The Stolen Child(117)

napped in the front seat of my car. Sultry August heat poured in through the windows, and I dozed off

longer than intended. The stars had risen, and that short nap had energized me. I slung the rope around

me like a bandolier, took out the tools, and skulked over to the side window. There was no telling how

far below lay their underworld. Wrapping my fist in a towel, I punched through the glass, unlocked the

window, and crawled through the opening. The stacks loomed like a maze of tunnels, the books

watching my every movement through the darkness as I crept to the children's section. Anxious, I spent

three wooden matches attempting to light the kero-sene lantern. The oily wick smoked and at last caught

flame. My shirt clung to my sweaty back, and the heavy air made breathing difficult. With the knife, I cut

away the carpet square and saw that it had been glued atop a small trap-door, easily pried open with the

crowbar. A perfect square separated our two worlds.

Light filtered up from below and revealed a cramped room strewn with blankets and books, bottles

and dishes. I bent down for a closer look and stuck my head through the hatchway. As quick as a

striking snake, his face appeared in front of mine, not inches from my nose. I recognized him at once, for

he looked exactly as I had as a young boy. My reflection in an old mirror. His eyes unmasked him, all

soul but no substance, and he did not move but stared back silently without blinking, his breath mingling

with mine. He expressed no emotion, as if he, too, had been waiting for this moment and for it all to be

over.

This child and I were bound together. As boys dream of growing into men, and men dream of the

boys they once were, we each took measure of the other half. He reminded me of that nightmare long

ago when I was taken, and all at once my long-held fears and anger broke through the surface. The

lantern ring bit into my fingers, and my left eye twitched with tension. The boy read my face and flinched.

He was afraid of me, and for the first time I regretted what I had taken from him and realized that, in

feeling sorry for him, I grieved for my own stolen life. For Gustav. For the real Henry Day. His

unknowable life. For all I could have with Tess and with Edward. My dream of music. And who was I in

this equation but the product of my own division? What a terrible thing to have happened to such a boy.

"I'm sorry," I said, and he vanished. Years of anger dissipated as I stared at the space where he

used to be. He was gone, but in that brief moment we’d faced one another, my past had unspooled deep

inside my mind, and I now let it go. A kind of euphoria raced through my blood, and I took a deep

breath and felt myself again.

"Wait," I called out to him, and without thinking I turned and slid feet first through the opening, and

landed in the dust. The space below the li-brary was smaller than anticipated, and I bumped my head on

the ceiling when I stood. Their grotto was but a murky shadow, so I reached up for the lantern to better

see. Hunched over, I searched with the firelight for the boy, hoping he might answer a few questions. I

wanted nothing more than to talk to him, to forgive and be forgiven. "I'm not going to hurt you," I cried

out in the darkness. Wrestling free of the rope, I laid it and the carpet knife on the ground. The rusty

lantern creaked in my hand as the light swept the room.

He crouched in the corner, yapping at me like a trapped fox. His face was my own fear. He

trembled as I approached, eyes darting, searching for an escape. Candlelight illuminated the walls, and

all around him on the ground lay stacks of paper and books. At his feet, tied in a strand of twine, a thick

sheaf of handwritten pages sat next to my purloined score. My music had sur-vived.

"Can't you understand me?" I held out my hand to him. "I want to talk to you."

The boy kept eyeing the opposite corner as if someone or something were waiting there, and when

I turned to look, he rushed past me, knocking into the lamp as he ran. The rusted wire snapped, sending

the lamp flying, shattering the glass on the stone wall. The blankets and papers ignited at once, and I

snatched my music from the flames, beating it against my leg to extin-guish the wisps of fire along the

margins. I backed my way to the overhead entrance. As if fixed to the spot, he stood gazing up in

amazement, and just before climbing out of the hole, I called for him a final time: "Henry—"

His eyes went wide, searching the ceiling as if discovering a new world. He turned to me and

smiled, then said something that could not be under-stood. By the time I got upstairs, a fog of smoke

rose through the hole below. It followed me through the broken window just as the flames began to lick

the stacks of books.