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"I've brought out the trains again," she said. "When you're ready, you can go downstairs and play with them, okay?"

Her smile faded.

"We'll miss her, Noble. Well miss Celeste very badly, but we'll have to content ourselves with the knowledge that she is with spirits who want and love her dearly. She is in a happy place. She'll forever walk beside her daddy.

As you will someday, and as I will, too. Don't you set?" she said anxiously. "I've found a way to keep us together,"

She turned and walked out. I heard her descending the stairs slowly, and finally. I released the breath that had been locked in my lungs.

I looked over at what was my bed. I almost expected to see myself there. How strange it felt to be looking at it this way, I thought.

I got out of the bed and immediately stopped to look at the mirror on the wall. My hair was Noble's length, and in his clothing, I did not see myself. I saw him.

It was as if he had been standing beside me and suddenly slipped into me. and I was gone, to be replaced by him. I would be Noble. Mommy had said it was my destiny, and I knew destiny was something you couldn't prevent, you couldn't change.

But why was it so?

As if I knew exactly what he would say. I glanced at my bed and then back at the mirror.

"It was her fault," I said to the image of Celeste sinking in the mirror. "If she hadn't pulled on the fishing rod. I wouldn't have fallen. This is right. Tammy is right.

"It's what has to be. "Forever "

And like someone closing a book. I turned my back on what had been my side of the room and drank the tea and ate the toast Mommy had brought up for Noble,

For me.

And then I went downstairs to play with the trains.

9

Celeste Is Gone

.

Mommy asked me to help her plant grass over

the newly dug grave. For as long as I could remember, she had taken tender loving care of the old cemetery, not only weeding, but scraping the mold off the stones and the walls. She told me many times that it was our sacred responsibility to do so, for the heart of her family, our family, lie buried there. She said the spirits that hovered about our home often gathered together there and sang hymns. If I listened carefully to the wind as it circled our house at night. I could hear their sweet, melodic voices. She revealed that often now, especially since Daddy's death, she went out there in the evening and joined them. She promised me she would wake me next time and take me out with her to sing at the graves of our precious ancestors.

I raked the earth, planted the seeds, and watered them. There was to be no marker with CELESTE written upon it, however, which made me happy.

"We cannot ever reveal anyone else is buried here. Noble," Mommy told me as we worked, "They wouldn't understand, and that's why we must make this earth look unturned. It will always be our secret to be guarded with our very lives. Put your hand upon the earth above our precious dearly departed and swear with me to keep this secret locked in your heart forever and ever. Swear," she said and fell to her knees.

I did, too, and we put our palms on the cool, fresh ground. Mommy recited the pledge.

"We shall never tell anyone ever that Celeste is here," she recited with her eyes closed. "I swear,"

"I swear," I followed, and she smiled at me and leaned over to kiss me and run her fingers through my hair.

"My precious Noble, my beautiful Noble,- she said.

I had never seen her look at me with such love and admiration. Despite everything, I couldn't help but feel my heart fill with joy, even with the strange new lessons that followed nightly for days and days.

"This is truly your rebirth." she began after sitting me down in the living room. "It will take time, maybe as long as a baby takes, nine months, maybe even a little longer, but now that Noble's spirit is in you, eventually you will become as Noble was meant to be. You will be so successful that even your daddy will recognize your spirit as Noble's spirit. He will be so proud of you," she promised. "When you see him again, he will have a father's pride written all over his face."

How wonderful. My father would love me, and my mother would love me as she had never loved me. I thought, I thought about it every night, and especially in the way her voice filled with bells and music whenever she spoke to me now, or called to me. She had never embraced me or kissed me as much. The happiness in her eyes fed my own. She even seemed to grow younger and more beautiful as I grew taller and stronger,

"Let us begin." she said the very night after Celeste's burial. for I had come to think of it that way. It was what Mommy wanted, what the spirits wanted. "From now on, you must never, ever let anyone see you naked," Mommy warned. "Keeping you here in home schooling will make that so much easier. You see that now, don't you? You won't ask me constantly when you are going to public school anymore. right?'