The Stolen Child(103)

winter hibernation slowed my progress. I grew tired in December and slept until March. Before I could

go back to the book, the book came back to me.

Solemn-eyed Luchóg and Smaolach approached one morning as I crunched a farl of oats and

drained the dregs from a cup of tea. With great deliberation, they sat on either side of me, cross-legged,

settling in for a long talk. Luchóg fiddled with a new shoot of rye poking through the old leaves, and

Smaolach looked off, pretending to study the play of light through the branches.

"Good morning, lads. What’s on your minds?"

"We've been to the library," said Smaolach.

"Haven't gone there in ages," said Luchóg.

"We know what you've been up to"

"Read the story of your life."

Smaolach turned his gaze toward mine. "A hundred thousand apologies, but we had to know."

"Who gave you the right?" I asked.

They turned their faces away from me, and I did not know where to look.

"You've got a few stories wrong," Luchóg said. "May I ask why you wrote this book? To whom is

it addressed?"

"What did I get wrong?"

"My understanding is that an author doesn't write a book without hav-ing one or more readers in

mind," Luchóg said. "One doesn't go through the time and effort to be the only reader of your own book.

Even the diarist expects the lock to be picked."

Smaolach pulled at his chin, as if deep in thought. "It would be a big mistake, I think, to write a

book that no one would ever read."

"You are quite right, old friend. I have at times wondered why the artist dares to bring something

new into a world where everything has been done and where all the answers are quite well known."

I stood and broke the plane of their inquisition. "Would you please tell me," I hollered, "what is

wrong with the book?"

"I'm afraid it's your father," said Luchóg.

"My father, what about him? Has something happened to him?"

"He's not who you think he is."

"What my friend means to say is that the man you think of as your fa-ther is not your father at all.

That man is another man."

"Come with us," said Luchóg.

As we wound along the path, I tried to untangle the many implications of their invasion into my

book. First, they had always known I was Henry Day, and now they knew I knew. They had read of my

feelings for Speck and surely guessed I was writing to her. They knew how I felt about them, as well.

Fortunately, they came across as generally sympathetic characters, a bit eccentric, true, but steadfast

allies in my adventures. Their line of questioning posed an intriguing concern, however, as I had not

thought ahead to how I might actually get a book to Speck, or, more to the point, about the reasons

behind my desire to write it all down. Smaolach and Luchóg, ahead on the trail, had lived in these woods

for decades and sailed through eternity with-out the same cares or the need to write down and make

sense of it all. They wrote no books, painted nothing on the walls, danced no new dance, yet they lived

in peace and harmony with the natural world. Why wasn't I like the others?

At sunset, we stepped out of cover and walked down past the church to a scattering of graves in a

green space adjacent to the cemetery enclosed by a stone wall. I had been there once before, many

years ago, thinking it a shortcut back to safety, or perhaps merely a good hiding place. We slipped

between the iron bars into a tranquil, overgrown garden. Many of the inscriptions on the stones were

weathered and faded, as the tenants had lain beneath their vanish-ing names for many years. My friends

took me on a winding path between the graves, and we stopped short among the memorials and weeds.

Smaolach walked me to a plot and showed me the stone: WILLIAM DAY, 1917-1962. I knelt down

on the grass, ran my finger along the grooves of letters, considered the numbers. "What happened?"

Luchóg spoke softly. "We have no idea, Henry Day."

"I haven't heard that name in a while."

Smaolach laid his hand upon my shoulder. "I still prefer Aniday. You are one of us."

"How long have you known?"

"We thought you should know for the truth of your book. You didn't see your father that night we

left the old camp."

"And you understand," Luchóg said, "that the man in the new house with the baby cannot be your

father."

I sat down and leaned against the marker to save myself from fainting. They were right, of course.

By my calendar, fourteen years had passed since the end date on that gravestone. If he had died that

long ago, William Day could not be who I thought he was, and that man was not William Day but his