The Stolen Child(104)

double. I wondered to myself how such a thing could be possible. Luchóg opened his pouch, rolled a

cigarette, and calmly smoked it amid the head-stones. The stars came out to define the sky—how far

away, how long ago? My friends seemed on the verge of revealing additional secrets, but they said

nothing, so that I might figure it out for myself.

"Let us away then, lads," Smaolach said, "and think on this tomorrow."

We leapt the gate at the corner and trekked home, our conversation turning to smaller mistakes in

my own story. Most of their suggestions escaped scrutiny because my mind wandered down

long-neglected lanes. Speck had told me what she remembered, but much remained mysterious. My

mother faded in and out of view, though I could now see quite clearly the facet of twin baby sisters. My

father was a nearly total void. Life existed before this life, and I had not sufficiently dragged the river of

my subconscious. Late that night, while the others slept, I sat awake in my burrow. The image of Oscar

Love crystallized before me. We had spent months investigating that boy, find-ing out in excruciating

detail the nature and shape of his life, his family his-tory, his habits of mind—all to assist Igel in the

change. If we knew Oscar so well, then the others must have known my history, infinitely better than I

knew it myself. Now that I knew my true name, there was no longer any reason for them to hide the

truth. They had conspired to help me forget, and now they could help me remember. I crawled out of my

hole and walked over to Luchóg's spot, only to find it vacant. In the adjacent burrow, he was wrapped

in Chavisory's arms, and for a moment I hesitated to disturb their peace.

"Luch," I whispered. He blinked. "Wake up, and tell me a story."

"Aniday, for the love of—can't you see I'm sleeping?"

"I need to know."

By this time, she was stirring as well. I waited until they disentangled themselves, and he rose to eye

level. "What is it?" he demanded.

"You have to tell me everything you remember about Henry Day."

He yawned and looked at Chavisory curled into the fetal posit ion "Right now, I'm going back to

bed. Ask me again in the morning, and I'll help with your book-writing. But now, to my pillow and to my

dreams."

I woke Smaolach and Béka and Onions with the same request and was put off by each in much the

same way. Despite my excitement, I drew nothing but tired glares at breakfast the next morning, and

only after the whole clan had their fill did I dare ask again.

"I am writing a book," I announced, "about Henry Day I know the broad story that Speck gave me

before she left, and now I need you to fill in the details. Pretend I'm about to make the change, and give

me the report on Henry Day."

"Oh, I remember you," Onions began. "You were a baby foundling in the woods. Your mother

wrapped you in swaddling clothes and laid you at the greyhound's shrine."

"No, no, no," said Béka. "You are mistaken. The original Henry Day was not a Henry at all, but

one of two identical twin girls, Elspeth and Maribel."

"You are both wrong," said Chavisory. "He was a boy, a cute, smart boy who lived in a house at

the tip of the forest with his mother and father and two baby twin sisters."

"That's right," said Luchóg. "Mary and Elizabeth. Two little curly-tops, fat as lambchops."

"You couldn't have been more than eight or nine," said Chavisory.

"Seven," said Smaolach. "He was seven when we nabbed him."

"Are you sure?" asked Onions. "Coulda swore he was just a baby."

The conversation continued in this fashion for the rest of the day, in contested bites of information,

and the truth at the end of the discussion was the distant cousin of the truth at the beginning. All through

the summer and into the fall, I peppered them separately and together with my queries. Some-times an

answer, when combined with my prodigal memory or the visual cue of a drawing or a piece of writing,

cemented a fact in my brain. Slowly, over time, a pattern emerged, and my childhood returned to me.

But one thing remained a mystery.

Before the long sleep of winter, I went off, intent upon climbing the highest peak in the hills

surrounding the valley. The trees had shed their leaves and raised naked arms to the gray sky. To the

east, the city looked like toy building blocks. Off to the south lay the compact village cut in two by the

river. In the west, the riverbend and the big country beyond. To the north, ragged forest, a farm or two

hacked out from the trees and stone. I sat on the mountaintop and read, dreamt at night of two Specks,