“The door is unlocked!” she shouted. “The door is always and for ever unlocked. You must simply knock.”
When she was fully awake, Sister Marie saw that the door was, in fact, wide open and that beyond the door, in the darkness, snow was falling. She got up from her chair and went to pull the door closed and saw that there was an elephant in the street.
“Preserve us,” said Sister Marie.
And then she saw Adele standing in the snow, in her nightgown and with no shoes on her feet.
“Adele!” Sister Marie shouted. “Adele!”
But it was not Adele who turned to look at her. It was a boy with a hat in his hands.
“Adele?” he said.
He spoke the name as if it were a question and an answer both, and his face was alight with wonder.
The whole of him, in fact, shone like one of the bright stars from Sister Marie’s dream.
He picked her up because it was snowing and it was cold and her feet were bare, and because he had promised their mother long ago that he would always take care of her.
“Adele,” he said. “Adele.”
“Who are you?” she said.
“I am your brother.”
“My brother?”
“Yes.”
She smiled at him, a sweet smile of disbelief that turned suddenly to belief and then to joy. “My brother,” she said. “What is your name?”
“Peter.”
“Peter,” she said. And then again, “Peter. Peter. And you brought the elephant.”
“Yes,” said Peter. “I brought her. Or she brought me; but in any case, it is all the same and just as the fortuneteller said.” He laughed and turned. “Leo Matienne,” he shouted, “this is my sister!”
“I know,” said Leo Matienne. “I can see.”
“Who is it?” said Madam LaVaughn. “Who is she?”
“The boy’s sister,” said Hans Ickman.
“I don’t understand,” Madam LaVaughn said.
“It’s the impossible,” said Hans Ickman. “The impossible has happened again.”
Sister Marie walked out through the open door of the Orphanage of the Sisters of Perpetual Light and into the snowy street. She stood next to Leo Matienne.
“It is, after all, a wonderful thing to dream of an elephant,” she said to Leo, “and then to have the dream come true.”
“Yes,” said Leo Matienne, “yes, it must be.”
Bartok Whynn, who stood beside the nun and the policeman, opened his mouth to laugh and then found that he could not. “I must—” he said. “I must—” But he did not finish the sentence.
The elephant, meanwhile, stood in the falling snow and waited.
It was Adele who remembered her and said to her brother, “Surely the elephant must be cold. Where is she going? Where are you taking her?”
“Home,” said Peter. “We are taking her home.”
Chapter Eighteen
Peter walked in front of the elephant. He carried Adele. Next to Peter walked Leo Matienne. Behind the elephant was Madam LaVaughn in her wheelchair, pushed by Hans Ickman, who was, in turn, followed by Bartok Whynn, and behind him was the beggar, Tomas, with Iddo at his heels. At the very end was Sister Marie, who for the first time in fifty years was not at the door of the Orphanage of the Sisters of Perpetual Light.
Peter led them, and as he walked through the snowy streets, each lamp post, each doorway, each tree, each gate and each brick leaped out at him and spoke to him. All the things of the world were things of wonder that whispered to him the same message. Each object spoke the words of the fortuneteller and the hope of his heart that had turned out, after all, to be true.
And she did live! Her breath was warm on his cheek.
She weighed nothing.
Peter could have happily carried her in his arms for all eternity.
The cathedral clock tolled midnight. A few minutes after the last note, the magician heard the great outer door of the prison open and then close again. The sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor. The steps were accompanied by the jangle of keys.
“Who comes now?” shouted the magician. “Announce yourself!”
There was no answer, only footsteps and the light from the lantern. And then the policeman came into view. He stood in front of the magician’s cell and held up the keys and said, “They await you outside.”
“Who?” said the magician. “Who awaits me?” His heart thumped in disbelief.
“Everyone,” said Leo Matienne.
“You have succeeded? You have brought the elephant here? And Madam LaVaughn as well?”
“Yes,” said the policeman.
“Merciful,” said the magician. “Oh, merciful. And now it must be undone. Now I must try to undo it.”
“Yes, now it all rests upon you,” said Leo. He inserted the key into the lock and turned it and pushed open the door to the magician’s cell.
“Come,” said Leo Matienne. “We are, all of us, waiting.”
There is as much magic in making things disappear as there is in making them appear. More, perhaps. The undoing is almost always more difficult than the doing.
The magician knew this full well, and so when he stepped outside into the cold and snowy night, free for the first time in months, he felt no joy. Instead he was afraid. What if he tried and failed again?
And then he saw the elephant, the magnificence of her, the reality of her, standing there in the snow.
She was so improbable, so beautiful, so magical.
But no matter; it would have to be done. He would have to try.
“There,” said Madam LaVaughn to Adele, who was in the noblewoman’s lap, wrapped up tight and warm, “there he is. That is the magician.”
“He does not look like a bad man,” said Adele. “He looks sad.”
“Yes, well, I am crippled,” said Madam LaVaughn, “and that, I assure you, goes somewhat beyond sadness.”
“Madam,” said the magician. He turned away from the elephant and bowed to Madam LaVaughn.
“Yes?” she said to him.
“I intended only lilies,” said the magician.
“But perhaps you do not understand,” said Madam LaVaughn.
“Please,” said Hans Ickman, “please, I beg you! Speak from your hearts.”
“I intended lilies,” continued the magician, “but in the clutches of a desperate desire to do something extraordinary, I called down a greater magic and inadvertently caused you a profound harm. I will now try to undo what I have done.”
“But will I walk again?” said Madam LaVaughn.
“I do not think so,” said the magician. “But I beg you to forgive me. I hope that you will forgive me.”
She looked at him.
