Chapter 49
Tadeo woke somewhere green, his body scarred and still bleeding.
He lifted his head at the sound of buzzing — some insects whizzing by.
Too, he saw trees, but not any type that he could recognize, and he noticed some birds, many of which he couldn’t quite make out either.
Some had familiar calls, some sounded entirely new.
In the distance, he heard the rumble of an animal.
Again, this one was unfamiliar. Instinct made his hand twitch for a weapon, but he had nothing on him except his typical clothes, also slightly different.
“Hello?” he called out, then he climbed onto trembling legs. “Hello?”
Despite how dense this place was with trees, flowers, fruits, almost falling over him — Tadeo felt no claustrophobia, nor fear.
He dragged a foot forward, felt himself bump into a scurrying rodent, then another animal he couldn’t recognize.
Polite, he apologized to them. ‘The last thing I remember was trying to make fruits for the survivors.’ Well, he’d certainly succeeded — if he was alive and this wasn’t some afterlife that he’d accidentally slipped into.
The thought of potentially being dead annoyed him.
He had people to protect, and he had more of loving and being-loved to experience.
Suddenly, he almost laughed. ‘How ridiculous am I?’ But there was so much left unfinished, as there always would be.
He had taught the children miracles, but he was not done doing it.
The world never ends; there is no return; there is just one tree ahead, then another.
A clink sounded beneath his shoe, and he looked to see coins, some meager money but money nonetheless, in the soil like ruins. Familiar silver, never to remove its teeth from this world, however new it seemed. This new Earth, which was not quite new at all.
Soon after he’d begun trudging through the grass, trying not to crush any of the hundred creatures by his legs, he heard a sound, something human.
‘Tadeo?’ Is that what they were saying? Oddly, he remembered the first time he’d been able to answer to that name, the first time he’d returned home after his resurrection.
His family had asked him to respond to another title, the one of a young girl, and he’d insisted, heart in his mouth, that his name was Tadeo, that he was someone new.
Eventually, they must’ve stopped believing Tadeo was another person than that girl who died.
He always prayed for that, that they had come to accept him, however imperfectly.
But, now, he was perking up at his name, warm and confused and frightened. ‘Tadeo, that’s my name. It’s Tadeo.’
He wasn’t sure whose voice it was, in the distance, or if they were even really saying his name. Yet —
‘Dante? Joana?’ Or was that his father’s tired rumble?
Or was that even his mother? Tadeo’s walking quickened, then his feet propelled him into a run, shoving branches out of his way.
“Wait!” he called to them, and he felt himself begin to smile, to laugh happily at realizing who the voices belonged to.
The dead and the living — all before him.
“Tell me where you are!” he called helplessly.
He would find them. ‘Dante, Joana, mother, father. Everyone.’ “I’ll find you whether you tell me or not!
” Tadeo jumped; he waved a hand, hoping they’d see him, tears swelling in his eyes.
“I love you! I’ll find you! Stay there!”