His body was light. Was that because he was a little boy or because death had taken his weight? Standing in the woods with my back to Floon’s grave, I waited for something to happen, not caring if anything did. I knew I should put the child down, go back to the hole and finish that job. I knew I should do that but I didn’t.

I guess I just stood with the child’s body in my arms, dreaming. Is that possible? I stood there without even thinking now what? Yes, I just stood there.

Until I heard maybe the third or fourth whump. There are sounds you know but don’t recognize till you see them happening. With my back to the hole I heard it one-two-three times– whump whump whump. Slowly, not fast in any way. I knew the sound but could not place it. It came from behind me in the forest where no one was. But I didn’t turn to see. Not yet. Whump whump.

Not until more of those heavy dull, familiar sounds came did I want to look. Pulling the child tighter to my chest, I turned.

There were five of them. They were all shoveling dirt back into the hole. Whump-whump. Although none spoke they all looked really happy, smiling, delighted to be doing this chore together. Their ages varied widely. The youngest looked around fourteen, the oldest forty-five. I am only guessing. Every one of them wore what the dead boy in my arms wore—khakis, a white T-shirt, black high-top canvas sneakers.

And all of them were me. They were finishing filling Floon’s grave. His body bag was gone. They must have lowered the black bag into the hole and now were filling the dirt back in. Together they had done the job for me.

I watched until they were finished. With five of them working it didn’t take long. The shovels were light in their hands. Giant loads of dirt flew back into the hole. All the time they worked they kept looking at each other and smiling. They were having a ball. It was as if this were a family outing—all the brothers together again and goofing around. Digging a hole, having fun. But they weren’t brothers, they were me.

When they were finished they stood back from the hole and, leaning on their shovels, surveyed the work. From where I stood there was no sign of anything on the ground. No one could have known that a deep wide hole had been dug and filled there. The forest floor looked as untouched as it had been when we first came to it.

The diggers looked at each other and the oldest nodded his approval. Another slapped the youngest on the shoulder and, winking, handed him his shovel. Was it the one I had used? All of them were identical. The boy took it, an adoring look on his face. They all loved each other—being together like this was the greatest thing in life.

And then as one they came toward me. When they were near, the one who had given over his shovel reached out his arms and gently took the dead child from me. I didn’t resist.

He said, “It’s okay. We’ll take care of him now.” Holding the bodv more carefully than I had, he looked at it with wonderful warmth. Of course he would know what to do with it.

“Come on,” another of them said but I didn’t know which. They started to walk out of the woods, and it felt like the most natural thing to follow. They walked on either side of me. I kept looking from one to the other. I knew them all, each one a different version of myself when I was younger.

My body felt calm and okay as we walked. I felt peaceful and at the same time deeply, deeply sad. Because seeing them all together like this, seeing them work together with such pleasure and concentration, seeing how much they liked each other, seeing the dead child lying in one’s arms, I finally understood.

How do you cross a wooden sea? I still did not know the answer to that question but seeing all that was around me, I now knew how to find the answer. Was this what Astopel and his kind wanted us to know? That nothing is more important than keeping every one of our individual selves alive. We must listen and be guided by them.

Not know thyself, know thy selves. All the yous, all the years, the days of Magda and Pauline, and orange cowboy boots, and when you believed penises grew back inside a man at forty years old.

We look at who we were, once upon a time, and see that person as stupid or amusing, but never essential. Like flipping through old snapshots of ourselves wearing funny hats or big lapels. How silly I was back then, how naive.

And how wrong to think that! Because now when you are incapable of doing it, those yous still know how to fly, find the way into a forest or out of a library. Only they can see the lizards and fill holes that need to be filled.

Gee-Gee, Dreampilot, the diggers... Now I knew how much I needed all of them to really understand my life. How do you cross a wooden sea? Ask them and listen carefully to their different answers.

“I don’t think I can go any farther.” My head was throbbing and there was a strange prickly tingle in the tips of my fingers.

“We’ll help you.” One of them said and came up under my right arm to support me. Another took me up on the left. Held that way by them I felt almost okay again.

“The road isn’t far. We’re almost there.”

Mayor Susan Ginnety found the body of Frannie McCabe. Driving back from a trip to New York, she was musing about how nice it would have been to be returning to a home, a husband and a life rather than just her job now. She was as lost as she had ever been and terrified she would live the rest of her days alone.

She drove past the pond and the sad white cross by the side of the road. Then through the small forest that marked the beginning of the Crane’s View town limits. The road began to wind there and she slowed down. She was a careful driver. She was only going thirty when she saw the body lying by the side of the road. At first it looked like some bum had just decided to lay down there of all places and take a nap. Sunlight through the trees played a dancing havoc across the unmoving frame, lying on its back. Clearly it was a man. Susan didn’t want to stop because she was frightened, but she was also the mayor and felt it her duty. Anyway, by the time she pulled to the side of the road a few feet up from the corpse she could see the man’s face and instantly her mouth was open as far as it would go.

She was barely able to push the shift lever up to park before bursting into tears. The secret that no one ever knew was Mayor Ginnety sat in her car and wept so long and so loudly that her cries frightened birds from the trees directly above her. Minutes passed before she was even able to get out of her car and go to the body.

But what the old stories say really is true—somewhere deep in their hearts, those who love us most always know how we are. The moment she recognized Frannie McCabe lying by the side of the road, Susan Ginnety knew he was dead. The memories of her joyful times with him when she was a girl had haunted Susan her whole life and would continue to do so.

Only months later when she felt very sad and alone did a revelation come to her one winter night that made her smile. Only after all that time since his death had passed did she realize how lucky she was to have been the one to find McCabe. It had allowed her to be the first one to tell him goodbye. But in the next instant, life for her suddenly seemed hopelessly long and obscure. Because even when it gave you a gift, what could you do with a first goodbye?