4: THE THIRD MYSTERY

“What are these?” the children asked, turning their gleaming gold keys over and over in their fingers. “What are they for? What do they do? How do they work?”

The mother smiled. So eager, these children, in their new bodies and with their new perceptions. Still innocent, and yet so wise. Until now, until this moment, Gifting Day had been easy for them. It would never be so again.

“The key each of you holds in your hand,” she said, her voice now low and solemn, “is the key of choice. Listen well, children.

“In a moment you will leave this house and pass into the world, where your gifts await you. Within each gift I set before you there, you will find many doors, and each door leads to its own path, and each path leads to more gifts and more doors and more paths. This is how you make your way through Gifting Day and the world I have created for you there.

“Your key,” she went on, “will open any door, open the way to any path, simply by your choosing it. You need do nothing more. You need only hold fast to the key, and know that you have it.”

“But Mother!” the children cried. “What if we become lost in the world? What if we choose wrongly, with our keys, and lose our way?”

“Ah, but you cannot lose your way,” she assured them. “There is only one way, and that is forward, and only one destination toward which all paths lead, and that is home again at the end of Gifting Day.”

They pondered her words, the children did, in silence, wondering, wishing. Then again they cried out: “But Mother! What if we open a door, and see that path before us, and choose not to take it? Can we not open again the same door, from the far side, and go back again?”