Glen died.  It is true.  Glen was three-and-a-half, and he died.  I know that sounds strange, but hear me out.  He had spinal meningitis, the kind without a cure that killed in those days.  The lucky few who survived were permanently, mentally disabled, or to be politically incorrect, they ended up severely retarded.  Since Glen lived, he often thought a mental disability was a great excuse, especially when he messed up real bad; but the truth is he died, however briefly.

            The hospital room will always remain in Glen’s mind.  There was poor, thick glass up between himself and the boy next to him.  It was also up facing the door to protect any visitors, and maybe the nurses as well.  It was kind of like living in an isolation bubble, and that made it hard to get much hugging or holding, something that all three-and-a-half year olds need when they are in pain with a high fever.  On top of that, Father had work, of course.  Brother Tom was not yet five years old so he could not be left off at school and certainly not left home alone, and Mother was pregnant with Glen’s little sister.  They did not want her anywhere near Glen.

            To be sure, the boy next door had some of the same problems.  Even though he got contact with his mother, the time was severely restricted.  He did not get much hugging and holding either, and I think that lack of tender loving care had an effect on his final outcome.  You see, Glen was used to not getting much in the way of attention.  The other boy clearly needed the attention more.

            As it was, the lack of attention Glen got in those first years may have been a blessing when he got sick.  You see, he got even less than normal touching and cuddles – what they now know is vital to the healing process, especially for little children, only Glen did not miss it.  And you can write this down: You can’t miss what you never had.

            I’m afraid Glen’s friend cried a lot more than Glen, and not just from the meningitis.  He and Glen made up for some of the lack of attention by making faces at each other through the glass.  They became friends, though they could not talk through the glass and never shared a single word.  He and Glen would jump on the beds, side by side, and slap their hands against the glass until the nurse came in and yelled at them.  This went on, until the day when both appeared to take a downturn.  By nightfall, it was touch and go.

            Glen got awakened in the middle of the night and dragged off to some room where they put needle after needle in his rear.  He counted seven, though in years later everyone told him he was too young and did not yet know how to count.  That was where he died.  It was not for very long.  He felt a shock which from after knowledge he would call electric, but it could have been something else.  It was certainly a miracle, or at least God’s way of saying he was not supposed to die, yet.  He came back.

            Glen cannot tell you about tunnels, white lights or angels and such.  He kind of wishes he could, but obviously he was too young to remember.  He can say that God let him live again.  It was not his time, and that consideration hovered over his life ever since.  Why did  God let him live?  What did God have in mind for his life?  He is still searching because as far as he can tell, up to this point, his life has been one of a great deal of suffering, disappointment and being neglected, rejected, even manipulated and abused in one way or another and he knows that can’t be right. 

            One thing he can tell you is after that time, though I suppose most would claim it was in his makeup from the beginning, his life felt very disjointed.  It felt like he was not always there in this life or in this world.  He sometimes felt like a person in the wrong place and the wrong time, and often at the wrong point in history.  He sometimes felt like he belonged someplace else, and sometimes felt he was already in that other place and just biding his time in this place.  He very rarely remembered his dreams though the few had a tendency to be both prophetic and profound.  He is not sure he ever had what anyone would call a vision, though he may have since he caught himself (or more often was caught) daydreaming very vivid experiences from time to time.  

            One vivid memory from the hospital came when he got back to his bed, he found the other bed made up with fresh pillows and clean sheets.  Almost certainly the other boy died.  Glen never saw his friend again.

            This, then, is the story of his life.  Glen was born a disappointment, never really abused or even seriously neglected, but certainly ignored like he was not there, rejected after a fashion, treated like an afterthought, subject to negativity and criticism like he was wrong about everything, and he died when he was three-and-a-half.  I would say, “The End” but he is still here.  The only real question is, why?

            Glen was born in a maternity hospital in the capitol city of the kingdom, a hospital which closed a short time later.  There was a good hospital in the town where the family lived, but Mother was in the city most of the day.  She worked at the Great Central Government Library while Father went to work, writing for the print shop he would stay with his whole life.  He could not always be nearby, so Glen’s parents picked a hospital in the city to be safe as a place Mother could get to.  Sadly, shortly after Glen was born the hospital closed down, and there is without a doubt the first great metaphor for his life:  Every time he found something good they discontinue it.

            Glen’s parents were convinced they were going to have a girl.  They already had a son and Mother lived a magical kind of life, without much struggle – somehow things always broke her way.  She was so convinced that Glen would be a girl she neglected to pick out a boy’s name.  The unthinkable would not dare happen, but it did.

            “This can’t be my baby.”  Mother tried to hand the baby back.  “There must be some mistake.”

            “This is your son.  There is no mistake.”  The nurse refused to take the baby back.

            Mother could only frown as she wrapped Glen in his baby blanket – a lovely blanket by the way, covered with little girls in pink dresses holding cute parasols reminiscent of the girl on the Morton Salt packages.  Once she was convinced that this mistake was hers, Mother desperately tried to decide on a boy’s name. 

            Both grandfathers were already off the list.  Neither Millard nor Cecil would have been a wise choice in that time and place, so perhaps Glen should be grateful for some things.  Still, that left a gap, and Mother had already used the only boy’s name she liked for Brother Tom.

            Mother only had one sibling, but that was a sister.  Father also had only one sibling, a younger brother named Glen.  Glen was a good ol’ boy from the Southland, so he spelled the name as any good southern boy would: G-L-E-N.  But Mother was from the Northland and thought of the South like she imagined a foreign country, like Nepal or Mozambique.  What did she know?  She naturally wrote on Glen’s birth certificate: G-L-E-N-N (with two Ns) which is the way any reasonable northlander would spell it.  So while Glen was named after his uncle, in a sense you could say on the day he was born his own mother misspelled his name.  After that, life did not get any easier.

            Just before Glen was born, Brother Tom, who was breast fed, became very colicky.  For the first year of Glen’s bottle fed life, he got fed and put down in the playpen or crib or on the rug.  Years later, Mother admitted how glad she was that Glen was a good baby and did not require much attention, since Brother Tom required so much attention.  That was a matter of opinion.

            All Glen knew was Father had the kind of job where he brought work home and worked at his papers all night.  Father was not the kind to hug and hold in any case.  And with Mother, first being disappointed that Glen was not her girl and then needing to focus so much time and energy on Brother Tom, Glen was easy to ignore.  After a year of that, Brother Tom grew out of the colic.  He began on solid food, but by then the pattern and habits were set.  Glen was the neglected disappointment.

            For Glen, it was not as bad as you might think.  Yes, a baby needs attention.  It is how they learn to bond with their mother and father, and then with siblings and finally with the larger world.  True, Glen has always been stunted in his ability to make connections and form attachments, but it was not a total loss because so very often Glen was not there.  He was wandering and wondering about things like Crusading for Christ.

###

            Glen looked out from the cliffs over the endless sea, and that was enough.  The cliffs were called creativity, and Glen spent considerable time in the grotto between the great pillar stones of inspiration and imagination.  There was a third pillar at his back, but he could never quite grasp its name.  Often, Glen stayed and slept in the cave above, the artist’s alcove, and from there he could look out to where the water met the sky and listen to the waves crash on the beach far below.

            Most often, there was no one around to disturb his tranquility.  In those times he drew pictures in the chalk-stone, not yet having the words.  Sometimes he let the daylight shadows form shapes on the walls and ceiling.  Sometimes he watched the dancing sparkles of light that fell on the pools of water that collected in the grotto during the night.  And at night, he watched the stars sparkle in the same way across the darkened sky.

            Sometimes at night Glen felt like he was riding in a ship between the stars, and not just riding but somehow driving and directing the ship to some unknown destination.  He heard the whispers in the night of people long ago, and the soft words of familiar strangers that lived in some far away future.  At the same time, while he never heard the words, he felt the presence of God with him.  The Lord was never far away, and perhaps that is why his being rejected, neglected and ignored back home did not bother him as it might.  The Lord was never far away.

            Sometimes in the day he would see people.  Some came to fish and others, with children, came to collect sea shells and wade in the water.  Couples came to the grotto to rest in the shade and hold hands.  Old men and old women walked slowly across the sand.  Some saw him, but no one paid him any attention.  They might wave once, but then they ignored him, and it made him wonder more than once if perhaps he was a ghost after all.  He was an outsider looking in at life and wondering what it might be like to be connected to someone or to the world in a way he could not imagine.

            He was in the cliffs of creativity, in the artist’s alcove above the grotto where the three pillars of inspiration, imagination and the unnamed third stood, but some things were hard for him to know.

            Sometimes, he saw boats on the water: canoes, row boats, pleasure boats with big sails and fishing boats, though none ever strayed far from shore.  He once saw a fisherman beach his boat and bring his net to shore, full of fish.  He made a fire there and a bloody mess cleaning and cooking and consuming his catch.  Glen wondered what fish might taste like, but he was content and survived well enough on the fresh water that dripped into the cave from above.  He knew the water was a gift for him, and he was grateful.  No one and nothing else was needed and long as the Lord was near.

            Often, Glen would simply sit, alone, and look out over the water to the islands he saw scattered across the sea.  The view was never the same.  It seemed in the night the islands came unglued and shifted positions.  Some days, he could only see one, very far away on the horizon.  Sometimes he saw bunches of islands close together.  Often they remained beyond his ability to make out details, but sometimes they appeared almost close enough to see the trees, if the island had trees.  Once, he thought he saw a pinnacle with a flag, like a tower of some castle, but he was not sure.  All he could really do was guess at the life those islands surely contained. 

            He considered every form of spiritual creature from the ancient gods to the littlest sprite lived on those islands.  He imagined monsters, like dragons and werewolves, though he preferred to think about unicorns.  He considered that more than one island might have a space port to shoot rockets into the night toward the ceiling of the grand ship in which he rode.  He imagined all of history played out in bits and pieces on those distant lands.  The islands were innumerable, and he could never claim to have seen the same one twice over all his time there.

            And somehow, he too lived on those islands, even if he never left the cave.  There was something of himself alive in those strange and distant places.  It was something he could not quite touch.

            One thing he had trouble seeing on the islands was daily, ordinary life on earth.  He never imagined the happy family full of love and joy in each other’s company.  He never imagined a myriad of friends and fellow travelers.  He never imagined the good times to be had in the simple things of life.  He never imagined such things because he never knew such things.  He was in the creative cliffs, in the cave of artistry, supported by the pillars of imagination and inspiration and the third.  But all he had for sustenance was water from above, and he was gaunt and starving for something, even if he did not know what that something might be.  Still, it was enough just to be.  As long as the Lord was near.  It was still enough when he got sick.  It was still enough when he died.  Yes, he did.

            There is a road in this world.  As the prophet said at Christmas time, make in the wilderness a highway for our God.  We need to bring down the mountains and raise up the valleys and make it straight.  That is not easy to do. 

            There are bends and twists and turns in our personal roads.  Often we cannot see very far ahead.  We cannot know what may be around the next bend.  And there are trees and boulders and more subtle dips and rises that make our walk difficult at times.  There are swamps and marshes to wear us out.  Sometimes there are fantastic growths and jungles to cut through.  The horizon is often hidden from us.  And the wilderness holds many surprises.  There is no telling in advance who or what we might meet or run into.

            Sometimes we must walk this road alone, but often there are others who walk beside us for a time: parents and siblings, spouses and children, friends and sometimes enemies.  But most often their roads turn off here and there.  Sometimes they may join up again further along, or cross over our path from time to time, but it seems that nothing in this world is forever and the road we walk is our own.

            It is intriguing to see where each of us is headed.  All of these roads, trails and paths through the wilderness are certainly going somewhere.  And there are crossroads at times.  Make no mistake about that.  At times we have to choose which turn, which direction to take.  When confronted with a choice, I have noticed that very few have a clear vision as to which way to go.  For most, it seems the choice is only made in hope.  “I hope this is the right way.  I hope this is my way.”  Often, by God’s grace, things work out.  Sometimes they do not and we struggle to reach the next crossroad.

            But the thing is, though we walk, and we cannot help but walk our road, mostly we don’t know where we are going.

            C. S. Lewis said it well.  “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do.”

            That seems the philosophy of most of us, admit it or not.

            True, we read the road signs and usually we look for the ones that point to success, money, position, power, and vainly keep our eyes open for the road sign that points to happiness.  But where these roads will ultimately take us is not known.  Most don’t think of the end of the road.  Most don’t like to think about it.

            Will it be a nursing home in Florida where we sit in a wheelchair and stare out the window, feeling lost and neglected?  I don’t know.  I know that is not what anyone has in mind.

            Thomas asked Jesus.  “How can we know where you are going?  How can we know the way?”

            Jesus replied, “I am the way.”

            I am only now learning this great lesson.

            This journey is the story of a lost soul.  It is an absolutely personal telling of a life, even if most of it takes place in the second heavens or in the imagination or in dreamland or however you choose to call it.  It is a remarkable reflection of events in the so-called real world, but at the same time it is told with exaggerations, distortions and some things and events and attitudes that are as utterly real as they are utterly wrong. 

            It may be to understand life one must look at it through a Second Heavens perspective where that life gets twisted and distorted as surely as space and time in that place are twisted and distorted.  The old man, the young man and the child can touch each other at any point in a place where time is relative and space folds back on itself.  And who has not woken up at one time or another with a simple thought on their mind:  “How did I get here?”

            I am of the opinion that as surely as God in the Third Heaven impacts us on earth under the First Heavens, so also the Second Heavens leak through to life.  Life on earth seems so linear, so plodding, so straight forward, but is it?   Everyone has touched the sky at one time or another.  In Glen’s case, that leakage was regular.  He was regularly drawn back and forth between the Second Heavens and his earthly life like blood flowing through an open wound.  It was never bad enough or strong enough that he needed to be institutionalized, but the leakage was always more than enough for a storyteller.

            Don’t let the fantastic settings fool you.  It is what happened on the inside in a person’s life that matters most.  It is God’s intention, after all, to transform us from the inside-out.  Thus it is not the outside story that really matters in anyone’s life.  So whether the story takes place in the Second Heavens or on Earth is not the point.  It is the inside story that counts.  And so it is that Glen’s anatomy was unearthed in the days, months and maybe even years after his leap into the void.  Call it, the Anatomy of a Storyteller.  I will try to minimize the blood.

            The man followed Glen’s example and looked around before he nodded.  “Right you are.  This place is not like earth.  Some call this place the Second Heavens.  That is the space squeezed between the first heavens that circle above the earth and the Third Heaven wherein is the throne of God.  It may be.  Some imagine it is purgatory, though I don’t believe that is correct.  I have my own name for it.”  Glen raised his brows and leaned forward in expectation.  “I said it was my own name.”  That ended that discussion.

            After a time of silence while Glen watched the man pull some ground spice out of a pouch and rub it into the pigeon, he spoke again.  “Tough luck on any people living down below if the sea should break through this little ridge we are on.”

            “Eh?”  the man looked up and grinned as he stood.  “I heard it did once.  The Middle Ones had the devil’s own time getting the Endless Sea back in its place.  But that is just what I heard.”

            Glen was not sure he understood.  “Middle Ones?  Endless Sea?”  He mumbled the questions, but by then the man was up and tending to his horse, so he held his tongue.  He did not know what to think.  He did not know what to ask.  It came to him that he was not even sure who he was, and with that he decided his best course would be to watch his tongue or not say anything at all.

            When the pigeon was ready, Glen ate but thought about chicken just as hard as he could.  He ate because he did not want to offend the man, and the tubers were actually quite good.  But after a while, he spoke again to distract his attention from the food.

            “So how long have you been here?”  Glen felt that was a safe conversation since he had already volunteered that he had not been there long.

            The man stopped short in the midst of licking his fingers.  “Congratulations,” he said and looked up at the last bit of red and deepening purple in the western sky.  “It only took you about three hours to ask that question.  The last man I met took all day before he asked, and the man before that never did ask.”  He squinted hard at Glen.  “There must be something female about you.”

            “Female?”

            The man nodded and looked around at the trees before he looked again at Glen.  “Women are less concerned with this place and more with the person.  They usually ask that question in the first five minutes.”

            Glen sat quietly and looked at his hands.  The man – this knight was not inclined to be free with information.  Glen waited, and while he waited, he wondered if the cloth in his pack might provide some warmth in the night.  He pulled it out and saw that it was folded very tight.  There was no telling just from looking at it how big it might actually be, but now that the sun was down, he suspected it might cool off.   Glen looked again at the man who was still looking at him.

            “Well?”

            The man laughed.  “Once upon a time, I was headed for Jerusalem, but I got lost.”  He sighed wistfully before he continued.  “I found myself in this place in the Year of our Lord, 1192.”  Glen must have looked shocked because the man laughed again before he spoke.  “Yes.  I had a small troop out from Ascalon.  Richard sent us to spy out the Mohammedans, but my head tells me they found us first.  My head says I died in an ambush, yet here I am.  I hardly feel like a ghost.  I’ve just shared a nice pigeon and I am ready to take a good rest.  So you see, my body says I am hardly dead.  Besides, I am not inclined to do any of the things ghosts do.  I can’t walk through walls.  I tried.”  He paused to make a show by rubbing his nose. 

            “1192?”

            The man nodded again.  “Yes,” he said before he squinted at Glen again.  “I’ve spent the last several years trying to find my way back.”  He squinted double hard.

            “Several centuries,” Glen corrected before he became unbearably uncomfortable under his scrutiny.  “What?”

            The man shook his head.  “You don’t seem to be all here.  I was wondering if maybe you are the ghost.”

            “Me?”  Glen had not expected that.  “I’m not a ghost.  I have no ghostly inclinations, and I can assure you I can’t walk through walls either, and I don’t have to test my nose to prove it.”

            “I suppose.” 

            “I’m not even dead, at least as far as I know in my head.”

            “Hmm.”  The man paused to think about that.  “There’s a different wrinkle.  All the same, you are not entirely here.  It is like you are in two places, I guess.  I suppose if you are not dead, you may be back on earth asleep or something, do you think?”

            Glen looked around, though by then it was too dark to see anything.  “I don’t know what to think.  I don’t know where I am.  I barely feel I know who I am.  And it is not every day I meet someone who is over eight hundred years old and still looking to go home.”

            The man gave Glen a stern look.  “You’re not going to start on me now with that business about how you can’t go home again, are you?”

            “No, please.”  Glen shook his head.  “That man was an idiot.  I think one of the main drives, the point of life is to find our way home, to our heavenly home, our real home.”  The man grinned again.  “No, I don’t know which heaven.  Maybe the seventh heaven.”  Glen just threw that last thought to the wind.

            “Mohammedan talk,” the man said.  “There are only three heavens, but this second heaven is confusing and might be mistaken for seven or more all by itself.  You see, it is like a fine bit of pastry with many, many ultra thin layers stacked on top of each other and leaking into each other.  You will find that time here is flexible.”

            “Relative,” Glen suggested.

            “Yes.  That Einstein fellow.  I heard about him.”

            “What about space?”  Glen asked.

            The man shrugged.  “Hard to tell.  One man called it unstable.  He said it bends and folds and is never the same twice.  I told him he could spend an eternity walking the place and never cross the same path twice.”

            “Bent and folded.”  Glen made a statement but the man took it as a question.

            “Yes, in the morning you could start down into that lush river valley and find yourself in a desert with no way of telling how you got there.”

            “Sounds confusing.”

            “It is.”  The man nodded once again before he raised his voice.  “Sleep,” he announced and immediately laid down on his side of the fire.  When Glen did not move, the man explained.  “Whenever I get confused in the dark, I opt for sleep.  Things often look clearer in the morning.”

            “Oh.”  Glen got it and found a slot in his thin blanket where he could get in it like a sleeping bag.  As he settled, the man spoke again.

            “Of course, it is not always safe to sleep in the dark.”  That was all he said, and Glen thought, thanks.  Now he was sure to have a nightmare.

            Actually, Glen slept well and woke rested only to find the man already up, packed and ready to leave.  Glen hurried to fold his cloth which all but folded itself.  “Hey,” he called to attract the man’s attention.  “What’s your name?”

            The man grinned.  “You were a bit slow on that one.  Maybe there is only a little female in you.”  He looked ready to stop speaking, but Glen stared at him until he gave it up.  “Duncan will do.”

            “Glen.”  Glen gave the name to suggest some Scottish connection.

            “Ah, yes.  A name I will remember.  I knew I would like you.”  Sir Duncan mounted his horse in a swift, fluid motion.  “You will have to walk down from here, and maybe get a bit of your youth back in the process.”  He was ready to go.

            “Hey.”  Glen made him pause again.  “If your head says you are dead and your body says you are alive, what does your heart say?”  This time Glen felt he got a genuine smile out of the man. 

            “There’s the rub, and a good woman’s question.”  He squinted again.  “No, definitely not all here.”  And as he turned and rode off, he sang some ancient tune which Glen surmised was probably a drinking song.

            But that is the problem, Glen thought.  I’ve spent my whole life not quite being here.  Glen picked up his pack and made sure the fire was out.  He found a bit of bread left by the knight, and thanked the air in lieu of thanking the man.  Then he looked up and saw the sun rising over the sea in the very same place it had set the evening before.  He shook his head.  Wherever he was, it was not earth.

            A Crusader for Christ?  Glen paused to think about that.  He thought he could do that, as long as he did not have to hurt anybody.

            After that, he began to walk down hill toward the river and as he walked he could feel himself getting younger.  Somehow, he felt he had done that before, and he imagined in this place, a person’s age was more flexible than on earth.  He wondered how young he might get.  It seemed to him last time he got young enough to be born again.

            When Glen awoke the second time, he kept his eyes closed for a minute because something felt all screwed up.  He was not sure if this was the same night as his vision of the Tree of Life.  He was older than he had been before so he thought maybe it was some time after the vision.  He was fifty-eight.  He felt more like eighty something in his knees. 

            Glen paused.  He thought this might be earlier that his vision of the Tree of Life, though that made no sense.  It was curious to think this experience might come after the vision and before the vision at the same time, but that was how it felt.  Glen was older, but at the same time, somewhere in creation he was younger than six.  He saw himself as a three and a half year old, suffering.  He felt the electric shock.  It felt like death, but it was not, yet.  He was sure of that.  What he was not sure of was where he was and why.  He was confused, so he decided to wait and see.  He would let his outsides define his reality even if he knew that was not always the best advice.

            Glen’s back remained against a tree, his eyes closed.  He thought to listen again for the sound of that glorious music.  He had hope, but all he heard was some sort of rumble and normal birdsong.  When he sniffed, he smelled normal forest and a bit of salt that he could not place at first.  He opened his eyes at last.  The tree was just a regular, old oak and he was disappointed but felt relieved at the same time.  Glen felt sure he was back on earth, though mysteriously he was not sure he wanted to be.

            He was at the top of a hill or ridge with a great river valley spread out below.  He wondered how he came to be in that place and if maybe there was some place he needed to go or something he needed to do in that place.  The thunder was still in his ears, so he stood and walked once around the tree to take in the scenery.  He stopped half-way around, and stared.

            Not a hundred yards from where he stood, there was a golden, sandy beach.  Beyond the sand, the ocean stretched out to the horizon, dark and full of a soft but steady wind that rolled the waves gently up the shore before they pulled back into the sea.  It was a strange, but lovely sight.  It looked idyllic, like he was standing on the edge of a beach resort.  Glen took a deep breath of salty, sea air and smiled until he realized something and felt confused. 

            He spun around again and saw the river valley far below.  It suddenly seemed to him to be a death valley, being so far below sea level.  One breach in that sandy beach and the ocean would go crashing down into that place and drown everything in its path.  It was frightening to think about, but then he was distracted by the river which he could clearly see winding its way across the land.  He wondered how it could reach the sea.  Something in his mind said it raced uphill at some point and rushed into the sea, but another thought said that could not be true.  Water did not run uphill.

            He contemplated the whole scene while his hand fell into the bag he carried on his hip.  He briefly considered standing on his head to make the scene look right, but he knew that would not work.  That would not raise the valley, and it would put the ocean in the sky – a frightening prospect.  He chose not to second-guess the reality he found himself in and wondered instead what his hand had found.

            The bag contained a big knife, sheathed forever as far as he was concerned, unless he came across some jungle he needed to hack through.  A water bottle took up a good bit of the bottom of the bag.  Then there was a box with a blinking light.  Something in the back of his mind said he should not touch that just yet.  There was also a good bit of folded up cloth, and it was a strange enough cloth to the touch.  He caught the hint of morning dew and maybe spider webs in that fabric.  The last item was an apple – a golden apple that had several slices missing.  He was glad despite the missing slices because he was starving, so he pulled it out and became more curious than ever.

            Clearly the apple had been in his bag for some time, yet it was not brown at all.  It was golden on the outside and the flesh was just as sweet and juicy as if it was fresh picked. Glen knew that was odd.  He understood that some land could be below sea level, though the river bothered him.  He also understood that a tree could grow up to the edge of the sea, though he suspected normally it would be stunted and shaped a bit by all the salt in the air.  But he knew an apple exposed to the air should brown in short order.  He had no way of knowing how long he was there before he woke, but this apple was not brown at all. 

            He shrugged.  He was hungry, and he enjoyed it.  And then he made a little hole some distance from the oak and planted the core with the thought that if a tree grew it would provide that much more protection for the lowland against the sea.

            “Ho there.”  The words echoed from the trees down the beach.  “What ho, stranger.”  Glen saw yet another strange sight as a man on a strong white horse came trotting out from the trees, waving.  He had the lance of a knight tied to the side of his saddle.  He had the sword and other accoutrements of a knight as well.  The horse blanket, which was also white and long, and decorated with red crosses looked worn from years of cushioning the saddle.  But it looked serviceable and it sported the finest lace and tatting all along the edges.

            “What ho.”  The man waved again as he trotted up.  He stopped and dismounted several yards away, and he let the horse wander as he stepped in Glen’s direction.

            “Friend, where are you headed?”  Glen asked.  It was the only thing that came to his mind.

            “Here and there,” the man responded with a smile.  Glen detected a bit of the Scottish sound about his words, but said no more as he examined this strange sight.  Glen was not sure of the man’s age.  The man had a gray beard, but appeared younger than the gray.  This man’s long tunic covered some kind of leather and chain, and it was as white as his horse, and sported a single big red cross in the very center.  Glen could only imagine a crusader.

            “Welcome,” Glen said at last.

            “Well met,” the man responded.  “But you haven’t a fire.”  It sounded like a scolding.

            “I haven’t been here long,” Glen responded, and the man nodded his head and set about building a fire.  Glen helped, at least enough to fetch some wood.  Once the flames were up, the man asked if Glen had eaten.

            “An apple.”

            “Only an apple?”  He chided before he laughed and proceeded to catch a pigeon which he killed, gutted and plucked in almost no time.  He put it on a stick over the fire, and wrapped some roots in leaves and threw them into the fire as well before he took a seat.  “You must be new to this place,” the man said.  Glen nodded.  His tongue felt shy.  “You will get used to it.”

            “Where are we, exactly?”  Glen wondered. 

            “Where do you think you are?”

            Glen looked around once more.  The sun was getting ready to set over the sea at his back.  “This is some place different,” he suggested.  “Not like any place I know on earth.”

I am something of an anti-poet.  In fact, I would rate my poetic skill around negative three.  Add to that the fact that so many say rhyming poetry is not to be taken seriously and worthy of Doctor Seuss at best, and there you go.  If I am going to write something against making excuses about getting the words on paper and getting it out there to be read by others, it is only fair I do so with a rhyming poem…

No Excuses

I’ve got the kids, the dog and the cat
The TV and radio, noises like that
But I tune it all out when I sit in my chair
In order to write like there’s nobody there.
 
Daytimes are madness: storms on the sea
Ships in foul weather, crew mutiny.
Trains in collision, pileups with cars
Black holes of reason, exploding stars
 
Children, animals, customer kings
Workers, bosses, multi-task things
Paper and phones, gossip and news
Headaches, backaches and shoes, shoes, shoes, shoes.
 
Leaving at sunrise.  Home after dark
To blazing crescendo as soon as I park
It’s homework and talk, make sure everyone’s fed
Walk the dog, pet the cat, and put all to bed
 
Then at last there’s a moment when quiet descends
Like snow on Christmas Eve.

And I thank God because of that one special chair
Where I sit and I write like there’s nobody there.

            Glen found himself about six years old which would make it 1959 or 1960. Back then, he attended the big Presbyterian Church in town with his family and listened to very Presbyterian sermons, if you know what I mean.  The one on that day was about love, and what he heard was God loves us so much, he died for us.  God gave himself to us completely.  Unfortunately, we cannot love God in the same way in return.  We are not going to die for God nor can we give ourselves completely to him in the same way.  God simply has no need for us in that way.  So the way we love God is to love our neighbor.  When we give ourselves completely to our neighbor, we are loving God.  Please understand.  At that time, Martin Luther King Jr. was still crusading, words like diversity and social justice had not yet been invented, and liberalism had not yet seriously infected the mainline churches, but it was all on the edge.  You get the idea. 

            The sermon that morning focused on feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and doing good works as a way of expressing love for God – and yes, that perspective on the Christian faith began that many years ago.  But even then, as young as Glen was, there was something about the sermon that did not sound right.  It seemed to him that doing good for our neighbors showed love for our neighbors, not God.  He saw God being cut out from the whole mix.

            That night, Glen went to bed with a simple prayer.  “God, I know loving my neighbor is important, but if you wouldn’t mind, could I love you, too?”   he went to sleep with that prayer still on his lips and in his breath.

            When Glen woke, he was much older, though of an indeterminate age.  His back was to a tree instead of his soft mattress.  The aroma, with his eyes shut tight, was glorious.  It smelled of life, and he could feel that life, somehow, flowing up the tree from roots deep in the soil.  No other word would do but life.  When he opened his eyes, he drew in his breath.  The tree at his back was bigger than anything he had ever seen.  It was bigger than the Empire State Building.  It was bigger than all the trees in all the world put together.  It was so big, he could not see the curvature in the trunk, though he walked a hundred yards away.

            Glen looked up to where the innumerable branches stretched out to catch the light.  The light must have been blinding in the heights.  He could not look straight up of course because of the branches, but in any case he could not see the top of the tree since it reached way beyond the clouds.

            Glen looked carefully at the branches and the first thing he noticed was the fruit.  It was round but variously sized and it appeared to be variously colored as well.  He noticed one near the trunk that was small and the color of copper, one that was green and swirled, one that was blue and covered with white swirls, and one that was red before the branch broke into a number of immature fruit.  Further out on the branch there was huge fruit with a big red spot.  The one beyond that had rings like stamen of a flower, and Glen closed his eyes and shook his head.  He was thinking of the solar system and letting his imagination run away with him.

            With his eyes closed again, Glen heard the song.  It was like the aroma, glorious.  He could not make out words, but it seemed to him there was meaning in that song, and he had to open his eyes again to see what was singing.  There were birds, white like doves, but the song they sang was complex beyond anything Glen could have made up, and beautiful beyond anything Glen could have imagined.  He was staring at a couple of birds, a smile across his face, when a blackbird jumped between two doves and let out a terrible squawk.  It startled him, but only for a second as the doves took that raucous sound and wove it into a thing of beauty.  Then he saw another blackbird and he looked closely again.  They were everywhere, trying to disrupt the glorious sounds of this heavenly host.  They never succeeded, as every sour note and every screech and whistle was taken up by the doves and woven perfectly into the whole.  The song was never less glorious for the least moment.

            Glen was glad.  He could not stop his lips from turning up in a smile for the warmth he felt inside.  He thought he would sit again with his back to that trunk where he could feel the pulse of life running up the veins of the tree of life, smell the aroma of life and hear the beauty of the music that was the praise of the heavens.  With that, he slept.

            Too far, Glen thought.  Alice, how did you make things at the beginning?  He asked himself and was surprised that Alice was not there in his subconscious to answer.  He had to think, and quick.  He expended his air at last with the words “Air bubble.”  And there was a bubble of air that instantly formed around him.  He quickly said, “Big air bubble to encompass everyone, and normal light.” And the air bubble grew until everyone was inside of it.  They were still floating weightless, but a quick scan around him told Glen that everyone would survive despite the hacking and gagging and gasping for breath. 

            Think, Glen told himself.  Way back at the beginning of time he remembered Alice appeared in a place on a rock.  The old god, Chronos was there along with Angel – that is what he called him anyway, if Angel was a him.  With that thought, he said, rock and stared down beneath his feet, though everyone’s feet were certainly not pointed in that direction.  Still, the rock began to grow and it continued until the air bubble became a dome.  Then he said, “Solid and heavy with gravity like a mountaintop on Earth.”  Everyone fell.

            Glen felt lucky.  He was the one who fell the farthest, then Roland, but the elf was nimble enough to avoid being hurt, and Boston, though she was young enough to also go without injury.  Some of the military equipment bumped rather hard, but Glen was not worried about that.   He felt he twisted his ankle.  He tried the word, “Heal,” but it had a minimal effect.  Meanwhile, Lockhart held up his bleeding hand which he used to catch himself.  Everyone watched in amazement as the bleeding stopped.  In only a few seconds the wound healed itself.

            “Because we are at the beginning of things?”  Boston wondered out loud.

            “The grace of our god.”  Roland had another suggestion and looked at Glen.

            “Some magical cure?” Lieutenant Harper asked.

            Glen shook his head.  “He is still filled with those Gaian healing chits that healed his back and legs.  They may help you, Lockhart, but you best not depend on them.  I’ll say it again, leaning on them is a good way to get killed.”

            “Understood.”  Lockhart responded shortly since he was already reaching out from the edge of the rock to touch the stuff of Primordial Chaos.

            “Big dome of air.  Plenty of air.”  Glen said and waved his hand.  The swirling mass complied and soon they had no fear of running out of air.

            “Doctor Procter?”  Roland knelt down beside the old man.  Doctor Procter was wearing the amulet, but held it and shook it like he was not seeing what he needed to see.

            “Lincoln?”  Meanwhile, Boston knelt down beside Lincoln because he looked ready to cry.

            “I’ll get our bearings in a minute,” the Doctor responded as Roland looked over at Boston and Lincoln.

            “No way she survived this, even with her magic.  I don’t see how.”  Lincoln let his tears flow.

            “Confession.”  Glen spoke loud enough to get everyone’s attention.  “I was afraid something like this might happen.  We went back further than I planned.  It all happened so fast.  I could not control it.  Alice is out of touch.  It may take a long time to get home, as I feared.”

            “What?”  Lockhart pulled away from the edge and even Lincoln looked up.

            Boston thought it through and lifted her voice in protest.  “But I can’t live 6500 years to get back to where I belong,”

            Glen waved off her complaint.  “The time gates should still be there where I am at the center.  Doctor Procter’s amulet should work as well.  How I get home may be a bit more problematic.”  He mumbled most of that.

            “Man!” Boston started again but stopped when she was interrupted by a great light at her back and a voice in her mind that simply said, “Do not be afraid.”

            Boston turned to see Lockhart, Glen and both soldiers on their knees, and she felt the need to join them, especially after Glen named their visitor.  “Angel.”

            “Come. Kairos.  Stand.  You are required to resolve this.”

            Glen got slowly to his feet while Angel did something to lessen his own light so the others felt less afraid.  They could look up, though none dared to look into Angel’s face.

            “How can I resolve this?”  Glen asked.

            The answer came without hesitation.  “You must offer yourself in place of the woman.”

            Glen stepped over to touch the sticky ooze.  “Will I die?”

            “I cannot say.”

            “Will Mingus return with the woman?”

            “I cannot say.”

            “Will I still be able to help my friends get home?” 

            “I cannot say.”

            “What?”  Lincoln found the courage to speak.  Perhaps it was the prospect of getting his wife back after all that inspired him.  “You do not know or you are not allowed to say?”

            “I cannot say.”  Apparently, that was the only answer they were going to get.

            Glen looked at the suffocating mass that surrounded them before he turned from the chaos at the edge of the rock to face them all.  He took the glowing golden ball out of his pouch and Boston saw that it was indeed an apple.  With a sharp knife that Glen also carried in his pouch he cut three slices.  He handed the first to Lincoln.  “Take and eat,” he said.  Lincoln ate the slice and at least half or more of his age fell away from him.  He was still older than Boston, but not much older.  He ended up around thirty at the most.

            “Take and eat.”  He handed a slice to Lockhart and with the same effect.  “The golden apple of youth,” he explained.  “You will age normally from this point, but I could not let a couple of old men face the time zones.  You wouldn’t live long enough to get home.”  He turned toward Boston.  “Sometimes you may have to run,” he confessed with a grin.  “And to you I give this slice for Alexis.  I know you won’t eat it because you won’t want to become a baby.  Tell her to take and eat as soon as she arrives.  And now the one minute review.”

            “It would be best to stay out of whatever trouble you can and not kill if you can help it.  Remember, no matter how impossible it may seem, these are real people in real time and they are capable of fear and pain and they will respond to hate as well as love and kindness.  I understand there may be times when you will have to defend yourselves.  Do not hesitate.  Remember also, if you die in the time zones you will stay dead.”   Glen looked at Angel, but there was nothing there for him to hold on to.  He needed to do this himself. 

            “Two things.  One:  The only difference between you and the people is they are confined to their place in time whereas you can move from zone to zone through the gates and can jump forward anywhere from a few years to fifty or so years at a time.  Whatever you take from time zone to time zone, will age a corresponding number of years based on the number of years in your time jump.  Two:  Don’t forget that Ashtoreth wanted to control and change time.  Some of her creatures are still out there.”  He paused before he added,  “Most dangers you can escape by simply going through the next time gate.  I suppose if they can follow you from time zone to time zone, you will know they are a real danger.”  He turned on the marines.

            “Decker and Harper.  You need to consider Lockhart your General, and in his absence, Lincoln is your Colonel.  If I recall, he was designated a light Colonel at one point with the CIA.  Anyway, they know more about what is involved than you do, so don’t get cocky or I‘ll see you stranded in some place unpleasant.  Is that clear?”

            “Sir, yes sir.”  Lieutenant Harper responded.  Decker said nothing, but he nodded his agreement.

            “Boston, you have the medical kit?”  Boston nodded.  “Let us hope you don’t have to use it.  Meanwhile, I have  filled your packs with bread-crackers since you don’t have to carry extra clothes.  The fairy weave you wear can be shaped to your needs, and just so you know, Boston has vitamins in the med kit since you won’t always get a square meal.  Oh yeah.”  He clapped his hands twice.  “So now you will understand and be understood whatever the language.  It will all just sound like English to you.  Now I have to go.”  Trouble does come in threes, he thought, and with the word, “Three,” he ran and leapt into the ooze before he changed his mind and chickened out. 

            Alexis immediately came back, Mingus clinging to her sleeve.  And after Boston gave Alexis the apple which was the biggest piece so she became more nearly Boston’s age of twenty-five, she flew into Lincoln’s arms and they kissed for a long time.

            Boston licked her fingers and became something closer to twenty-two.  Mingus fumed to see his daughter in the arms of that human, but with his son holding him back there was little he could do – not to mention the fact that the presence of the angel scared him beyond reason.  Lockhart, alone kept his head.

            “Glen.”  That was his first concern, and he touched the chaos gently with his outstretched hand.

            “My lady.”  The elf maid tried to wake Boston, but Boston was determined to sleep in.  She never had so comfortable a sleep in her whole life.  “My lady.”  It was no good.

            “Stand aside.”  The fairy fluttered down to the end of the bed and pulled out her wand.

            “Oh, no.”  The elf shut her eyes.  The fairy waved her wand and a spark struck Boston in the foot.  Boston sat up like she was charged with lightening.

            “What?  What?  I’m awake, mom!”  Then Boston’s eyes came into focus.  “Fairy,” she said, though the fairy had her hands on her hips and tapped her foot in mid air. 

            “Up, you lazy bones.”

            “My Lady.”  Boston heard and looked at the elf beside her and got right up.

            “What is it?  Why is it still dark out?”

            “You must dress.  You are needed.”

            Boston looked around.  “But my clothes?  I laid them out here for the morning.”

            “Lady Alice said fairy weave only.”  The elf maid lifted a skimpy bit of cloth from the bed.

            With the word fairy, Boston dared another look at the one in the room.  “I am sorry Miss fairy,” she said.  “I was having such a wonderful dream.”

            The fairy softened her look.  “Quite alright.  Good dreams are worth holding on to.  And it is Mistletoe.”

            “I’m Mary Riley, but everyone calls me Boston.”  She looked at the elf who was still holding the little bit of cloth.

            “Lady, you must put this on.”

            “But that isn’t even enough for a bikini.”  Boston protested.

            “It is fairy weave.”  The fairy fluttered in close.  “Her name is Rosemary, and this little cloth is magical.  It can be grown or shaped with a thought.  It can be separated into several pieces and even hardened to make shoes or boots.  You can make everything from an arctic outfit to a bikini and even color it with lavender flowers if you like.  Here.”

            Mistletoe helped Boston dress in sensible jeans, running shoes and a shirt while Rosemary took up the explanation.  “You can make a nightgown for the night and freshen the clothes in the morning with a thought and without ever having to put them in the wash.”

            “Remarkable.”  Boston responded at last.  “But how do I know it won’t change every-which-way every time I have a stray thought?”

            “Because you are human.  It won’t change with your thoughts like normal.  You will have to tell it to change.”

            “Good to know,”  Boston said, and while they fixed her shoes she had another thought.  “How is it you know about running shoes and such?”

            “I’ve been to Earth.”  Mistletoe said flatly, like Boston should have guessed. 

            “And Miss Mistletoe is friends with the Kairos’ daughter.”

            “I was once.  I am sure she does not remember.“

            “Of course, in your big size.”  Boston had a revelation.  “You can pass for a human.  I remember Missus Pumpkin getting big.  So you have been to Earth and pretended to be human.”

            “Not too well,” Rosemary whispered and nodded at the fairy as if Mistletoe could not hear.  “She is too pretty to be human.”  The fairy shrugged and Boston turned to the elf, but Rosemary anticipated the question.  “Oh no, Lady.  You are the first mortal human I have ever seen.”

            “And I think you are rather pretty yourself,” Boston complimented the elf and saw her turn her eyes away, just a little.

            “Enough now.  Come.  We must be going.  They are waiting on you.”  Mistletoe led the way.  Rosemary stayed behind to straighten the bed.

            “Why so early?”  Boston asked, but Mistletoe did not know.

            Boston found the others in the banquet hall where she made herself a plate of hot eggs and biscuits from the breakfast bar someone had set up.  She imagined it was the fat little dwarf lady from the night before that seemed determined to make her gain twenty pounds in one night.  She enjoyed the breakfast, and was only startled briefly when Lockhart set a backpack beside her.

            “What is this?” she asked.

            “Medical kit.  Hope we don’t need it.”  Lockhart gave a short answer as he checked his shotgun.  Boston saw he was also armed with a police pistol.  Lincoln had a pistol and a wicked looking knife attached to his belt.  Roland was at a nearby table sharpening his sword with a whetstone.  Boston looked quickly in her pack and found a Berretta like she used on the range and also her own wicked looking knife.  Beside the medical kit there was something else.  She pulled it out.

            It was a handheld computer which she immediately recognized as a data base, and maybe a few other things.  “What is this?”  She asked out loud.  No one answered at first, and then Boston had a real shock.  She saw Captain Decker and Lieutenant Harper.  They looked more than well armed with weapons that looked pretty sophisticated for regular issue.  Decker also had some equipment which from her distance looked like scanning equipment.  Harper had a similar handheld, and she walked toward Boston.

            Boston held up the handheld so Harper saw the back of the unit.  “That is a Reichgo battery,” Harper said.  “We haven’t learned how to duplicate it yet, but it will put out a continual electrical charge for six months to a year depending on usage.”

            Boston paused and thought about what she was going to say.  “I don’t get it,” she said at last to whomever might be listening.  “I thought we were just going to retrieve them and come right back.”

            “Here.”  Lieutenant Harper put something like a watch on the table.  “This is an old style walkie-talkie with a ten to twenty mile range that should work without satellites.”  She walked back to her equipment.

            Boston picked up the watch, examined it closely, and put it on in time to see Alice come in followed by Doctor Procter.  The Doctor carried an amulet which he shook and listened to and shook again. The amulet was made of wood and strung with leather so it looked like nothing special, but Boston knew appearances could be deceiving.  She wondered what it was for.

            “Are we ready?”  Alice clapped her hands when she spoke to be sure she had everyone’s attention.  Boston raised her hand like a school girl and Alice answered her unspoken question.  “Mingus has taken his daughter to the beginning of history and insanely leapt into the chaotic void beyond where even I cannot reach him.  I do not know if they can be saved, but we need to be prepared for any eventuality.  The guns will never run out of bullets.  The fairy weave you are all wearing can be shaped and colored as needed to blend in with the locals.  Oh, and—“  Alice reached out like she was picking an apple from a tree and a golden orb appeared in her hand which she quickly put into the pouch that hung at her side.  Then she vanished and Glen came back to stand in her place.  He looked once around the room.

            “You have no idea how much I miss this place when I am not here,” he said.

            “I can imagine,” Boston spoke softly as she put on her backpack and noticed Katie Harper looking at her with wonder in her eyes.

            “Perhaps you can.”  Glen smiled for Boston before he clapped his hands like Alice and they all found themselves floating in a multi-colored stickiness and unable to breathe.

            “Gentlemen, and Boston,” Alice spoke in hushed tones.  She did not have to speak very loud to be heard through the utter silence of that tremendous room.  “This is the Heart of Time.”  She pointed at the crystal that throbbed with light like it was a beating heart, but she did not touch it.  “This has recorded all of human history since before the days the human race became scattered across the face of the earth.  In here, you will find Shakespeare’s London, Caesar’s Rome, Alexander’s Babylon and all the way back to the Tower of Shinar.

            Boston stepped up for a closer look, but Alice was not yet finished explaining.  “There are time zones represented here.  They are centered around my person, but allow access between one of my lifetimes and the next.  They have always been off limits until a few years ago when Avalon was overrun by a demon, a goddess.  She discovered the time zones.  She was stopped and can’t have done more than a few experiments, but still…”

            “My wife?”  Lincoln could not contain himself but closed his mouth immediately after speaking.  He looked around to be sure he did not disturb anything or anyone, though they were alone in that room.

            Alice nodded grimly.  “Alexis was taken by her father Mingus.  We could follow their progress through the Heart.  She was carried back to the end of the eighteenth century, to the days of her birth with the hope that the memory of her happy childhood might convince her to give up her life as a human and become an elf again.  He fears to see her age.  He fears he will lose her too soon and he cannot bear that thought.” 

            “Uh?”  Lincoln did not want to interrupt again.

            “Do not worry.  She has steadfastly refused and has tried to escape on several occasions.  But once it became known that the Storyteller – that Glen was awake from his memory loss and long slumber, Mingus panicked.  He has taken Alexis into the deep past.  But there is only so far he can go.”

            “Why don’t you just zap them back here?”  Lockhart was respectful, but not afraid to speak.

            “I could fetch Mingus easily enough through the Heart, but Alexis is human.  I have no such power over her and I would not dare leave her alone in history.”  Alice paused to collect her thoughts before she spoke again.  “As I said, each time zone centers around a life I once lived.  But I stand at the center of each time zone and the center moves with me.  If they came to the center I could do something, but as long as Mingus skirts around the edges and moves from zone to zone, I can do nothing.”

            “What do you mean the Heart of Time has recorded history?”  Boston asked.  She was thinking hard.  “Do you mean it is like a computer program, but one you can walk into so it seems real?”

            Alice smiled.  “This merely records the truth.  Where you walk will be utterly real.  The thing is, the reason the time zones are strictly off limits to my little ones – to everyone is because no one has been able to determine for certain how to prevent a change in the events in the zones of time and how that may affect actual history on Earth.” 

            “So you can’t reach them as long as they stay out of the center of the time zones.”  Lockhart went back to the original proposition.

            “I cannot.”  Alice shook her head.  “But you can reach them.  I can both send you from here and retrieve you as well as long as you stay together.  And don’t worry, Lincoln.  There is only so far Doctor Mingus can go.”

            “That sounds risky,” Boston said.  “What if we change things by accident?  What if we change real history?”

            “It is a risk, but it is not that simple.  Most changes and minor changes do not seem to matter.  Yet even with interlopers there seems to be some correlation with actual events.  That is why the time zones have remained off limits for all these millennia.  But to ask about the correlation between the events in the zones and actual history as it occurred is really a chicken or egg question.”

            “Like do the interlopers have a bearing on history that we don’t quite see or are even their actions somehow directed by the program?”  Boston was thoughtful and Alice merely nodded.

            “Your pardon.”  Lockhart spoke up again.  “But why are you afraid to leave her alone in history?”  His instincts were acting up again.

            Alice looked at the man but she could say nothing less than the truth.  “Because most of my lives are surrounded by danger.  And if you die in the past, you will remain dead forever.  And then there is this.”  Alice swallowed.  “Several years ago, though Ashtoreth was defeated as I said, she sent ghouls and bogeys, terrible giants and dragons and things too terrible to name into the zones.  There are still some unsavories there that have evaded my reach.  Presently, the time zones are not a safe place to be.”

            “But you can send us to Alexis and bring us right back, right?”  Lincoln needed confirmation.

            “I will.”  Alice affirmed.  “And I have gotten this help for you since there is no telling how Mingus will respond when he is caught.”  Alice snapped her fingers and two more people appeared in that tremendous room.  She pointed to the first who looked human enough.  “Doctor Procter is half human and has been Doctor Mingus’ partner in the history department for three hundred years.  If anyone can speak sense to the elder elf I have every hope that Doctor Procter can.”  Doctor Procter looked older than either of the men present, and he had the great white beard to prove it, but he tipped his hat and his smile looked genuine enough. 

            “Gentlemen, and young Boston, it will be a pleasure and honor traveling with you.  I must say—“

            “A-hem,” Alice interrupted and pointed at the other person.  He was as tall as Lockhart, but a bit skinny and utterly elf in the way Boston always imagined an elf should be.  He did not look at all like Mirowen – a virtual human with pointed ears.  This one still belonged on the reservation, but he was cute, Boston thought, and young.

            “This is Roland, Mingus’ son.  He has volunteered to represent the family in this matter.  He is a bit young, but I trust you will keep him in line.”

            “Lady, I am fully grown.  I turned one hundred and twenty-six last Yuletide.”

            Alice made no comment on the elf’s age but simply added, “He has no trouble with his sister’s choice to live a human life and disagrees strongly with what his father has done.”

            “The important thing is she be happy, don’t you think?”  The young elf looked at Lincoln.

            “Oh, I think it,” Lincoln said.  “I just did not know anyone in her family thought it.”

            “And I think it, too,” Alice said with a smile.  “And I think there is time for a good feast and a good night’s rest before your journey.  Come.”  And she lead them away from the Heart of Time and to a proper medieval banquet complete with acrobats, minstrels, storytellers and all sorts of magical entertainments, with real magic.  Everyone was happy until the middle of the night.