Epilogue: Home

A soft breeze tickles my ears.

For a long moment I listen to it—the quiet rustle of leaves, blades of grass ruffling my skin. The echoing call of a bird rings out, the soft click of grasshoppers and distant buzz of cicadas filling the silence between each breath.

The sound of peace.

I feel a smile pull at my mouth, the strange absence of a tug at the side of my face prompting fingertips to touch at smooth skin, trailing down the bristles of an eyebrow, over the cheek. On both sides, nothing catches.

Curious.

Opening my eyelids against the hazy red light glowing beneath them, I squint as the bright glint of an unblemished sun peeks between leaves and branches, casting the sky a brilliant blue. It seems familiar, somehow. The smell of the grass, of the trees and bushes—I inhale a faint touch of something sweet as flowers, and something savoury.

Distant murmurs catch my ear, a lullaby on the breeze heralding a rustle approaching through the grass.

Before I can turn my sluggish neck, a black head with a white chinstrap blots out the sun, a much larger silver face with a lion’s mane of feathers grinning next to it. Spirits from another time....

The black bill reaches down, and gently pecks my forehead. “What you lookin’ at us like that for, dummy?”

I smile, and tears blur them both into one golden picture.

I’m home.