David Baldacci - The Finisher

I was back in my old home. And the scene I was looking at was remarkable. I had seen it before, only I was a very young and I didn’t remember. That was Eon’s point, I supposed. Simply because you’ve lived through something doesn’t mean you understand its true significance or even recall the details of it correctly.

I knelt down next to my father as he hovered over the small bed. On the bed was my mother. She looked pale and spent and her hair was slicked back against her head. A female dressed in a white cloak and a domed cap stood next to my father. I recognized her as a Nurse who helped bring new Wugs to life.

My mother was cradling a tiny bundle in her arms. I could just glimpse the small head and thin black hair of my brother, John. The cry had come from him. John and I shared a birthlight, so from this I knew I was exactly three sessions old. When I lifted my gaze from this sight, I was startled to see my younger self peering into the room from the doorway.

I was far shorter and so was my hair. But I was still skinny, although the sinewy muscle I was possessed with now was of course not evident yet. I was smiling as I stared at my new little brother. There was an innocence and hope in that look that brought tears to my eyes. And yet two of my family were now gone. Three if you counted John being with Morrigone. Essentially, I was the only one left.

My father rose, beaming first at John and then at the younger me. He slapped his palms together, and as if on command, I ran and leapt into his arms.

I gasped. I had forgotten that I had done that as a very young. My father hugged me and then held me low enough to see John close up. I touched his little hand. He made a belching sound and I jumped back and squealed with laughter.

With a sudden pang, I realized how long it had been since I had laughed like that. I have had fewer and fewer reasons to laugh as my sessions have piled on top of one another. I looked last at my mother. Helen Jane was beautiful despite her ordeal of giving birth to what would become the smartest Wug in all of Wormwood. I knew from Eon that she couldn’t see me, but I drew closer and knelt down next to the bed. My hand reached out and I touched her. Well, not really, because my hand merely passed through her image. I touched John and then my father, with the same result. They were not actually there with me of course, or I with them. But they were real enough.

I felt my lips starting to quiver and my heart throbbed fiercely. It had been so long since we were a family that I had almost forgotten the joy that came with having one. All the small and large moments, many that I had taken for granted while they were occurring, no doubt bolstered by the certainty that there would be many more.

Yet such endearing and memorable engagements in life are promised to no one. They come and go and one has to be aware that there is no assurance they will ever come again. It made me tremble to think what I had lost.

And then the mists clouded over once more and a new image replaced the old.

They were running hard, the female a bit ahead of the male. I ran too to catch up through the mist that had become my world for now. The trees were towering, though not so towering as I was used to in the present. As I caught up, I saw them more clearly. The female was perhaps four sessions. The male then must be two sessions older, or six. I knew this because the male and female were Delph and I.

He was already tall for his age, as I was. His hair was not that long yet. We jumped a narrow creek and landed on the opposite side, laughing and pushing each other. Delph’s face was animated, his eyes bursting with possibilities of the sessions ahead. For the life of me, I had not remembered this part of my past until just now.

Then I realized that Delph would see my grandfather’s Event this session, and he would never be the same. And neither would I. Maybe that’s why I banished this memory, because it was closely aligned with that terrible time. I wanted to call out to them, to warn of what was coming, though I didn’t. There would be no point because they couldn’t hear me.

This image faded and I found myself in the Hallowed Ground, where Wugs who had slipped away were laid in the soil. I was staring down at the hole in the dirt as my grandmother Calliope’s box was lowered into it. Other Wugs stood around solemnly watching this take place. This was a bit out of order, because she had died from the sick soon after John was born but before me and Delph had been running through the trees.

And then it occurred to me. Calliope going into the ground meant that my grandfather Virgil was here. I found him in the crowd of Wugs on what I now remembered was a miserably cold light full of drizzle and not even a glimpse of warming sun.

He was tall but looked bent. He was not so very old, yet looked aged. Calliope and he had been together for so many sessions that when she left him, my grandfather was reduced to something far less than he had been. My father stood next to him, his arm on Virgil’s shoulder. My mother, holding my new brother, stood next to them. And holding my grandfather’s other hand was my younger self.

I stood next to Virgil and looked up. It was painful to see his sorrow, etched so heavily across his features. Just as I had been seeing my brother being born, I once more was possessed of an enormous sense of loss. I was still a very young when my grandfather vanished. I could have spent so much more time with him. I should have spent so much more time with him. But I had been robbed of that opportunity. My spirits dipped lower than they ever had before.

At the end of a lifetime’s worth of lights and nights, it seemed that family was really the only important thing there was. And yet how many of us truly appreciated that significance before our last breath left us? We lost family all the time, and we mourned them and buried them and remembered them. Wouldn’t it be better to celebrate family while they are alive to a greater degree than when they are no longer with us?

I put my hand to my eyes and wept quietly. My body shuddered and I could feel Harry Two right next to me, as though he were holding me up.

Once I regained my composure, my gaze settled on the ring on my grandfather’s hand. The same ring that had been found in Quentin Herms’s cottage. I looked at the back of my grandfather’s hand and saw the same design echoed there: the three hooks connected. I had no idea what it meant or why he had such a ring or such a mark. But it was becoming clearer all the time that there was much I didn’t know about my family. And it was crystal clear that those were mysteries I had to solve if I was ever going to find the truth. Of my family. Of Wormwood. Even of myself.

I had my ink stick in my pocket and I used it to draw the three connected hooks on the back of my hand.

The crowd of Wugs was large. I wasn’t surprised by the size. Calliope was much loved in Wormwood. Near the front of the crowd I saw a younger Ezekiel, and next to him was Thansius, so large and solid. He hadn’t really changed at all. But I was startled to see Morrigone in the back of the crowd. She was many sessions younger at that point, but she also looked nearly the same as she did now.

I was just about to go over to her when the mists crowded me out once more. It was frustrating, yet I had no other option but to keep going.

That’s when I heard the scream. As the mists cleared once more, I saw Delph. He looked the same age as in my last memory, which meant it was still around the time of my grandfather’s Event.

He was running down a hard-packed gravel road that looked instantly familiar to me. I looked up ahead and saw the gates with the large M on them. Delph was running from Morrigone’s home. As I watched, he looked back in terror and then passed by me. That’s when I realized what was happening. That’s when I saw her. Or rather me.