Loki nodded. He couldn’t even say it.
“And why is it so hard for you to say it?” Charmwill wondered. “Ah, I remember. You don’t want to feel home here because I’ve told you about your other home.”
Loki nodded again. “Please put yourself in my shoes, Charmwill. I need to remember who I am. It drives me crazy not to know my past.”
“Are you more interested in knowing your past than knowing your future?” Charmwill puffed smoke proudly.
“What kind of questions is that?” Loki said.
“It’s a simple question,” Charmwill said. “Would it matter who you were before if you’ve found a home and friends who will help you become whoever you want to be in the future? What matters more, past or future?”
“Are you saying that my future is more important than my past?” Loki said.
“I’m not saying anything. I only ask, and the answers are all inside you,” Charmwill said.
“Look. I have no grand answers about how things should be,” Loki said. “It just drives me crazy not knowing who I was before, so crazy that sometimes I envy Axel and Fable for knowing who they are.”
“What makes you think they know who they are?” Charmwill said.
“What do you mean?” Loki looked as if he had been hit with a pebble in the face. It’s not like he hadn’t been questioning Axel and Fable’s identities before. But he figured it was none of his business since he was destined to leave Sorrow.
“Look around you, Loki,” Charmwill breathed the night air in, gazing at the curving hills and streets of Sorrow. “This isn’t an ordinary place; although it could fool you into thinking that it’s only a small town. What’s crazier than a town that is inside another town called Hell, a town that is East of the Sun West of the Moon, a town that a first-timer enters on a Train of Consequences? It has fairy tale vampires, werewolf bullies, nursery rhyme Boogeymen, and…” Charmwill gazed back at Loki with shining eyes, “the craziest food menu ever,” he pulled out a bag of Sticky Sweet Bones, summoned Pickwick and fed him a bone. The parrot closed his eyes and moaned, licking the sweets from it.
Loki was speechless.
“So in a town where almost everything insane is possible, you still think people know who they are?”
“Are you saying…”
“Most of the people here don’t know who they are,” Charmwill explained. “They’ve been sent to this place just like you. They just don’t remember it and unlike you, they accepted it and want to make something good out of it.”
“Are you saying they have their own homes, too? But why?”
“That’s too big of a question to answer now,” Charmwill said.
“Why? I want to know,” Loki said. “Why can’t you just tell me everything I want to know without being cryptic?”
“Because if I just tell you, how could you learn or make choices? I’m only your guardian. I will show you the way, or part of it, but it’s up to you to walk the line, Loki. No one can choose your life for you.”
“But I remember you said that no one deserves to die before they know who they are,” Loki said.
“Yes, indeed,” Charmwill nodded. “I said ‘who they are’ not ‘from where they’re from.’ You’re not your place of birth, Loki. You’re not your past whether it was shameful or endearing. You’re not your name, or your looks, or the way you walk.”
“Then who am I?” if Loki didn’t respect Charmwill greatly, he’d have yelled at him.
“You’re what you choose to be,” Charmwill said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Loki swallowed any other questions he wanted to ask for the moment. It sounded clichéd, but he didn’t care. Being told that he was what he chose to be felt just right. It was a relief in many ways. And even though Loki hadn’t quite grasped its meaning, it made him feel unchained from all the restrictions of his past, who he is, and what he was supposed to do.
“I understand,” Loki nodded. “So this isn’t just about finding my way home. This is about finding my way back to me.”
Charmwill said nothing. He pointed at Carmen’s plates that now clearly read, ‘Home is Where the Heart is.”
Loki wasn’t surprised that the word ‘home’ had become visible now. He turned back to Charmwill to ask more questions.
“So I’m not here to kill Snow White?” Loki said.
“Do you expect me to answer that?”
“I see,” Loki said. “You can’t answer that because right now that is my choice. It’s my decision.”
“Well said,” Charmwill said.
“But don’t you think I need more clues to make that decision?” Loki said.
“The only clues you need are in your heart,” Charmwill said.
“I’m still a bit unsure about what that means,” Loki said.
“If you can’t understand that, and want me to give you practical advice, then expect to find all the clues you need in Snow White’s dream.”