The decision will be yours, my son, whether you will enter the house on the heights that changes stone to silver, rocks to rubies, and water to wine. To pass through that door, there is a price, and one only you can pay. The price was too high for me, and so I find myself here — a sacrifice I have not made, for the joy of my life is priceless. Look at what surrounds me. What more could I want? I pray you may know the same, but soon the choice will be yours, and whatever it may be, my love for you will follow. Gabriel, I have so much to tell you as the seasons turn, but for now, let me tell you this: I love you more than life itself.
Your most loving mother
Gabriel folded the note back up in its wax paper cover and stuck it into his pocket. It did not make any more sense to him now than it had the hundreds of other times he had read it. He knew the Seine was in France, but then there was the “decision” Gabriel’s mother had said he must make about entering a house. That made no sense to him at all. What decision would there be about whether or not to enter a house? Either you walk through the door, or you don’t. What difference would it make? Was this some magical house that could somehow change you once you entered the door?
Still, there was one thing perfectly clear about the note: his mother had loved him dearly. This thought saddened Gabriel. His mother was not able to tell him more as she had promised, because her illness worsened the day after she wrote the note. Her fever intensified, and she died only a few days later. Why hadn’t she told him more? He wished she were still alive and could explain these things to him. But he had wished that thousands of times, and it never came true.
He was tired now. The sand was so soft, he thought of just spending the night here and having a nice fire. It wouldn’t be too long before it was dark, and the thought of venturing on to only find another restless night on hard ground sealed the decision in his mind. He would stay put.
Gabriel gathered some wood and, using his knife and flint rock, soon started a fire. He stuck his knife in the sand and leaned back, watching the growing darkness reveal the heavenly dusting of stars that began to fill the sky. Looking off to the northwest, he could see tall puffy clouds on the horizon. The bright white contours of the clouds were accentuated by the blackening sky. As he watched the clouds, they seemed to grow before his eyes, their tops ascending like a boiling froth of water. The sun continued to sink, causing the clouds to turn shades of pink and purple. Watching the amazing display of colors, Gabriel saw a flash of lightning bounce around in the tops of the clouds. The flash of lightning confirmed what these clouds were: thunderheads.
Well, he thought, I may get wet tonight, but at least I’ll have a soft bed here in the sand.
Gabriel always liked thunderstorms. He found their awesome display of power through lightning and wind fascinating. He could remember times in his room above the bookstore when he tried to stay awake just so he could see an approaching storm. The window in his room faced to the west and displayed the lightning dancing over the rooftops of the city.
Once, he had been woken up by the sound of hail pelting the roof. He ran to his mother and father’s room, not because he was scared, but because he wanted to go outside to collect these marbles of ice that fell from the sky. His mother discouraged the idea but could not thwart his enthusiasm, so she and his father finally consented. He ran about in the street, being pelted by hail but still managing to collect a handful of the ice pellets. They melted quickly, but not before Gabriel could examine the strange rings on them like that on the stump of a chopped down tree. He wondered what caused these rings to form and how it was that ice fell from the sky when it was so warm outside. This was just one more of nature’s strange mysteries he wanted to solve.
On this night, try as he might, Gabriel could not stay awake to view the approaching thunderstorm. The night grew dark, and the fire began to die. He heard the distant rumble of thunder as he drifted off to sleep.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep, when he awoke to a loud rumble of thunder and saw another flash in the sky. He felt large drops of rain begin to fall. He grabbed his blanket pulled it over himself as a shield from the rain. He wanted to get a good night’s rest and start out early in the morning to ensure he would reach Marlborough that day. Rather than keeping him awake, the low rumble of thunder and the pattering of the rain quickly put him back into a sound sleep.
An hour or so must have passed, when a loud crack and a rushing sound awakened him. Gabriel felt wetness flowing all around him. As he began to gain his senses, he thought the rain must have been pouring down hard. It was as if he was lying in water. He then felt water flowing into his ears, over his eyes, nose, and mouth. He threw off his blanket
