The Stolen Child(110)

old house, Henry looked haunted, and he sat in his car for the longest time, head bent to the steering

wheel, shoulders heaving as he sobbed.

"He looked knackered, as if the woman sapped his spirit," Smaolach told us afterward.

"I noticed as well," said Luchóg, "that he has changed of late, as if he is guilty of the past and

worried of the future."

I asked them if they thought the older woman had been my mother, but they assured me she was

somebody else's.

Luchóg rolled himself a smoke. "He walked in one man, came out an-other."

Chavisory poked at the campfire. "Maybe there are two of him."

Onions agreed, "Or he's only half a man."

Luchóg lit the cigarette, let it dangle from his lower lip. "He's a puzzle with one piece missing. He's a

tockless clock."

"We'll pick the lock of his brain," Smaolach said.

"Have you been able to find out more about his past?" I asked them.

"Not much," said Luchóg. "He lived in your house with your mother and father, and your two little

sisters."

"Our Chopin won lots of prizes for playing music," said Chavisory. "There's a tiny shiny piano on

the mantel, or at least there was." She reached behind her back and held out the trophy for us to admire,

its facade reflecting the firelight.

"I followed him to school one day," said Smaolach. "He teaches children how to play music, but if

their performance is any indication, he's not very good. The winds blow harsh and the fiddlers cannot

fiddle."

We all laughed. In time, they told me many more stories of the man, but large gaps existed in the

tale, and singular questions arose. Was my mother liv-ing still, or had she joined my father under the

earth? I knew nothing about my sisters and wondered how they had grown. They could be mothers

themselves by now, but are forever babies in my imagination.

"Did I tell you he saw us?" Luchóg asked. "We were at our old stomping grounds by his house, and

I am sure that he looked right at Chavisory and me. He's not the handsomest thing in the world."

"Tell the truth," Chavisory added, "he's rather fearsome. Like when he lived with us."

"And old."

"And wearing out," said Smaolach. "You're better off with us. Young always."

The fire crackled and embers popped, floating up in the darkness. I pic-tured him snug in his bed

with his woman, and the thought reminded me of Speck. I trudged back to my burrow, trying to find

comfort in the hard ground.

In my sleep, I climbed a staircase of a thousand steps carved into the side of a mountain. The dizzy

view below took my breath away, and my heart hammered against my bones. Only blue skies and a few

more steps lay in front of me. I labored on and reached the top, and the stairs continued down the other

side of the mountain, impossibly steep, even more frightening than the way up. Paralyzed, I could not go

back and could not go on. From the side, from nowhere, Speck appeared, joining me on the summit.

She had been transformed. Her eyes sparked with life; she grinned at me as if no time had passed.

"Shall we roll down the hill together? Like Jack and Jill?"

I could not say a word. If I moved, blinked, opened my mouth, she would disappear and I would

fall.

"It isn't as difficult or dangerous as it appears."

She wrapped me in her arms and, next thing, we were safe at the bot-tom. The dreamscape shifts

when she closes her eyes, and I fall deep into a well. I sit alone waiting for something to happen above

my head. A door opens, light floods the space. I look up to find Henry Day looking down at me. At first

he appears as my father, and then becomes himself. He shouts at me and shakes his fist. The door slams

shut, erasing the light. From beneath my feet, the well begins to fill with water flowing in like a river. I

kick in panic and realize a strong gossamer rope binds my limbs. Rising to my chest, to my chin, the

waters wash over me, and I am under. Unable to hold my breath any longer, I open my mouth and fill

my lungs.

I woke gasping for breath. A few seconds passed before the stars came into view, the reaching

branches, the lips of my burrow an inch or two above my face. Throwing off the blanket, I rose and

stepped out of that space onto the surface. Everyone else was asleep in their dens. Where the fire had

been, I faint orange glow was visible beneath the black kindling. The starlit woods were so quiet that I

could hear the steady breathing of the few faeries left in this place. The chilly air robbed me of my

bed-warmth, and a film perspiration dried and evaporated off my skin. How long I stood still, I do not

know, but I half expected someone to materialize from the darkness either to take me or to embrace me.