Inside was a single page, folded neatly in three. Vince placed the torn envelope beside him on the pew and gently unfolded the letter. Blank. He turned it over. Here he found his message.
In the center of the page, scribbled in dark ink, there was nothing but two small words, “Umbia Rah.”
Vince just stared at it. He didn’t know what to think. Umbia Rah? Umbia Rah? This was what his grandfather left him? This was his final wish, his final words? This was what Vince meant to him? A joke?
He crumpled the paper into a tight ball and wept even harder.
I believed, he cried. I believed, I believed, I believed. I just wanted to see my dad again. I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I just thought that if I wished hard enough, he’d come back to me. You found what you were looking for, why didn’t I? Your tales were supposed to guide me, Grandpa. I needed them to guide me.
After another five minutes, the paper still crumpled in his fist, Vince rose out of his seat and sluggishly ambled down the aisle and out of the empty church, nothing left behind but the echoes of his footsteps.
Outside, the light assaulted his eyes; the cold, his skin. Hand shielding the sun, heart slamming hard within his chest, he looked about the square. It was empty except for an idling car melting the snow upon which it sat. It was waiting there to take him back to the orphanage. Mrs. West stood outside it, M holding the door open.
“You won, Vincent,” Mrs. West called out to him, her tone full of bitterness. “You got what you wanted. And I get to take you back in one piece. Mission accomplished. Time to go home now.”
But this was not the home he was looking for. As the snow began to fall yet again, Vince gazed across the square and noticed another car pull up to the church, its doors opening at once.
Emerging from the vehicle were MJ and her parents. They rushed Vince, embracing him as one.
“We were so worried about you,” Michele said, hugging him tight. “You didn’t need to run. We would have seen that you got here.”
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” MJ cried.
Mrs. West hustled over, brusquely interrupting the reunion. “What is going on here? Vincent, who are these people?”
Paul turned and glared at her. “Are you from the orphanage? Are you the one who wouldn’t allow him to come say good-bye to his grandfather?”
“It’s okay,” Vince said in a weak voice. “It’s over now. It’s time for me to go back.”
“Yes. Right this minute too,” Mrs. West said. “He’s been gone long enough.”
“Mom!” MJ shouted, and Michele bent down in front of Vince, a hand on either shoulder.
“You don’t have to go, Vince. Not if you don’t want to. You—you can stay with us. You can come home with us right now. For good. We’ll give you the best life we possibly can.”
Vince, eyes filled with tears, didn’t know what to say. It was what he’d wanted for so long.
“What do you think?” Paul asked. “Just give us the word, and it’s done.”
Vince looked at him. He looked at Michele and MJ. “Okay,” he said, choking back tears. “Yes.”
Mrs. West, her face contorted in disbelief, locked eyes with Vince. “Is this really what you want?”
“Mrs. West, it’s all I ever dreamed.”
Biting her lip, Mrs. West sighed and said, “Very well. I’ll—I’ll miss you. We all will.” Then, before Vince could say anything in return, she turned to Paul and Michele. “There will be some papers you need to sign.”
“Yes. Anything,” Michele said as she and her husband followed Mrs. West to the car, where they could discuss the finer details of the adoption. MJ, meanwhile, was ecstatic. She kept hugging Vince and jumping up and down and talking about how great everything would be. And that was when the letter from his grandfather was knocked loose from his grip.
The paper fell from Vince’s hand and hit the ground. In the quiet square of the church, it sounded like an explosion. It was a noise that spiked through Vince’s head from ear to ear. It shot his eyes wide open.
“What’s that?” MJ asked.
Vince looked down at the crumpled paper lying between his feet. Blinking, he watched it slowly expand as if it wanted to flatten out, defy every crease. The last beams of sunlight poked through the clouds, shining upon it so that it looked gold. Vince reached down and picked it up. Uncrumpling the paper, he read the words a second time. Umbia Rah.
The words rattled around in his head, almost taking on a different meaning. They didn’t sound so crazy anymore. Like the scrambled words of the gold book, they now took meaning. He repeated them over and over. Umbia Rah. Umbia Rah.
Then he stopped. His mind went quiet, as if it had blinked out of existence. In fact he felt as if he had left his body completely. He felt his spirit rise high above him and float around the gray clouds. There was no sadness there. Then, all at once, it came crashing back down to his flesh and bones.
He grabbed MJ by the hand. “I—I can’t leave just yet. There’s something I have to do.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“There’s something I have to see through. I can’t just stop here. It’s—it’s like with my grandfather . . . with his tales. You read the book, MJ. He didn’t give up, right? No way. Not when it came to the giant or the missing ingredients or the gnome or any of that, not until he found his mother. And you know what? In the end he did. He found her. He continued to fight because he knew what was waiting for him at the end, and so do I. I’ve fought for this for so long. I can’t lose faith now.”
“Vince, I don’t understand.”
“Please, just tell your parents to wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“For me to find my father.”
Vince embraced MJ, kissing her on the cheek. Then he turned and ran down the road leading from the church directly out of town.
He ran past the idling car and straight out the square. Mrs. West and MJ’s parents were hunched over in intense conversation. Only M watched him go. He didn’t call Vince back; he didn’t say a word. He only smiled and waved.
Vince raced all through Dyerville, the streets quiet and empty just like when he first walked them. He ran with purpose, never losing his sense of direction; his grandfather said it was a straight shot from the church. He couldn’t miss it.
Soon he left the town behind, never glancing back. Just outside Dyerville, he found himself on a snow-clogged path with trees on either side. He followed this, running through huge drifts of snow.
He didn’t slow down, not once. He knew what he had to do. He was driven by something far greater than himself. And that gave him all the strength he needed.
Eventually there was a hill before him, and he began to climb, higher and higher. He used his hands, scaling the steep surface, the snow falling harder here. And when he was nearly at the top, he saw it: the door. It was there, as in the tales. It existed. It was true.
Breathing heavily, Vince continued his climb. He walked with great determination up the rest of the hill and toward the door, never taking his eyes off it.
The wind was strong, howling and punishing. But Vince didn’t hear or feel anything. He walked closer. He walked straight to the door.
Standing before it, he didn’t touch the frame. He didn’t stick his hand into the empty space or walk around it or see how much room there really was or what lay below. He simply took a deep breath and walked through.
Umbia Rah.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M. P. KOZLOWSKY is the author of Juniper Berry. A former schoolteacher, he lives in New York with his wife and daughter. Visit him online at www.mpkozlowsky.com.
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CREDITS
Cover art © 2014 by Brian Thompson
Cover design by Alison Klapthor
COPYRIGHT
Walden Pond Press is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Walde
n Pond Press and the skipping stone logo are trademarks and registered trademarks of Walden Media, LLC.
THE DYERVILLE TALES
Text copyright © 2014 by M. P. Kozlowsky
Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Brian Thompson
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kozlowsky, M. P.
The Dyerville tales / M. P. Kozlowsky; illustrations by Brian Thompson. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: “A young orphan named Vince takes a journey to reunite with his missing father and learn about his grandfather’s mysterious, magical life”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-199871-3 (hardback)
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Books and reading—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction. 5. Blessing and cursing—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K8567Dye 2014
2013037286
[Fic]—dc23
CIP
AC
* * *
EPub Edition © MARCH 2014 ISBN: 9780062312648
14 15 16 17 18 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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The Dyerville Tales Page 22