“I’m not sure I can,” Ingo said. “This place, Argartha. It’s supposed to be a place where the reborn can live in peace, but the two reborn I’ve met are outcasts.”
Night had fallen and Ozzie stared out the window at the stars.
“Am I wrong?” Ingo persisted.
“No. You’re not.” Ozzie sighed. “You have to understand that even the smartest among them can’t explain why reborns exist, let alone anything of their offspring. Science died with humanity, and it’s been slow to return. They know its XK119, and they have a cure of a kind.”
“Is the disease still out there? Can we catch it?” Tye said.
“Yes, and no. The disease is out there somewhere just as the black plague survived the ages. Is it active? Are there known vectors? No, but Argartha’s data set is very small. Communication is bad, and keeping track of what’s going on around the world is an impossible task, unless you have someone like Ingo,” Ozzie said.
“So why did they kick you out if your skills are so valuable?” Tye said.
“Let me ask you this: what would you do if you had to make a decision, but you had contradictory information about the situation? Like Ingo pictured you at the turtle, but in my image you aren’t there. Who would you believe? How would you decide what was the real scene? The scene you wanted to be true?” Ozzie said.
“I’m confused. You’re saying several reborns foresaw different images of the same future? Images that all couldn’t possibly be true?” Milly said.
“Yes. I stuck by my vision, but those who run Argartha believed something else,” Ozzie said.
“This makes sense, no?” Tester said. “All futures are only possible futures until the moment arrives and a new time path is created.”
“Something like that,” Ozzie said.
“I’m afraid this is above us. What can you tell us of Argartha?” Tye said.
“It is your dream, is it not?” Ozzie said. “Better you experience it for yourself. Anything I say will pale in comparison.”
“Can you take us there?” Robin said.
Ozzie left the window and sat beside Robin. “I can go to the border of Oz, but no further.”
“Are there many like you?” Robin said.
“No. There were twenty-four in Argartha when I left,” Ozzie said.
“Do your parents know you’re here?” Tye said. “Do they visit?”
Ozzie laughed. “No, they don’t visit. I’m a monster to them.”
“You’re not making sense,” Tester said. “With your powers I’d think you’d be treated like a king.”
“You would think,” Ozzie said.
They all drank in silence, sipping their wine. Tye’s head spun, and if he didn’t get to bed soon, he’d pass out where he sat.
“It’s his mind reading,” Ingo said.
Ozzie’s eyes blazed. “What do you know, boy?”
“That you measure the hearts of men, and that you killed a man you believed was going to murder your father,” Ingo said.
“You’ve seen this?” Ozzie said.
Ingo nodded. “You told the authorities, but their reborn saw something else. You took matters into your own hands.” Ingo flinched. “Your father, the man you saved, led the prosecution to have you exiled.”
Tye stared at Ozzie. They all did. He smiled. “You’re lucky to have Ingo.”
“So you’re innocent?” Milly said.
“Truth is, I’m not sure,” Ozzie said.
Pepper got up, followed by Turnip, and their movement sparked everyone from their sleepiness. “I have rooms for you below. Come. You can rest the night and, in the morning, you can continue on to the city,” Ozzie said. He turned to Milly. “Don’t be so fast to judge.”
Tye slept well, his dreams filled with Respite and the life he’d had there. The next morning the fellowship left the castle without seeing Ozzie. They found breakfast, a short note wishing them luck, a tourist map of Washington, DC, Peter’s axe, and Milly’s Glock 19, but no Ozzie.
The company followed the red brick path out of Oz, and when Tye turned to look on the valley one last time, there were no castle ramparts poking from the tree canopy, nor was there a giant green witch head or red shoes. There was nothing but a sea of green, covered in thin fog.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Year 2075, Washington, DC
Cracked tombstones stuck from the ground like broken teeth on both sides of the trail, their forlorn homage to the fallen soldiers of the gone world fading into oblivion. Trees of oak and evergreen interspersed with dogwood and cherry grew thick, and underbrush of hither grass, brambles, and weeds filled every open space. Leaves of every color fell like rain, and tree roots and vines snaked across the ground. Most of the headstones were crushed and broken by the tide of vegetation that had overtaken Arlington National Cemetery, but here and there the engineering of the old world held sway. Pillars of marble, metal sculptures covered in kudzu and weeds, brass plaques, thousands of granite and marble gravestones, and cracked and scattered pathways and roads barely distinguishable amidst the hallowed forest. Sadness washed over Milly as she walked among the dead and their trees, and she would always remember this place as the Soldier’s Wood.
Pepper tracked ahead and Turnip followed up the rear. Milly hadn’t seen the cat since breakfast, but Pepper slowed-up periodically and Milly saw her on the trail ahead. A patch of clear ground opened to the right, and several intact grave markers stuck in the earth. The one closest to the path had no name or date and was marked simply Unknown. An older stone protruded from the base of an oak, its inscription rubbed away by time.
“I’ve been here,” Tester said. “I remember that gravestone embedded in the tree. The marker made of ordinance is around here somewhere.”
“Ordinance?” Ingo said.
“One marker was made of melted down shell casings. In the early days grave markers
