“Yes.”
“Don’t worry about anything! Everything is going to be fine. It’s going to be better than you think.”
He laughed, a dry sound that broke off too soon, and nodded, but he didn’t turn round again.
He said: “Go to bed now, Judith.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say then so I looked at him for the first and last time, then I opened the door. I closed it behind me and wiped my face. Then I went upstairs step by step, holding on to the banister.
The Space Where Miracles Happen
AND THIS IS how I learned that everything is possible, at all times and all places and for all sorts of people. If you think it’s not, it’s because you can’t see how close you are, how you only need to do a small thing and everything will come to you. Faith is a leap; you’re here, the thing you want is there; there’s a space between you. You just have to jump. Walking on water and moving mountains and making the dead come to life aren’t difficult; you take the first step and the worst is over, you take another and you’re halfway there.
Miracles don’t have to be big things, and they can happen in the unlikeliest places. They can happen in the sky or on a battlefield or in a kitchen in the middle of the night. You don’t even have to believe miracles are possible for one to happen, but you will know when it does, because something very ordinary you never thought would amount to much has amounted in the end to quite a lot. That’s because miracles work best with ordinary things, the more ordinary the better; the greater the odds, the bigger the miracle.
A Life for a Life
MY ROOM WAS in darkness. I said: “Are You there?” but no one answered. I went to the window and drew back the curtains and the moon came in. It was silvering the factory and the electricity and making the train tracks gleam like glue left by a snail.
I looked out at the town at the television aerials and chimneys and rooftops, the telegraph wires going up and down the valley, and above it all the dark mountain, darker still against the white of the moon, and it was funny, but for the first time it all looked quite beautiful, like Brother Michaels had said, and in a few minutes it would be gone.
I turned back to the room. I pushed aside masts and forks and garden fences, branches and thatches, strands of rainbow, wires that birds used to sit on, white horses from the top of waves, wisps of cloud. The magic had gone now; the sun looked just like a wire cage, the sea a mirror, the fields like pieces of fabric, the hills papier mache and bark.
I wondered what Father would do with the Land of Decoration. He would probably put it out in black bags for the garbagemen. The egg-carton hills would be paper, the toffee-barrel house a new toffee barrel or a tin can or cup, the milk-carton houses more milk cartons and other things when they were empty, the feathers and straws might become real birds’ nests again, the wood and heather would become new trees and new heather, the stones would one day become mountains again, the shells become sand, the sand glass, and the glass perhaps a new mirror.
Nearly everything would be changed, but one or two things would remain what I had made them. Perhaps the barrel with the sail—perhaps it really would find its way to sea and the tiny fisherman see real birds overhead, taste real spray on his lips, and real breezes would make his cheeks pink. Perhaps some very small pieces of cloth, some of the glitter, or the smallest of beads, might stay right here in this room under the floorboards, in nooks and crannies with the spiders and mice.
Then I remembered that there wouldn’t be a room, and Father wouldn’t do anything with the Land of Decoration: and the Land of Decoration wouldn’t be anywhere—or, rather, it would be everywhere, because it would be real.
I fetched a chair and put it in the space I had cleared. I got onto the chair. “Thirty-one minutes,” said a voice.
“There You are,” I said. Then I stopped. “It is You, isn’t it?”
God said: “Who else would it be?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “You sounded strange for a minute.”
“Strange how?”
“Different,” I said. “Well—sort of like
“Don’t be silly,” God said. “You’re you and I’m Me.”
“Yes,” I said. “Sorry. A lot has happened tonight.”
I balanced on tiptoes and unscrewed the lightbulb.
“Twenty-nine and a half minutes,” said God. “And counting.”
I put the bulb on the chair and it rolled back and forth.
“Quietly!” said God. “We don’t want interruptions.”
I unscrewed the hot-air-balloon lamp shade and put it on the chair too, but it fell onto the floor.
“Great,” said God. “That’s just great.”
I tested the light cord. I got down and fetched my school tie. I got back up and tied one end of the tie to the cord above the light fitting and tugged it. I tied a loop in the other end of my tie and loosened it. I put my head through the loop. The material felt soft next to my skin. I expect it wondered where my collar was.
The room looked strange from the ceiling: like a box, smaller than it had ever seemed before. I wondered if I had already stepped off the chair, because my arms and legs felt like they were falling, but they weren’t, and I wasn’t, I said to myself; there was a rushing in my ears, as if the tie was tightening. But it isn’t, I said to myself. Not yet.
I looked at the Land of Decoration. “It was so good in the beginning,” I said. “Now I think it would have been better if I’d never made it at all.”
“We all make mistakes,” said God.
“What did You say?”
“I said: We all make mistakes,” God said.
“We?” I loosened the tie.
“You, Me—everyone.”
I was beginning to feel sick. “Are You sure about this?” I said.
“Oh yes,” said God. “One hundred percent. Twenty-three and a half minutes.”
There was a sound in the room like a creature panting. “What’s that noise?” I said.
“It’s you,” said God. “Can’t you breathe more quietly?”
“No,” I said.
My knees were behaving strangely now, as if they wanted to fall forward, though I was afraid of that more than anything, and my left leg wouldn’t stop tapping the chair.
I took one foot off the chair and held on to the tie. I closed my eyes and lifted the other foot off too. Darkness throbbed and jumped in front of me. Colored lights and whistling sounds filled my head. I put both feet back on the chair and hung on to the tie and my body was wet, as if I had been running, and my teeth were chattering.
“Nineteen minutes, nine seconds,” said God.
My foot slipped. Something hot dribbled down my legs. I swallowed and was trying hard not to cry.
“Nineteen minutes and two seconds,” said God.
Then I said: “You know what I wish?”
God laughed. “I’d think carefully before you make another wish. The last ones haven’t turned out very well.”
“I wish You would go away and never come back.”
“What?” said God.
