We sat out in the woods under a tree, and Clarence perched on one of the branches above us and his dark feathers shone over us.

“It was in Elf Ear, Nebraska, in 1910,” I said.

“What was?” said Burke.

“The curse,” I said. “That is when it all began.”

“I ain’t never heard of Elf Ear, Nebraska. It sounds like some made-up place.”

“I am telling you a story that I have never told to anybody else,” I said. “If you intend to listen to it, you can’t doubt everything I say. Otherwise, there is no point in my telling you.”

I had eaten the entire package of peanut-butter crackers and most of the crackers with cheese. I intended to eat the Oh Henry! bar for dessert.

“Dang, you was hungry,” said Burke.

“I am perpetually hungry. That is what Granny says.”

“I can make you a bologna sandwich if you want,” said Burke. “My house ain’t far from here.”

“Bologna is what they eat in the county home, and the county home is the place of no return.”

Burke shrugged. “I don’t know about the county home.”

“Granny has been warning me about the dangers of the county home my whole entire life.”

“Okay,” said Burke. “All I’m saying is that I can make you a bologna sandwich if you want one. If you’re still hungry.”

“Well,” I said.

I was. Still hungry.

“Come on,” said Burke. “You can tell me about the elf ears later.”

“Elf Ear. It’s a place. Elf Ear, Nebraska.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go to my house and make a sandwich.”

I ate the Oh Henry! bar while I walked behind Burke through the woods. The candy bar was chocolaty and caramelly, and it was maybe the sweetest and best thing I had ever eaten in my entire life.

I started to feel somewhat hopeful about the universe and my place in it. Even if I was headed off to eat bologna — meat of the county home, food of despair.

I love bologna!

Burke made me three sandwiches. They had bologna and orange cheese and mayonnaise and they were on white bread, and he stacked the sandwiches up one on top of the other and put them on a blue plate, and we sat in the dining room at a glass-topped table, and I ate the sandwiches one by one without stopping.

Granny had always spoken poorly of bologna, but these bologna sandwiches tasted so good that it was just one more reason for me to doubt Granny and the truth of her utterances.

And by that I mean this: If you are the kind of person who lies about something as small as bologna, what would stop you from lying about bigger, more important things?

Burke stared at me while I ate. “Dang, you can eat a lot.”

“Granny says I need to keep my strength up,” I said.

“That’s your granny? That old lady who don’t never come out of the room at the Good Night?”

“Yes. She recently had all her teeth pulled. She is working to regain her strength.”

Burke nodded.

From the glass-topped table in the dining room, I could see over a field and into the woods. It was late afternoon, and the light was fading. Sometimes, when the light starts to fade, I get a terrible feeling of loneliness, like maybe I am the only person in the world.

One time I confessed this to Granny, and she told me that I shouldn’t take everything so personally. She said, “Louisiana Elefante, the light has been fading since the dawn of time, and it will continue fading long after we are gone. It has nothing to do with you.”

Still, it makes me sad when the light goes.

Burke sat across the table from me. There was the sound of a clock ticking, and from outside, I could hear a crow cawing.

“Is that Clarence?” I said to Burke.

“Yeah,” he said. “He gets mad when I’m inside the house for too long. He misses me, I reckon.”

“I am very far from home,” I said.

“Well, all right,” said Burke. “Where’s home?”

“I am now going to tell you the story of the curse,” I said.

“Okay,” said Burke.

“I need to tell you this story.”

“Okay,” said Burke. “I’m listening.”

“It was in Elf Ear, Nebraska, and the year was 1910, and my granny was eight years old, and her father was the most elegant and deceitful magician who ever lived.”

“Your granddaddy was a magician?” said Burke.

“My great-grandfather,” I said. “And my great-grandmother — my granny’s mother — was the magician’s assistant. They traveled all over the country. They performed magic together.”

“It was like being in a circus,” said Burke.

“It was like being in a magic act,” I said. “But what matters is that I am telling you about the curse. And the curse began on a stage in Elf Ear, Nebraska. My great-grandfather pulled my great-grandmother out of a hat — a small hat. He made her appear. And then he made her disappear back into the hat. Just like a rabbit!”

Burke was staring at me, listening. He had very blue eyes.

“What happened next?” he said.

“What happened next was that my great-grandfather uttered the fateful words ‘I will now saw my lovely wife in half and put her back together again, for I am Hiram Elefante the Great.’”

“That was his name? Hiram Elefante the Great? What kind of name is that?”

“It was his name,” I said. “The important thing is that the magician’s assistant climbed into the box and Hiram Elefante nailed the box shut. And then he took a saw, and he sawed the box in half. With my great-grandmother in it! She was cut in two! Sundered! Do you understand?”

Burke nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “It was a magic trick. He sawed her in half, and then he put her back together again.”

“Well, that is what the audience thought would happen. That is what everyone anticipated. But it was not what happened.”

I stared at Burke, and he stared at me.

“Well?” he said. “What happened?”

“My great-grandfather sawed my great-grandmother in half, and then he walked away. He left my great-grandmother on the stage. Sawed in two. He walked out of the theater in Elf Ear, and he kept walking. No one ever saw him again.”

“But what about your great-granny?”

“Someone else put her back together, a man from the audience who knew some magic, and then the two of them ran away together and my granny was left entirely alone.”

“Dang,” said Burke. “Is this a true story?”

“Of course it’s true!”

“What happened to your granny?”

“She got sent to the county home, to an orphanage. And that is the story of the curse of sundering and how it has been passed down through the generations. And now that curse is on my head.”

“Well,” said Burke, “what you got to do is undo the curse, right? That’s what I would do.”

“Undo it?” I said. “How would I do that?”

“I don’t know. There’s got to be a way. Maybe what you do is you go and find you another magician to work some magic — different magic. Magic that puts things back together.”

Outside somewhere, Clarence called out. Burke and I sat there and stared at each other, and even though I was filled with crackers and bologna and an Oh Henry! bar, I felt very empty and sad.

Could the curse really be undone?

I doubted it.

I don’t think Burke Allen fully comprehended the depth and breadth of the curse upon my head.

“I suppose I should go back and check on Granny,” I said. “Maybe she is hungry. Maybe you could make her a bologna sandwich.”

“All right,” said Burke.

I didn’t know if Granny would eat a bologna sandwich. In fact, a bologna sandwich might enrage her. Maybe I was hoping to enrage her. I don’t know.

But in any case, Burke went into the kitchen and came back out a minute later with two bologna sandwiches wrapped up in a paper towel.

I was starting to see what kind of a person he was.

He was the kind of person who, if you asked him for one of something, gave you two instead.

We went back outside and stood in front of Burke’s house, which was painted as pink as cotton candy on the outside. It was all by itself in the woods, with no other houses nearby. Burke whistled and Clarence came flying out of the woods and landed on Burke’s shoulder. And I thought to myself that my life would never be truly complete until I could whistle and have a crow come flying out of the trees directly to me.

“There’s going to be a carnival at the church on Saturday,” said Burke. “A carnival ain’t a circus, but it’s still something. And it is mostly fun. There’s rides and games.”

“Oh,” I said.

“You and me could go.”

“I need to know something,” I said. “This is important. What direction is south from here?”

Burke pointed without even having to stop and consider. It was very impressive. “That way,” he said. “Why?”

I turned and looked south. Clarence raised his wings and lowered them, but he stayed on Burke’s shoulder.

“Why?” said Burke again.

“Because south is where Florida is,” I said.

“So?” said Burke.

“Florida is where I am from. That’s where my friends are. That’s where Archie the cat is. That’s where Buddy the dog is. And that is where I need to get back to.”

“How do you aim to get there?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I will figure out a way. I am wily and resourceful. According to Granny.”

We started to walk back to the Good Night, Sleep Tight. Clarence flew ahead of us, stopping to wait on tree branches, looking down at us and laughing and laughing.

Maybe crows are right about the world.

Maybe everything is funny.