X. The Curtain Falls
The dybbuk-box can be opened now, if one wishes to do so. Inside is a little empty space containing some fragments of hair and bone, and slips of paper-committed prayers, all going to dust with the weight of their own age. These can be brushed aside to reveal a seven-sided mirror, the seat of confrontation, where a guilty spirit must meet itself and be trapped with itself forever, or be set free into a land from which none ever return.
"Mama," a young boy will say, picking it up from where it sits on a high bookshelf, using each shelf as a rung on a ladder to reach it. He has just begun to be confident in his climbing skills, though it gives his Mama fits. She lifts him down, but he holds on to the box and refuses to give it up.
She remembers another child who liked to climb and perhaps might have fallen if she hadn't jumped to save him. And she mislikes this peculiar child to play with this particular box, knowing what it might contain. "Mama," he says, rattling the hollow box. "My father's bones are here." And he will start to cry until he forgets why he is crying. His grief is too much for him to articulate. She cuddles him and neither reproaches him for his tears nor tries to jolly him out of them. He is a profound child; she wants him to have his own feelings. But he will not let the box go.
"He told me something," the boy will say with all the earnestness of his innocent heart, looking at the person he loves best in all the world. "He told me something before he died. He wanted me to say it to you. Mama, can I tell you?"
And his Mama will nod, afraid of some last and terrible curse, but instead the boy only smiles and turns the box over and over in his hands, as if it is empty of any danger. It is so light. Perhaps it is all right, she thinks.
"He told me… he will sleep, but I will have the dreams. And he said…" He screws up his strange eyes in concentration. "He said he was going away forever. He said for you, that he never wants you to have to dream about him again. He said. He said never. And he said he was sorry." He smiles, pleased to have remembered everything.
Sarah will pick up her son and kiss him and rock him and swing him by his arms until he shrieks for joy—but not for too much longer, because he is growing strong, and heavy with it. No matter, one day he will fly. He is a magical creature, and his heart is all goodness, all kindness, all hope. There is not even a hint of shadow in him. He has all of her. He has all he needs.
Now the box needs no especial tending. Now it is quiet; now it sleeps.