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"Get some sleep. We will have to be strong to deal with them tomorrow."

She stood up.

"But soon, soon, it will be over, and then there'll just be the two of us and our loving spirits. Sleep tight," she said and walked out, closing the door softly.

I listened to the wind outside my window for a while, and then I sighed and turned toward Celeste's empty bed.

"I'm sorry," I whispered before I fell asleep. I had no idea why.

Mommy was right about the police and the volunteers. They came in bier numbers the next day. The local newspaper sent a reporter as well, and Mommy gave him a detailed description of Celeste. He was the first one to look at me and comment. "So they are twins?"

"Yes. yes." Mommy said and gave him the twoyear-old picture. At least there would be something. The following day the story ran and more people came to our farm, many just to gape, some supposedly to help search the woods. Dozens of people traipsed through the property and crossed over to our nearest neighbor, an elderly man named Gerson Baer who lived alone. He had nothing to offer, but because he was a loner and a neighbor, he fell under some suspicion for a while. He was wise enough to permit a full search of his house and property, and eventually the polic

e left him alone, but Mommy predicted nasty, stupid people would always suspect him. She sounded like she really did feel sorry for him, but she also mentioned that it helped us.

A week went by, and the story stopped being published in the paper. Occasionally one of the sheriff s patrolmen appeared. The detective returned and went back over the story. Mommy looked terrible. She didn't eat. She didn't do anything to make herself attractive. Some people, old friends of Daddy, and his former partner. Mr. Calhoun, sent over flowers and candy with good wishes. The detective offered to contact any family to assist us. but Mommy thanked him and told him we would be all right. He promised to keep us up to date on any new developments.

"Something will turn up," he promised. "We really searched that forest. Nothing bad happened to her there. I feel certain of that," he said to be encouraging. He told Mommy to call him any time she wanted.

From time to time she did. When I heard her speaking on the phone. I actually felt sorry for her. She sounded so desperate about it.

And then, one day, we felt it. People weren't coming by any longer. Cars still slowed down at the property line, and people gaped out at our home and at us if we were outside, but for the most part the phone stopped ringing. The days drifted on. Occasionally the newspaper did an update, but even the size of the stories grew smaller and smaller and they occurred less and less. Statistics on children who went missing and were never found were impressive. When Mommy read it aloud to me, it was like someone pounding a door shut forever.

She folded the newspaper and went outside. For a few moments she just stood there, looking over our property. It was a warm day. Summer was just over the horizon.

"Well," she said when I stepped up to her. "That's it. We have done all they have told us to do."

She turned and went back to her garden, back to our life.

When I went up to my room that night. I found it to be quite different. Celestes bed had been stripped down to its mattress, and the pillow was gone. The closet door was open. and I could see the empty hangers where her clothing had once been. All her shoes were gone as well. The shelves above and to the side of my bed were empty. Every doll on the shelves in the room had been taken away. There was no longer a trace of her, not a ribbon, not a hairbrush. nothing. Where was it all?

Excited, Mommy came upstairs quickly after me to tell me she had just seen her grandfather walking quietly through the meadow with her grandmother. They were arm in arm, she said, and they looked very happy.

"The curtain has been lifted." she told me. "And its largely thanks to you."

She insisted on tucking me in and singing one of her grandmother's old folk songs. Her voice was melodic and full of so much nostalgia. I saw her eyes tear. When she was finished, she kissed me good night and left my room.

It took me longer than usual to fall asleep. I lay awake for a very long time, occasionally turning to look at the naked mattress on the bed beside mine.

Celeste was truly cone.

I didn't realize I was crying until I felt the dampness on my pillow.

10

A Fine Young Lad

.

There was nothing that frightened me more

than failing Mommy and therefore failing Daddy. I must be who they want me to be. I thought. Even though Noble couldn't read as well as I could read or do as well on tests, or see Daddy's spirit when I believed I had seen him. Mommy always seemed to have some reason to like Noble more, and what I feared the most was whatever that reason was, I wouldn't ever know it and everything would go wrong.

Still. I had to try and do the best I could. I quickly realized that Mommy's happiness depended on it, but more important, perhaps, her ability to see and communicate with her spiritual family was directly related to it. The more like Noble I became, it seemed, the clearer were her visions and the more frequent.

And then I thought, the same surely will be true for me. When I do well, Daddy will return to me. So whenever I would think of Noble being gone. I would stop myself and recite, "Noble is not gone. Celeste is gone. My sister. Celeste, is gone and buried."

With everything feminine being removed from my room and with Mommy giving me harder and heavier chores to do daily, I was able to reinforce the assumption of Noble's identity. I worked as hard as I could at every task she gave me. I didn't care about my hands or my hair. I never looked for a doll or a teacup, and I tried to avoid housework with the same dislike for it that Noble always had.