The boy's face glowed brightly in the light of the crackling flames. It was a handsome face, though overly serious for someone not quite thirteen. The eyes were intent and brooding now, as they stared through the closing dusk at the bonfire's flames. He was trying to remember. A primitive ache pulled at him, a sense of a wisdom buried deep, a time long forgotten...

‘Damien?’

He didn't move. He didn't even hear the call. He was caught for the moment in another time and place. The gardeners continued to rake the dead leaves around him, unwilling to interfere with the boy's thoughts as he stood transfixed before the fire.

In reality, he was standing in front of a large bonfire on the North Shore of Chicago, in the middle of a vast lawn that stretched almost as far as the eye could see in one direction and, at the other, came to an end before an enormous old mansion. This near-palace was the home of his aunt and uncle, who were now his foster parents.

But in his mind, he stood amid bright, continual flames, while all around him floated the sound of constant wailing and moaning—the cries of those who were suffering dreadfully, their pain made all the worse for knowing it would never end.

‘DAMIEN!'

The vision fled. Damien Thorn shook his head and turned in the direction of the voice. He had to squint into the sun as it slowly set behind the gilded roof of his foster parents' summer home. High up on a third-floor balcony, his cousin Mark was waving wildly to him.

Damien liked Mark. Mark was always kind, always generous, and he had made a genuine effort to welcome Damien into the fold seven years earlier. Now the two were closer than most twins ever were. Both were dressed in the neatly pressed uniforms of the military academy they attended. They had come home for the long Thanksgiving weekend, and now it was time to go back to school. Thanksgiving was always the saddest vacation of all, because it was then the Thorns closed up their summer home and moved into the city for the winter. So this was it, until next June.

Damien waved back to Mark. ‘I'm coming!' he yelled, then turned to shake hands with the head gardener. 'See you next summer, Jim.' The old man had barely nodded his response when Damien took off with the grace and speed of a natural athlete, loping across the lawn and up to the massive front doors of the house.

As a sort of melancholy accompaniment, Mark pulled out his beloved bugle, leaned out over the balcony, and played 'Taps' into the darkening evening air.

Damien ran on toward the house, a young boy approaching his thirteenth birthday, the age when, as has been believed in most cultures for thousands of years, he would attain the full powers of manhood.

***