“And what am I to do as you get older?” Nurd continued, having slapped Wormwood semiaffectionately on the back of the head. “Do I continue living with your mum? Do I come and live with you? How will you explain me to your wife, or your children?”
“So you’re running away?” said Samuel. He fought his tears, but they won, and he hated them for winning. “You’re leaving me because of something that hasn’t even happened yet, something that might never happen?”
“No,” said Nurd, “I’m leaving because I have to make a life for myself. I spent so long in Hell, and then you gave me a place here. You showed me a new world. More than that, you gave me hope. Now I want to see what I might become out there in the Multiverse. And you have to make a life for yourself, too, Samuel, one in which there aren’t two demons peering over your shoulder, always needing you to protect them.”
“Don’t,” said Samuel. “Please don’t go. Don’t leave me.”
Now Nurd was crying, too, weeping big wet tears that soaked his elf costume. It was hard to be dignified while dressed as a large elf.
“Please understand,” he said. “Please let me go.”
Samuel’s face was contorted by grief.
“Go, then!” he shouted. “Go on and wander the Multiverse. You were only ever a burden to me anyway. All I did was worry about you, and Wormwood just made things smell when he wasn’t setting them on fire. Go! Find your demon friends. I don’t need you. I never needed you!”
He turned his back on Nurd. Maria tried to comfort him, but he shook her hand off and stepped away from her.
Slowly, giving Samuel space in his sadness and anger, the others lined up to shake hands with Nurd and Wormwood. The dwarfs even managed to hug them without trying to steal anything from them. When their farewells were completed, Crudford drew a circle in the air with his finger, and a hole opened. On the other side lay a red ocean, and anchored upon it was a white boat with a yellow sail.
“Where is that?” asked Wormwood.
Crudford shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
Crudford and Wormwood waved good-bye as they stepped through the portal and into the boat. Only Nurd remained. He reached out a hand as though he might somehow bridge the distance between Samuel and himself, the space both emotional and physical that had opened between them, but he could not. His let his hand drop. A new universe beckoned. He touched the sides of the portal. They felt solid. He used them to support himself as he placed his right foot into the waiting world.
A finger tapped him on the back. He turned, and Samuel buried his face in Nurd’s chest. The boy wrapped his arms around him, and it seemed that he would never let go. Samuel was sobbing, and could barely speak, but Nurd could still make out the words.
“Good-bye,” said Samuel. “Good-bye, friend. I hope you find what you’re looking for. Come back to me someday. Come back and tell me of your adventures.”
Nurd kissed him gently on the top of the head, and Samuel released him. Nurd stepped through the portal. Before he could look back it had closed behind him, and his friend was gone.
XXXIX
In Which We Step Forward in Time
THERE IS A HOUSE on the outskirts of a town far from Biddlecombe, a house old and full of character. Its gardens are neatly tended, but there is space in them, too, for ancient trees and blackberry bushes, for a little chaos amid the order. On this day the sun is shining, and the house is filled with people. There are children, and grandchildren, and even some great-grandchildren. A man and woman, both still lively and bright despite their years, are celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary. There will be cake, and songs, and laughter.
A small table has been cleared in the living room, and on the table sits their wedding album. It contains all of the usual photographs that one might expect to see from such an occasion: the bride arriving, the ceremony, the couple leaving the church in a cloud of confetti, the hotel, the dinner, the dancing. Here are the parents of the bride and the parents of the groom, basking in the happiness of their children; there, guests cheering and raising glasses. It is a record not only of one day, but of many lives lived until that moment, of friends made and not forgotten.
The final photograph is a group picture: all of those in attendance are gathered together, row upon row: tallest at the back, shortest at the front. Most people who leaf through the album just glance at it and move on. They have seen enough photos by then. There is food to be eaten, and champagne to be drunk. There is even some beer, for Spiggit’s has brewed a special ale for the occasion. It is called Spiggit’s Old Faithful, and those who have tried it swear that it is very good once their memory has returned. The brewers are here somewhere, too. They are giving rides on their backs to small children, who don’t care that they smell a little odd and can only say “Hurh!”
But those who take the time to look more closely at this last photograph in the album might pick out what appears to be a small, gelatinous being in the bottom right-hand corner. He is wearing a top hat, and has borrowed a bow tie for the occasion. To his left, wearing a suit with one sleeve on fire, is a man disguised as a ferret, or a ferret disguised as a man. Whatever he is, he is grinning broadly, mostly because he has not yet noticed the flames.
The bride and groom stand in the middle of the front row. Maria looks beautiful, and Samuel looks like a man who knows that the woman beside him is beautiful, and that she loves him, and he loves her. At their feet sits a small dachshund. He is not Boswell—for Boswell has gone to another place—but the son of Boswell, and yet the spirit of his father lives on in him.
To Samuel’s right is a figure dressed in a very elegant dark suit. His skin has a slightly greenish tinge to it, although that might just be a problem with the camera. His chin is very long, and tilts upward at the end so that, in profile, he resembles a crescent moon. He has a white flower in his buttonhole, and he is content.
• • •
Let us leave the album and move back into the sunlight. The oldest of the trees in the garden is a spreading oak. Beneath it, shaded by leaves and branches, is a bench, and two friends are seated upon it. Nearby, Wormwood tends the garden, aided by Crudford. Wormwood, it has emerged, is a skilled gardener, perhaps the greatest the Multiverse has ever known. A dachshund digs beside him, hoping to unearth a bone. This is the great-great-great-grandson of Boswell.
His name, too, is Boswell.
There is much of Samuel the boy in Samuel the older man as he sits on the bench, a glass of champagne by his side. His hair, now gray, still flops across his forehead, and his glasses still refuse to sit quite evenly on his nose. His socks still do not match.
Nurd’s appearance has not changed. It will never change, for he will never age. He once used to worry about what might happen when Samuel died, for he could not imagine a Multiverse without his friend, but he worries no longer: he has learned the secrets of the Multiverse, and has seen what lies beyond death. Wherever Samuel goes, Nurd will go, too. When the time comes, he will be waiting for his friend on the other side.
Waiting along with a host of Boswells.
“Tell me a tale,” says Samuel. “Tell me a story of your adventures.”
He has heard all of Nurd’s tales many times before, but he never tires of them. It is not just in appearance that he resembles the boy he once was. He has never lost his enthusiasm, or his sense of wonder. They have carried him through difficult times, for it is not only Nurd who has led an exciting existence over the years. Samuel’s life, too, has always been enjoyably odd, and there are stories about him that may yet have to be told.
And as the sun warms them, Nurd begins to speak.
“Once upon a time,” he says, “there was a boy named Samuel Johnson . . .”
