I woke up in Reverend Obertask’s office. I was on the floor, and my head was on a pillow made out of a scratchy tweed jacket.

Reverend Obertask was sitting at his desk, staring down at me.

“Ah,” he said. “There you are.”

“Here I am,” I said.

“You fainted.”

The sun was shining in through Reverend Obertask’s window and landing right on his head so that he looked like a walrus in a religious painting. Not that I had ever seen a walrus in a religious painting. Camels, yes. And also horses. And sometimes dogs. And angels, of course. There are always angels in religious paintings. You don’t see that many angels in real life, though.

Reverend Obertask smiled at me.

“Mourners faint at funerals,” he said. “It’s a common occurrence. But you are the first musician I’ve ever known to faint midsong. Miss Lulu is supremely agitated, of course. She likes for things to go a certain way, a predictable way.”

Well, I understood that feeling.

Not that I have ever experienced things going a predictable way.

I closed my eyes. I saw “Granny” smiling with all of her teeth. I saw Mrs. Ivy waving the bill. I saw Dr. Fox in his bloody jacket.

And then I saw Clarence’s wings, dark and shiny, beating out the rhythm of a heart.

I opened my eyes and looked at Reverend Obertask. “Was there a crow in church?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Oh,” I said. “What about a dentist? Did you see a dentist?”

“I did not,” said Reverend Obertask. “Although I must say that they are a little more difficult to identify at a glance.”

“Did you see anyone wearing a fur coat?”

“No crows, no dentists, no fur coats,” said Reverend Obertask. He smiled at me again.

I said, “I don’t know who I am. I only know that I am not who I thought I was.”

Reverend Obertask nodded his big head. “That is a problem we all face sooner or later, I suppose.”

From out in the church, there came the crashing sound of Miss Lulu on the organ.

Reverend Obertask stood up. “Clearly, Miss Lulu is becoming impatient,” he said. “There is still a funeral to run. Why don’t you rest? I’ll drive you home when this is all over. We can talk things through.”

I closed my eyes.

Reverend Obertask the walrus was going to drive me home.

I wondered where that was — home.

“Provisions have been made.” That is what the Granny mirage had said to me. Or that was what I had heard.

And then, before I knew it, I was asleep. Because I was just so very, very tired.

Reverend Obertask took me to the Allens’ house. You could smell the cake baking when we were still out in the woods, before the pink house even came into view.

Reverend Obertask knocked on the back door, and Betty Allen opened it and said, “What in the world?” She opened her arms to me, and I walked right into them. Betty Allen held me tight for a minute, and then she let me go.

“There was a little mishap at the funeral,” said Reverend Obertask. “My, but it smells wonderful in here.”

Betty Allen blushed. “I am the official baker for the carnival,” she said.

“Yes, indeed,” said Reverend Obertask. “That is why it’s called the World-Famous Betty Allen Cake Raffle. What particular cake am I smelling now?”

“That is my pound cake,” said Betty Allen. “It is not a fancy cake, but it is very, very good. It is my great-grandmother’s recipe.”

“It smells divine,” said Reverend Obertask.

“I would like to win a pound cake in the World-Famous Betty Allen Cake Raffle,” I said.

“Oh, honey,” said Betty Allen.

“How would you feel about Mrs. Allen and myself having a private word?” said Reverend Obertask to me.

“Burke should be home from school any minute now,” said Betty Allen. “You could wait for him outside.”

I went out the back door and stood in the carport and listened to Reverend Obertask say, “I am very worried about this child.”

And Betty Allen said back to him, “I am worried, too.”

I could tell that the conversation between Reverend Obertask and Betty Allen was going to be extremely sad, and I just didn’t think my heart could bear to listen. I walked away from them, down to the end of the driveway. I stood and looked out at the woods.

I whistled for Clarence the same way Burke did — two low whistles and then one high one.

But Clarence didn’t come.

I sat down on the ground.

On the drive back from the funeral, I had told Reverend Obertask my story. Or most of my story. I did not tell him that “Granny” was gone, because I did not want Reverend Obertask to contact the authorities. In any case, I started with Elf Ear, Nebraska, and the stage and the sundering that occurred there. I told him about the letter from the fake granny and how it told the story of a magician walking away from his daughter without saying anything to her at all, and also the story of the Louisiana Five-and-Dime and the dark alley and the flowered blanket and what was inside it — which was me.

I told him about Dr. Fox pulling every last one of “Granny’s” teeth and me lying to Mrs. Ivy about the bill. I told him about the Good Night, Sleep Tight and how it had a vending machine in the vestibule with everything you could ever want inside of it, and also how there was a stuffed alligator in the lobby who was very ferocious-looking. I told him that there had been curtains with palm trees all over them in room 102 and how it was wrong for palm trees to be on curtains in Georgia.

I told him that Bernice was holding my suitcase for ransom and that I would probably never see it again. I told him how I had asked Burke Allen for one bologna sandwich and he had given me two. I told him that Betty Allen was making seventeen cakes — seventeen! — and that the grandfather Burke Allen had given me his bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce and peanuts on top of it and that he had held my hand while I ate it.

I told him about Beverly and Raymie. I told him about Buddy the one-eyed dog and how the three of us had rescued him together. I told him about Archie, King of the Cats, and how, once, he had found his way back to me. I told him about the time I almost drowned and that the Blue Fairy had shown up underwater, smiling at me and holding out her arms, and that part of me wanted to go with her, deeper into the pond.

I told him that the operator on the phone in his office had told me that there were no listings for Tapinski and too many listings for Clarke with an e, and no Raymie Clarke at all, and how could that be?

And speaking of how things could be, I asked him again how anybody could leave a baby in an alley.

How could that be?

How could it?

Reverend Obertask stared straight ahead at the road the whole time I was talking.

And here was the surprising thing: he cried.

I talked and he kept his eyes on the road, and I watched one tear and then another tear creep down his sad walrus face and disappear into his whiskers.

When we got to the Good Night, Sleep Tight, I said to Reverend Obertask, “I want to get my suitcase back from Bernice, and I want to go to the Allens’ house because Granny is still unwell and needs to sleep a healing sleep.”

Reverend Obertask said, “Please wait here, Louisiana.”

He went into the motel office, and a few minutes later, he came walking out with my suitcase. The suitcase looked very small in his big hand.

When he got back into the car, Reverend Obertask turned to me and said, “I want you to know something, Louisiana. We all, at some point, have to decide who we want to be in this world. It is a decision we make for ourselves. You are being forced to make this decision at an early age, but that does not mean that you cannot do it well and wisely. I believe you can. I have great faith in you. You decide. You decide who you are, Louisiana. Do you understand?”

I told him that I did understand.

Even though I wasn’t certain that I did.

“And another thing,” he said. “You will never understand why your parents left you in that alley. It is impossible to understand. But it may be necessary for you to forgive them, for your own sake, without ever truly understanding what they did. Okay?”

His face was so serious and sad that I said, “Yes, Reverend Obertask. I understand.”

But I didn’t understand. How could I forgive people who had never shown me any kindness? How could I forgive people who had left me behind without loving me at all?

And so it came to pass that I found myself sitting at the end of a long driveway in front of a pink house that smelled like cake, thinking about forgiveness and who I wanted to be in this world.