"It's me, Vivien." He lifted his hands, then suddenly clamped them over his nose and mouth for a moment as though to keep in something that wanted powerfully to escape. "It's me, Mom."
She closed the distance in a step and threw her arms around him so hard that they both almost toppled onto the turf beside the path. "Hey, careful!" Orlando said, laughing raggedly, then Conrad had grabbed them both. The threesome did stumble then, and fell to the grass in awkward stages. They sat holding each other, babbling things that Ramsey could not quite hear.
Vivien was the first to lean back, but she kept one hand against Orlando's face and gripped his arm with the other, as if afraid to let him go. "But how . . . I don't understand. . . ." Her hands not free to wipe her face, she could only shake her head and sniff loudly. "I mean, I understand—Mr. Ramsey explained, or tried to, but. . . ." She pulled his hand against her own cheek, then kissed it. "Are you certain it's you?" Her smile was crooked, her eyes bright with fear and hope. "I mean, really you?"
"I don't know." Orlando watched her as though he had forgotten what she looked like and might have only this small time to rememorize her features. "I don't know. But I feel like me. I think like me. I just . . . I don't have a real body anymore."
"We'll do something about it." Conrad Gardiner had a fixed, miserable grin on his face and was holding Orlando's other arm with both hands. "Specialists . . . somebody must. . . ." He shook his head, suddenly speechless.
Orlando smiled. "Believe me—there are no specialists in this stuff. But maybe someday." His smile faded a little. "Just be glad for what we have."
"Oh, Orlando, we are," said his mother.
"Think of it . . . think of it like I'm in Heaven. Except you can visit me whenever you want." Tears were running down his cheeks again. "Don't cry, Mom! You're scanning me out."
"Sorry." She let go of him for a moment to blot away her own tears with the arm of her blouse, stopped to stare at it. "It . . . feels like it's real. This all does." She looked at her son. "So do you, even if I've never seen . . . this version of you before."
"It feels real, too," he said. "And this is what I look like now. That other me—well, he's gone. You don't ever have to look at him again and feel sorry because . . . because he looked like that."
"We never cared!"
"You cared about how I felt when other people stared at me." He reached out and touched her cheek, caught a drop of wetness there. "This is how it is now, Vivien. It's not all bad, is it?" He swallowed hard, then suddenly sprang to his feet, pulling his parents up as though they were children.
"You're so strong!"
"I'm Thargor the barbarian—sort of." Orlando grinned. "But I don't think I'll use that name anymore. It's kind of . . . woofie." He was eager to move now. "Let me show you my house. It's not really mine. I'm just borrowing it from Tom Bombadil until I build my own."
"Tom. . . ?"
"Bombadil. Come on, you remember—you were the one who told me to read it in the first place." He pulled her to him and hugged her; when he let go she was in tears again, swaying. "I want to show you all of it. The next time you're here the barrow wights and Tom and Goldberry and everyone will be back. It'll be different." He turned to Ramsey and Sam. "You two—come on! You should see the view I have down the river valley."
As Orlando's parents brushed leaves and grass from their clothes, they were startled by a movement at their feet. Something black, hairy, and decidedly bizarre climbed out from underneath one of the borderstones along the path.
"You gotta do something about those little psychos, boss," it shouted. "They're makin' me nuts!" It saw Orlando's guests and stopped, eyes impossibly wide.
Vivien took an involuntary step backward. "What. . . ?"
"This is Beezle," Orlando said, grinning again. "Beezle, these are my parents, Vivien and Conrad."
The misshapen cartoon bug looked at them for a moment, then performed a little bow. "Oh, yeah. Pleased to meetcha."
Conrad stared, "This . . . it's . . . this is that gear thing."
Beezle's lopsided eyes narrowed. "Oh, nice. 'Gear thing,' huh? I told the boss, sure, bygones are bygones—but seems to me the last time we hooked up, you were trying to unplug me."
Orlando was smiling. "Beezle saved the world, you guys."
The bug shrugged. "I had some help."
"And he's going to be here with me—help me out with things. Have adventures." Orlando stood up straighter. "Hey! I have to tell you about my new job!"
"Job?" asked Conrad weakly.
"We . . . we're pleased to meet you, Beezle," said Vivien carefully, but she didn't look very pleased at all.
"It's 'Mr. Bug' to you, lady," he growled, then suddenly flashed a broad cartoon smile. "Nah, just kiddin'. Don't worry about it. Gear don't hold grudges."
Further discussion was forestalled by a cloud of tiny yellow monkeys that swirled out of the forest, shrieking.
"Beegle buzz! Found you!"
"Come play!"
"Play stretch-a-bug!"
Beezle let out a string of curses that sounded exactly like random punctuation, then disappeared back into the ground. The monkeys hovered for a moment, disappointed.
"No fun," said a tiny voice.
"We're busy now, kids," Orlando told them. "Could you go play somewhere else for a while?"
The monkey-tornado swirled about his head for a moment, then lifted into the air.
"Okay, 'Landogarner!" one shrilled. "We go now!"
"Kilohana!" squealed another. "Time to poop on the stone trolls!"
The yellow cloud coalesced and flashed across the hills. Orlando's parents stood like accident victims, so clearly overwhelmed by everything that Ramsey wanted to turn his back and give them some privacy.
"Don't worry—it's not always this exciting around here," said Orlando.
"We . . . we just want to be with you." Vivien took a deep breath and tried to smile. "Wherever you are."
"I'm glad you're here." For a long moment he only stood looking at them. His lip trembled, but then he forced a smile of his own. "Hey, come see the house. Everybody come!"
He started up the path, then turned back so he could take Conrad and Vivien each by the hand. He was much taller than either of them, and they were almost forced to run to keep up with his long strides.
Ramsey looked at Sam Fredericks. He offered her his virtual handkerchief and gave her a moment to use it, then they followed the Gardiner family up the hill.
"You look a lot better than the last time I saw you," Calliope said.
The woman in the bed nodded. Her expression was flat, as though someone had carefully rubbed the life out of it. "So do you. I'm surprised you're walking."
Calliope pointed to the plasteel tubes beside her chair. "On crutches. Very slowly. But the doctors can do some amazing things these days. You should know."
"I'm not going to be walking, no matter what they do."
There wasn't anything much to be said to that, but Calliope tried. "Would dying have been better?" she asked gently.
"That's an excellent question."
Calliope sighed. "I'm sorry you've had such a bad time of it, Ms. Anwin."
"It's not like I didn't deserve it," said the young woman. "I wasn't an innocent. An idiot, yes—but not an innocent."
"Nobody deserves John Dread," Calliope said firmly.
"Maybe. But he isn't going to get what he deserves, is he!"