Over the next few weeks I fell into a comfortable routine of morning classes and workshops with Mr Hatter, then lunch, followed by reading in the library. I felt more relaxed than I had ever been, although I still had not managed to narrow down the specifics of my study, what exactly my presentation should be, or who it should be aimed at. Some students were working alongside Mr Hatter in various projects, and they did not attend all classes. And sometimes students from other faculties came to our classes to get a few tips, or to learn some methods which crossed over to their area of study. We were more or less free to attend any classes at Dunkel University, as long as we got our own work done, and were showing progress. My problem was I didn’t think I could show any progress when I had not yet narrowed down my own focus. I was still the quiet girl with pigtails I had always been, only now I was a young woman with short messy hair who needed to take another step towards being a mathematician. I decided it was time to be productive.

One morning during a workshop with Mr Hatter, I took a big breath and allowed myself and my lack of productivity to be the class example.

“Right-o everyone, who wants to go first?” began Mr Hatter.

Before I could allow my nerves to take over, I raised my hand and said, “Yes, Mr Hatter. I need some help with my focus.”

All eyes were on me, the new girl who never looked anyone in the eye.

I explained my situation. I was enjoying the classes. I was understanding them. I was enjoying my research, and I was understanding it. I could see the practical application at work. Being a conceptual thinker, I could see the big picture, but was having trouble getting specific enough for me to bring a something tangible to the masses. The application was global, but for an individual to present it, I needed to be specific enough to bring it to a specific organisation.

“Hmm yes, I see,” hummed Mr Hatter slowly and wisely, “This is the first problem most of us have. We see the macro application of our work, but we need to apply it to the micro scale so that society can understand it in a localised practical application before practising and applying it globally. Some of our work is so obvious to us. But to be of any use, society needs to receive it in small doses before it can be applied in the way that was clear to us from the start.”

I felt so relieved that I was not the first one to experience this conundrum.

“So you see, Arcadia, this is why we need to be exceptionally focused. What do you really hope to achieve with your research?”

I was stumped. I knew I wanted to get the information out to the public, but I had not thought beyond that.

“To be honest, Mr Hatter, I only see the grand concept. I simply hope to get it out there.”

“Riddle me this, Arcadia,” he said, “Where in the world is this information most needed? Where is it urgent for you to deliver your research?”

“The world,” I said, too stumped to think beyond what I know.

“Who needs to apply this information immediately, without delay?”

“Humanity.”

“Where does humanity learn? How does humanity shape its beliefs?”

“In schools,” I said, but never being in a school system until now, I was not yet following his line of thought.

“Where in schools? Where does it start?”

“Right at the beginning,” I was getting there. “In early education. The first teachers with the youngest students,” I smiled.

Mr Hatter nodded.

I felt inspired. In my enthusiasm I looked into his eyes. He was as inspired as me. The connection had been made between us, through the inspiration of harmonious progressive humanity at work.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Early education will be a starting point for you Arcadia. I am sure you will be inspired to figure out the best way to take it there.”

A couple of other students workshopped their queries as I did what seemed to work best for me during class – I drew strange lines, points, and connections in my notebook, and waited for it all to come together into something cohesive that I could go on to research after lunch.

By lunch time, I had not yet figured out what my drawings meant, and I had not yet figured out the next stage of my research, but it was time to fuel my body so I could keep going. The students dispersed from the room, and I found myself walking out in the sun with Clarrie.

“I need a break, Arca,” announced Clarrie. “Let’s get out of here and go to town for lunch. Have you been to Good Vibrations?”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s a new cafe. Just opened up last week. They have live music!”

“Sounds good! My mind is frazzled after that one.”

“Me too. Sometimes you just need to step away and recharge.”

“Yes, that’s where I’m at. I’m closer to figuring out my next stage of research, but you’re right. I need to take a break and come back to it fresh.”

I looked forward to something different. Life had turned into a routine that I had desperately craved for so long, but as I was not used to such routine, I was feeling restless. New food, new music, and a new location would do me good.

“How’s your research going right now, Clarrie?” I asked, as we walked towards town.

“I’m getting closer. I’m really just trying to articulate everything that will be received by general practitioners.”

“Do you think you will practise yourself? Or only teach the theory?”

“I think it would be fun to practise, but I’ll reach so many more people by getting the theory out there.”

She was right. But as a healer, she would be more satisfied practising. I didn’t tell her this, of course. I was thinking how she would do well to teach the protocol to teachers, so that she could practise while they go about teaching.

We arrived at Good Vibrations. Its blue exterior with bright colourful signage welcomed us, and we could hear a heartfelt piano beckoning from inside.

We stepped inside the crowded cafe and found only one available table. Clarrie ordered a zucchini ragu, and I ordered sunflower soup with bread. We sat quietly as the piano weaved its beautiful sound frequencies towards us from the back of the cafe.

As our food arrived, Carrie said, “Isn’t this music divine?”

“Incredible, isn’t it,” I said, “I’ve heard music like this once before, a while back, in Jonton. The pianist was wonderful. I spoke to him for a bit, and he was actually a cosmology student, of all things. He was the one who told me about Mr Hatter.”

“Really? And you just came straight here to study? You didn’t know of Mr Hatter beforehand?”

“No. I had no idea. I wasn’t even thinking of studying.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was a traveller. I’ve been all over the place.” Yes, a traveller. That sound good. Passable.

“I don’t think I’d be brave enough to stop what I’m doing and start something new like that.” Clarrie shuffled in her seat trying to get a look. “I can’t see who’s playing. Let’s find out who it is when they finish.”

I nodded with a smile.

“So tell me about being a traveller. What’s it like? I don’t think I’ve ever met a traveller. Or maybe I have, but I’m sure I haven’t had a conversation with one. And I’ve most definitely never been friends with one. It sounds fascinating.”

“Well...” I paused to let my thoughts catch up, “It’s not as fascinating as it sounds. Lots of packing. Minimal possessions. I make a mean wildflower tea.”

“You know, Arcadia, I’ve never had wildflower tea before. You’ll have to make some for me,” she smiled.

“Definitely!” I sat up taller, “You’ll have to come round some time. You can bring the biscuits. I’ll make the tea.”

My heart expanded and felt warmer. I had a real friend.

We finished our meals as the piano went quiet.

“Quick,” said Carrie, “Let’s find the pianist!”

We got up quickly and bustled our way through the tables and waiters to the back of the cafe, to see the pianist just getting up. He brushed his dark hair out of his eyes as he looked up at me.

“Arcadia!” Josh beamed.

“Josh!” I couldn’t believe it.

He bustled his way through to give me a big hug.

“How serendipitous!” I exclaimed with a broad smile.

“What are you doing here?” he said.

“I live here now. Here, Josh,” I turned to Clarrie, “This is Clarrie. She’s studying with Mr Hatter too. Clarrie, this is Josh.”

They shook hands, and with the busyness of the cafe, we found ourselves flowing out onto the street. I was surprised and excited. Here I was, Arcadia the traveller, who knew no one, suddenly standing on the street with two actual friends. I was gushing.

“I am so happy you got into the university here Arcadia,” Josh said, “How’s it going? Is it living up to expectations?”

“Oh yes, very much so. I’m getting into the swing of things now. It’s good to be doing this work. We’re actually just taking a lunch break now before heading back to the library. We always eat on campus. I can’t believe the one day we decide to go to town for lunch, we find you playing here! What brings you here?”

“Well, actually…” his eyes brightened, “I’m doing some work in the cosmology department. I start in a few days, but I decided to get here early to get a feel for Dunkel.”

“Clarrie and I were really enjoying your music here, weren’t we Clarrie?” I said looking at her.

“It was so beautiful Josh, we just had to see who was playing. So lovely to meet you,” she said.

“Lovely to meet you too, Clarrie. Are you both heading back to university now, or do you want to stick around for a bit?”

Clarrie glanced at Josh and I.

“I need to head back now,” she said, before I got a chance, “but you two should catch up. I’ll see you tomorrow, Arcadia.”

“See you!” I waved, as Clarrie was already walking back up the street.

“I should probably go back too, you know. I am really only just figuring out what I’m researching, and what I’m going to do with it all. I need to get back to the university.”

As soon as I said those words, I felt a pang of regret. The whirlwind of lifeforce energy was connecting us, as the geometry of life weaved its way through our veins once again.

“OK,” he said.

And then the visions began.

I suddenly could not only see the geometric connections in my mind’s eye, but in my vision right before me, were electric blue lines connecting our hearts and eyes.

“Join me for a drink tonight, though, won’t you?” he asked.

The blue turned to crimson and violet and green and all manner of sparks were bursting like fireworks before my very eyes.

“OK! Where?”

“Come to my house,” he said. “I’m on Cromwell Street. Number 19. It’s opposite a church.”

I nodded. “I’ll see you this evening.” And with that, I hurried back to the university.

I went straight to the mathematics library, but instead of reading and researching, I sat down at a table and pulled out my notebook and pencil. I drew a rough outline of the human body, and used dashed lines to mark some of the main connecting threads and their originating points. Spheres and pyramids floated at various points around the body, acting as junctions and additional sources of energy. The flurry of pencil movement finished. That was Josh. Next I completed the outline of my own body, and hurriedly pencilled in the sources, connections, and junctions.

I paused to look at the two drawings and noted the uncanny similarity. Without giving myself too much time to think, I got on to drawing the sources of our energy centres. Josh’s first. Then mine. And again, without much time to think further, I pencilled in the sources of those energies. And the sources behind those. And so on, until I had reached a point in the cosmos that was before my understanding of it. I took a breath. Could I dare trace this energy back further? I turned a page. And kept on going.

Several pages later I looked up from my notebook and saw it was getting dark outside. I wouldn’t be able to keep going back in time with my lines of connection, but perhaps I could follow some patterns into the future.

Looking back through my drawings, I could see that the heart and solar plexus centres were the constants that connected people throughout time. Josh and I shared connection points at the feet, ankles, knees, hips, solar plexus, heart, fingers, hands, elbows, shoulders, throat, lips, eyes, and crown. It was staggering. I held the palms of my hands over the drawings and let the information seep into my body. My hands started shaking and my breath went shallow as I realised there was no past or future with Josh. Our very presence transcended time altogether. It was if we were not even human, so much as conduits of energy that lit up when brought together.

I stood up abruptly, knocking my pencil to the floor. Quickly I packed up my things and went outside in the crisp night air. I had not done any formal research, but I had made a discovery that was personal and profound, and I was not sure what to do with it. A great day had turned into a successful evening, and I had a feeling that the night was about to get a lot more interesting.

I still kept a map of Dunkel in my bag, so I quickly checked for Cromwell Street. It was only a few blocks away.

I walked alongside the church on Cromwell Street and saw number 19 on the other side of the road. It was a small cottage with potted flowers on the window sills and lit up inside behind the curtains. I crossed the road and knocked on the door. The door opened and the visual light show began again.

“Come in Arcadia! I've got the fire going.”

“Great,” I said, warming up immediately as I stepped inside.

I followed Josh down the short hallway to the living room.

“Take a seat. Have you had dinner yet? I can cook something up quickly. Do you want tea? Or wine?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it.” Was I hungry? I really couldn’t tell. “Maybe tea will be fine for now, thanks.”

“OK, the kettle’s already warm. One moment.”

Josh disappeared to the kitchen. The chairs in the living room looked comfortable, but a cosy soft rug by the fire was beckoning, so I knelt down on it, feeling my knees sink into its perfectly cushioned pile, and held my hands out towards the flames. It was hot and glorious. I felt the excitement of the day calm down as I gazed into the orange flames, and my mind melted into the current moment.

Josh sat down next to me with a cup of tea for each of us.

“Mmm,” I inhaled a complex concoction, “thank you. Peppermint?”

“Yes.”

“Vanilla?”

He nodded.

“Cloves? Peppercorn? And hmm... what’s this last ingredient?”

Josh grinned.

“Did you throw some coffee beans in here?”

“Yes!” Josh laughed, “It’s my secret ingredient. I find tea a bit light, so I always boost it with a little something extra. Good guess!”

We clinked our mugs and sipped the delicious tea.

“I still can’t believe I bumped into you here. What are you working on at the university?” I asked.

“Well, my parents wanted me to get some working experience before I really get going at their laboratory. They think that universities are good training grounds for solid methodology, so I met up with one of the cosmology professors. He actually makes some of our instruments. And I’ll be helping him in his classes, tutoring every now and then. But the main thing is, and this is really exciting, I am building a replica of our immediate cosmological space. We’re going to use this for testing and seeing how we might be impacting the cosmos at large, or at least, our little pocket of it. So one morning a week I do tutoring for him. And the rest of the mornings I’m working on this replica.”

“That sounds amazing!” I was in awe. Josh was exceptionally bright, and even though I knew his main gift lay in music, this would be interesting enough for him to enjoy it.

“I’m constructing everything out of the actual mineral particles. So a lot of my work is sourcing product. I like to think of it as the ingredients,” he grinned, “and once I get it all ready, I’ll be able to micronise the particles to be a genuine miniature replica, even right down to the number of particles.”

“Absolutely incredible,” I said, “This is going to change the world!”

“Yes. It’s going to be big,” he nodded. “And how’s study going for you? Are you enjoying it? What are you focusing on?”

“I’m looking at how our thoughts and actions influence and are influenced by the world around us. I can see the relationship between everything, the invisible threads of time, how everything interacts. For example, right now, I can see we are connected, and that even if we don’t speak, our very frequency is interacting. I can actually see the geometric structure of the space between us. And I’m going to take this to kindergartens. I’m not sure how though. I was supposed to be researching more on that this afternoon, but I got side-tracked after seeing you at lunch.”

“What happened?”

“This is going to sound really odd, but when we met the very first time, I could see all these strange geometric lines that joined us together. They were like electrical currents connecting us. I could see them in my mind’s eye. But at lunch today, I could see them right in front of me, with my very own eyes.”

Josh leant forward, wanting to know more.

“I know it sounds strange. Today I saw different coloured electrical currents. I could see it all, right in front of me, in the air. So after lunch I went straight back to the university, and sketched it all out in my notebook. It was forming some kind of timeline. I sketched back into the past as far as I could go. I didn’t make it to the start of time, but I did try to go into the future, following predictable patterns in the geometry.”

Josh’s heart was beating faster. I could see the waves it was creating in the air. Blue. Strong. Understanding.

Then a thought hit me. Because I was no longer looking in people’s eyes to read their minds, perhaps my magic was showing up in another way. I hoped I was not revealing anything I didn’t want known.

“You mean, you can see the waves?” Josh asked.

“Uh huh,” I nodded. I rifled through my bag to get my notebook, “Here, let me show you,” I said as I opened it up to my sketches, “This is what I saw today.”

I laid my notebook open on the rug between us. Instinctively, Josh placed his palms over the diagrams of each of us that I had first drawn. He inhaled suddenly through is nose. I could see his palms warm up. They glowed red, and a blue charge of electricity connected the images with his hands, which activated his whole body. He kept his hands there and looked up at me. I could see that he saw it too.

I raised my hands to shoulder height, facing my palms towards him. Josh removed his hands from my notebook, and we saw the electric charge disperse throughout the room. He placed his palms on mine. We both jolted from the heat as we connected, and the electric current lit up our hands. Glowing red, the charge quickly changed to a blue line that travelled the length of our arms, and then surrounded our bodies. Our shallow breathing and light heart beats sent green wavelengths pulsing through the room, which now had a faint golden glow.

I permitted myself to look into Josh’s eyes. Electric blue lines connected our eyes, our hearts, our solar plexus, and all the other points I had noted down that afternoon. Revolving spheres and pyramids that were a mere fingernail in size floated around us, which emitted more frequencies that connected with us. We could see our own connections to the atmosphere in the room, and the Earth at large. Kneeling high on our knees, we brought our faces close together. Our chests and noses touched, which created a warmer golden glow, so that we were both glowing, and radiating this frequency of connection. We were connected to each other, to this house, to the land, and to the cosmos at large.

I couldn’t be sure long we stayed like this. It could have been three minutes or three hours. Time no longer existed. At some point we were ready to take a big breath, let our hands go, and sit back down on our heels. We continued looking into each other’s eyes, and then I broke out into a grin. Josh let out a giggle. And before we knew it, we were laughing uncontrollably until our stomachs hurt. Exhausted, we sat cross legged, gazing into the fire for a minute.

“OK,” said Josh, “That was interesting.”

“Yes. So, that’s where my studies are up to at the moment.”

I took a big breath and exhaled some more of the electric energy that was still inside me. I put my face in my hands and rubbed my eyes. Then I rubbed my hands together. I needed to feel something that was real. Something that was solid. Something that wasn’t intense energy.

“Josh, I’ve got no idea what I’m doing, but apparently I am taking this information to schools.”

He giggled at the thought. So did I.

“Hey, want something to eat?” he asked, “I’ve got a few things in the pantry. We can rustle up something.”

“Sure,” I said, and followed him into the kitchen.

Josh’s kitchen was twice the size of mine, with cupboards that all seemed to be full of pots and plates. His double-door pantry opened up to a wealth of food, and I felt my stomach grumble.

“Rice? Pasta? Soup?” he asked.

“Let’s do rice. What vegetables do you have?”

Josh pulled out a bag of mushrooms and said, “There are more vegetables in the garden.”

He got a pair of scissors from a drawer, and I followed him out the back door. It was too dark to see much of his garden, but the light of the moon showed several rows of vegetables.

“The previous tenant was a chef, so the garden is full of food. How about zucchini?”

“Great! What else have you got?”

“Not sure that the onions are ready,” he said as he cut a medium sized zucchini from the plant, “but there are plenty of peas over here.”

I saw them trailing up the garden fence, so started picking as many peas as I could, and Josh picked a handful with his spare hand.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“I think that’ll do.”

We walked back into the kitchen and Josh poured some rice in a pot to boil.

“Let me shell the peas and you can do the zucchini and mushrooms. Have you got a bowl?” I asked.

Josh passed me bowls for the peas and pods, and he got out a chopping board and knife to slice the zucchini and mushrooms.

“Have you got any spices?”

“Just a few. Want to add them straight to the rice? Or with the vegetables?”

I paused for thought, and he showed me where his spices were in the pantry. I picked out some pepper, cumin, turmeric, and cloves.

“Let’s throw this in with the rice, and throw the rest in on top,” I suggested.

“Perfect,” he smiled.

We threw everything in together and sat by the fire.

“How did we manage to see that?” asked Josh.

“I’m not really sure. I’ve always been able to connect with people,” I wanted to tell him about my magic, but I had already decided I was done with that. “The connection has just gotten stronger. I’m not sure why or how. It seemed to amplify when we met in Jonton.”

Josh’s eyes darkened in thought. “Why do you think that is?”

“Simple geometry, really. I just need to decipher it all.”

The fire heat of the fire on my face made me feel safe. It was as if I had always been living this life. Josh served up dinner and brought it into the living room. We were happy eating quietly on the rug by the fire. I knew I had to get going though, as my explorations in geometric frequencies really took it out of me. I was tired, and knew I needed to get an early night if I was to figure out what to make of all this in the morning. My mind was elated and scrambled, and it really needed to rest.

“What are you doing tomorrow, Josh?” I asked.

“I was going to play at the cafe again at lunch, but no other plans. What do you have in mind?”

“Can I see you play again?”

“Sure,” he said, “Same place, same time.”

We said good night and I walked home.