Bright Eyes

27. The Curious Case of M. Burton

Waltervere, Oregon
26th of May, 1867

M. Burton has been missing for three days; and I, Arthur Shelley, have been assigned by the sheriff of the town of Waltervere to ask his family questions.

A man of four and seventy, M. Luca Burton and his wife live in a little cottage by the banks of Black Bird Lake.

"I waked to golden light spilling through the open window, rays of first daylight slipping in through the cracks of our curtains," said Mrs. Elizabeth Burton, his wife, a woman of three and sixty, "yet the space beside me was cold and empty—my beloved husband, Luca, was no longer by my side. I remember our moments the night prior—I was the first to lay on our bed, as the sun sank behind the horizon, bathing our home in the wonderful pink and orange hues of sundown, and my dear Luca drew the curtains closed ere he lay beside me, ere we both drifted off to sleep, side by side, husband and wife, lover and lover."

Mrs. Burton then clutched the wooden pendant that hung from her neck by a leather cord, and she began to weep. "I searched everywhere," she said. "I searched the entire cottage, the yard outside, all the places he would frequent. Yet I found no sign of him, not even a passing of his familiar silhouette, tall and thin with a slight limp in his gait. Oh, my husband! Oh, my dear Luca! Where have you gone?"

"Knock after knock after knock," said M. Benjamin Burton, the couple's eldest son, a man of one and forty, "the rapping at our door growing all the more frantic as each second passed. That was three days ago, around half past nine in the morning, I believe. My wife went to open the door, and very soon she brought my mother into our home, arm in arm. My mother walked, trembling and sobbing, and was given a seat by the hearth, where she wept all the more.

" 'Your father, Ben,' she said, her words punctuated with sobs. 'Your father—Oh, my dear Luca—he is missing.' "

    "We searched the entire town, and the townspeople helped us as well—yet all our efforts were futile: there was no trace of my father. It has been three days since his disappearance, and we might as well believe him to be—"

    "No!" erupted the voice of Mrs. Elizabeth Burton. "How can you forsake all hope, my son? No!—do not say such things; I do not believe him to be dead. Until we find any proof that he is truly deceased, I shall cling on to the hope that your father is alive. Only lost, not dead—alive until proven otherwise."

    "Grandmother is right," piped up a small voice. "Grandfather is not dead. He has only gone home."

    We then turned to the source of this new voice. A little boy stood by the open door, a few paces from the hearth by which we sat. Mrs. Catherine Burton, M. Benjamin Burton's wife, held him by the hand. There was a noticeable look of shock and terror upon her countenance.

    "He is not dead," continued the boy. "I do not believe he is. The light people must have taken him home."

    "Oh, my son, bless your faith," cried Mrs. Catherine Burton, grasping the boy's hand a little tighter, lightly tugging him away from the door. She glanced somewhere far away, in the general direction to the right of the hearth, then to us, then to the little boy whose hand she held. Then she said, "Yet, my son, it is not right to speak of such things: as of the moment your grandfather has not gone to heaven—no, not yet—his time is still to come; the angels have not taken him to paradise; he still roams the earth, and he is merely missing, and your father and the townspeople are in fervent search of him. In God's gracious and perfect time, they shall find your grandfather, and he shall return home."

The boy said, "He is home, Mother. Grandfather has gone with the light people, and they have brought him home. They have been waiting for him, at Black Bird Lake."