Kris (9 page)

Time became the watcher that day as I moved through, past, and around it, the same as it would with every delivery in years to come. Time stretched as I looked for the signs I had marked in my mind, indications that I was on the right path. I didn't notice the passage of the day, so deep was I in my thoughts and imaginings. In my daydreams, time gave up its hold over our sleigh as it traveled great distances, negotiating the tangled paths of my memories, leaping chasms in the forgotten
terrain I encountered along my journey, until by some miraculous intervention I came finally to the roadhouse where I had last seen Owen.

I cleared a space on the seat of my sleigh and rummaged through the sack of toys. Excitedly I withdrew the carousel of flying swans and little boys; I was sure it would delight Owen's heart.

But then a child's shriek pierced the day's chill air.

“Just a few seconds,” I begged, “give me a few more moments, and I will be there to protect you.” I sprinted to the roadhouse, fearful some tragedy had just befallen my young brother, gripping the forgotten toy in my left hand. Remembering the roadhouse giant, I swept up a fist-sized rock from the frozen earth with my free hand. If need be I would fell this Goliath on my own.

Skidding to slow my momentum, I reached the front steps of the roadhouse and leapt onto the porch. I was struck by what I spied through the windows of the door. Completely unaware of me, the giant and my brother wrestled and challenged one another on the floor. Owen continued his shrieking, which grew into fits of laughter as the man lifted him and roared, then set him once again on the floorboards and stomped away playfully.

From another room, a woman called in the sweetest voice, “Come here, Jonathan, darling. Come here.”

Owen answered her call without hesitation and stumbled into the kitchen out of view.

Truth hit like an avalanche. Sweet, violet-eyed, toddling Owen had become a boy.

“This cannot be!” I said to myself. This is not the Owen I knew and loved, but another boy! I wanted my soft, innocent baby brother back. I wanted time to give back what it had taken—not this new boy, some
Jonathan, who had been bewitched and charmed into submission by this roadhouse giant and his unseen wife!

But even as I floundered in bewilderment, I had seen the delight in Owen's eyes and clearly recognized he had found a pleasant home and a fresh new life.

Just then the man pushed open the door, backing out with a half-barrel in his massive arms. He grunted as he swung around in the doorway, looking for a place to set the barrel on the porch and registering genuine surprise as he encountered my wide-eyed gaze. Retreating, I fell backwards off the porch and scrambled to my feet still clutching the wooden carousel with its dangling pieces, but to my dismay I had dropped my invincible rock.

The man gave another push at the door, to open it even more widely, and watched me as I stood like an animal that had been cornered and trapped. Instead of confronting me or moving to capture me, he gave me a small, friendly smile and tilted his head to one side as if to invite me into the roadhouse. I cautiously approached until I was close enough to place Owen's wooden toy on the steps before him. Then I turned and sprinted away.

After gaining some distance, I looked back and saw that the man's wife had joined him near the steps. She picked up the gift I had left and admired it curiously, turning the center pole and sending the swans into flight.

Owen had found a new identity and a new home. And I realized I was no longer even the smallest part of his young memories.

I also knew he would only suffer the deep and crippling pain of loss, once more if I were to rip him away from his newfound family. So I ran.

The man shouted after me, “Young fellow! Halt! You won't be harmed. Come sup with us!”

I ran back to my sleigh, red-faced and out of breath as the tears streamed down my cheeks and froze to them. I had not considered that Owen might forget the life he had once lived. But as that certainty gripped me. I knew Owen was much better off than he had ever been. He was free of the burdens life had cast upon us and the tragedies we had faced. In their place, he had found happiness and protection. It was this consideration which upended me.

I hopped into my sleigh and vaulted ahead to find the others, who I longed so much to see. I could only wonder what they would say. Resolute, I decided I would convince them that Owen was safe with a new home, a new family, and new memories that we could not provide.

Snowflakes floating down to earth

all forget their place of birth

and drift to where the winds will go
.

As they swirl across this world
,

the things they felt, the ways they melt
,

are secrets they will come to know
.

But others never will
.

Awake! I shook the lonesome flurries from my brooding thoughts. “Rejoice!” I shouted to myself as much as to the wind. My brother was safe and happy and healthy. Life was good. He had survived. More than survived, he had found a home. I struggled to keep my heart light, speeding to what it longed for—the comfort and security of an
understanding heart. I needed my brothers and sisters. I allowed Gerda to sense that need, select my path, and lead me back to the places where my heart beckoned.

Eventually we came upon the baker's house, where Tamas and Talia had first felt, and later endured, the wrenching disconnection from our family. How would these two now fare? I fought back my fears. We would overcome whatever scars this year and separation had left. We would heal and care for each other. We would survive this tragedy as families do, with time and love and new memories to build new hope, new promises, and a new future.

Perhaps we could not patch every wound opened by time and distance, but our blood was the same blood no matter that our severance had been deep and long.

As I stood upon a small pile of logs stacked beside the baker's house to chance a glance inside, my reflected image looked back at me and challenged me from the glistening frost-edged window.

“What are you now?” it asked me curiously as I studied my own questioning eyes in this ghostlike, mocking reflection. Was it man or boy who brought these toys and snuck about to avoid detection?

A sudden cacophony erupted from inside and commanded my attention. I gazed beyond the glass into the baker's house and saw my lovely twin siblings throwing lumps of dough and flour at each other as they ran around furniture and used it to shield themselves. Their faces were as white as dough-kissed seraphim, and they snickered and chuckled in what seemed to be endless peals of laughter as they plastered each other with big, doughy chunks and dusty clouds of powdered flour.

The baker's voice shattered the moment, booming from an adjoining room, “How many times have I told the two of you!”

The twins froze, dough in hand, and looked to each other for strategy as the baker stomped into the room with her hands on her hips.

“You've got to wait for me!” She laughed as she plopped a handful of flour into each of the twin's faces.

How they giggled and chortled and ran as the dough chunks soared and flour flew from their hands.

I cautiously withdrew from the window and collected the pecking and the climbing wooden toys from my sack in the sleigh and placed them on the windowsill for the playful twins to find when the dust was cleared and their games were done and they looked at last outside.

By now my lonely heart was settling into a dark and quiet solitude. With little personal satisfaction I knew with certainty the twins and Owen were all right. Gerda and I sped on through the breeze, and from a great distance the sound of the lumberjacks called out to us long before their camp came into sight.

When springtime comes, oh, glad will be its day!

Some return to home and friends, while others choose to stay
.

The sawyers and the choppers, they lay their timber low
.

The swampers and the teamsters, they haul it to and fro
.

It was by now late afternoon as I walked cautiously around the edges of the deserted woodmen's camp. The wind whistled through the trees and made them shiver and dance with nearly as much anticipation as I now possessed. I heard the distant sounds of jovial men close now as they returned from a hard day's work. The song of a solitary axe rippled on the blustery winds, and I saw my brother Garin, a youngling of ten
with shoulders only half the breadth of my own, splitting logs with the passion of the sturdiest of men.

A tall, powerful lumberjack approached Garin and stood off to one side in admiration of the sureness of his strokes. Garin finished the final split and looked to the lumberjack with pride. The man raised his fist and held it aloft in a show of strength and testimony to Garin's skill. They both had a hearty laugh.

“That's enough for now,” the lumberjack said as he ruffled Garin's hair playfully. “Carry some of this wood to the fire and stoke it well. It will be a cold and breezy night.”

Garin plunged the axe blade into the chopping block, scooped up several sections of the split wood, and headed to the fire pit with his arms fully loaded. The men shared the chores of their evening ritual and sang songs as Garin fed the wood into the fire.

I studied the toy in my hands and wondered how I might deliver it to Garin. I did not have the courage to impose upon this happy group. He had walked away, taken fate into his own small hands, and not looked back. Who was I to force Garin back to his long-forgotten memories of the last horrible days and nights we had shared? I left him the toy dancing bear near his axe so he might know how much I cared.

Gerda and I left that day to the singing of the jacks—the absence of their axes left the song solemn almost holy.

All stay we here with a welcome heart and a well-contented mind!

For the winter winds blow cheerfully among the waving pines
.

The ringing of saws and axes halt as the sun goes down
.

Lay down your tools, me weary boys, to Elysium we are bound
.