The Stolen Child(120)

beneath, pondering whether to come to his aid. After an eternity, he found the door and swung it back

on its hinges. A spotlight flooded in from above, like sunshine piercing a dark forest. A perfect square

separated our two worlds. All at once, he stuck his head in the frame and peered into the blackness. I

darted over to the opening and looked him straight in the eyes, his nose not six inches from my own. The

sight of him discon-certed me, for no sign of kindness or recognition marked his features, no ex-pression

but raw disgust, which twisted his mouth into a snarl, and rage beat out of his eyes. Like a madman, he

clambered through the hole into our world—a torch in one hand, a knife in the other, a coil of rope

unspooling across his chest—and chased me into the corner. "Keep your distance," I warned. "I can

send you from this world in a single blow." But he kept com-ing. Henry said he was sorry for what he

was about to do and lifted the lan-tern above my head, so I ran right past him. He threw the fire at my

back.

The lantern glass broke and a blaze spilled out like water over a pile of blankets, and the wool

smoldered and burned, flames racing straight for my papers. We faced each other in the smoldering light.

As the fire roared and burned brighter, he rushed forward and picked up all the papers. His eyes

widened at the sight of his score and my drawings. I reached for the book, anxious only for Speck's

letter, and he threw it into the corner for me to re-trieve. When I turned around, Henry Day was gone,

and his weapons—the rope, the knife, the iron bar—were on the floor. The trapdoor banged closed,

and a long, thin crack opened overhead. The flames burst upward, brighten-ing the room as if sun bore

through the walls.

On the ceiling a picture began to emerge in the interne light. In the ordinary darkness, the surface

lines seemed nothing more than random cracks and pockmarks in the foundation, but as the fire reached

more fuel, the out-lines flared and flickered. The shapes puzzled me, but once I perceived the pieces, the

whole became apparent: the ragged East Coast of the United States, the fishlike contours of the Great

Lakes, the broad and empty plains, the Rockies, and on to the Pacific. Directly above my head, the

black brushstroke of the Mississippi divided the nation, and somewhere in Missouri, her trail crossed the

river and raced west. Speck had marked her escape route and drawn a map of the trail to follow from

our valley to the western ocean. She must have worked alone in the dark for months or years, arms

arched to the ceiling, chipping away at the stone or painting with a rough brush, not show-ing a soul,

hoping for the day her secret would be discovered. Around the outline of the country, she had etched

and painted on that rough concrete a constellation of drawings invisible these many years. Hundreds of

inscriptions, primitive and childlike, images laid over other images, each story told on i»»p of its ancestor.

Some of the drawings looked ancient, as if a prehistoric being had been here and left memories like

paintings on a cave wall: a flock of crows lighting from a tree, a brace of quail, deer at a stream. She had

drawn wildflowers, oxlips, violets, and thyme. There were creatures from her dreams, horned men with

rifles and fierce dogs. Sprites and imps and goblins. Icarus, Vishnu, the angel Gabriel. Others as modern

as cartoons: Ignatz throws the brick at Krazy Kat, Little Nemo slumbers in Wonderland, Koko jumps

out of the inkwell. A mother with a child in her arms. A pod of whales arcing through the waves. Spirals

roped into knots, a garland knitted from morning glory vines. The pictures unwrapped themselves in the

dancing flames. The temperature rose as in an oven, but I could not save myself from her wild designs. In

the darkest corner, she had painted a left hand and a right hand, thumbs overlap-ping. Her name and

mine in a dozen fonts. Two figures raced over a hill; a boy with his hand caught in a beehive; a pair of

readers sat back to back on a mountain of books. On the ceiling above the entrance to the outer world,

she had carved Come with me and play. The fire sucked in the oxygen, and the rush of air caught my

heart and blew it open. I had to leave.

I studied Speck's passage west, hoping to commit it to memory. Why had I never before thought to

look up? A cinder popped and flew like the devil up under my eyelid. Smoke and heat filled the room,

so I gathered McInnes's book and a few other papers and ran to the exit, but my bundle would not fit

through the crack. Another pile of blankets ignited, sending a wave of heat that knocked me to my

knees. I tore open the package, scattering papers to the floor. Close at hand were Speck's letter and a

few stray childhood draw-ings, which I pressed against my chest; then I squeezed through the opening