Travel safely, child … I heard her say.

Lord, but it was hard, walking away, even though in a sense I was being set free. I'd paid for my freedom in words; every thought I've set on these pages has been a ransom against this release. But still, there was a sadness in me, to be going.

I didn't look back until I'd taken perhaps twenty paces. When I did, however, I stopped for a few minutes, just to watch what ensued. This was the moment. Galilee and Rachel, hand in hand, were approaching the boat.

Brat, Cesaria said to him. You took your time.

"I got lost. Mama," Galilee said. "I got lost in the world. But I'm home now."

There's nothing left to come home to, Cesaria said. It's all gone.

"Then let me build it again," Galilee replied.

You don't have the wits, child.

"Not on my own," Galilee said. "But with my Rachel-"

Your Rachel, Cesaria said, her voice softening. She rose from her throne of timbers, and beckoned to Rachel. Come here, she said.

Rachel let go of Galilee's hand, and walked toward the boat. Cesaria stepped out between the ribs of the hull and looked her up and down. I was too far from them to see the expression on her face, but I could well imagine how scouring that scrutiny felt. I'd experienced it myself; or some measure of it. Cesaria was looking into Rachel's soul. Making a final judgment as to the appropriateness of this woman. At last, she said:

Are you sure you want this?

"This?" Rachel said.

This house. This history. This brat of mine.

Rachel looked back over her shoulder. In the long moment that she gazed at Galilee I thought I heard the stars moving overhead, steady and content.

"Yes," she said. "He's what I want."

Then he's yours, Cesaria said.

She opened her arms.

"Does this mean I'm forgiven?" Galilee asked.

Cesaria laughed. If not now, then when? Come into my arms, before you break my heart again.

"Oh, Mama-"

He went to her then, with such abandon, and pressed his face against her shoulder while she wrapped him in her arms.

"Forgiven?" he said.

Forgiven, she replied.

I did not expect to come to the last few pages of this story following in the footsteps of Zelim the fisherman, but that's what happened. Leaving the reunion to take its happy course behind me I headed for the trees, and stepped beneath their canopy. It was dark, and I very soon gave up any attempt to plot a course for myself; I simply plunged on through the undergrowth, letting accident decide my destiny. I wasn't particularly reassured by what I remembered of Zelim's journey. He'd emerged from this forest only to be raped by bandits. I hoped to be luckier; hoped, indeed, that though I'd left the shore and Cesaria far behind me, she was watching over my progress, and would guide me in my sightlessness.

There was little sign of a guiding hand, however. Just as I was certain the darkness around me was as profound as it could get, it became darker. I was soon reduced to stumbling forward with my arms stretched in front of me, to prevent myself from walking into a tree. That didn't keep my face and hands and chest from being scratched by thorns, or my feet from becoming entangled in the ropes of root across my path. Several times I fell headlong, the breath knocked out of me. So much for Cesaria's final blessing, I thought sourly. Travel safely, indeed. If this was her world I was stumbling through, as I presumed it to be, might she not have put a moon up there above me, to light the path?

No, I suppose that would have been too easy. She was never one to be needlessly kind, even to herself. Perhaps especially to herself. Just because her child had been returned to her, she wasn't going to change her ways.

It was too late for me to turn back, of course. The shore had long since disappeared from sight behind me. I had no choice but to wander on-as Zelim had done before me-hoping that the torment would eventually come to an end.

And so, after a long, long time, it did. I caught a glimpse of amber light between the trees, and fixing my eyes on the glow, I stumbled on toward it. Dawn was coming up, ahead of me; I could see layers of tinted cloud, their flat bellies stroked by the emerging sun. And to welcome the light, birds in bright chorus, filling the branches overhead. My legs were weak by now, and my body shaking with fatigue, but the sight and sound gave me a fresh burst of energy, and within five minutes of first seeing the light I was emerging from the trees.

My night journey had been far more elaborate than I'd realized. Somehow while I'd been blind Cesaria's enchantments had led me out of the house and across the grounds to the perimeter of L'Enfant. That was where I now stood: at the borderland between sacred ground and secular; between Barbarossian territory and the rest of the world. Behind me was a solid mass of trees, the thicket that swelled and blossomed between them so dense that I could see no more than three or four yards, while ahead of me lay a landscape of simple virtues. Rolling hills, rising away from the swampy ground that bounded L'Enfant; scattered trees, uncultivated fields. I could see no sign of habitation.

The birds who'd been greeting the dawn now took flight from the canopy, and I watched them rising up, wheeling around overhead before talcing their various ways. I felt suddenly immensely vulnerable, seeing them rise into that bright, wide sky. It was so long since I'd been roofless; I was sorely tempted to turn round and go back to the house.

I had unfinished business there, I reasoned: I couldn't just walk out into the world and leave the life I'd been living behind me. A journey like this needed thought and preparation. I had to say goodbye to Marietta, Zabrina and Luman; I had to append a few dosing paragraphs to the book on my desk; I had to tidy up my study, and lock away my private papers. There was this to do, there was that to do.

All excuses, of course. I was just trying to find ways to postpone the fearful moment when I actually faced the world again. That was why Cesaria had tricked me into this sudden exile, I knew; to deny me my procrastinations, and oblige me to venture out, under this expanse of sky. In short, to make me live.

I was standing there, facing the empty vista before me, chewing all this over, when I heard a motion in the thicket behind me. I turned around, and to my astonishment saw Luman digging his way out through the shrubbery, cursing ripely as he did so. When he finally emerged from the tangle he looked like some half-crazed spirit of the green, twiglets and thorns in his beard and hair. He spat out a mouthful of leaf, and gave me a fierce look.

"You'd better be grateful!" he groused.

"For what?" I said.

He raised his hands. He was carrying two leather knapsacks, both much battered and beaten. They were packed to the point of bursting. "I brought you some stuff for your travels," he said.

"Well that's good of you," I said.

He tossed the smaller of the knapsacks over to me. It was heavy. It also stank.

"Is this another of your antiques?" I said, looking at the Confederate insignia on the flap.

"Yep," he said. "I got them the same place I got the saber. I put your pistol in there, along with some money, a shirt and a flask of brandy."

"And that one?" I said, eyeing the bigger knapsack.

"Some more clothes. A pair of boots, and you know what."

I smiled. "You brought me my book?"

"Of course. I know how much you love that damn thing. I wrapped it in the ol' Stars and Bars."

"Thank you," I said, taking the second knapsack from him. It was quite a weight. My shoulders were going to regret my verbosity in the days to come. But it felt good to have the thing with me; like a child that I could not bear to be separated from.