She squeezed back crying, “Cepheril, you came! They were right. How did you know how to do it? All this time you were studying the lighthouse to prepare for this? You knew it was coming. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“How could I tell you that you were going to die?” I said. “And you are not going to die. I’m going to take you back.”
“I don’t want to go back,” my wife said. “This world is amazing. You need to see it.”
"Cepheril," someone interrupted. A figure walked toward us, carrying a chair in one hand. He set the chair in front of us and sat down. After Sadier took off my hood, I had briefly spotted this man sitting in the corner before I ran to my wife.
"Do you recognize me?" the man asked.
I did faintly recognize his face and paused trying to figure out why. "I've seen you somewhere," I said.
"Perhaps around the holidays?" he suggested. It was the only hint I needed.
"You're my uncle Seth!" I declared. "You look not a day over twenty-five." I said.
"I see you found my machine," Seth said.
"Why did you build it?" I said. "Why did you leave home?"
"There's enough time for conversation, but we need to get you both back on that sailboat as soon as possible," Seth said. "We’ll chase down the sailboat before it crosses the wall. If you miss it today, you will never be allowed to return."
"I don't see why we have to leave," my wife spoke up. "If it's my time to die then let me. And now my husband has joined me. I can't imagine anything better. And don't tell him that he's taking heaven unnaturally because you did the very same thing."
"I did. But I'm telling you it’s not worth it. At first it was great. But it didn't take me long to start feeling extremely sick about it," Seth replied. "I left my family and friends without saying goodbye. How could I enjoy the wonder of this place, knowing I had taken it before it was time? But then I met a girl named Saymi here, who happens to be his sister,” he said, pointing at Sadier. “She had recently come to the afterlife. She told me her brother had been given the chance to join her in the afterlife and had selflessly chosen to go back and keep fighting with his friends. The exact opposite of what I did. I realized that perhaps I was being given the chance to right my wrong by taking Sadier's place in the afterlife until he arrived."
"What do you mean taking his place?" I asked.
"It's not for you to know," Sadier replied. "But what my friend Seth is trying to say is that he has sacrificed the pleasures of this world the last five years to spend his time learning how to rescue my sister, Saymi."
"What does she need to be rescued from?" my wife asked. "It's not for you to know," Sadier said again. "But when you get back here, find me, and I'll tell you everything you want to know." "What if I keep using the lighthouse to bring back people who die before their time?" I asked.
"No, Cepheril," Sadier said stepping close, his eyes growing wide in anger. "You must never come here again on the deck of that ship. Let it go. Do you hear me? It’s far too easy to find yourself in witchcraft. I've had too many friends go mad meddling in things they should have left alone."
There was silence for a while.
"That sailboat moves at twenty-five knots," Sadier said. "It's got a head start of almost thirty minutes now, which means it's at least ten miles away. We have five hours till it crosses the wall. We can only hope to gain a couple miles on it every hour. So if you are going back we need to leave right now."
My wife and I looked at each other.
“They’re right,” I said.
“But you haven’t even seen it,” she protested.
“I will,” I said taking her hand. “We’ll be back someday.”
There was another brief moment of silence and then Sadier tossed us our hoods. We looked at each other one last time. I put mine on to encourage her, and she did the same a moment later.
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