I had no idea what she meant by "too late." but it frightened me. and I worked as quickly as I could. She stamped down on the earth when I was finished, and then she told me to put the shovel back into the shed. She returned to the house.
Later I found her sitting in the old rocker, staring out the window in the living room. When I entered, she turned on me, her face almost as red with rage as it had been up in the tower room.
"Because of what you did." she said. "-they have retreated into the shadows. Even your father has cowered back into the darkness. Who knows when they'll return?" she angrily added.
"I'm sorry. Mommy." I said.
"Don't whine like a little girl, Noble. It's time you tried to be more like your father, full of inner strength. You want to be a man like he was, don't you?"
I nodded quickly.
"Go out and split same firewood until I call you," she ordered.
These days, we had the logs delivered, but we still had to split them to let them dry properly,
"It's going to be a bad winter this year," she said. "They've told me. We'll need twice the wood we had last year. Go on."
She turned away, and I left with my head down. I worked extra hard and fast, and at one point. I realized my left palm was bleeding because I had worn the skin right off one spot. It burned. but I didn't stop. Every once in a while I would pause and look around the meadow and into the woods, studying every shadow, but I saw nothing but pockets of unshaped darkness.
"I'm sorry." I muttered. "I'm sorry. Daddy."
I quickly flicked off any tears. One thing I didn't want was for Mommy to catch me crying.
"Big boys don't cry," she had told me time in and time out since the tragedy. "When you're in pain. you squeeze it like you are closing your fist on a fly, and you squeeze and squeeze. It makes you hard on the inside where you have to be hard, and then it seeps through until you're harder on the outside. Someday you'll have a shell as tough as a turtle's," she promised.
I lifted the ax and struck the log. With concentration and new strength. I could often split them in one stroke now. Whenever I did and Mommy saw me, she would smile.
"When I see you out there working like this, you're the spitting image of your father." she would tell me.
I wanted her to smile at me like that again. I struck the logs, and every time my ax made contact. I recited. "Celeste is gone. She's gone! And so are Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. forever.''
In the days and months that passed. I didn't go back to the spot where they were buried. I avoided it as much as I could, and soon grass and weeds grew so quickly and thickly, it was hard to look out and see where the dolls' grave was anyway. Mommy was happy about that. She was settling into her
comfortable world once again.
I went about my work, my studies, took my tests, and grew taller and stronger. Finally, Mommy told me that the spirits, as if they had been frightened by something they had seen or heard, slowly had begun to return out of the shadows. Not a day passed afterward when Mommy hadn't spoken to some spirit, and then one day she suddenly began to talk about Celeste. She told me she had finally seen her.
I had just come in from feeding our chickens, and she popped out at me from behind the den door, her eyes wide and bright with excitement.
"I was putting clothes into the dryer," she said. "when I felt a presence and turned slowly to see her standing there, looking up at me and smiling."
My heart began to pound. Celeste's spirit was in the house? But how could that be? Had Noble and I truly exchanged our souls? Had Mommy made that happen?
"How wonderful it was!" she exclaimed and hugged me to her.
"I'm glad. Mommy." I said, unable to stop myself from trembling. Mommy didn't notice. She was too absorbed in her vision.
"I know. I know, I worried and worried about it. Noble. I was afraid she was being punished for something, or I was. No one could tell me anything. You see, my sweet child, there are even more mysteries in the spiritual world than there are here. And for good reason, if you think about it," she said, quickly regaining her composure and assuming her teacher's voice.
"Here we have science to help explain things to us. All those questions you ask me day in and day out about insects and animals, plants and birds, I can answer for you. Soon enough, you will be able to find most of the answers yourself in your reading.
"But it's not that way in the other world. They tell me it's like walking in a cloud most of the time. It's pleasant and without any fear or anxiety, but it's so vast. You no longer touch anything. Poor Celeste couldn't help with the clothing the way she used to help me. She looked a little flustered about it, but I reminded her she would never be flustered in the world she now lived in, and she must give up this world," she said. smiling. "Nothing there is
frustrating. Nothing there is unpleasant. She looked a little put-off. but I'm sure shell adjust. At least. I hope she will, for her sake as well as ours," she added thoughtfully. "Otherwise..."
"Otherwise what. Mommy?" I asked, holding my breath the way I used to when she was coming to the end of a wonderful story that could have either a sad or a happy resolution.
"Never mind," she said sharply. "She'll be fine. She'll be fine where she is."