Epilogue: Calling

After years of tireless searching, we had found only one.

Reece and I spent dozens of evenings walking through graveyards.  The wrinkles forming around his mouth grew deeper every trip we took, and at the end of the night he could only shake his head.

“It’s no use.”  He sighed, kicking the snow at his feet.  “I don’t know what’s happened.  I can’t sense anyone.  I haven’t sensed anyone in years.”

I put my hands on his shoulders and tried to smile, though my own heart was sinking faster with every year that went by.  “We will keep looking.  We cannot give up.”

Mr. Peter called us back to Dragon Valley on one such night.  He had a lead on where we could find a second Philosopher Stone.  We met him in Harmony Hospital, where I worked.  His health had taken a turn for the worse and the diagnosis was growing even grimmer.

“Here.”  Mr. Peters said, coughing as he handed me an address book.  “I’ve written down his number and address.  He lives in Bridgeport.  His collection is extensive, but I’m not sure how much you would need to offer him in order to get him to part with such a valuable artifact.”

He dissolved into a fit of coughing.  I ran to get him a glass of water, and patted his back as I lifted it to his lips.

He fell back onto his pillow, his brow slick with sweat.  “It seems that I might soon join the souls you seek in the Netherworld.”

I set the glass on the table, and smiled.  “The Netherworld is not all there is.”

Mr. Peters looked up at me.  “What else is there?”

I leaned back in my chair and sighed.  My eyes misted over.  “ ‘White shores… and beyond them a far green county under a swift sunrise.’ ”

Mr. Peters closed his eyes.  “Ah… I knew it.”

“We are gathered here today to honor the life and memory of Edmund Peters, beloved bookseller, professor, scholar, and friend.”

“Mr. Peters asked that I read this sonnet at his service.  During his life, it was one of his favorites…”

“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”

When the service was over, I folded up my notes and pressed my lips to Mr. Peter’s coffin.

“Say hello to Mother for me.”  I whispered.

Snow was falling when we emerged from the church. 

“Did you realize that today is the winter solstice?”  Reece whispered in my ear.    I silently shook my head, and he kissed my cheek.  “Happy anniversary.”

So much had happened in the last eighteen years.  Already, my second life was full to the bursting with love, success, and fulfilled dreams.

But one dream still eluded me.

I sighed, and glanced back at my children.

Evangeline ran her hands through Gawain's hair.  Bowen was growing so tall.  I had no doubt that he would soon surpass Evangeline.  Maybe even his father.

One, two, three…

I frowned.

Seeing the look on my face, Evangeline looked down and around.  Her face paled.  “I swear she was right here…” 

“You have been a bad influence on her.”  I sighed, shaking my head.  “Come on.”

Reece, Evangeline, and the boys split in different directions, calling out and kneeling down to peer behind tombstones.  I searched along the stone fence and crossed the bridge to the other side of the graveyard.

At last, I spotted my four-year old daughter staring intently at the freshly dug dirt beneath a tall gravestone.  She sucked on one thumb and used the other to draw circles in the air.

“Odette!”  I called.

She turned around and smiled at me.  With the thumb she had been sucking, she pointed back to the gravestone. 

“Mommy, who is that man?” 

I knelt down next to her.   “What man?”

“That one.”  She pointed again.  Her thumb drew circles in the air, outlining a shape at the base of the gravestone.  “He’s right there.  Is he sleeping?”

“I do not see anyone.”  I said, lifting her up in my arms.

I heard running footsteps behind me.  I turned my head and Evangeline skidded to a halt a few feet away.  Her eyes widened, and she let out a little gasp.

Odette frowned and squirmed in my arms.  “Oh… well I don’t see him.  But I feel him.  Right there.”

She pointed again.  I stared at her with my mouth agape.

“I… I feel him too.”  Evangeline whispered.  She stepped forward, reaching out with one hand.  “He’s… he’s an old man, I think.  Just… sitting there at the base of the…”

“Reece!”  I cried, interrupting her.

My husband and my two sons came running.  Bowen’s expression changed as he got closer.  He pursed his lips together and furrowed his brow, staring at the gravestone.  Gawain’s eyes widened, and he hung back behind Reece.

“Reece, do you feel him?”  I asked, pointing at the grave.

Reece blinked in confusion.  He slowly shook his head.  “No… I don’t feel anything…”

 “I feel him.”  Bowen said, stepping forward next to Evangeline.  He reached out, just as she did, tracing a line in the air.  “Who… who is he?”  He turned back to me.  “What’s going on?”

“Gawain!”  I called, setting Odette down on the ground.  “Do you feel him too?”

Gawain nodded his head, his eyes still wide.

 I turned back to Reece, barely able to contain my excitement.  “All of them!”

“But I… I don’t…”  Reece said, his face falling.

I touched his shoulder.  “Maybe the gift faded with time!  Maybe that is the reason you have not found anyone in years!”

Reece bit his lip.  “Maybe…”

“Wait…”  Evangeline said.  She stretched out her hand, her fingers grasping at thin air.  “He’s moving!  He’s…”

Her fingers froze and her face fell.  I heard Gawain let out a sigh behind me.  Odette’s head bowed down.

 Evangeline turned around and stuck her hands back in her pockets.  “He’s gone.  I… I don’t feel him anymore.”

“Me neither.”  Bowen whispered.

I tried not to let my disappointment show on my face.  I had already been planning to call our friends back and try to get the Philosopher’s Stone here this very night.  But if the old man had left the Void, there was no drawing him back from this side. 

I smiled at the bewildered faces of my four children.  There might be hope for that old man yet.  He may return to the Void where we could reach him tomorrow, next year, or within the hour.  In the meantime, there were likely thousands of others waiting.

I reached down and wound my fingers through Odette’s.  “Come.  I want to show you something.”

Our footsteps crunched through the snow.  I led my children to one old, weathered gravestone.

“Mom?”  Evangeline asked, pursing her lips together as she glanced around.  She recognized this area of the cemetery, though we had not been here in years.  “Why are we here?”

I stopped in front of the grave, my grave, and smiled.

I was born here." I told her, turning around.

Bowen chuckled, shaking his head.  "I thought you were born six hundred years ago on the fields of Tryblith while your mother used one arm to stab a dozen drag-!"

"Not the first time.” I said, interrupting him.  “The second time."

My children fell into a somber silence.  Reece reached out and rubbed my shoulder, a warm smile on his face.  I took a deep breath, starring out into the flurries of snow falling over the night street.

"I've been to the Netherworld.  It's a wasteland of hopelessness.”  I took a wandering step back towards my grave, and a smile cracked at the corners of my mouth.  “But I've also been to the place on the other side of the Netherworld, the place where faith and dreams collide.  And it was breathtaking.  It was as if my eyes were finally opened, and all the mist had at last been stripped away.  It was home.  It was the place that we were really made for.  I ache for the day that I can return."

I continued, my eyes downcast.  "But there is a shadow on that ray of joy.  When I wandered the Netherworld, there were others like me.  Hundreds, thousands... I could not number them.  They will never reach the other side because it cannot be reached.  Not through the Netherworld." 

I stared down at my own grave, shaking my head in dismay.  "I'm not sure what traps a soul in the Netherworld.  Unfinished business, unanswered questions…  an unfulfilled prophecy.” I finished, throwing a smile towards my children.  I caught the glimmer of a grin on Reece’s face.    “What I do know, is that they will never find their way to home, not without help."

Evangeline and Bowen exchanged a glance.  She stepped forward, biting her lip.

"What would you have us do, mother?" she asked.

I looked at each of them in turn.

"Find a soul.  Wake them up."