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one, on his back along the path, all the way to the farm, where warm food and steaming hot coffee awaited them. Since then, the path has been called Spine Break Path in memory of this superhuman feat.
    “How he knew about the trawler in the surf nobody will ever know, for when the twelfth crew member had been brought into the house the farmer disappeared into the blizzard again and never came back. Of course, the superstitious old people in the district said that the devil had demanded his toll, the thirteenth man.
    “The poor widow sold the farm and moved far away with her children,” Emily said. “It’s almost ten years now since we bought the farm,” she added in a low voice. “And since then, no tragedy has ever taken place here, thank God.”
    She whispered these last words, almost like a prayer.
    Henry was dumbstruck. Not because of the superhuman feat of the Miracle Man, although he found that most impressive, but because he had realized that this was the first time anyone had told him a story. A real story of real people who had actually been alive, and their lives had been horrific and hard, happy and sad. Yes, his mom had read him some storybooks when he was little, but she had never told him a real story, told him anything in her own words, like Emily had just done.
    Through her gentle voice, rising and descending, he had visualized the farmer and his family in his mind with no effort at all; they had just appeared there, their faces, their happy laughter, their bitter tears. He had almost felt the blizzard on his skin, the weight of the sailors on his own back — and completely forgotten himself. Her words, as if by some strange magic, had brought him into a mysterious new world, out of time and place.
    It took him a moment to realize that he was in fact here, in the cowshed, pouring the last bucket of milk into the container.
    “You’ve graduated,” Emily said with a sweet smile. “Now you’re officially our farmhand, and a proper cowboy as well!”
    After she’d left, Henry stood for a long time beside the water tank, listening to the cold water running.
    While his mind had been far away on this strange journey, he had milked eight cows, almost without noticing.

It was a Sunday, and the reverend was giving the boys hell.
    “In the beginning the devil’s name was Lucifer,” Reverend Oswald said in a thundering voice. “He was one of the archangels of the Lord, the angel of light. But he was proud. When the Lord ordered all the angels to bow to his creation, man, Lucifer refused. He said he loved God too much to bow to anyone but him. But the Lord saw into his arrogant heart. He became sad and angry that one of his beloved archangels had allowed himself to become so selfish and proud.
    “So the Lord said, ‘Be gone!’
    “And Lucifer was cast out of heaven and thrown into the deepest darkness, there to endure for thousands of centuries,” Reverend Oswald whispered in a threatening voice, his face red and warm, the sweat glistening on his brow.
    “He roams the world, full of hate and jealousy toward man, whom he blames for his downfall, and tries to ensnare us so we too will fall from the grace of God. His only goal is to justify his own pride.
    “And since he was the first one to fall from the grace of the Lord, he will also be the last finally allowed into heaven. When all men are saved and all the sins of the world have been forgiven, then, at last, the Lord will send an angel into the abyss. And the angel will say the words that Lucifer has been longing to hear for thousands of centuries: ‘Come home.’”
    The pedal organ took over; the boys’ singing filled the garage. But Henry didn’t sing. The words of Reverend Oswald were screeching and shouting and droning inside his head, driving him mad. His heart was pounding against his chest, sweat was running down his back; he wanted to run very fast, very far. He wanted to scream at the top of his voice.
    After the service, the boys