The Stolen Child(98)

lighten their loads. The first man took out a book and read something from it to the girl, while the third

hiker went off behind the trees to relieve himself. He was gone a long time, for the man with the book

had the chance not only to finish his poem but to kiss the girl, as well. When their small interlude ended,

the three-some strapped on their gear and marched away. We waited a decent spell be-fore running to

the spot they had vacated.

Two empty water bottles littered the ground, and Luchóg snatched them up and found the caps

nearby. They had discarded the cellophane wrappers from their snacks, and the boy had left his slim

volume of poems lying on the grass. Chavisory gave it to me. The Blue Estuaries by Louise Bogan. I

leafed through a few pages and stopped at the phrase That more things move/Than blood in the

heart.

"Speck," I said to myself. I had not said her name aloud in ages, in cen-turies.

"What is it, Aniday?" Chavisory asked.

"I am trying to remember."

The four of us walked back to the garden. I turned to see if my com-rades were following the same

path, only to discover Luchóg and Chavisory, walking step by ginger step, holding hands. My thoughts

flooded with Speck. I felt an urgency to find her again, if only to understand why she had gone. To tell

her how the private conversations of my mind were still with her. I should have asked her not to go,

found the right words to convince her, confessed all that moved in my heart. And ever hopeful that it was

not too late, I resolved to begin again.

• C H A P T E R 3 1 •

I would not want to be a child again, for a child exists in uncertainty and danger. Our flesh and

blood, we cannot help but fear for them, as we hope for them to make their way in this life. After the

break-in, I worried about our son all of the time. Edward is not who we say he is because his father is an

imposter. He is not a Day, but a changeling's child. I passed on my original genes, giving him the face and

features of the Ungerlands, and who knows what other traits leapt the generations. Of my own

childhood, I know little more than a name on a piece of paper: Gustav Ungerland. I was stolen long ago.

And when the changelings came again, I began to believe they saw Ed-ward as one of their own and

wished to reclaim him. The mess they left in the kitchen was a subterfuge for a more sinister purpose.

The disturbed photo-graphs on the wall indicated that they were searching for someone. Wicked-ness

hovered in the background and crept through the woods, plotting to steal our son.

We lost Edward one Sunday in springtime. On that gloriously warm afternoon, we happened to be

in the city, for I had discovered a passable pipe organ in a church in Shadyside, and after services the

music minister allowed me an hour to experiment with the machine, trying out what new sounds coursed

through my imagination. Afterward, Tess and I took Edward to the zoo for his first face-to-face

encounter with elephants and monkeys. A huge crowd shared our idea, and the walkways were

crammed with couples push-ing strollers, desultory teenagers, even a family with six redheaded children,

staggered a year apart, a conspiracy of freckles and blue eyes. Too many people for my taste, but we

jostled along without complaint. Edward was fascinated by the tigers and loitered in front of the iron

fence, pulling at his cotton candy, roaring at the beasts to encourage them out of their drowsiness. In its

black-and-orange dreams, one tiger twitched its tail, annoyed by my son's entreaties. Tess took

advantage of Edward's distraction to confront me.

"Henry, I want to talk to you about Eddie. Does he seem all right to you? There's been a change

lately, and something—I don't know—not nor-mal."

I could see him over her shoulder. "He's perfectly normal."

"Or maybe it's you," she said. "You've been different with him lately. Overprotective, not letting him

be a kid. He should be outdoors catching polliwogs and climbing trees, but it's as if you're afraid of him

being out of your sight. He needs the chance to become more independent."

I pulled her off to the side, out of our son's hearing. "Do you remember the night someone broke

into the house?"

"I knew it," she said. "You said not to worry, but you've been preoccu-pied with that, haven't you?"

"No, no, I just remembered, when I was looking at the photographs on the walls that night, it made

me think of my own childhood dreams—years at the piano, searching for the right music to express

myself. I have been looking for the answers, Tess, and they were right under my fingertips. Today in the

church, the organ sounded just like the one at St. Nicholas's in Cheb. The organ is the answer to the