Yeah. That was when it clicked in my head, and I realized I’d seen an entire generation go by. Your son, he was grown up and engaged to a beautiful young girl. She wasn’t much younger than you when I found you—well, when you found me—and she even reminded me a bit of you. Unafraid of a creature like me. Bold. Kind, or so I’d have guessed.

Never saw her again, of course. I left Happenstance with two strange feelings: one, that my past had just reached out to grab hold of me; two, that I needed to get far away. I forgot about most of my supplies I needed, but that was just as well. I’d do without, as I’d done for nearly two decades.

I couldn’t help but wonder, though . . . what were you up to these days? Had you found another husband? Or gone off to wander the country like me, now that your son was grown? All those years with you, and I didn’t know how a human parent was supposed to act. I mean, I knew how I would go about it if I was in someone else’s shoes, but . . . I wasn’t, so that was unfair.

Oh, how I didn’t know what my future held.

Fast forward a few years—once more, it’s a bit hard for me to gauge—and I lived in a lovely hut in the mountains, surrounded by a high-altitude bog on the north, a long, rocky slope on the south, and misty ridges on the east and west. It was quite peaceful. Well, OK, I’d had to rebuild after a bear wrecked my first house, but that was out of my control. I’d like to think I was attuned to the animals well enough to understand them all at this point, or at least their motivations. That bear probably hadn’t slept well.

Of course, peaceful it might have been. Comfortable? Not especially; which was fine with me, but after years of it, my back began to crave the comforts the civilized world could afford. I was on my way back to Happenstance for perhaps the tenth time since my mountain life began, this time intent on seeking out the woman who made blankets and pillows and the like.

What I found was no village, but a disaster-scape. Houses were thrown about by their feet, trees mown down, the few streets now scattered with debris as though the child of a giant had been messily playing. And you guys didn’t have giants here.

I later learned that this natural phenomenon was known as a tornado, an oversized whirlwind with the power to level . . . well, a whole village. At the time, though, I just stared in horror. Then I realized that there were voices calling. What followed was a numb half hour, maybe an hour, where I stumbled into the village and helped the few remaining villagers to free those who could be saved. One such villager was a mute boy who seemed to stare around sightlessly, as though not comprehending. Sakes alive or dead, I didn’t understand in the least. The poor kid had tearstained running down both cheeks.

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In that hour, I was hit with a memory from more than twenty years prior, in the village of Hemwell. Me, stumbling into a destroyed village after a disaster, and finding . . . well, instead of you, I found a small boy. I asked him where his parents were. He was probably six or seven, by my reckoning, and should know what I meant, but he was in a state of extreme distress following the storm. He clung to me for some reason. One of the few men who would talk to me, even after helping them out with the search for survivors, showed me the house where the boy’s parents had been: one of the most destroyed ones. We’d found the kid in a better-kept house, where he’d been protected from the terrible storm.

I recognized both of them. And somehow, it wasn’t surprising to me, just sad and fitting. I looked down at the boy—and motioned him over, to the objection of the nice man. “We found your parents,” I told him. “And . . . I’m sorry, but they’re no longer for this world.”

The boy looked like he couldn’t cry any more, and indeed he didn’t. Just stared in silence at the broken bodies of Patrick and his wife . . . I never even knew her name. She seemed like a fine person, kind of like you, Marianne. I’m so sorry. I really am. You never knew he was dead. You couldn’t know. And it almost felt like a betrayal of your memory to try to talk comfortingly to this kid, but . . . it was all I could do for him, for you.

But no, it wasn’t all I could do. I took the boy in. He came with me, and I took him up to my home in the mountains. His name was Quinn, and he was a quiet little boy. Timid but curious, just like you. He did well, learning quickly everything that I taught him. I loved the boy dearly, and we got along great as he aged. We hunted and fished together, built things together. Oftentimes, of course . . . often, I’d see him sit and watch the sparkling sunset, or the rain, and just stare. And I knew what he was thinking about.

And . . .Quinn, if you’re reading this now, I’m sorry. I’m sorry things turned out for you the way they did. Had I not run away to the mountains, your mother and father might be alive. Had I not run away years before, your grandmother might be as well. I saw the signs, and I suspected her disease, but . . . I just ran away. And I have this feeling that . . . that you don’t mean it when you say I’m the best grem dad you ever had. When you say you don’t blame me. Sooner or later, I fear you will reach a point of no return and make a decision to be my enemy.

So just kno—