The Thief of Always

XIV

Time Was

It took the boys an hour to reach the center of town, and there-given that their houses lay in opposite directions-they parted company. They exchanged addresses before they did so, promising to contact each other in a day or two, so that they could each support the other's account of the Holiday House. It would be difficult to make people believe all that had happened to them, but perhaps they'd have a better chance if two voices told the same tale.

"I know what you did back there," Wendell said just before they parted. "You saved my life."

"You would have done the same thing for me," Harvey said.

Wendell looked doubtful. "I might have wanted to," he said, somewhat abashed, "but I've never been very brave."

"We escaped together," Harvey said. "I couldn't have done it without you."

"Really?"

"Really."

Wendell brightened at this. "Yeah," he said. "I guess that's right. Well...be seein' ya."

And, with that, they went their separate ways.

It was still several hours before daybreak, and the streets were virtually deserted, so for Harvey it was a long, lonely trudge home. He was tired, and a little saddened by his farewell to Wendell, but the thought of the welcome he'd get when he reached his own doorstep put a spring in his heels.

Several times he wondered if he'd gone astray, because the streets he passed through were unfamiliar. One neighborhood was extremely fancy, the houses and the cars parked outside them slicker than anything he'd set eyes on. Another was virtually a wasteland, the houses half rubble, the streets strewn with garbage. But his sense of direction served him well. As the East began to pale, and the birds in the trees started their twitterings, he rounded the corner of his street. His weary legs broke into a joyful dash, and brought him to the step panting for breath and ready to fall into his parents' arms.

He knocked on the door. There was no sound from the house at first, which didn't surprise him given the hour. He knocked again, and again. Finally a light was turned on and he heard somebody coming to the door.

"Who is it?" said his father from behind the closed door. "Do you know what time it is?

"It's me," said Harvey.

Then came the sound of bolts being drawn aside, and the door was opened a crack.

"Who's me?" said the man peering out at him.

He looked kindly enough, Harvey thought, but it wasn't his father. This was a much older man, his hair almost white, his face thin. He had a badly trimmed mustache, and a furrow of a frown.

"What do you want?" he said.

Before Harvey could reply a woman's voice said:

"Come away from the door."

He couldn't see the second speaker yet, but he caught a glimpse of the wallpaper in the hallway, and the pictures on the wall. To his relief he saw that this was not his house at all. He'd obviously made a simple mistake, and knocked on the wrong door.

"I'm sorry," he said, backing away. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"Who are you looking for?" the man wanted to know, opening the door a little wider now. "Are you one of the Smith kids?"

He started to dig in the pocket of his dressing gown, and brought out a pair of spectacles.

He can't even see me properly, Harvey thought: poor old man.

But before the spectacles reached the bridge of the man's nose his wife appeared behind him, and Harvey's legs almost folded up beneath him at the sight of her.

She was old, this woman, her hair almost as colorless as her husband's, and her face even more lined and sorrowful. But Harvey knew that face better than any on earth. It was the first face he'd ever loved. It was his mother.

"Mom?" he murmured.

The woman stopped and stared out through the open door at the boy standing on the step, her eyes filling up with tears. She could barely breathe the word she said next.

"Harvey?"

"Mom?...Mom, it is you, isn't it?"

By now the man had put on his spectacles, and peered through them with his eyes wide.

"It's not possible," he said flatly. "This can't be Harvey."

"It's him," said his wife. "It's our Harvey. He's come home."

The man shook his head. "After all these years?" he said. "He'd be a man by now. He'd be a grown man. This is just a boy."

"It's him, I tell you."

"No!" the man replied, angry now. "It's some prank. Somebody trying to break our hearts. As if they're not broken enough."

He started to slam the door, but Harvey's mom caught hold of it.

"Look at him," she said. "Look at his clothes. That's what he was wearing the night he left us."

"How do you know?"

"You think I don't remember?"

"It's thirty-one years ago," said Harvey's father, still staring at the boy on the step. "This can't...can't be..." He faltered as slow recognition spread over his face. "Oh my Lord," he said, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper, "...it is him, isn't it?"

"I told you," his wife replied,

"Are you some kind of ghost?" he asked Harvey.

"Oh for goodness' sake," Harvey's mom said. "He's no ghost!" She slipped past her husband, and out onto the step. "I don't know how it's possible, and I don't care," she said, opening her arms to Harvey. "All I know is, our little boy's come home to us."

Harvey couldn't speak. There were too many tears in his throat, and in his nose and in his eyes. All he could do was stumble into his mother's arms. It was wonderful to feel her hands stroke his hair and her fingers wipe his cheeks.

"Oh Harvey, Harvey, Harvey," she sobbed. "We thought we'd never see you again." She kissed him over and over. "We thought you'd gone forever."

"How's this possible?" his father still wanted to know.

"I kept praying," his mother said.

Harvey had another answer, though he didn't voice it. The moment he'd set eyes on his mother-so changed, so sorrowful-it was instantly clear what a terrible trick Hood's House had played upon them all. For every day he'd spent there a year had gone by here in the real world. Every morning while he'd played in the spring warmth, months had passed. In the afternoon, while he'd lazed in the summer sun, the same. And those haunted twilights, which had seemed so brief, had been another span of months, as had the Christmas nights, full of snow and presents. They'd all slipped by so easily, and though he had only aged a month, his mom and dad had lived in sadness for thirty-one years, thinking that their little boy had gone forever.

That had almost been the case. If he'd remained in the House of Illusions, distracted by its petty pleasures, a whole lifetime would have gone by here in the real world, and his soul would have become Hood's property. He would have joined the fish circling in the lake; and circling; and circling. He shuddered at the thought.

"You're cold, sweetie," his mother said. "Let's get you inside." He sniffed hard, and cleared his tears with the back of his hand. "I'm so tired," he said.

"I'll make a bed for you straight away."

"No. I want to tell you what happened before I go to sleep," Harvey replied. "It's a long story. Thirty-one years long."