But the beast seemed frozen in the air, unable to reach and devour the child. Suddenly the creature’s neck jerked backward, and it rolled on the ground. The monster crouched hungrily and prowled fitfully, pacing circles around the child, never taking his eyes off him. Then for a fleeting moment, I thought I saw the outstretched swords of warriors protecting the baby.

The pterodactyl-like creature roared and flailed the air, then flew away from the child. I watched, my throat dry and hands shaking, as it landed again and devoured many other children in its attempt to get to the child.

Before my eyes the infant grew into a toddler, a boy, an adolescent, then a man wearing a white robe. The transformation suddenly stopped. He walked right over to me and looked into my eyes, gluing them to mine. I did not know him, but I sensed he knew me. I felt as if he’d come like a delivery person directly to my door, from somewhere far away, a place he missed and longed for. He was a young man with ancient eyes, and as I gazed into them, I saw what he had seen—a million worlds born and die. Rough and sturdy, face windblown and sun-darkened, his skin was tough, like the sole of a boot. His white robe clung to him, stained with sweat and sawdust.

I saw in his eyes the explosions of a thunderstorm, the collisions of galaxies. He sang a beautiful melody, fresh and young, yet prehistoric, far older than even the flying dinosaur—“I am here to do what must be done … and what no other can do … and what I can do no other way.”

As he sang, my heart came alive. I’d heard that tune only once before, on the red road when the rough-looking stranger came, the one I thought at first was Joshua. The one who was short and weather-beaten, his shirt stained with sweat and … sawdust.

The Woodsman! Of course. Why hadn’t I recognized him immediately?

He sang the ancient song, giving voice to a musical score written on my heart, on every strand of my DNA. He played me with an instrument I couldn’t see; I was the sheet music. He sang of Orion’s belt and Lyra’s veil, of the hidden worlds on Andromeda’s fringes, of the birth of quasars and the conception of children and the flight of electrons. He sang of the great and the small, of the infinite and the finite, the visible and the invisible, the temporal and the eternal. He sang as one who had existed an eternity before time and matter, as one who knew all secrets and offered to whisper them in the ears of those who would embrace his song and sing it with him, those who would join him in the joy beyond all measure. He sang to me.