Chapter 35
"The monster never breathes," the composer Berlioz supposedly laid about the organ, but I found the opposite to be true. When I played I felt alive and at one with the machine, as if exhaling the music. Tess and Edward visited the studio to hear the lengthening shape of my composition and at the end of the performance my son said, "You were moving the same as I was breathing." Over the course of a year, I worked on the symphony during what hours I could steal, regenerating it constantly from the desire to confess, seeking to craft a texture that would allow me to explain. I felt that if she could but hear my story in the music, Tess would surely understand and forgive. In my studio, I could take refuge at the keyboard. Lock the door and draw the curtains to feel safe and whole again. Lose myself, find myself, in the music.
By the springtime, I had secured a small orchestra—a wind ensemble from Duquesne, timpani from Carnegie-Mellon, a few local musicians—to perform the piece when it was completed. After Edward had finished first grade in June, Tess took him for a two-week visit to her cousin Penny's to give me time alone in the house to finish my symphony—a work about a child trapped in his silence, how the sounds could never get out of his own imagination, living in two worlds, the internal life locked to all communication with outside reality.
After struggling for years to find the music for that stolen child, I finally finished. The score lay spread out across the organ, the scrawled notes on the staves a marvel of mathematical beauty and precision. Two stories told at the same time—the inner life and the outer world in counterpoint. My method was not to juxtapose each chord with its double, for that is not reality. Sometimes our thoughts and dreams are more real than the rest of our experience, and at other moments that which happens to us overshadows anything we might imagine. I had not been able to write fast enough to capture the sounds in my head, notes that flowed from deep within, as if half of me had been composing, and the other half acting as amanuensis. I had yet to fully transcribe the musical shorthand and to assign all of the instrumentation—tasks that might take months of rehearsal to perfect—but the initial process of setting down the bones of the symphony had made me giddy and exhausted, as if in a waking dream. Its relentless logic, strange to the ordinary rules of language, seemed to me what I had been hoping to write all along.
At five o'clock that afternoon, hot and wrung-out, I went to the kitchen for a bottle of beer, and drank it on the way upstairs. My plan was a shower, another beer with dinner, and then back to work. In the bedroom closet, the empty spaces where her clothes had been reminded me of Tess, and I wished she had been there to share the sudden burst of creativity and accomplishment. Moments after stepping into the hot shower, I heard a loud crash downstairs. Without turning off the water, I stepped out, wrapped a towel around my waist, and hurried to investigate. One of the windows in the living room had been broken, and glass lay all over the rug. A breeze flapped the curtains. Half naked and dripping wet, I stood there puzzled, until a sudden discordant hammering of the piano keys frightened me, as if a cat had walked across it, but the studio was empty and silent. I took a long look around.
The score was gone—not on the table where I had left it, not fallen to the floor, not anywhere. The window gaped open, and I ran to look at the lawn. A solitary page fluttered across the grass, pushed along by a thin breeze, but there was nothing else to see. Howling with anger and pacing the room, I stubbed my toe on the piano leg and began hopping up and down across the rug, nearly impaling my foot on a piece of glass, when another crash sounded upstairs. Foot throbbing, I climbed the steps to the landing, afraid of what might be in my house, worried about my manuscript. My bedroom was empty. In our son's room another window had been broken, but no glass littered the floor. Shards on the roof meant the window had been shattered from the inside out. To clear my head, I sat for a moment on the edge of his bed. His room looked the same as the day he'd left for the vacation, and thoughts of Edward and Tess filled me with sudden sorrow. How would I explain the missing symphony? Without it, how could I confess my true nature? I pulled at my wet hair till my scalp ached. In my mind, my wife, my son, and my music were wound together in a braided chain that now threatened to unravel.
In the bathroom, the shower ran and ran. A cloud of steam billowed out into the hallway, and I stumbled through the fog to shut off the water. On the cabinet mirror, someone had fingered words on the fogged surface: We No Your Secret. Copied above, note for note, was the first measure of my score.
"You little fuckers," I said to myself as the message vanished from the mirror.
After a restless and lonesome night, I drove to my mother's house as a new day began. When she did not immediately answer my knock, I thought she might still be asleep, and went over to the window to look in. From the kitchen, she saw me standing there, smiled, and waved me to her.
"Door's never locked," she said. "What brings you here in the middle of the week?"
"Good morning. Can't a guy come and see his best girl?"
"Oh, you're such an awful liar. Would you like a cup of coffee? How about I fry you a couple of eggs?" She busied herself at the stove, and I sat at the kitchen table, its surface pocked with marks left from dropped pots and pans, nicked by knives, and lined with faint impressions of letters written there. The morning light stirred memories of our first breakfast together.
"Sorry I was so long in answering the door," she said above the sizzle. "I was on the phone with Charlie. He's off in Philadelphia, tying up loose ends. Is everything all right with you?"
I was tempted to tell her everything, beginning with the night we took away her son, going back further to a little German boy snatched away by changelings, and ending with the tale of the stolen score. But she looked too careworn for such confessions. Tess might be able to handle it, but the story would break my mother's heart. Nonetheless, I needed to tell someone, at least provisionally, of my past errors and the sins I was about to commit.
"I've been under a lot of pressure lately. Seeing things, not truly myself. Like I'm being followed by a bad dream."
"Followed by troubles is the sign of a guilty conscience."
"Haunted. And I've got to sort it out."
"When you were a baby, you were the answer to my prayers. And when you were a little boy, remember, I used to sing you to sleep every night. You were the sweetest thing, trying to sing along with me, but you could never carry a tune. That certainly changed. And so did you. As if something happened to you that night you ran away."
"It is like the devils are watching me."
"Don't believe in fairy tales. The trouble is inside, Henry, with you. Living in your own head." She patted my hand. "A mother knows her own son."
"Have I been a good son, Mom?"
"Henry." She rested her palm against my cheek, a gesture from my childhood days, and the grief over losing my score abated. "You are who you are, for good or ill, and no use torturing yourself with your own creations. Little devils." She smiled as if a fresh thought had entered her mind. "Have you ever thought whether you're real to them? Put those nightmares out of your head."
I stood to go, then bent and kissed her good-bye. She had treated me kindly over the years, as if I had been her own son.
"I've known all along, Henry," she said.
I left the house without asking.
I resolved to confront them and find out why they were tormenting me. To flush out those monsters, I would go back into the woods. The Forest Service provided topographical maps of the region, the areas in green indicating woodland, the roads drawn in meticulous detail, and I laid a grid over the likely areas, dividing the wilderness into manageable plats. For two days, despite my loathing for the forest and my aversion to nature, I explored a few of those squares, looking for their lair. The woods were emptier than when I lived there—the occasional hammering of a woodpecker, skinks sunning themselves on rocks, the raised white flag of one deer running away, and the lonesome hum of greenbottle flies. Not much life, but plenty of junk—a swollen copy of Playboy; a four-of-hearts playing card; a tattered white sweater; a small mound of empty cigarette packages; a canteen; a tortoiseshell necklace on a pile of stones; a stopped watch; and a book stamped Property Of County Library.
Aside from the dirt on its cover and the slight musty odor to its pages, the book was intact. Through the mildewed pages, the story revolved around a religious fanatic named Tarwater or Tearwater. I gave up reading novels in childhood, for their artificial worlds mask rather than reveal the truth. Novelists construct elaborate lies to throw off readers from discovering the meaning behind the words and symbols, as if it could be known. But the book I found might be just the thing for a fourteen-year-old hellion or some religious misfit, so I took it back to the library. Virtually nobody was there on that midsummer day, except for a cute girl behind the counter.
"I found this in the woods. It belongs to you."
She looked at the novel as if it were a lost treasure, brushed off the grime, and opened the back cover. "Just a minute." She leafed through a stack of stamped cards. "Thank you, but this has not been checked out at all. Did you forget?"
"No," I explained. "I found it, and wanted to return it to the rightful owners. I was looking for something else."
"Maybe I can help you?" Her smile reminded me of so many other librarians, and a small twinge of guilt poked me in the ribs.
I leaned close and smiled at her. "Do you have any books on hobgoblins?"
She skipped a beat. "Hobgoblins?"
"Or fairies. Imps, trolls, sprites, changelings, that sort of thing?"
The girl looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. "You shouldn't lean on the desk like that. There's a card catalog right over there. Alphabetical by subject, title, or author."
Rather than providing shortcuts to useful information, one search begat another, and the curiouser and curiouser I got, the more rabbit holes popped open. My search for fairies resulted in forty-two titles, of which a dozen or so might be useful, but that search branched off into goblins and hobgoblins, which in turn branched off to abnormal psychology, child prodigies, and autism. Lunchtime had come and gone, and I felt lightheaded and in need of some air. At a nearby convenience store I bought a sandwich and a bottle of pop, and I sat on a bench by the empty playground, contemplating the task before me. There was so much to know, so much already forgotten. In the relentless sunshine I fell asleep, waking up three hours later with a nasty sunburn on one arm and the left side of my face. From the library's bathroom mirror stared a person divided in two, half of my face pale, the other half crimson. Exiting past the young librarian, I tried to keep my profile two-dimensional.
My dream returned in full detail that night. Tess and I spoke quietly on the deck of a local pool. A few other people milled about in the background, sunning themselves or diving into the cool water. As wallflowers: Jimmy Cummings, Oscar Love, Uncle Charlie, Brian Ungerland. All the librarians in bikinis.
"How have you been, my love?" she teased. "Still chased by monsters?"
"Tess, it's not funny."
"I'm sorry, but no one else can see them, sweetheart. Only you."
"But they're as real as you and me. What if they come for Edward?"
"They don't want Eddie. They want you." She stood up, tugged at the bottom of her suit, and jumped in the pool. I plunged in after her, shocked by how cold the water felt, and frog-kicked my way to the middle. Tess swam to me, her body becoming more streamlined and graceful, and when the top of her head broke the surface, her hair was plastered against her scalp. As she stopped and stood, the film of water ran off her face, parting like a curtain to reveal not her face at all, but a hobgoblin's face, horrid and frightening. I blanched and hollered involuntarily; then she changed right back again to her familiar self. "What's the matter, love? Don't you know I know who you are? Tell me."
I went back to the library, hunted for a few of my titles, and sat down at a corner table. The research, especially on hobgoblins, was wrong in virtually every particular and no better than myth or fiction. Nobody wrote accurately about their habits and customs, how they lived in darkness, spying on human children, looking for the right person with whom to make the change. There was not one single word about how to get rid of unwanted visitors. Or how to protect your child from every chance and danger. Lost in these fairy tales, I became hypersensitive to the stillness of my surroundings, jarred by the sounds I that penetrated the silence. At first the noises appeared to be the random shufflings of another patron languidly turning pages, or one of the librarians, bored out of her mind, pacing the corridors or sneaking outside for a smoke. Soon every minute sound intensified in the mind-numbing quiet.
Someone breathed deeply and regularly, as if asleep, the noise emanating from an indeterminate direction. Later I heard a rasping in the walls, and when I asked the cute librarian, she said it was only mice, but the scrabbling was scratchier, like a fountain pen racing across a pad of paper. That evening, someone began singing tunelessly to himself from the lower depths. I followed the melody to a spot in the children's section. Not a soul around, I lay down, pressed my ear to the floor, and ran my fingers along the ancient carpet, catching my thumb on a hard bump, like a hinge or a bent nail. Carefully cut and nearly indiscernible, a carpet square had been glued to the spot, covering a panel or hatch below, and I would have pried it open, but the passing librarian startled me by clearing her throat. With a sheepish grin, I stood up, mumbled an apology, and went back to my corner. Convinced that something lived beneath the building, I brooded over how to catch him and make him talk.
Next morning, my books were in disarray, titles scrambled out of alphabetical order and all my bookmarks missing. They had been spying on me again. For the rest of the day I pretended to read, while actually listening for any noises from below, and once I wandered back to the children's section. The carpet square had been slightly raised above the surface. On my hands and knees, I tapped on the panel and realized that a hollow space existed beneath the floorboards. Maybe one or more of the fiends toiled below, hatching plots and tricks to further savage my life. A slight red-haired boy whistled behind my back, and I quickly stood, stamped down on the lid, and went away without a word.
That boy made me anxious, so I went out and stayed on the playground until the library closed. The young librarian noticed me on the swing set, but she turned away and pretended not to care. Alone again, I searched the grounds for evidence. If they had followed me to the library, they must have dug a hole or found a secret entranceway into the building. On my third trip around the building, in the shadows of the sun, I saw him. Behind the back stairs, he squeezed out through a crack in the foundation like a baby being born and stood there for a moment, blinking in the fading light. Afraid that he might attack me, I looked left and right for an escape route. He ran directly at me, as if to seize my throat in his jaws, and then darted away as quickly as a bird in flight, too fast for me to see him clearly, but there is no doubt who it was. A hobgoblin. When the danger passed, I could not keep from laughing.
Nervous for hours, I drove around and found myself at my mother’s place near midnight. While she slept upstairs, I crept through the house gathering supplies: a carpet knife, an iron crowbar, and a coil of strong rope. From the old barn, I stole my father's ancient kerosene camping lamp, its wire handle dusty and cold to the touch. The wick sputtered when I tried to light the lamp, but it came to life and suffused the long-neglected corner with an unearthly glow.
Insomnia gripped me those last few hours, my mind and body p fusing rest until the deed was done. In the predawn gloom, I went back and memorized the layout of the building, figuring out step by step what I was going to do. Patience nearly deserted me. The goblin might have been spooked, so I went about my business as if nothing had ever happened. I spent the day reading a book about remarkable children, gifted savants whose minds were damaged in such a way that they could see the world only through a sole window of sound or mathematics or another abstract system. I would press the hobgoblin for the story of what had really happened to Gustav Ungerland and to me.
But more than any explanation, I simply and desperately wanted my symphony back, for I could not write a note knowing it was gone. Nothing would stop me from making him return the score. I would reason if I could beg if I must, or steal it back if need be. By now, I was no longer something wild and dangerous, but I was committed to restoring my life.
Unmistakable noises stirred beneath the floor all day. He was back. As the library emptied, I napped in the front seat of my car. Sultry August heat poured in through the windows, and I dozed off longer than intended. The stars had risen, and that short nap had energized me. I slung the rope around me like a bandolier, took out the tools, and skulked over to the side window. There was no telling how far below lay their underworld. Wrapping my fist in a towel, I punched through the glass, unlocked the window, and crawled through the opening. The stacks loomed like a maze of tunnels, the books watching my every movement through the darkness as I crept to the children's section. Anxious, I spent three wooden matches attempting to light the kerosene lantern. The oily wick smoked and at last caught flame. My shirt clung to my sweaty back, and the heavy air made breathing difficult. With the knife, I cut away the carpet square and saw that it had been glued atop a small trapdoor, easily pried open with the crowbar. A perfect square separated our two worlds.
Light filtered up from below and revealed a cramped room strewn with blankets and books, bottles and dishes. I bent down for a closer look and stuck my head through the hatchway. As quick as a striking snake, his face appeared in front of mine, not inches from my nose. I recognized him at once, for he looked exactly as I had as a young boy. My reflection in an old mirror. His eyes unmasked him, all soul but no substance, and he did not move but stared back silently without blinking, his breath mingling with mine. He expressed no emotion, as if he, too, had been waiting for this moment and for it all to be over.
This child and I were bound together. As boys dream of growing into men, and men dream of the boys they once were, we each took measure of the other half. He reminded me of that nightmare long ago when I was taken, and all at once my long-held fears and anger broke through the surface. The lantern ring bit into my fingers, and my left eye twitched with tension. The boy read my face and flinched. He was afraid of me, and for the first time I regretted what I had taken from him and realized that, in feeling sorry for him, I grieved for my own stolen life. For Gustav. For the real Henry Day. His unknowable life. For all I could have with Tess and with Edward. My dream of music. And who was I in this equation but the product of my own division? What a terrible thing to have happened to such a boy.
"I'm sorry," I said, and he vanished. Years of anger dissipated as I stared at the space where he used to be. He was gone, but in that brief moment we’d faced one another, my past had unspooled deep inside my mind, and I now let it go. A kind of euphoria raced through my blood, and I took a deep breath and felt myself again.
"Wait," I called out to him, and without thinking I turned and slid feet first through the opening, and landed in the dust. The space below the library was smaller than anticipated, and I bumped my head on the ceiling when I stood. Their grotto was but a murky shadow, so I reached up for the lantern to better see. Hunched over, I searched with the firelight for the boy, hoping he might answer a few questions. I wanted nothing more than to talk to him, to forgive and be forgiven. "I'm not going to hurt you," I cried out in the darkness. Wrestling free of the rope, I laid it and the carpet knife on the ground. The rusty lantern creaked in my hand as the light swept the room.
He crouched in the corner, yapping at me like a trapped fox. His face was my own fear. He trembled as I approached, eyes darting, searching for an escape. Candlelight illuminated the walls, and all around him on the ground lay stacks of paper and books. At his feet, tied in a strand of twine, a thick sheaf of handwritten pages sat next to my purloined score. My music had survived.
"Can't you understand me?" I held out my hand to him. "I want to talk to you."
The boy kept eyeing the opposite corner as if someone or something were waiting there, and when I turned to look, he rushed past me, knocking into the lamp as he ran. The rusted wire snapped, sending the lamp flying, shattering the glass on the stone wall. The blankets and papers ignited at once, and I snatched my music from the flames, beating it against my leg to extinguish the wisps of fire along the margins. I backed my way to the overhead entrance. As if fixed to the spot, he stood gazing up in amazement, and just before climbing out of the hole, I called for him a final time: "Henry—"
His eyes went wide, searching the ceiling as if discovering a new world. He turned to me and smiled, then said something that could not be understood. By the time I got upstairs, a fog of smoke rose through the hole below. It followed me through the broken window just as the flames began to lick the stacks of books.
After the fire, Tess saved me. Distraught over the damage I had done, I moped about the house for days. The destruction of the children's section was not my fault, although I deeply regretted the loss of all the books. The children will need new stories and fairy tales to see them through their nightmares and daydreams, to transfigure their sorrows and fears at not being able to remain children forever.
Tess and Edward arrived home from her cousin's just as the police were leaving. It seems I was regarded as a person of suspicion, for the librarians had reported my spate of frequent visits and "erratic behavior." The firemen had discovered the lantern in the ashes, but there was no way to link back to me what had once been my father's. Tess accepted my feeble explanations, and when the police came around again, she told them a little white lie, saying that we had spoken over the phone on the night of the fire and she remembered quite clearly having woken me from a deep sleep. Without any proof, the matter faded. The arson investigation, as far as I know, proved inconclusive, and the blaze passed into local lore, as if the books themselves had suddenly burst into flames.
Having Tess and Edward back home those few weeks before school started was both reassuring and unnerving. Their mere presence in the house calmed my fragile psyche after the fire, but there were times when I could barely look Tess in the eye. Burdened with guilt over her complicity, I searched for some way to tell her the truth, and perhaps she guessed the reasons for my growing anxiety.
"I feel responsible, in part," Tess told me over dinner. "And helpless. As if we should do something about rebuilding." Over our lamb chops, she outlined a plan to raise money for the library. The details arrived in such waves that I knew Tess had been contemplating the matter since the day of her return. "We'll start a book drive, too, and you can make your concert a benefit for the children."
Stunned and relieved, I could raise no objection, and over the next weeks, the bursts of activity overwhelmed my sense of decorum and privacy. People boxed up their fairy tales and nursery rhymes, and swarmed through the house at all hours with cartons of books, stacking them in the studio and garage. What had been my hermitage became a beehive for the well-intentioned. The phone rang constantly with offers to help. On top of the hubbub over the books, planning for the concert interrupted our peace. An artist came by to show poster designs for the concert. Advance tickets were sold from our living room. On a Saturday morning, Lewis Love and his teenaged son, Oscar, showed up with a pickup truck, and we loaded the organ in the back to install it in the church. Rehearsals were scheduled for three nights a week, and the students and the musicians constructed it measure by measure. The giddy pace and hum of life left me too exhausted to consider my conflicted emotions. Swept up in the motion Tess had created, I could only truly function by concentrating on the music as the date for the performance drew near.
From the wings, I watched the crowd file into the church for the benefit premiere of The Stolen Child on that night in late October. Since I was performing on the organ, I had passed the conductor's baton to Oscar Love, and our old Coverboys drummer Jimmy Cummings was on timpani. Oscar had rented a tuxedo for the occasion and Jimmy had cut his hair, and we seemed much too respectable versions of our former selves. A few of my fellow teachers from Twain sat together in the back rows, and even one of the last remaining nuns from our grade school days attended. Ebullient as ever, my sisters showed up in formal wear, pearls at their collars, and they flanked my mother and Charlie, who winked at me as if to impart a dose of his abundant confidence. I was most surprised to see Eileen Blake escorted by her son Brian, who was in town for a visit. He gave me a momentary fright when they arrived, but the more I studied him, the less he could be compared rationally with Edward. My son after all, and thank goodness, he takes after his mother in every respect but appearance. With his hair tamed, and dressed up in his first suit and tie, Edward looked like another boy altogether, and seeing the foreshadowing of the man my son will become one day, I felt both pride and regret over the brevity of childhood. Tess could not stop grinning that crooked smile of hers, and rightfully so, for the symphony I had promised to write long ago was nearly hers.
To let in some fresh air on the crisp autumn night, the priests had cracked the windows, and a light breeze crossed the altar and the nave. The organ had been positioned at the apse because of the acoustics, and my back was to the audience and the rest of the small orchestra as we took our positions; from the corner of my eye, I could see only Oscar as he tapped and tensed the baton.
From the very first notes, I was determined to tell the story of how the child is stolen and replaced by someone else, and yet both the child and the changeling persist. In place of the usual distance and separation from the audience came a sense of connection through performance. They were stilled, hushed, expectant, and I could feel two hundred pairs of eyes watching. I concentrated to the point where I could let go and play for them rather than satisfy myself. The overture teased out the symphony's four movements: awareness, pursuit, lamentation, and redemption, and at the moment when I lifted my hands from the keys and the strings took up the pizzicato to indicate the arrival of the changelings, I felt his presence nearby. The boy I could not save. And as Oscar waved me in for the organs interplay, I saw the child through an open window. He watched me play for him, listened to our music. As the tempo slowed in the second movement, I took more chances to watch him watching us.
He was solemn-eyed, listening intently to the music. During the dance of the third movement, I saw the pouch slung over his shoulder, as if he were preparing for a journey. The only language available to us was the music, so I played for him alone, forgot myself in its flow. All through the movement, I wondered if anyone else in the church had seen that strange face in the window, but when I looked for him again, there was nothing but black night. At the cadenza, I realized he had left me alone in the world and would not return.
The audience rose as one when the last notes of the organ expired and they clapped and stomped for us. When I turned from the window to the thundering of friends and family, I scanned the faces in the crowd. I was almost one of them. Tess had lifted Edward to her side to join in joyful bravos, and caught off guard by their exuberance, I knew what must be done.
By writing this confession, Tess, I ask for your forgiveness so that I might make it all the way back to you. Music took me part of the way, but the final step is the truth. I beg you to understand and accept that no matter what name, I am what I am. I should have told you long ago and only hope it’s not too late. My years of struggle to become human again hinge upon your belief in me and my story. Facing the boy has freed me to face myself. As I let go the past, the past let go of me.
They stole me away, and I lived for a long, long time in the forest among the changelings. When my time to return came at last, I accepted the natural order. We found the boy Day and made the change. I did my best to ask his forgiveness, but perhaps the child and I are too far gone to reach each other anymore. I am no longer the boy I was once upon a time, and he has become someone else, someone new. He is gone, and now I am Henry Day.
“这魔鬼从不呼吸。”据说作曲家柏辽兹这样说过管风琴，但我发现事实正相反。弹琴的时候，我觉得活力充沛，人琴合一，好似呼吸着音乐一般。泰思和爱德华来乐室听我不断扩充篇幅的乐曲，演奏结束后，我儿子说：“你弹琴的节奏和我的呼吸合拍。”在过去的一年里，我把所有空闲的时间都用来写交响乐，不断地把它从一首欲望之曲改为坦白之曲，探索着怎样才能编织出一种容我解释的感觉。我觉得，只要泰思能听一听我音乐中的故事，她肯定会理解和宽恕我的。在乐室里，我在琴键上寻找慰藉。锁上房门，拉好窗帘，就又有了安全感。音乐中，我失去自我，又找到自我。
到了春天，我组织起了一个小型管弦乐队——来自迪尤肯的弦乐手，卡内基美隆的定音鼓手，还有几个当地乐手——等曲子完成，就可以把它演奏出来。六月，爱德华读完一年级后，泰思带他去她堂姐潘妮家过了两周，为的是可以让我独自在家完成交响乐。这件作品是关于一个困陷在沉默中的孩子，音乐无法从他的想像中逸出，他生活在两个世界中，内在生活和外在真实毫无联系。
在奋斗多年寻找失窃的孩子的音乐后，我终于完成了。乐谱摊放在管风琴上，五线谱上的潦草音符具有数学般的美丽和精确。两个故事同时叙述——内在的生活和外在的世界用对位法配合旋律。
我不是将一个和音叠加在和它对称的那个上面，因为这不是事实。
有时候，我们的思想和梦想比我们其他的经历都来得真实，而另些时候，我们身上发生的事情使我们所能想像的一切为之失色。我写谱的速度跟不上头脑里的声音，音符一个个从内心深处流淌出来，仿佛半个我在作曲，半个我在做记录员。我只好用速记法记录曲子，调配各种乐器——这种事情要演练上几个月才能臻于完美——但最初把交响乐的骨架写下来的过程却让我心力交瘁，好似刚从梦中醒来。
它那一丝不苟的逻辑大异于通常的语言规则，但对我来说似乎正是我一直想要写的东西。
那天下午五点，天热得让人疲惫，我到厨房拿了一瓶啤酒，边喝边上楼，打算先冲个澡，再喝一瓶啤酒，吃了晚饭，然后回头工作。卧室的壁橱里，泰思原来放衣服的地方空荡荡的，这让我想起了她，我多希望她能在这里与我一同分享突然进发的创造力和大功告成的那一刻。我刚开始洗热水澡没多久，就听见楼下“哗啦”
一声巨响。我水龙头也没关就出来，在腰间围了条毛巾，匆匆下去看个究竟。起居室的一扇窗户被打破了，碎玻璃在地毯上撤得到处都是，窗帘在微风下轻轻拂动。
我半裸着滴水的身体，莫名其妙地站在那里，突然一下不和谐的钢琴声吓了我一跳，好像有只猫从琴键上走过，但乐室空荡沉寂。我到处查看。
乐谱失踪了——不在我原来放它的桌子上，也没有掉到地上，哪里都没有。窗户敞开着，我跑过去查看草坪。一片孤零零的纸页被一股轻风推动，在草地上飘荡，但其他什么都没有。我怒火冲天地咆哮起来，在房间里走来走去，一脚踢到了钢琴腿上，痛得在地毯上跳来跳去，差点就踩上了一块碎玻璃，这时候又一声巨响从楼上传来。
我的脚疼痛难当，又上到楼梯平台，生怕家里会有什么东西，还担心我的手稿。
我的卧室里没有人。我儿子房间又打碎了一扇窗，但玻璃没有掉在地上。屋顶上的碎片说明窗户是从里往外打破的。为了让自己冷静下来，我在他床边坐了片刻，他的房间和他去度假那天一样。想到爱德华和泰思，我突然伤心起来，我该如何解释交响乐谱丢失了呢? 没有曲子，我又该如何坦白自己真实的本性? 我拉扯着湿漉漉的头发，直拉得头皮发痛。在我心目中，我的妻子、儿子和音乐被编成了一条链子，而这链子如今眼看就要散开了。
浴室里，莲蓬头洒个不停，水汽蒸腾到走廊上，我跌跌撞撞地穿过雾气，去把水关掉。厨镜上．，有人用手指在雾蒙蒙的镜面上写道：我们知道你的秘密。抄在上头的一个又一个音符是我乐谱的第一个节拍。
“你们这些小混账。”我自言自语道，留言从镜子上渐渐消失。
在度过一个不安和孤独的夜晚后，天刚亮我就开车去母亲家。
她没有马上来应门，我想她可能还睡着，就走到窗边朝里张望。她从厨房里看到我站在那儿，就微笑着招手让我进去。
“门从来不锁的，”她说，“你怎么会在一周的当中来了? ”
“早上好。难道一个伙计不能来看看他最好的姑娘吗? ”
“哦，你说起谎来真是不眨眼。要来一杯咖啡吗? 我给你煎两个蛋怎么样? ’
’她在炉子边忙着，我坐在厨房桌边，桌面上斑斑点点的都是锅子和水壶留下来的印痕，还有刀痕，以及一排排浅浅的写过信的字痕。晨光让我想起了我们第一次共用早餐的光景。
“抱歉我这么长时间没去应门，”她在咝咝响的炉子边上说，“我在和查理打电话。他去了费城，去处理一些零碎的事情。你一切都好吗? ”
我差点想把一切都告诉她，从那晚我们带走他儿子开始，追溯到那个德国小男孩被换生灵抓走，直到乐谱被窃走的事。但她看起来饱经忧虑，承受不起这样的招供了，泰思也许还受得了，但这件事会伤了母亲的心。但不管怎样，我需要找个人，哪怕临时拉个人来，跟他说一说我过去犯的错，还有将来会犯的罪。
“我最近压力很大。看到了一些东西，疑神疑鬼的，就像噩梦缠身似的。”
“心神不宁是良心不安的迹象。”
“见鬼了。我要把原因弄明白。”
“你还在襁褓中时，你是我祈祷的回应，你小时候，还记得吗，我每天晚上唱歌哄你入睡。你是最甜美的孩子，想和我一起唱歌，但你唱不出音调。那当然变了。
你也变了。好像自从那晚你离家出走后，你出了什么事。” ．“好像魔鬼们在盯着我。”
“别相信童话故事。问题在心里，亨利，问题在你身上。活在你自己的头脑中。”
她拍了拍我的手，“母亲了解自己的儿子。”
“我是一个好儿子吗，妈? ”
“亨利。”她将手掌抚在我脸颊上，这是我自幼就熟悉的动作，于是，失去乐谱的痛苦减轻了，“你就是你，不管是好是坏，拿你自己创造的东西来折磨自己是没用的。小魔鬼们。”她微笑起来，仿佛有了一个新想法，“你有没有想过你对他们来说是不是真实的呢? 把这些噩梦从你脑子里赶走吧。”
我站起来俯身和她吻别。这些年她待我很好，就像我是她的亲生儿子一样。
“我一直都知道，亨利。”她说。
我离开屋子，什么都没问。
我决心面对他们，我要知道他们为何要折磨我。为了赶跑这些魔鬼，我要回到森林中去。林业管理局提供了本地的地形图，绿色地带是林地，马路勾勒得很仔细，我在可能的地方画上方框，把深山老林划分成一块块可以琢磨的区域。整整两天，虽然我厌恶森林，憎恨大自然，还是搜索了几块地方，寻找他们的老窝。森林比我居住的当年空荡多了——偶尔听到啄木鸟的敲打声，看到在石头上晒太阳的小蜥蜴，竖起白旗逃跑的鹿，还有发出寂寞的嗡嗡声的绿头苍蝇。生命迹象不多，垃圾却是满地——一本胀了水的《花花公子》，一张红心扑克牌，一件破烂的白色T 恤，一小堆空烟盒，一个军用水壶，一条放在一堆石头上的乌龟壳项链，一块停了的手表，还有一本敲着“县图书馆所有”的书。
除了封面上有点泥土，书页里有股淡淡的霉味外，这本书完好无损。它发霉的纸页讲述了一个名叫塔瓦特或逖亚瓦特的宗教狂热者的故事。我从孩提时期就不再读小说了，因为小说虚构的世界遮蔽了真实，而不是揭示真实。小说家构织精巧的谎言，让读者去发现字词和象征背后的意义，好像意义真的可以发现似的。不过我找到的这本书或许正适合一个十四岁的混混或某个不信教的人，于是我把它送回了图书馆。仲夏的那天，图书馆里一个人也没有，只有一个站在服务台后面的漂亮女孩。
“我在森林里找到这个。这是你们的。”
她看着这本小说，好像它是丢失了的珍宝，她清除书上的尘垢，翻开封底。
“请稍等。”她翻查着一堆敲过章的卡片，“谢谢你，不过这本书没有被借出过。
你忘了借出吗? ”
“不是的，”我解释说，“我找到了它，想把它还给失主。我在找别的东西。”
“我能帮忙吗? ”她的微笑让我想起其他很多图书管理员，一阵轻微的罪恶感刺痛了我的胸腔。
我靠过去朝她微笑，“你有没有关于妖怪的书? ”
她停了一拍，“妖怪? ”
“或者是仙灵、小魔鬼、北欧小矮人、换生灵，诸如此类? ”
女孩看着我，好像我说的是外国语，“你不该这样靠在桌子上。
那边有卡片目录，主题、书名、作者都按照字母排序。”
这场搜索不是事半功倍地找到了有用的信息，而是又引发了新一轮的搜索，我越来越好奇，跳出来的兔子洞也越来越多。我找仙灵一共找到了42个题目，其中12个左右也许是有用的，但查找又岔到了妖精和妖怪的路子上去，然后又岔到了变态心理学、天才儿童和孤独症。午餐时间已过，我觉得头晕，胸闷气短。我在附近的便利店里，买了一个三明治和一瓶汽水，然后坐在空运动场的长椅上，思索着摆在面前的任务。太多的事情想要知道，太多的事情已被忘掉。
在太阳不停的烘烤下，我睡了过去，三个小时后醒过来，手臂和左脸上有了难看的晒斑。图书馆洗手间的镜子里，一个分成两半的人瞪着眼——我的一半脸苍白，另一半脸通红。出门时，经过年轻的图书管理员的身旁，我试图只让她看到我的侧脸。
那天晚上，我的梦境带着历历细节回来了。我和泰思在当地一个游泳池岸上悄悄地说话，后面有几个人在转悠，不是晒太阳就是潜在冷冰冰的水里。吉米•卡明斯、奥斯卡•拉甫、查理叔叔、布瑞恩•安格兰德，他们像舞会中无人搭理的女子似的或坐或站。所有的图书管理员都穿着比基尼。
“你怎么样，亲爱的? ”她调笑说，“还在被魔鬼追赶吗? ”
“泰思，这不好笑。”
“对不起，但别人都没看到他们，甜心。只有你。”
“但他们就和你我一样真实。万一他们来捉爱德华呢? ”
“他们不要艾迪，他们要你。”她站起来，扯了扯臀部的泳装，跃入泳池。我也跟着她跳进去，被这么冷的水吓了一跳，然后蛙泳游到中央。泰思游到我身边，她的身体越发显出线条感，更加优雅了。她把头抬出水面时，头发贴在脑壳上。她停下来站住，一层水从她脸上滑下来，像帘幕一般分开，这不是她的脸，而是一个妖怪的脸，可怕之极。我脸刷地惨白，不由自主地大叫，她立刻又变回了熟悉的样子。
“怎么啦，亲爱的? 你难道不知道我知道你是谁吗? 告诉我。”
我回到图书馆，找了几本我要的书，坐到角落里的桌子边。这些研究，尤其关于妖怪的研究，其实错误俯拾皆是，不比神话或小说好多少。没有人准确地写过他们的习性和习俗，没写过他们生活在黑暗中，侦察人类小孩，寻找合适的人来交换，也没写该如何避免不速之客上门，又该如何保护你的孩子在任何时候都不遭受危险。
我沉浸在这些童话故事中，变得对周遭环境万分敏感，刺耳的声音穿透沉寂。起初这噪音像是另一个读者懒洋洋翻着书时在地上偶然拖一下脚，或是一个图书管理员百无聊赖，在走廊上徘徊或者溜出去吸口烟。但很快，声音每分钟都来一下，在昏昏沉沉的寂静中越来越响。
有人做着深长而均匀的呼吸，好像入眠一样。这噪音从一个无法确定的方向传来。后来我听到墙里的摩擦声，我问漂亮的图书管理员，她说只有老鼠，但是刮擦声越来越明显，像是一支钢笔在一叠纸上刷刷地写。那天傍晚，在下面的深处，有人开始给自己唱起没有调子的曲子。我跟着这曲子来到儿童区的某个地方。周围没有人，我躺下来，耳朵贴着地面，手指在旧地毯上摸索，大拇指碰到一个坚硬的突起，好像是一个铰链或是弯曲的钉子。一块正方形的地毯剪裁得很仔细，差点就看不出来，它粘在那里，遮住了下面的一块面板或是一个入口。我正要查看，但一个图书管理员走过来清了清嗓子，把我吓了一跳。我不好意思地一笑，站起来喃喃地道歉，回到自己的角落里去。我确信有什么东西生活在建筑物的下面，考虑着该如何把他抓住，让他招供。
次日早晨，我的书乱成一团，题目的字母顺序被打乱了，所有的书签也都丢了。
他们又来侦察我了。这天我都在假装看书，实际上却在倾听下面的动静，还去了一趟儿童区。方形地毯稍微有点突了出来。我趴在地上，轻轻拍打面板，发现地板底下是空的。说不定下面有一个或多个魔鬼在干活，策划阴谋诡计来折腾我的生活。
一个红头发的瘦男孩在我背后吹了下口哨，我飞快地站起，在翻盖上跺了一脚，一句话都不说就走开了。
那男孩把我弄得紧张起来，我就走出去一直待在运动场上，直到图书馆关门。
年轻的图书管理员注意到我来来回回好几次，但她转过身，假装无所谓。我又一个人了，我搜查地板寻找证据。如果他们跟踪我到了图书馆，就一定会打个洞，或者找一条通进图书馆的秘密通道。我第三次绕图书馆走时，在太阳的阴影下，我看到了他。在馆后的楼梯后，他像一个婴儿钻出母腹，从地基的一条裂缝里钻出来，在那里站了片刻，在昏暗的光线里眨巴眼睛。我怕他会袭击我，环顾左右想找一条路逃跑。他笔直朝我冲来，像是要用爪子擒住我的喉咙，但接着忽地转弯，如飞鸟般轻捷，快得我还没有看清楚他的样子，但他是谁已经毫无疑问。一个妖怪。危险过去后，我情不自禁地大笑起来。
我紧张了几个小时，开车到处转悠，接近午夜时，发现自己到了母亲家。她在楼上睡觉，我偷偷摸摸地进屋子取东西：一把地毯刀，一根铁锹，一圈结实的绳子。
我从旧车库里偷了父亲的老煤油露营灯，它的铁丝把手上布满灰尘，触手冰冷。我点起灯，蜡烛芯噼啪直响，不过它总算复苏了，一团怪异的光芒充满了这个长期被忽视的角落。
前几个小时我一直睡不着，精神和身体都拒绝休息，除非这件事做好。在黎明前的微光中，我回到了图书馆，想了想建筑物的布局，然后一步一步地规划出该怎么做。耐心差点就弃我而去。妖怪可能会打草惊蛇，所以我忙着自己的事，好像什么都没发生一样。白天我读着一本关于非凡儿童、天才专家的书，他们头脑的某个方面被损坏了，只能通过一扇窗户来看世界，这扇窗户或是声音，或是数学，或是其他抽象体系。我要逼迫这个妖精说出古斯塔夫•安格兰德和我究竟发生了什么事。
比得到解释更为迫切的是，我不顾一切地想要拿回我的交响曲，因为丢失了它，我一个音符也写不出来了。为了让他送回乐谱，我可以不择手段。该理论时我会理论，该恳求时我会恳求，该偷的时候我会去偷回来。现在我已经不再是野蛮危险的人了，但我有责任让我的生活一如往昔。
毫无疑问，一整天地下那个声音就没停过。他回来了。图书馆里的人都走了以后，我在车子的前座打了个盹。三伏天的热气从车窗里涌进来，我睡着的时间比原先打算的长。星星升起来了，短短的一个盹使我又振作了精神。我像捆弹药带一样，把绳子一圈圈围在腰里，拿出工具，偷偷摸摸地来到边窗下。无法得知他们的地下世界到底有多深。我用毛巾包住手，一拳砸碎玻璃，打开玻璃窗，爬了进去。成排的书架好似迷魂阵般隐隐浮现，一本本的书盯着我在黑暗中蹑足到儿童区的每个动作。在紧张之下，我连划三根火柴才点亮煤油灯。上了油的灯芯冒出烟来，终于蹿出火焰。衬衫贴在我汗湿的背上，沉重的空气使得呼吸困难。我用刀子削去了方形地毯，看到它原来被粘在一扇小小的地板门上，用撬棒就能轻易打开。一个正方形的框子分隔了我们两个世界。
亮光透了上来，下面是一个狭窄的房间，乱扔着毯子、书籍、瓶子和碟子。我弯下腰想看个清楚，把头伸进地板门，他的脸突然出现在我面前，速度迅捷犹如一条出击的蛇，离我鼻端不过几寸。我顿时认出了他，因为他就是我小时候的样子，是我从前在镜子里的影像。他的眼睛使他无所遁形，眸子里除了灵魂之外别无其他。
他一动不动地默默回视着我，眼睛也不眨动，他的呼吸与我的呼吸混合在一起。
他面无表情，仿佛也一直等待着这一刻的到来，等待着一切的结束。
这个孩子和我的命运息息相关。孩子们总梦想着长大成人，而大人也怀念着他们曾经有过的童年，我们都在估摸着对方。他让我回想起许久之前我被带走的噩梦，突然之间，我久久压抑的恐惧和愤恨爆发出来。煤油灯的拉环嵌入我的指肉，我的左眼肌肉抽紧变形。
孩子看着我的表情，颤了一下。他害怕我，生平第一次，我为自己从他那里取走的东西感到后悔，也意识到我为他难过的同时，也在为自己被偷走的生活而悲哀。
为古斯塔夫，为真正的亨利•戴，为他无从得知的生活，为我从泰思和爱德华那里所拥有的一切，为我音乐的梦想。而谁又站在和我对等的位置上，却是我自己的分身? 在这个孩子身上发生过多么可怕的事啊。
“对不起。”我说，他消失了。我望着他刚刚待过的地方，多少年的愤怒消却了。他走了，但在那电光石火的一瞬间，我们彼此面对，我的过去在我脑海深处解开了结，我撒手任它离去。我的血液中奔腾着一种欢畅之情，我深深吸了口气，感觉恢复了自我。
“等一下。”我冲他喊了一声，不假思索地抬起身，两脚朝下滑进了入口，落在一地灰尘上。图书馆下面的空间比我想像的要小，站起来时我在天花板上撞到了头。他们的洞室中一片昏暗，我只好把煤油灯拿过来看个清楚。我弯着腰，借助灯光寻找这个孩子，指望他能回答几个问题。我只想和他说说话，原谅他，也让他原谅我。“我不会伤害你的。”我在黑暗中大声说。我把绳索解下，连同地毯刀一起放在地上。生锈的煤油灯在我手里吱吱作响，亮光铺满了屋子。
他缩在角落里，像头落入陷阱的狐狸一样朝我大喊大叫。他的表情就是我自己的恐惧。我走过去时，他颤抖起来，转动目光想找地方逃跑。灯光照亮了墙壁，他周围的地上堆的都是纸张和书本。在他脚边，用麻绳捆着的是厚厚的一摞手写稿，边上就是我失窃的乐谱。我的音乐还在。
“你听得懂我的话吗? ”我朝他伸出手，“我想和你谈谈。”
孩子一直看着对面的角落，好像那里有什么人或东西，我转过头去看时，他从我身边跑过去，撞到了煤油灯。生锈的灯绳断了，灯飞了出去，玻璃撞在石头墙上。
毯子和纸张立刻就着了火，我从火焰中抢出乐谱，在腿上拍了几下才把页边上的火舌扑灭。我退到顶上的出口处。他却好像被钉在原地似的，满脸惊愕地抬头看着，我爬出洞口前，最后一次叫了他的名字：“亨利——”
他的眼睛睁大了，打量着天花板，仿佛发现了新世界。他朝我转过身，微微一笑，说了些听不明白的话。等我到了楼上，一股烟气从下面的洞里升起来，跟着我从打破的窗口出去，火焰舔上了书架上的书。
火灾过后，是泰思救了我。我因自己造成的损失郁闷不堪，在家闷闷不乐了几天。虽然火烧儿童区不是我的过错，但我深深地痛惜那些烧掉的书籍。孩子们需要新的小说和童话故事来伴他们度过噩梦和白日梦，来化解他们因无法再当孩子而产生的悲伤和害怕。
警察走后，泰思和爱德华就从她堂姐家回来了。我好像成了嫌疑犯，因为图书管理员报告说我老去那里，而且“行动古怪”。消防员发现了灰烬里的煤油灯，但那是我父亲的东西，也无法和我挂上钩。
泰思接受了我迁强的解释，警察第二次来时，她跟他们说了个善意的谎言，说那晚火灾时，她正跟我通电话，她清楚地记得自己把我从沉睡中惊醒的。因为没有证据，这件事就不了了之了。据我所知，这起纵火罪没能结案，而当地人传说好像是那些书自己突然着火的。
开学前几周，泰思和爱德华待在家里，这让我既安心又惶恐。他们的存在安抚了我火灾之后的脆弱心灵，但有时候我都不敢看泰思的眼睛。我因为她的同谋而深感负疚，就想找个办法来向她坦言事实，而她或许也猜到了我日渐焦虑的原因。
“我觉得有部分责任，”泰思吃饭时跟我说道，“但帮不上忙。要不我们为重建图书馆做些什么吧。”她一边吃羊肉，一边提出了一个为图书馆募集资金的方案。
这个方案细节备至，于是我知道泰思自从回家后就一直在考虑这件事了。“我们还要发起一次捐书动员会，你可以举办一个音乐会，为孩子们办点好事。”
我目瞪口呆，又感到一阵轻松，没有提出异议。此后几周，我一下子活跃起来，抛开了对矜持和私密感的要求，大家用箱子装着他们的童话书和儿歌来了，一天到晚从门口涌入的都是整盒整盒的书，堆进乐室和车库。我隐居的地方成了好心人的蜂窝。电话铃响个不停，都是来自愿提供帮助的。除了书籍惹出的喧嚣，音乐会的策划也打破了我的太平日子。一名艺术家造访我家，拿来了音乐会的海报设计。预订票从我家的客厅里售出去。星期六上午，路易斯‘拉甫和他十几岁的儿子奥斯卡坐着卡车来了，我们把管风琴放到后车厢里，运到教堂里去。排演是每周三个晚上，学生和乐师们一段一段地演练。生活快得晕眩的节奏和嘈杂的声音使得我精疲力竭，也无力再去思量心中斗争的情绪。我被卷入泰思发起的活动中，随着演出日期的临近，只能全心全意地练习音乐。
十月末的那个晚上，我看到观众排队从两侧进入教堂，来观看《失窃的孩子》
的首场公益演出。因为我要弹管风琴，就把指挥棒交给了奥斯卡．拉甫，我们曾经的“封面男孩”鼓手吉米。卡明斯来敲定音鼓。奥斯卡特地为此租了件晚礼服，吉米也剃了头，跟我们以前的形象相比，现在可是光彩多了。我在特威的几个老师同事坐在后排，甚至我小学里硕果仅存的几位修女也来了。我的妹妹们还是一副热情洋溢的样子，穿着正装，领口别着珍珠，她们的左右分别坐着母亲和查理，查理朝我挤眉弄眼，好像要传达他对我无与伦比的信心。但最让我吃惊的是，艾琳•布雷克也在她儿子布瑞恩的陪同下来了，布瑞思正好回乡探亲。他们进来时，我吓了一跳，但我越是细细地打量他，越是觉得他和爱德华并不相像。谢天谢地，毕竟除了外貌，爱德华处处都像他母亲。他打理了头发，第一次穿上西装打上领带后，看起来就全然是另外一个男孩了。想到儿子终有一日会长成男人，我既骄傲，又感慨童年的短暂。泰思不停地勾唇微笑，那是她的招牌笑容，她也应该笑，因为我很久前就许诺要写的这支交响曲现在快要成为她的了。
牧师打开吱吱响的窗户，放入了清爽秋夜里的新鲜空气，一阵微风穿过神坛和中殿。考虑到声效，管风琴放在半圆形的壁龛中，大家各就各位后，我背对观众和其他的乐队成员，用眼角的余光只能看到奥斯卡挥动着指挥棒。
音乐一开始，我就决心要讲述一个故事：孩子被偷走、替换，孩子和换生灵都坚持活下去了。不同于通常情况下和观众保持的距离和疏离感，表演中传达着一种紧密相联的感觉。他们敛声屏气地默默等待，我能感受到两百双眼睛的注视，我知道在什么时候可以任情挥洒，为他们演奏，而不是为了取悦自己。序曲表现了交响曲的四个篇章：觉醒、追求、悔恨、拯救。当我从琴键上抬起手，提琴用拨指弹奏来表现换生灵的到来时，我感觉他就在附近。那个我无法拯救的孩子。奥斯卡对我挥手，示意我弹奏管风琴的问奏曲，我从敞开的窗口看到了那个孩子。他看着我为他演奏，听着我们的音乐。第三乐章速度放慢后，我更多次地去看他望着我们的样子。
他目光严肃，专心地听着音乐。在第四乐章的舞曲中，我看到他肩上背着包，好像准备远行。我们之间惟一的语言就是音乐，因此我单单为他演奏，在乐曲声中忘了自己。在这一乐章中，我想教堂中是否还有其他人看到窗口这张陌生的脸，但当我再度望向他时，那里只剩下漆黑的夜色。华彩乐段响起，我意识到他已将我独自留在这个世界中，再也不会回来。
管风琴最后的音符消散后，观众不约而同地站起，为我们拍手跺脚。我转过身，面向欢声雷动的朋友和家人，扫视着人群中的各个面孔。我几乎是他们中的一员了。
泰思把爱德华抱起来一同喝彩，看到他们兴高采烈的样子，我放松了戒备。我知道该做什么了。
泰思，我写的这份自白是恳求你的原谅，这样我才能毫无保留地回到你的身边。
音乐带我走了一程，但最后一步是真实。我恳求你的理解和接受，无论我叫什么名字，我都是我。我应该很久以前就告诉你，只盼望现在为时未晚。我多年努力再次做人，靠的是你对我和我的经历的信任。面对那个孩子，也让我解脱了束缚来面对自己。
我放手过去，过去也放开了我。
他们偷走了我，我在森林中和换生灵生活了很长很长时间。当终于轮到我时，我接受了自然的安排。我们找到了男孩戴，和他交换。我已尽力寻求他的原谅，但或许那孩子和我已经走得太远，无法再接近了。我不再是曾经的那个男孩，他也已经变成了另一个人，一个全新的人。他走了，现在我是亨利•戴。
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