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the pigeon-ink in which they had been written was blotted in many places. I believe the woman who wrote those lines was struggling to hold onto a
few last shreds of sanity. I’m not sure many would have understood her words, but I did. I’m sure my father would have, as well, but I never showed it
to him or told him of it.
The feast I ate was rotten
what I thought was a palace was a dungeon
how it burns Roland
I thought of Wegg, dying of snakebite.
If I go back and tell what I know
what I overheard
Gilead may yet be saved a few years
you may be saved a few years
your father little that he ever cared for me
The words “little that he ever cared for me” had been crossed out with a series of heavy lines, but I could read them anyway.
he says I dare not
he says “Bide at Serenity until death finds you.”
he says “If you go back death will find you early.”
he says “Your death will destroy the only one in the world
for whom you care.”
he says “Would you die at your brat’s hand and see
every goodness
every kindness
every loving thought
poured out of him like water from a dipper?
for Gilead that cared for you little
and will die anyway?”
But I must go back. I have prayed on it
and meditated on it
and the voice I hear always speaks the same words:
THIS IS WHAT KA DEMANDS
There was a little more, words I traced over and over during my wandering years after the disastrous battle at Jericho Hill and the fall of Gilead. I
traced them until the paper fell apart and I let the wind take it—the wind that blows through time’s keyhole, ye ken. In the end, the wind takes
everything, doesn’t it? And why not? Why other? If the sweetness of our lives did not depart, there would be no sweetness at all.
I stayed in Everlynne’s office until I had myself under control. Then I put my mother’s last word—her dead-letter—in my purse and left, making sure
the door locked behind me. I found Jamie and we rode to town. That night there were lights and music and dancing; many good things to eat and
plenty of liquor to wash it down with. There were women, too, and that night Silent Jamie left his virginity behind him. The next morning . . .