The Stolen Child

by Keith Donohue

  “What did I get wrong?”

  “My understanding is that an author doesn’t write a book without having one or more readers in mind,” Luchóg said. “One doesn’t go through the time and effort to be the only reader of your own book. Even the diarist expects the lock to be picked.”

  Smaolach pulled at his chin, as if deep in thought. “It would be a big mistake, I think, to write a book that no one would ever read.”

  “You are quite right, old friend. I have at times wondered why the artist dares to bring something new into a world where everything has been done and where all the answers are quite well known.”

  I stood and broke the plane of their inquisition. “Would you please tell me,” I hollered, “what is wrong with the book?”

  “I’m afraid it’s your father,” said Luchóg.

  “My father, what about him? Has something happened to him?”

  “He’s not who you think he is.”

  “What my friend means to say is that the man you think of as your father is not your father at all. That man is another man.”

  “Come with us,” said Luchóg.

  As we wound along the path, I tried to untangle the many implications of their invasion into my book. First, they had always known I was Henry Day, and now they knew I knew. They had read of my feelings for Speck and surely guessed I was writing to her. They knew how I felt about them, as well. Fortunately, they came across as generally sympathetic characters, a bit eccentric, true, but steadfast allies in my adventures. Their line of questioning posed an intriguing concern, however, as I had not thought ahead to how I might actually get a book to Speck, or, more to the point, about the reasons behind my desire to write it all down. Smaolach and Luchóg, ahead on the trail, had lived in these woods for decades and sailed through eternity without the same cares or the need to write down and make sense of it all. They wrote no books, painted nothing on the walls, danced no new dance, yet they lived in peace and harmony with the natural world. Why wasn’t I like the others?

  At sunset, we stepped out of cover and walked down past the church to a scattering of graves in a green space adjacent to the cemetery enclosed by a stone wall. I had been there once before, many years ago, thinking it a shortcut back to safety, or perhaps merely a good hiding place. We slipped between the iron bars into a tranquil, overgrown garden. Many of the inscriptions on the stones were weathered and faded, as the tenants had lain beneath their vanishing names for many years. My friends took me on a winding path between the graves, and we stopped short among the memorials and weeds. Smaolach walked me to a plot and showed me the stone: WILLIAM DAY, 1917–1962. I knelt down on the grass, ran my finger along the grooves of letters, considered the numbers. “What happened?”

  Luchóg spoke softly. “We have no idea, Henry Day.”

  “I haven’t heard that name in a while.”

  Smaolach laid his hand upon my shoulder. “I still prefer Aniday. You are one of us.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “We thought you should know for the truth of your book. You didn’t see your father that night we left the old camp.”

  “And you understand,” Luchóg said, “that the man in the new house with the baby cannot be your father.”

  I sat down and leaned against the marker to save myself from fainting. They were right, of course. By my calendar, fourteen years had passed since the end date on that gravestone. If he had died that long ago, William Day could not be who I thought he was, and that man was not William Day but his double. I wondered to myself how such a thing could be possible. Luchóg opened his pouch, rolled a cigarette, and calmly smoked it amid the headstones. The stars came out to define the sky—how far away, how long ago? My friends seemed on the verge of revealing additional secrets, but they said nothing, so that I might figure it out for myself.

  “Let us away then, lads,” Smaolach said, “and think on this tomorrow.”

  We leapt the gate at the corner and trekked home, our conversation turning to smaller mistakes in my own story. Most of their suggestions escaped scrutiny because my mind wandered down long-neglected lanes. Speck had told me what she remembered, but much remained mysterious. My mother faded in and out of view, though I could now see quite clearly the faces of twin baby sisters. My father was a nearly total void. Life existed before this life, and I had not sufficiently dragged the river of my subconscious. Late that night, while the others slept, I sat awake in my burrow. The image of Oscar Love crystallized before me. We had spent months investigating that boy, finding out in excruciating detail the nature and shape of his life, his family history, his habits of mind—all to assist Igel in the change. If we knew Oscar so well, then the others must have known my history, infinitely better than I knew it myself. Now that I knew my true name, there was no longer any reason for them to hide the truth. They had conspired to help me forget, and now they could help me remember. I crawled out of my hole and walked over to Luchóg’s spot, only to find it vacant. In the adjacent burrow, he was wrapped in Chavisory’s arms, and for a moment I hesitated to disturb their peace.

  “Luch,” I whispered. He blinked. “Wake up, and tell me a story.”

  “Aniday, for the love of—can’t you see I’m sleeping?”

  “I need to know.”

  By this time, she was stirring as well. I waited until they disentangled themselves, and he rose to eye level. “What is it?” he demanded.

  “You have to tell me everything you remember about Henry Day.”

  He yawned and looked at Chavisory curled into the fetal position. “Right now, I’m going back to bed. Ask me again in the morning, and I’ll help with your book-writing. But now, to my pillow and to my dreams.”

  I woke Smaolach and Béka and Onions with the same request and was put off by each in much the same way. Despite my excitement, I drew nothing but tired glares at breakfast the next morning, and only after the whole clan had their fill did I dare ask again.

  “I am writing a book,” I announced, “about Henry Day. I know the broad story that Speck gave me before she left, and now I need you to fill in the details. Pretend I’m about to make the change, and give me the report on Henry Day.”

  “Oh, I remember you,” Onions began. “You were a baby foundling in the woods. Your mother wrapped you in swaddling clothes and laid you at the greyhound’s shrine.”

  “No, no, no,” said Béka. “You are mistaken. The original Henry Day was not a Henry at all, but one of two identical twin girls, Elspeth and Maribel.”

  “You are both wrong,” said Chavisory. “He was a boy, a cute, smart boy who lived in a house at the tip of the forest with his mother and father and two baby twin sisters.”

  “That’s right,” said Luchóg. “Mary and Elizabeth. Two little curly-tops, fat as lambchops.”

  “You couldn’t have been more than eight or nine,” said Chavisory.

  “Seven,” said Smaolach. “He was seven when we nabbed him.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Onions. “Coulda swore he was just a baby.”

  The conversation continued in this fashion for the rest of the day, in contested bites of information, and the truth at the end of the discussion was the distant cousin of the truth at the beginning. All through the summer and into the fall, I peppered them separately and together with my queries. Sometimes an answer, when combined with my prodigal memory or the visual cue of a drawing or a piece of writing, cemented a fact in my brain. Slowly, over time, a pattern emerged, and my childhood returned to me. But one thing remained a mystery.

  Before the long sleep of winter, I went off, intent upon climbing the highest peak in the hills surrounding the valley. The trees had shed their leaves and raised naked arms to the gray sky. To the east, the city looked like toy building blocks. Off to the south lay the compact village cut in two by the river. In the west, the riverbend and the big country beyond. To the north, ragged forest, a farm or two hacked out from the trees and stone. I sat on the mountaintop and read, dreamt
at night of two Specks, two Days, what we are, what we would be. Save for a flask of water, I fasted and reflected upon the puzzle of existence. On the third day, my mind cleared and let in the answer. If the man who appeared as my father was not my father, who was he? Whom did I meet in the mist? Who was the man by the creek on the night we lost both Igel and Oscar Love? The one who chased us through the kitchen door? He looked like my father. A deer, startled by the snap of my head, bolted through the fallen leaves. A bird cried once; the note lingered, then disappeared. The clouds rolled on and revealed the pale sun. Who had taken my place when they stole me away?

  I knew. That man had what had been intended for me. The robber of my name, stealer of my story, thief of my life: Henry Day.

  • CHAPTER 33 •

  I had been one of them. My son had met one face-to-face on the other side of the country, and there was no telling to what lengths they would go to follow us. The changelings had come for Edward that night years before, and by going downstairs I had scared them off. But they would be back. They were watching us, waiting for my son. He would not be safe as long as they prowled near our home. Edward would not be safe with them in the world. Once they fixed on a child for the change, he was as good as gone. I could not let Edward from my sight, and took to locking our doors and latching our windows every evening. They circled around my imagination, infected my rest. The piano offered my sole relief. By composing, I hoped to steady my sanity. False start followed false start. I struggled to keep those two worlds separate.

  Fortunately, I had Tess and Edward to keep me grounded. A delivery truck pulled into our cul-de-sac on my birthday, and Edward, at the window, shouted, “It’s here, it’s here!” They insisted that I remain in the bedroom with the shades drawn until my gift could be brought into the house, and I dutifully complied, mad with love at my son’s jumpy exuberance and Tess’s sexy, knowing smile. On the bed in darkness, I closed my eyes, wondering if I deserved such love in return, worrying that it might be stolen should the truth ever be revealed.

  Edward bounded up the stairs and hammered on the closed door. Grabbing my arm with his two small hands, he pulled me to the studio. A great green bow stretched across the door, and with a curtsey, Tess presented me with the scissors.

  “As mayor of this city,” I intoned, “I’d like my distinguished son to join me in the honors.” We cut the ribbon together and swung open the door.

  The small organ was not new or elaborate, but it was beautiful from the love given. And it would prove enough for me to approximate the sounds I was after. Edward fiddled with the stops, and I took Tess aside and asked how she could afford such a luxury.

  “Ever since San Francisco,” she said, “or maybe since Czechoslovakia, I’ve been wanting to do this for you. A penny here, a dollar there, and a woman who drives a hard bargain. Eddie and I found it for sale at an old church up in Coudersport. Your mom and Charlie put us over the top, you should know, but we all wanted you to have it. I know it’s not perfect, but—”

  “It’s the best gift—”

  “Don’t worry about the cost. Just play the music, baby.”

  “I gived my allowances,” Edward said.

  I embraced them both and held tight, overcome by fortune, and then I sat down and played from Bach’s The Art of the Fugue, lost again to time.

  Still enamored with the new machine days later, I returned with Edward from kindergarten to an empty and quiet house. I gave him a snack, turned on Sesame Street, and went to my studio to work. On the organ keyboard sat a single sheet of folded paper with a yellow sticky note affixed to the surface. “Let’s discuss!” she had scribbled. She had found the passenger list with the names of all the Ungerlands, which I had hidden and locked up among my papers; I could only imagine how it wound up in Tess’s hands.

  The front door swung open with a screech and banged shut, and for a dark moment the thought danced through my mind that they had come for Edward. I dashed to the front door just as Tess inched her way into the dining room, arms laden with groceries. I took a few bags to lighten her load, and we carried them into the kitchen and danced around each other in a pas de deux, putting food away. She did not seem particularly concerned about anything other than the canned peas and carrots.

  When we were done, she brushed imaginary dust from her palms. “Did you get my note?”

  “About the Ungerlands? Where did you get the list?”

  She blew her bangs out of her eyes. “What do you mean, where did I get it? You left it on the sideboard by the phone. The question is: Where did you get it?”

  “In Cheb. Remember Father Hlinka?”

  “Cheb? That was nine years ago. Is that what you were doing? What possessed you to investigate the Ungerlands?”

  Total silence gave me away.

  “Were you that jealous of Brian? Because honestly, that’s a little crazy, don’t you think?”

  “Not jealous, Tess. We happened to be there, and I was simply trying to help him trace his family tree. Find his grandfather.”

  She picked up the passenger list and her eyes scanned it to the end. “That’s incredible. When did you ever talk to Brian Ungerland?”

  “This is all ancient history, Tess. I ran into him at Oscar’s when we were engaged. I told him we were going to Germany, and he asked me if I had the time could I stop by the National Archives and look up his family. When I didn’t find them there, I thought maybe his people were from someplace else, so I asked Father Hlinka when we were in Cheb. He found them. No big deal.”

  “Henry, I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”

  I stepped toward her, wanting to enfold her in my arms, desperate to end the conversation. “Tess, I’ve always told you the truth.”

  “But why didn’t Brian just go ask his mother?”

  “His mother? I didn’t know he had a mother.”

  “Everyone has a mother. She lives right here in town. Still does, I think. You can tell her how jealous you were.”

  “But I looked her up in the phone book.”

  “You’re kidding.” She crossed her arms and shook her head. “She remarried years ago when Brian was in high school. Let me think. Her name is Blake, Eileen Blake. And she’d remember the grandfather. He lived till he was a hundred, and she used to talk about that crazy old man all the time.” Giving up, she headed for the staircase.

  “Gustav?” I shouted after her.

  She looked over her shoulder, scrunched up her face, found the name in her memory. “No, no . . . Joe. Crazy Joe Ungerland is Brian’s grandfather. Of course, they’re all crazy in that family, even the mother.”

  “Are you sure we’re not talking about Gustav Ungerland?”

  “I’m going to start calling you Crazy Henry Day. . . . You could have asked me all about this. Look, if you’re so interested, why don’t you go talk to Brian’s mother? Eileen Blake.” At the top of the stairs, she leaned over the railing, her long blonde hair falling like Rapunzel’s. “It’s sweet you were so jealous, but you have nothing to worry about.” She flashed her crooked smile and set free my worries. “Tell the old girl I said hello.”

  Buried to her neck in fallen leaves, she stared straight ahead without blinking, and the third time I passed her I realized she was a doll. Another had been lashed with a red jump rope to a tree trunk nearby, and dismembered arms and legs poked up at odd angles from the long, unmowed grass. At the end of a string tied to a chokecherry limb, a head hung and rotated in the breeze, and the headless body was stuffed into the mailbox, anticipating Saturday’s postman. The masterminds behind this mayhem giggled from the porch when I stopped the car in front of their house, but they looked almost catatonic as I walked up the sidewalk.

  “Can you girls help me? I seem to be lost,” I said from the bottom step. The older girl draped a protective arm across her sister’s shoulder.

  “Is your mommy or daddy home? I’m looking for someone who lives around here. Do you know the Blakes’ house?”

  “It�
��s haunted,” said the younger sister. She lacked two front teeth and spoke with a lisp.

  “She’s a witch, mister.” The older sister may have been around ten, stick-thin and raven-haired, with dark circles around her eyes. If anyone would know about witches, it was this one. “Why do you want to go see a witch, mister?”

  I put one foot on the next step. “Because I’m a goblin.”

  They both grinned from ear to ear. The older sister directed me to look for a turn before the next street corner, a hidden alleyway that was really a lane. “It’s called Asterisk Way,” she said, “because it’s too small to have a real name.”

  “Are you going to gobble her up?” the smaller one asked.

  “I’m going to gobble her up and spit out the bones. You can come by on Halloween night and make yourself a skeleton.” They turned and looked at each other, smiling gleefully.

  An invasion of sumac and overgrown boxwood obscured Asterisk Way. When the car began to scrape hedges on both sides, I got out and walked. Half-hidden houses were scattered along the route, and last on the left was a weathered foursquare with BLAKE on the mailbox. Obscured by the shrubs, a pair of bare legs flashed in front of me, racing across the yard, and then a second someone rustled through the bushes. I thought the horrid little sisters had followed me, but then a third movement in the brush unsettled me. I reached for my car keys and nearly deserted that dark place, but having come so far, I knocked on the front door.

  An elegant woman with a thick mane of white hair swung open the door. Dressed simply in crisp linen, she stood tall and erect in the doorway, her eyes bright and searching, and welcomed me into her home. “Henry Day. Any trouble finding the place?” New England echoed faintly in her voice. “Come in, come in.”

  Mrs. Blake had an ageless charm, a physical presence and manner that put others right at ease. To gain this interview, I had lied to her, told her that I had gone to high school with her son Brian and that our class was organizing a reunion, tracking down classmates who had moved away. At her insistence, we chatted over a lunch she had prepared, and she gave me the full update on Brian, his wife and two children, all that he had accomplished over the years. Our egg-salad sandwiches lasted longer than her report, and I attempted to steer the conversation around to my ulterior motive.