was unmistakable that time. The voice was clear, blowing out through the branches. A child’s voice. Soft and innocent. Compelling him to do the only thing he had been unwilling to do for the last fifty years.
Let go.
Ambrose stopped digging. He knelt silently in the dirt, and rather than use his hands to tear the earth, he put his head in them and sobbed. The grief and guilt flooded his body as the memories returned. The baby his mother brought home from the hospital. “His name is David.” His brother crawling then walking then running then climbing down the ivy wall. Going to the woods to save a world that had failed him so completely.
“David, I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
The old man stood, the dirt falling off his shoulders. His face found the surface, and he filled his lungs with fresh air. He looked through the halos in his eyes and saw something come out of the shadows.
A light.
It stopped in front of him and floated like a cloud with all of the lightning trapped inside. Ambrose moved his trembling fingers to his mouth and pulled a piece of thread stuck in the corner. He felt his lips pinch with a little stab of pain. Then, his jaw loosened as he realized that his mouth had been sewn together. Ambrose reached up and felt his eyes. They were sewn shut with the same evil string.
Ambrose pulled the thread and finally freed his eyes. He saw where he really was. There was no garden. No tree house. No grave. There was only the woods with what looked like thousands of other people. They were all freeing themselves of that string. A great quilt unraveling itself back to thread. And the light that stood in front of him was not a light at all.
It was David.
He was still a little boy. Scrawny. Missing those two front teeth. But his tongue had been replaced by a serpent’s. Ambrose saw his brother cover his mouth, ashamed. Just like the men he served with who lost limbs or more after fire or shrapnel made them strangers to their own mirrors. Ambrose shook his head and gently moved his brother’s hand away from his mouth.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re a hero.”
David smiled. Ambrose held his arms open, and his little brother melted into them. He smelled like baseball gloves. And he still had that amazing head of hair.
“I’m sorry, David. I’m sorry.”
David pulled away and shook his head. No. Then, he knelt down and dragged his finger in the dirt. Ambrose saw four words. He would have known his brother’s real handwriting anywhere.
YOU ARE FREE NOW
Chapter 130
The words drifted on the wind. They moved through the clouds and the clearing, spreading from the imaginary world to the real.
Mrs. Keizer stood in the middle of the clearing. She thought she saw her husband in the fog.
“Please,” she begged him. “What was my name before I met you? I can’t live without knowing my name.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to be Mrs. KeiZer anymore?” the voice asked.
“Yes!” she screamed.
Her husband stopped and smiled and snapped his fingers.
“Okay. You’re not Mrs. KeiZer.”
In an instant, he took away the name Keizer, leaving her no name at all. She had never gotten married. She had never had her beautiful daughter Kathy. Her body began to shrivel. Her arthritic hands and broken hip. She felt like she aged fifty years in fifty seconds. Her hearing began to fail. Her mind. Her memory. Mrs. Keizer stood in the middle of the clearing. She thought she saw her husband in the fog.
“Please,” she begged him. “What was my name before I met you? I can’t live without knowing my name.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to be Mrs. KeiZer anymore?” the voice asked.
But this time, Mrs. Keizer didn’t hear it. She heard something else. Words on the wind. Or were they inside her own mind?
“You are free now.”
Mrs. Keizer stopped. Something felt so familiar about this moment. She was sure she had done this only five minutes ago. She had said yes, and her husband took away the name Keizer. She had never gotten married. She had never had her beautiful daughter Kathy.
“Are you sure you don’t want to be Mrs. KeiZer anymore?” her husband repeated.
Mrs. Keizer turned around. She looked into the clearing at her little girl freezing in the backyard.
“No. I want to be Mrs. Keizer,” she said. “My daughter is cold.”