The Ragged Edge of Night

by Olivia Hawker

He woke to a sound, and it comes again—so faint, so distant, that he mistakes it for a memory. He’d heard the toll of a bell, and it had sounded like a boy’s voice calling. “Father!” The voice is closer now. Louder. And there is no mistaking to whom it belongs. “Father! Vati Anton!” Albert. Anton could swear he has actually heard the boy, out among the orchard or running down the lane. He sits up slowly, but the movement is enough to wake Elisabeth. She stirs, yawns, and rubs a knuckle in her eye. “Anton? What is it?” “I thought I heard—” He won’t say, I thought I heard our son. They have lived without the children for months now—four cruel months, when it seemed winter would never end, a new spring would never come. Every day he has seen the pain in Elisabeth’s eyes. Every day he has known what it costs her to be here with him. He won’t raise hope without cause. But she murmurs, “I had the strangest dream. I dreamed I heard Albert calling for me.” Then, waking fully, she hears the boy again. They both hear. “Father! Mother!” Elisabeth stares at Anton for a moment, pale and frightened. He can read her thoughts, for they are his own. Is this a trick of the Devil? Or has the boy died? Is our child’s spirit trapped between Heaven and Earth?