Sometimes it’s hard, Dad. Sometimes I struggle.

Time.

Time.

Time.

My friend and foe. A friend who let me save Mum. A foe who tied me to a fate, unable to deviate from my path without destroying the intricate structure I’d created. I’m not sure I could even if I wanted to.

But you mustn’t worry about me. Harri and I had many good years together in the Elsewhere House and for a long while, I was as happy as any person has any right to be. I want you and Mum to know that.

I don’t want you worrying your son was miserable. It was difficult for a while, but I found comfort in the end. I only hope you and Mum live many happy years together and have the joy I had with Harri.

If you go to the well we found that day we went exploring Lud’s Church when I was about seven or eight, there’s a boulder, the Rock of Despair. Find a way to move it and you’ll discover the rest of my story in there. It might bring you both some comfort.

I’m an old man now, Dad, and I write this alone as I near the end of my journey. I don’t think I have long, but I want you to know that I will try to find what joy I can in such time as I have left.

After all these years, I still have Mum’s necklace. I’m looking at it now. I think when the time comes, I’ll take it with me so when I sleep the long sleep we’ll always be connected. I am with you and you are with me.

Always.

Throughout this, my poetry has helped me comprehend what I have faced. I think this poem might be my last.

And the end nears

The sun

A heavy fruit

Ripe with stories

Seeds unspoken

Time unseen, unknown

The darkening forest

Reaches up

Crooked fingers

Long buried dead

Claw the heavens

Demanding more

Time unearned, unspent

In the distance

Lies the darkness

Crooked fingers

Now gone

Space and soil

For those to come

Time unknown, undone

With love

Your son,

Elliot Asha

Chapter 61

I found that letter with the others, behind the loose brick beside the fireplace in the living room at Longhaven. They prompted this book. I’ve spent years researching my son’s life, finding out what happened to him after we transited. I used a robotic excavator and was able to tunnel through the boulder and discovered the cave and the computer that stored his video files. I saw the same footage Harri and Elliot did; concealed motion-activated cameras captured the day they came to the cave. I was able to access Harri’s email journal, and the court and police records to provide me with enough information to try to do my son’s life justice. I’ve shifted through time as I’ve told this story, moving from past to future, through perspectives, to try to give some impression of what it must have been like to be my son, living and thinking in four dimensions with nothing in his life where it should have been.