Part 14 (1/2)
”Indeed. And then he changedme into a bird. An eagle.”
”Mother...”
”Just hear me out. I know this sounds like madness-maybe Iam mad! But if I don't tell someone, I'll burst.”
”Go ahead.” His mouth was trembling, his eyes wide.
I hesitated. Could I tell him about Eve birthing herself, about my transformation into a ravenous reptile, about being the Dark Man and watching a world's birth, growth, and death?
”Do you remember Flammarion'sLumen?” He shook his head. ”It's the book I read on the Mississippi, that the two French girls loaned to me.”
”Oh, yes,” he said, visibly relieved. ”They were cute.”
”The hero of that book. Lumen, has a sort of spirit guide, Quaerens, who takes him out into s.p.a.ce and shows him... something of the nature of the universe. That's what happened to me.”
The mantle on the kerosene lamp started to sputter. Daniel lit a candle and turned off the lamp. Our shadows wavered and loomed like watching ghosts.
”So this bird was your spirit guide?”
”He took the form of a raven because it was convenient and appropriate. What he showed me, though...”
I sipped the cooling tea and gathered my thoughts.
”He showed me that every world that is possible does exist somewhere. I couldn't live in the world where you and Doc had died in a senseless tragedy. When I tried to take myself from that world with the Pinkerton man's revolver-”
”We p.a.w.ned that revolver in Seattle.”
”Inthis world! In mine, I talked you into leaving it with me, and so in Dawson City you faced a gunman unarmed, and died.
And when I tried to use it to leave that world, Raven-the raven appeared.”
”And he guided you here.”
”Somehow.” I took his hand in both of mine and stopped holding back tears. ”Somehow.”
He gently extricated himself and began pacing. ”And this also happened to the Lumen guy in the book?”
I thought for a moment, wiping my eyes. ”No... not to him personally. He just observed it.”
He leaned on the windowsill and looked out. The sky was just starting to lighten into peach; short summer nights. ”It could have been a dream.”
”No.”
Still talking to the window: ”Watching the crewman die so horribly-that did happen in your world?”
”It did.”
”Well, it gaveme nightmares. Probably will for the rest of my life. Maybe-”
”It gaveme nightmares, too-more than half a year ago!”
He turned and gave me a weary and troubled look.
”All right,” I said, ”If I've been in Sitka for only a day, where and how did I learn Tlingit?Kit-ka'ositiya-ga-yet.”
Hearing me say those alien syllables-it had taken me months before I could say them without the children hiding their smiles behind hands-that was probably more solid proof than the clothing that wasn't black.
”What does that mean?” He came back and sat across from me.
”It's Raven's original name. What else would you like me to say?”
He shook his head. ”What happens... happened in Dawson City?”
”Some drunkard picked a fight with Doc. You went to help him and the man pulled out a gun and shot both of you, heart and head.”
”How did you hear about it?”
”Chuck dictated a letter. The man who wrote it, Morris Chambers, said you were very brave. Doc was, too.” I made a helpless gesture. ”I wish I could show it to you. But I have nothing from that world except my memories, and what I'm wearing.”
”You don't need anything. Mother.” He kneaded his forehead. ”I have to believe you. Even if that world was some kind of dream, it was also real.”
”Or this world is the dream, as it seems to me. Maybe they're all dreams, in the mind of G.o.d.”
He almost said something about that, but kept his peace. From my distant perspective now, I can see that I'd just put another piece of fuel on his smoldering atheism. He'd witnessed the most horrible death he would see in his whole lifetime, and then his mother wakes him up in the middle of the night with the strangest tale he would ever hear.
If there is a G.o.d, he would say in later life, he's not the sort of person I'd want over for dinner.
”Are you going to tell Chuck and Doc?”
I thought for a moment. ”What do you think?”
”I don't know. Doc would believe you if you told him black was white.”
I smiled. ”Chuck is not so smitten.”
”Chuck's down to earth.”
So was I, finally, gladly. ”For now, let's keep it between you and me.” He nodded vigorously. I stood and picked up the candle. ”Now you try to get some sleep. I have to write for awhile.”
The room had a small table with a straight-backed chair. I picked up my diary. The last entry was about the horrific accident with the boiler, with a few lines about Sitka. I hadn't gone to meet Reverend Bower.
In this world, I never would, I thought.
I wrote as fast as the words would come. Daniel tossed and turned, silently got up and had another drink, and finally snored.
First I described the worlds Raven had shown me, a sketchy account that I would later expand, and the sun was bright and high by the time I got to my return to Earth and Raven's odd statement. Guardian, not of my life, but of life itself.
The world reborn.
There was a soft knocking on the door. I opened it a crack and saw Doc. ”Dan's still asleep,” I whispered.