The valley is us.
Christopher picked up his father’s string and held it tightly in his hands. He brought the string to his lips, took a deep breath, and pushed the words down the string. Like a child making a telephone with two tin cans.
“You are free now.”
Chapter 128
The sheriff felt the blood rush through his temple. He saw the girl with the painted nails dead in her hospital bed. He turned to run through the door to find a doctor as he had a hundred times already. He was a hamster on a wheel, trying to outrun a past that was always right in front of him. It had never occurred to him that he didn’t need to run.
Until now.
“You are free now.”
He didn’t know where the voice came from. But there it was in his mind like a seed in soil. The sheriff stopped running. He turned and walked back to the hospital bed. He faced her. His heart in his throat. He knelt down. A bear of a man who suddenly felt so small. The sheriff closed his eyes and held her like a father. He saw light dance behind his eyelids.
When the sheriff opened his eyes, he looked at the girl with the painted nails. But she wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was a grown woman. Maybe thirty years old. With bright eyes and a warm smile. She was in a white hospital gown. She held a baby in her arms. The little baby was sleeping.
“Where are we?” the sheriff said.
“We’re in Mercy Hospital,” she said. “You’re a grandpa.”
“I am?”
She smiled a patient smile. He saw the color in her blue eyes. Little flecks of light stretching into their own universe.
“Don’t you remember?” she asked. “You came back into the room with my milk and you finished reading that story. You took me home for my first real Christmas. You moved me away from the city, so I would be safe. I grew up in that little house in Mill Grove. I went to a real school. I was in the school plays. I even got to be Annie one night when Mary Kosko got sick. I graduated from high school. I went to Pitt. You cried at all of my graduations. You walked me down the aisle. We danced at my wedding. Don’t you remember?”
She slipped her arm through his. Her arm felt warm and soft. Like an angel.
“I do now,” he said. “I remember all of that.”
“Then, you remember when I told you that you were going to be a grandfather. And you remember when I told you he was a boy. And my husband and I decided to name him Bobby…after the man who saved my life.”
The sheriff looked down at his grandson, sleeping peacefully. A lifetime of memories flooded through him. All of the life she would have had. She got to live it every day. Forever. The sheriff looked up at his daughter, who smiled back at him. She put her hand on his. She slowly rubbed his hand where he had scratched himself to the bone. In an instant, the itch was gone. The skin was healed.
“God is not a murderer, Daddy,” she said.
The sheriff nodded and felt the tears wet on his face. He didn’t realize he had been crying.
“Can I stay with you here?” he asked.
“Not yet, Daddy. You have to live your life before you get to live your Heaven.”
The sheriff held her and sobbed.
“We need your help, Daddy. This is a war. And the good guys have to win the war this time. You have to wake up right now. You have to help her. She’s right next to you. You have to open your eyes.”
“They are open.”
“No, Daddy. I’m behind your eyelids. You have to open your eyes.”
The sheriff slowly reached up and touched the thread holding his eyelids closed. He felt the thread keeping his mouth shut. The string in his hand.
“Drop the string, Daddy. She’s standing right next to you. Save her.”
The sheriff nodded to his adopted daughter and smiled. He dropped the string and pulled the thread that held his eyes closed.
“You are free now.”
The sheriff opened his eyes. His real eyes. He looked around the woods and saw thousands of mailbox people stretching to the horizon. They were all moaning and twitching. Trying to find the way to get free. He dropped the string and turned to his right, expecting to find Kate Reese.
Instead, he saw a little girl with her eyes and mouth stitched up. He knelt down and gently took the string out of her hand. He slid the stitching out of her mouth and took the thread away from her eyes.
“I’m a police officer, honey. I’m here to help you.”
The little girl opened her eyes and fell into his arms, crying. The sheriff held her. He would have known that little girl anywhere.
Her name was Emily Bertovich.
She held him, the warmth from her hands washing over him. In an instant, he saw the pictures unfold. The man who took her from the driveway. The fear she felt. The pain. The place where her body was buried. And finally, the peace.
“Will you tell my parents all that?” she asked.
The sheriff nodded, his eyes wet with tears.
“Yes, Emily,” he said. “You are free now.”
Chapter 129
Ambrose’s hands ripped through the dirt of his little brother’s grave. He felt himself getting lost in the cold ground. The dirt in his mouth. His eyes. Worms crawling on his body. He was burying himself alive, but he couldn’t stop. He had to find his brother’s body. He could save David this time. He could finally hold his brother again.
“You are free now.”
Ambrose didn’t know where the voice came from. Was it in the woods above him? The earth below? Was it inside his mind? He didn’t know, so he dismissed it. His hands kept digging through the dirt. He couldn’t let his brother die again. He couldn’t let—
“You are free now.”
It 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.”
&nb
sp; 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.”
Then, she picked herself up and walked back toward her Kathy.
“whaT?! iF yoU leT heR iN thE kitcheN, i’lL breaK youR fuckinG necK, lynN!”
Mrs. Keizer didn’t listen to her husband. He could beat her all day this time. She didn’t care anymore. Her daughter was freezing in the backyard. Her daughter would never be cold again.
“iF yoU leT heR iN thE kitcheN, yoU arE ouT oF thiS housE. yoU caN gO bacK tO beinG thaT dumB littlE worthlesS bitcH, lynN—”
“Wilkinson,” she said aloud. “My name was Lynn Wilkinson.”
She opened the door and brought her freezing little girl back into the warm kitchen.
“Kathy,” she said. “You are free now.”
Mrs. Collins looked back at her mother. She suddenly felt like a little girl again. She remembered the feeling of her mother wrapping her up in a towel after a bath. The steam from the shower covering the mirror like a fog. Mrs. Collins wasn’t cold anymore. But someone else was. Someone in her own backyard.
She turned and saw her son Brady in the doghouse, shivering in the cold. She opened the door and brought her freezing son into the warm kitchen. Her husband joined her. They were a family again.
“Brady, I’m sorry,” she said. “You are free now.”
The word spread through the clearing. Mrs. Henderson dropped the knife and held her husband. Ms. Lasko put down her drink. Jerry stopped swinging his arms and hitting himself.
Jenny Hertzog heard her mother’s sweet voice. “Stop, Jenny! Stop drowning him!” Jenny stopped pushing her stepbrother and used her hands to rip the thread from her mouth instead. In an instant, the truth poured from her mouth to her father in floods. Her father took the threads from his eyes. The silence was over. The healing began.
The words traveled through the clearing from Special Ed to Matt to Mike, their parents, and their town. Freeing their minds. Their bodies followed. The fevers broke. The itching stopped. The fear melted away with the madness. The frogs stood safely away from the boiling pot of water that each carried under the skin. The flu was no more.
“You are free now.”
Chapter 131
Christopher’s mother and the nice man fell to the street. Her hands ripped at his eyes. His fingers tore through her flesh. She fought back, but she was running out of strength. Christopher’s warning echoed in her mind.
The power comes at a price.
She staggered back and the nice man wrapped himself around her like a snake. His skin stretching over her mouth as he prepared the needle and thread for her eternity. He whispered in her ear. She felt the world’s madness. The evil that made God cry at night. With every word, she grew weaker and weaker.
“Kate, your son is about to be eaten alive. There iS only one way to save him now.”
She saw the hissing lady. The deer swarmed her like sharks in a feeding frenzy. The damned jumped on her back. One after the other. Biting. Scratching. Clawing.
“Christopher gave you his poweR. If you kill hEr with it, I will let you go.”
Christopher’s mother could feel the backs of her eyelids licking her eyes moist. Her eyes boiling with fever. With vision. She was omnipotent, but this was his world. She could see him. He was terrified. And terrifying. Burning with cold fury.
“I’ve known too many men like you,” she said.
“No, you haven’t, katE.”
Then, he sewed her mouth shut.
“You’ve never met anyone like mE.”
Then, the nice man bit a chunk out of Christopher’s mother’s neck. He was everywhere and nowhere. Everyman and no man.
“So, if you won’t kill her, you will become heR.”
She fought back with everything she had. Broken and bleeding. Until he choked the blood out of her like water from a sponge and threw her on the street like trash. Her skin scraped off on the pavement, and she landed in a heap right next to the hissing lady on the lawn. The deer and the damned began to circle the two women. They couldn’t battle all of Hell by themselves. They would need an army. But at least her son got away. That’s all that mattered.
“Mom.”
Christopher’s mother turned and saw her son.
Walking out of the woods.
Alone.
“NO!” she screamed, ripping the threads from her mouth. “LEAVE ME! RUN! RUN!”
The deer ran at him.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Christopher said.
“OFF THE STREET!” the hissing lady screamed.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m here.”
Christopher’s mother struggled to move as the man in the Girl Scout uniform climbed out of the tunnel with the rest of the damned and charged at her son.
*
Christopher paid them no mind. He just walked out of the woods. Fearless. He felt the voices come back to him through the string. The voices didn’t rip his head apart anymore. There were no headaches. There was no fever. All he did was listen to the voices on the string. Everyone’s past. The secrets. The lost innocence. The pain. Identity. Disappointment. Rage. Confusion. The regret. The guilt. The love. The loss. Of all humanity. It wasn’t pain. It was power. Fear is not fear. It is excitement afraid of its own light. The whole world stretched out in front of him. All of the people on Earth. Christopher never felt such love. Such hope. Such gratitude. Every single soul in that line. He knew their names and their loves and their hopes and their dreams. He knew them, and he was them. Just as they were him.
“You are free now.”
Christopher felt the mailbox people tear at the strings like elephants who suddenly remembered that a rope is not a chain. They opened their eyes like miners seeing the sun after a hundred years underground. They tore the strings from their mouths. The words spilled through the valley. The woods. The clearing. This fight wasn’t over. The nice man had not won. It was still a war, and the good guys would keep fighting this war u
ntil there were no good guys left. They didn’t need an army.
They were the army.
Chapter 132
Christopher emerged from the woods with Ambrose, David, the sheriff, and a thousand mailbox people behind them. They looked down the street where the other mailbox people stretched as far as the eye could see. The threads from their mouths now resting on the ground around their feet. Their eyes unzipped. Finally opened.
In silence, they turned their gaze to the nice man. They glowed with the rage of centuries. For all of the misery. For the million times he made them see a loved one die. A mother suffer. A child harmed. Christopher took the string in his hand, and the energy shot through him as he spoke.
“We are free now,” he said.
The string dropped.
And the mailbox people ran at the nice man.
Starting with Christopher’s father.
Kate was speechless. For a moment, she forgot where she was. Even with everything she had seen, she still didn’t know if he was real. Until their eyes met, and she felt the whispers travel from his gaze to hers. She knew he was sorry for forgetting what he had in her. She knew that he thought the sheriff was a good man. She knew he was saying goodbye. For now.
“Wait. Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m going to protect my family this time,” he said. “I love you, Katie.”
With that, he kissed his wife. All of her regret and loss gone in an instant of peace. Then, he turned and ran at the nice man, yelling to the rest of the mailbox people,
“FOLLOW ME INTO THE LIGHT!”
He launched himself at the nice man. The moment he hit skin, Christopher’s father transformed into light. Burning hot like the sun. The son. The star. The soul. Ascending to Heaven.
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