glasses in a toast, and finally Callie's own contribution to the wall.

It was her first attempt at submerging herself into the artist role, the music just some lyrics that seemed interesting. All she had were the lyrics and the smattering of music that she had found to match them. For some reason, her computer back home wouldn't access the rest of the song. She had listened to the snippet of music over and over again. After finishing her painting, she just called it "My Everything" and went on with other works in other mediums. "My Everything" was a wedding scene as seen by the bride's POV. A small ceremony, with only four men at the altar. One of her ex-boyfriends was looking out of the windows into the distance, a different ex was in prison clothes, the priest was looking bored and at his watch, and the groom was only a tux, a man with no face. Callie wasn't very fond of it, but Berry had insisted that she have something in each gallery, no matter how horrible it looked, since it was her studio.

Callie entered the former gymnasium, the largest studio, reserved for large and messy work, as well as the zero-gravity and water creations. One long side of the room was transformed into a stage for dancers and actors while the opposite wall was being transformed by Evey, the winner of a public contest for the honor. Two of the foiling stained glass class were admiring the work already completed as Callie came near. She asked, "How's the mural going?"

One of the girls, possibly named Shelia, murmured, "Fantastic... I still don't know how Evey can paint _all_ of those people in one painting!"

Callie replied, "She said it came to her in a dream."

The other girl just shook her head and said, "She should eat the same stuff before bedtime more often. What's it called? It just looks so _cool_!"

As Callie walked down the length of the mural, she said, "It's called 'Just a girl....'"

Even though the outlines had been put up and some of the subjects had been colored, Evey had displayed the model painting on an easel next to her workspace for those who wanted to see what the completed work would look like. From left to right, a woman in blue jeans was showing postcards to a no-nonsense woman with laughing eyes in a New York Police Department uniform. A story was obviously being told by a tattooed woman with dragon wings, her hands spread apart in a highly suggestive manner. Laughing around her, a yeti-woman and crow-girl are leaning on each other, bent over with the giggles, as a middle-aged woman in 1920's attire and a dark-haired woman in leather attire were wiping tears out of their eyes.

At a bar that stretches almost the entire length of the 'room' with shiny mirror and bottles filled with exotic liquids, a girl with purple-black hair and Asian features clinks glasses with an assassin with wild red hair. Further down the bar, a woman with a metal gauntlet was staring at a silver ring in her hand. A seductive woman in a red velvet dress was talking to an intense woman who seemed to be one of the most real persons in the painting as she drew something on a cocktail napkin.

A light shines down on a poker game toward the foreground. A woman with black-purple hair and tight yellow top-and-shorts is shuffling. To her right, a young woman with a serious look, thick glasses and Doc Martens holds a Mona Lisa smile; sitting next to her is a Hispanic woman, her western hat hanging off of the back of her chair. To the left of the dealer, a Native American woman with a slightly feral-light in her mismatched eyes sits, her hands stopped in mid-tapping by the painting's freeze-frame; farther down, a woman with dark hair and a trench coat buries her face in one hand, her shoulders shaking with laughter. The entire table is turned toward the last player who has most of the poker chips in front of her sparse frame. She is blonde and wearing a large amount of pink in her clothes along with a very embarrassed and apologetic expression on her face.

Finally to the right side of the painting, there are two figures left, almost hidden in the shadows of the back corner. A teenager of red hair with blonde streaks (or is it blonde hair with red streaks) is blowing bubbles with a girl with blue hair and a warm smile. As the bubbles float toward the ceiling, they turn into fish.

Callie shook her head. It was such a an enormous project... she just hoped that Evey would be able to get it done in time for BYOM's first anniversary in a few months. She headed over to the glassworking section of the gym floor when one of her least favorite customers stomped up to her, shaking a finger under her nose.

Sallow and with what seemed to be a permanent frown, Mrs. Ribbas huffed at Callie, "Oh, so _now_ you come back! After letting that... that... _monster_ run free and in charge for an entire _week_! With no supervision beyond mere _children_ who deferred to _her_ every time! I am telling you now, Miss Polleus, that I will _never_ come back to this establishment _ever_ again as long as that atrocious.... _thing_ is an instructor here! And I will tell all of my friends to avoid your business as well! Good day!" With that, she left through one of the side doors.

Once she had left, a soft voice called over from the watercreation section, "She has friends?"

Callie shook her head, half in defeat and half in amusement. "Berry...."

Callie walked over to the barriers gently shimmering with the blue water being held within. With force barriers forming walls, floor and ceiling, the space within could hold an entire swimming pool or break the law of gravity for a while. It was a favorite space for those who could not move well under normal means or who wished to spark their creativity in a space so alien to what they knew as normal. Currently, only one person was using it, a female humanoid form floating serenely inside, hair waving in invisible currents like seaweed.

"Welcome back, Callie. Did you enjoy celebrating your festival about the child in white wrappings with your community?" Blackberry Theology sank to the floor of the 'tank' and slowly stepped through the force barriers, giving the program time to recognize that someone wished out. She emerged onto the towels surrounding the fields, water lightly dripping off of her body suit. She wrung more water out of her brown-green hair. Berry was of a race called Naidiens, on the evolutionary timescale having spent more time in the ocean than humans. In fact, many Naidiens even now spent a dual life both in water and on land. Berry herself was a physical therapist at the local YBNA. She had encouraged Callie to install the tank for those who were might be able to enjoy such freedom from 'Newton's heavy shackles' as she put it.

"Yes, I had a good time visiting with my family for the holidays, Berry," Callie replied. "Now, about Mrs.-"

Berry pushed some bangs back off of her forehead. "I am still a bit confused as to why you would allow such a young child to handle such weapons, but it is a part of your customs, so..." Her voice was slightly warbling as if traveling through liquid and strangely off-tone as if part of the sound was at a range higher or lower than human hearing.

"W-weapons?" Callie had found that mental backtracking was often needed with Berry. She had not met many nonhumans before starting BYOM but Berry had been a great crash-course. "What are you..."

Cheerily, Berry nodded. "Yes, a young human in a small amount of white garments, wrapped about its body. Carrying a set of weapons... quite proficiently, I believe."

Something clicked inside Callie's mind. "Oh, wait. A kid... with bow and arrows! No, that's Cupid. For Valentine's Day. We were celebrating Christmas. Different kid, no weapons. Christmas is about love and togetherness and peace on earth and presents."

Berry frowned for a moment, absorbing the explanation. "But from what little you have told me of this Valentine's Day, it has the same meaning. What is the difference?"

A slight flush spread over Callie's features. "Erm... well... Valentine's Day is more about... romance. Cupid is based on a god in an old religious system..."

"Ahh!" Berry exclaimed. "So he is a metaphysical representation of your mating rituals!" A confused look flitted over Berry's face. "But I have not seen you performing any courtship rites nor seen males wooing you..."

"Yeah well, Cupid can just metaphysically kiss my butt..." Callie drew her friend over to an empty crafting table and sat down. "And you're stalling. So what gives? Why is Mrs. Ribbas up in arms?"

"She seemed to have the normal number of arms when she left..." At Callie's look, Berry grimaced. "I am sorry, Callie. It is just that she made Fermi cry..."

"What?!?" Callie yelled.

Fermi was a sweet little fairy girl whom Berry had been helping. An accident a year ago had broken her wings and she was slowly regaining mobility through therapy. In an effort to boost the little girl's spirits, Berry had organized a ballet for them to perform for a recital. Fermi had written the story for it, calling it a metaphor for her culture's solstice traditions. Callie had donated the use of the gym for their act especially.

In it, a little human girl, being played by Fermi with her wings hidden, is awakened from her sleep by the sounds of music softly coming through her window. She sneaks outside into a lightly falling snow to see an ice fairy, played by Berry, who gestures her to come through the gate of the fence separating them and play. The girl agrees and the two dance through the snow without words, only laughter, to the beats of the music. They twirl around, the fairy's 'magic' giving the girl wings (and the low gravity of the invisible tank section floating them like puffs of snow). However, the two stray too far from the little fence and dark shadows (complements of one of BYOM's cyberartists) surround them, determined to devour the little girl. The ice fairy, realizing the danger, grabs the little girl and runs toward the fence, for nothing magical could cross the barrier the girl's parents had erected. The shadows attack, knocking the little one from the fairy's arms, the girl falling in slow motion as the fairy crashes to the hard ground. The fairy pushes the girl toward the fence and turns around to face the shadows. With a sound like a high guitar riff, the fairy uses her magic to push the shadows back but as the battle continues, it is clear that she is no match for them. Going through the gate, the little girl realizes that her friend is about to be killed by the evil shadows and with a loud cry, her wings disappear and a large blast of magic bright as the sun bursts from the fairy, disintegrating the shadows. Slowly the fairy limps over to the fence and the two friends hug over the fence. The little girl waves as she returns inside and the fairy slowly starts to dance as she reenters the forest.

Callie had seen many of the practices and had been disappointed that the video tape of the little ballet being performed for real would not be able to be viewed until she had already left for her vacation. "What did she say to make Fermi cry?"

"We had left it on the screen in the hallway for the video art and Fermi had stayed by it through most of the night whenever a new class was about to start. She was loving all of the attention but then that... I believe that you would call her a fuzzy green monster-person? I saw on your media before, it had a canine with horns?"

"A grinch, Berry."

"Yes, that grinch watched it and sniffed as if she had smelled something foul. She looked over at Fermi and told her that it was very juvenile and that it was a waste to use such holy songs in such a heathen manner. She stalked off and Fermi burst into tears. It took the entire night to cheer her up again." Berry started to play with a leftover length of yarn on the table, lines of the same color as the yarn remaining on her skin for moments after the yarn had passed. "I did not know that these songs were considered holy by your culture, Callie, I did not mean to offend."

Callie shook her head. "Berry, I had heard you guys practice for how long? They were fine. What else happened?"

"I... I am afraid that I was rash. The next day, believing that Mrs. Ribbas was not present, I secluded myself within the tank and requested the system to play the disk you had forbidden me to play while she is here."

"Oh no..." Callie buried her head in her hand. Naidiens had relied on sound more than sight in their evolution and could feel sound through their skin as well as through their ears. Once the portal had opened into Nexus, many of them had went on to form prominent musical careers, both singing and instrumental, in many realities. But being so close to sound, some Naidiens could actually enter an intoxicated or altered state with certain frequencies. Berry had actually collected a set of those songs which she reacted this way to and would sometimes listen to them for inspiration. It was mostly a mix of songs with instrumental portions or moving passages. Although there was also the "I Wish I was an Oscar Meyer Weiner" song as well. Berry would sit in the tank for hours with the music on constant repeat. Most of the regulars had been able to tune it out and it was usually played so that the speakers were directed into the water more than out into the air. But Mrs. Ribbas had complained viciously about the whole subject.

Callie believed that she was mostly just jealous of Berry's serenity in the tank. She had observed Mrs. Ribbas trying many arts at BYOM but none seemed to suit her. Every project was scrapped after one try with a fury. Every new project was not started so much as attacked. But after a few sessions of placating the outbursts, Callie had politely asked Berry to restrict her altered-state time to when Mrs. Ribbas was not there. As Mrs. Ribbas usually only came once a week, this was no real problem. 'What happened, Berry?"

Red ran up one of Berry's arms and down the other. "I was not careful with my words when I emerged from the tank. She stood before me and stated that she would have me removed from the facilities forthwith upon your return. Evey was present as well, working on the mural. I told Mrs. Ribbas that she should realize there are skies that do not have clouds like her. She became quite infused with color and in my altered state, I'm afraid that I was staring. Upon which, according to Evey, I commented to Mrs. Ribbas that colored people seem to have high emotional states."

Callie's jaw dropped open.

Berry continued to play with the yarn, her eyes downcast. "Evey has explained to me my error in speech but it is very frustrating. You humans rarely change color so much, that, in my state, I was quite fascinated. But now I know that I should not describe humans in the manner I have."

"It's... it's okay, Berry. You didn't know." Callie laid her hand on one of Berry's, flesh-color over clear. "Mrs. Ribbas probably didn't stop to think how your culture would describe humans." Naidiens were clear, almost see through. With concentration, they could perfectly imitate their surroundings, complete camouflage. But mostly, color raced across their skins in response to emotion or whatever was in contact. To them, having skin which stayed one color or that could not change was very bizarre.

"I am willing to leave, if you wish, Callie." Berry looked up, the skin around her eyes darkening in response to stress.

Callie shook her head. "No, it was an honest misunderstanding. Mrs. Ribbas should have asked me calmly about the situation." She stood up. "Come on, let's go take a look at that video. We'll deal with whatever Mrs. Ribbas does when it happens. Right now, I want to see what you and Fermi have created."

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