There was also a trunk set aside for him; Charlinder used that to pack away his belongings. The shears he'd used for Lacey would go back to the barn and Eileen's journals would go back to the schoolhouse as soon as he could sneak in and out of those places unnoticed. The compass and all the magical objects he'd received from Gentiola went into a linen drawstring pouch of their own. He wouldn't need the compass or the herbs anymore, but he wasn't yet ready to give them up. Then, for the first time in years, he sat down on a bed and had nothing to do. There was nowhere else he needed to go, no more wondering how to get there or if he'd make it. No more begging for a meal, no more sleeping on the ground. He'd actually become good at all that, and now...his feet were so hard, his legs so taut, that to sit down was positively alien. Was it actually uncomfortable for him, now, to sit down and take a rest in a place where the world could spin around him as it may?
Miriam returned while he was trying to figure this out. She took both his hands in hers and looked at him in an inexplicable mood of apology. What was she so sorry about?
"You left us for just over three and a half years," she said, "and you look like you've aged twice that much. I didn’t have that much white hair until I was ten years older than you are."
Charlinder shrugged. "I'll take your word for it."
"Listen, you've got to come to the meeting square," she continued. "The food's not ready yet, but everyone's waiting for you. Just let them all see your face; you don't need to stick around long."
"Of course I'll come to the meeting square."
It felt good to have a place to go, a wide-open space where he could walk around. The Paleolans gathered there mostly had the sense to be happy to see him safely back, rather than look at him as though something terrible had just happened. He soon found Judith and started grilling her about the children's progress at school. With more than three years of stories to tell on that front, she kept him well-occupied, aside from all those others who insisted on distracting him with their well-wishing and their congratulations. It had all the makings of a lovely afternoon, and he should have been delighted to see the village celebrating his return, but something in the picture didn't fit. Where was his uncle?
Someone stuck a dish full of soybean stew and cornbread into Charlinder's hands and as he ate, he thought to himself that he’d been gone so long that the stew, the most ordinary, unexceptional dish in the world, actually tasted exotic.
If only they could have waited another day for the celebration, he thought. That must have been why this party was so disorienting; they hadn't allowed him time to catch his breath. He had never grown accustomed to an overload of attention. He could sometimes be more tolerant of it, but even after three years of being out of place, there was only so much demand on his personal space that he could handle.
Judith, at least, was more considerate than most. She allowed him to excuse himself, and even showed him a clear path through the crowd. Escaping to the quiet side of the kitchen, Charlinder let out a deep breath and let the world spin around him once again.
It wasn't long before he had company, but it wasn't a disagreeable sort; a small child scampered into view and decided that behind Charlinder's knees was a good place to hide. She was easily distracted, however, as he turned around and caught her eyes.
"Hi!" she greeted him brightly. She was maybe three years old; a lovely, button-faced toddler with shiny dark ringlets and sparkling black eyes.
"Hey there, cutie," Charlinder replied. He squatted down to her level and held out his arms; she happily marched up and sat on his knee. He picked her up to get a closer look. Though she was too young to have been around before his departure, he had a sense that this was a child he had to know. "What's your name?"
"I'm Charlene," she announced.
"Really? Charlene, who's your mommy?"
"My mommy," she paraphrased, as though that were an answer.
"Yes, but what's her name?" he repeated. "Or your uncle? Who do you belong to, munchkin?"
"Oh! Good, you've got her," said another familiar voice. Charlene made a frightened noise and hid her face in Charlinder's shoulder when Sunny appeared.
"I have a Charlene on me," he confirmed. "Is she yours?"
"Yeah, that's my daughter," said Sunny. "She thinks I'm about to make her eat something that used to be covered in scales; I can't imagine why."
"She's a cute little monster. I was just asking her whose kid she was, but I guess she thinks your only name is Mommy."
"If anyone else calls me that, I'll belt them," Sunny declared. "Anyway, just in case you were wondering, I conceived her with you.”
Charlinder almost laughed just then, not out of nerves or shock, but understanding. "So that's why you look so familiar," he said to the little girl clinging to his side. "You've got your grandmother's pretty hair."
"Did you tell him yet, Sunny?" asked another voice he was glad to hear. Meredith came around the corner, holding a little boy on her hip and again visibly pregnant.
"She told me I'm Charlene's natural father, if that's what you mean," Charlinder answered.
"Good," said Meredith, "because there's more. This is my son Carlos," she introduced the child in her arms, "who happens to be your spawn."
Charlinder held out his free arm. "Give him here."
"Say 'hi' to Uncle Char, honey," said Meredith to her son as she handed him over.
"Uncle Sar," Carlos attempted while bumping his knee against that of his half-sister.
"Charlene and Carlos," Charlinder repeated. "You two did
not
just name your kids after me."
"It could have been worse," said Sunny with an arched eyebrow towards Meredith.
"Yeah," Meredith began, "I wanted to name him Charles Leander, but my brother put his foot down."
"Do I have any other offspring I should know about?” Charlinder asked abruptly.
"No, just these two," Meredith answered through a laugh.
"You have to understand, when we chose those names," Sunny explained, "I'm sorry, but, for all we knew you were walking off to nothing, and we had no way of knowing what was going to happen. Your uncle approved," she went on. "Of the names, I mean. He always knew you'd be back eventually, but he really missed you, and he was crazy about the kids."
Charlinder didn't like something about the way she was talking. The air just outside their circle grew cloudy and dark, and a buzzing noise started in his head. He still held onto the children, but his smile dropped away.
"I'm really sorry about what happened to him," said Meredith. The buzzing crescendoed to a dull roar. "He was a great guy."
"He's exactly the kind of man every boy should have in his life," said Charlinder.
"Yes, he was," Meredith concurred. "He knew about the kids, too. I mean, he knew how they were related to him, and he was always good for playing with them."
"The kids couldn't get enough of him," Sunny shared. "They called him Uncle Roy, only they were so little it sounded more like Unk'woy."
The noise in his head rose to a piercing wail that drowned out all other sound aside from the immediate voices. The light in front of him began swaying back and forth along with the ground trying to take his feet out from under him. He lowered the children to the grass before he could fall.
"Unk'woy all gone," Carlos said to Charlene.
Charlene said something in reply which Charlinder didn't hear. Catching only the fuzziest glimpse of Sunny's and Meredith's worried faces, he turned and stumbled away. Though the sun and trees kept switching places in the sky, he managed not to fall on the way to the cabins at the northern side of the village.
There was the doorway of Miriam and Benjamin's cabin. He looked toward the bed set up for him, and while everything else wobbled and shook like a reflection on disturbed water, that bed kept perfectly still and clear. The afternoon sunlight threw the short mending seam in the mattress into sharp relief. It was a seam which Charlinder had crudely stitched as a boy after he'd tried out his first knife by cutting that hole. He recalled how his mother had ordered him to sew it back together, then taken his new knife away for a month.
It wasn't Charlinder's old bed set aside for him. It was Roy's.
That was it. His uncle wasn’t there to see him, and wasn’t coming back. He would never tell Roy about his journey or about Gentiola. He had come back to find nothing left of Roy except an old bed.
Next thing he knew he was kneeling in front of the bed, and rested his elbows on the mattress. He could see the walls of the cabin, but the sounds of birds chirping outside had ceased; all around him was silent. There was a tightening in his chest, like someone had tied a rope into a noose around him and pulled. He heard a moaning, gasping sound somewhere, and it felt distant until he realized it was coming from his own throat, and then he couldn’t stop.
It was like he was paralyzed; he could see just fine through the tears pouring down his face, and the ambient noise returned, but he couldn’t turn his head much less stand up. He heard the door creak open, and there was Miriam sitting next to him on the floor. She pulled him into her arms and stroked his hair and told him what he didn’t need to hear. She told him that Roy always believed in him, always knew that Charlinder would find his way through whatever the world put in his way, and wouldn’t let the rest of them give up on him. She said Roy had always known Charlinder would get to where he wanted to go, and he would find what he’d come for. She told him that Roy had said Lydia would have been so proud to see what Charlinder was doing. She also told him that when Roy was alone with her, he’d confessed that he wished it didn’t have to take him so long to come back.
Hours later, the sky darkened, and Benjamin stood outside the door to deflect any visitors. Miriam sat a foot away from him and kept a hand on his shoulder. He was too tired to cry anymore, though he still struggled to keep his breathing under control.
"What did you do with my cabin?" he asked.
"We gave it to Robert and his family," Miriam said apologetically. "It’s too late to turf them out now."
To his surprise, Charlinder laughed a little at this; just a quick, dry laugh to remind him he wasn’t in control. "I don’t want you to turf them out," he whispered. "I’m not part of a family anymore."
"Darling, that’s not true," said Miriam. "We’re your family. We’re all here for you."
He looked away from her, shaking his head. He knew what she meant, and of course she meant it sincerely, but it wasn’t the same thing and the sooner she acknowledged that, the better off he would be.
"It wasn't supposed to be like this," he exhaled. "He was forty-six years old. He should have had decades more. I didn't get to say goodbye."
"He should have lived longer," Miriam concurred, "but I think he was happy with what he had while he was here."
"This isn't what I came back for," Charlinder continued. "He was supposed to be here."
"I know this isn't what you had in mind," said Miriam. "But this is what you've come back to. It's okay if you don't tell us anything right away, but we still need to hear about what you've learned. And you still have lots of people here who love you."
"I didn't come back here for this," he repeated.
"Char, baby, I know you needed him to be here. But I also know that, no matter what, he wanted you to come back."
Charlinder kept his eyes closed and nodded. He didn't ask whether Roy had said any of this to Miriam in so many words. He probably had. He knew, also, that many people lost their parents at much younger ages than he, and they got on with their lives. Something, nevertheless, had been taken from him, and he couldn’t avoid the question of whether he had taken it from himself.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Nevila
He told the children first.
In the weeks before he was ready to tell anyone what he'd learned from Gentiola, Charlinder didn't go back to the schoolhouse. Miriam and all the others were afraid he might have a breakdown in front of the children, while Judith didn't need any help. He wasn't allowed back at Spinners' Square, either; the spinning wheel was too easy, too mindless. Miriam kept him occupied in that initial period with tasks that he could perform competently but didn't enjoy, such as warping looms. He had to stay busy with endlessly tedious, fiddly work which, in better circumstances, would have made him hate life, but which now helped to occupy his mind. It forced him to think about something other than what he'd lost. Though he had never before thought of being able to warp a loom in his sleep as a good thing, in a way it kept him sane.
It was September, the harvest was coming in, and Charlene and Carlos were about to have their third birthdays. Charlinder told Miriam he was ready. She advised him to set up a time with Judith.
At the selected time, he and Judith took the pupils outside to sit on the grass near the schoolhouse, and out there, Charlinder told them about Gentiola and what she'd done. It helped that he'd written out his story beforehand and revised the presentation until he liked the way it came out. The pupils liked the way it came out, too; perhaps Judith had succeeded in teaching them better behavior, but as soon as Charlinder began telling them about a brilliant, gifted, though delusional woman from Torino, he had their undivided attention for as long as it took.
Elizabeth raised her hand in the middle of his story. "Excuse me, Char, but if Gentiola fell ill and died over fifty years ago, how did you find out about all this?"
"That's a good question. Gentiola was not the only one in her family who could do magic. She had a younger sister, Nevila, who was just as powerful a witch and also survived the Plague. Only years later did she learn that Gentiola was still alive, and Nevila forced her sister to tell her the truth. They lived together on Gentiola's estate, where Nevila acquired the same bizarre energy that kept her sister from aging. Nevila was still alive, and still youthful, when I found her house last year, and she told me how her sister made the world end."