The Stolen Child(80)

ceremony, I half expected that when the double doors opened to the daylight there would be a retinue of

changelings waiting to take me away. I did my best to forget my past, to dismiss the thought that I was a

fraud.

At the reception, my mother and Uncle Charlie were the first to greet us, and they had not only

paid for the party but even made us a gift of a hon-eymoon in Europe. While we were away in Germany,

they would elope to-gether, but that afternoon it was passing strange to see him where Bill Day should

have been. Nostalgia for my father was fleeting, for we were leaving behind the past and claiming life. So

much would change over the next few years. George Knoll would leave town a few weeks after the

wedding to wan-der across the country for a year, and he ended up in San Francisco, running a

sidewalk bistro with an older woman from Spain. With no Coverboys, Oscar would buy a jukebox that

fall, and the customers would still flock in for drinks and pop music. Jimmy Cummings took my old job

behind the bar. Even my baby sisters were growing up.

Mary and Elizabeth brought their latest boyfriends, a couple of long-haired twins, to the reception,

and at the center of the party, Uncle Charlie regaled the crowd with his latest scheme. "Those houses up

on the ridge are only the beginning. People are not merely going to move out of the cities; they're going

to be moving as far away as they can. My company is sitting on a gold mine in this county."

My mother sidled up to him, and he put his arm around her waist and rested his hand on her hip.

"When I first heard about the trouble up in the woods and sending in the National Guard, well, my

first thought was that when the government was through, land would be dirt cheap."

She laughed so willingly at his pun that I flinched. Tess squeezed my arm to prevent me from saying

what I was thinking.

"Country living. Moderately priced, safe and secure, perfect for young couples looking to start a

family." As if on cue, he and my mother stared right at Tess's belly. Already they were full of hope.

Feigning innocence, Elizabeth asked, "How about you two, Uncle Charlie?"

Tess squeezed my bottom, and I let out a tiny whoop just as Jimmy Cummings stepped up to

speak. "I wouldn't want to live up there, man."

"Of course not, Jimmy," Mary said. "After all you went through in those woods."

"There's something up there," he told the party. "Did you hear the ru-mor about those wild little girls

they found the other night?"

The guests began to drift off in pairs and start new conversations. Since his rescue of young Oscar

Love, Jimmy had acquired a reputation for tiresome repetitions of the story, exaggerating details until it

became a tall tale. When he launched into another yarn, he was bound to be dismissed as merely

an-other storyteller, desperate for attention. "No really," he said to the few of us remaining. "I heard the

local fuzz found these two girls, 'bout six or seven, I hear, who had broken into the drugstore in the dead

of night and smashed everything in sight. The cops were scared of those girls, said they were spooky as

a pair of cats. Man, they could barely speak a word of English or any language known to man. Put two

and two together. They were living up in the woods—remember that place I found Oscar? Maybe there

are others up there. Put your mind around that. Like a whole lost tribe of wild children. It's a trip, man."

Elizabeth was staring at me when she asked him, "What happened to them? Where are those two

girls?"

"Can't confirm or deny a rumor," he said, "and I didn't actually see them with my own two eyes, but

I don't have to. Did you know the FBI came and took 'em away? To Washington, DC, and their secret

labs, so they could study them."

I turned to Oscar, who stood slack-jawed, listening to Jimmy. "Are you sure you want this boy

tending bar for you, Oscar? Seems like he's been hit-ting the bottle a bit too much."

Jimmy came right up to my face and said sotto voce, "Know the trouble with you, Henry? You lack

imagination. But they're up there, man. You better freakin' believe it."

During the flight to Germany, dreams of changelings interrupted what sleep I could manage on the

airplane. When Tess and I landed in damp and overcast Frankfurt, we had two different expectations for

our honeymoon. Poor thing, she wanted adventure, excitement, and romance. Two young lovers

traveling through Europe. Bistros, wine and cheese, jaunts on motorbikes. I was looking for a ghost and

evidence of my past, but all I knew could be written on a cocktail napkin: Gustav Ungerland, 1859,

Eger.

Immediately bewildered by the city, we found a small room in a pension on Mendelssohnstrasse.