“I killed good people, Jack,” he said softly. “Right there in that beautiful cathedral, blind with rage. Years later, the first time I was reborn . . .
I never went back to Martha, letting her believe I was dead because I couldn’t bear to think how my new life might harm her.”
He stopped and stared at me, seemingly unable to find the right words.
His prison continued to quake and collapse into darkness around us. “My little boy,” he finally said, “had suffered so much, so soon. I told myself it was a mercy.”
My heart ached, not for the things he’d done, but because they’d caused him such bondage and pain. It made me love him all the more. He’d hidden these wounds so well that I’d never known his sorrow. He lived with them, but all I’d ever seen was his care for others. These wounds werenotthe whole of him. Any more than Mama’s leaving was the whole of her. Maybe my friend needed a third verse of his own.
So, I began to sing again.
Using his “Canon in D,” I first gave voice to the darkness of the many pains he carried—I’d spent a lifetime learning how to write such music.
The scars in his soul began to glow softly, like embers touched by the wind. Then, I brought forward images of the man who’d made me feel a sense of belonging—listening to Ronnie Scott sax records, playing songs in his cramped little music studio, walking home together in the warm evening breeze, the way he always said “damn straight” just when I needed to hear it. So many moments my songwriter’s heart had noted and held.
With these brighter images I changed the song, keeping phrases of the dark, but weaving it into something more complete. The sound of it came out in a rush, modulating up and up, the way hopeful songs often do. Inside his shadow, his gleaming pattern in D shimmered with new brightness.
He smiled again. “Nicely done, Jack, thank you. I think I’m ready.” “Ready?”
“To move on.”
“Is that why you wanted me to peer? Henry, we can find—” “Initially, I just needed you to see all of me,” he said. “But you’vedone more than that, my boy. You’ve helped me feel whole . . . opened a way for me.”
The floor beneath the wraith’s discarded body broke away, and the torn vessel disappeared into the darkness. The rest of the floor cracked in a web of dark fissures. Around us only remnants of the back wall remained, yellow in the light of my lantern.
“Are you talking about the Meadows?” I asked.
“I am, Jack.” He stood. “Do me one last favor, will you?” “Anything,” I said, clambering to my feet next to him.
“Don’t let the Iron Horse stage remain empty for too long.” He winked. “Get some music back in there soon, will you?”
“I know a great accordion act.”
We laughed together. But when the laughter faded, I had to fight back a familiar ache and pressure behind my forehead. I thought maybe I could still save him, and wanted to try. But that’s not whatheneeded. I would miss him terribly.
Henry took his hands from the hole in his chest and hugged me. “I love you, Jack. I always will.”
“I love you, too, Henry.” I hugged him hard.
He let go, turned, and walked toward the darkness. The song of him rose in my head again, and I let it out softly, watching him go.
Knowing where he was headed, I recalled the Meadows. A moment later, I stood with my friend on the endless plain of fallen statues and raised a hand goodbye.
He smiled his easy smile one last time, then let the wind sweep him toward the mountain of fire, upright and fast, coursing over the stony ground. When he was no more than a speck of sand in the distance, he joined the fire to a chorus of voices. A brief distant wink of light, and he’d gone home.
The memory of my first conversation with Henry flared and was gone. Inside me another hollow opened up—this one feltdifferent than the others. The next moment, the crumbled walls of Henry’s prison began reforming. Stones whipped back into place. Cracks in the floor slowly started to seal. It wasn’t Henry’s place anymore—and so seemed to be reconstituting as just a grey stone cell.
“He disappeared,” said Church. “He moved on,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Lady asked. “I’m sure,” I said.
We’d lost our best possible proof that Brach had killed Henry. But before I could get my head around that, I saw Cassius still lying in the corner of the cell. I scrambled over to him. “Cassius.”
Blood coated the left side of his face. His bindings had gone dark.
And his blue semblance had started to pull free of its mortal shell.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
