Of all the stories I have told over the years, this one came flooding up from the past in the voices of Charley, my real grandfather; Margery, my late wife; Alex, a boy I couldn’t understand in my childhood; Oliver, the dark side of my personality; and Lincoln, my child self, recently reawakened from a too-long sleep. Over them was a voice I had heard in passing, a child poet whom I had never met, of whom Jimmy Carter, at his eulogy, had called “the most extraordinary person whom I have ever known in my life.” Mattie Stepanic was our Astrolabe,  uniting all of the other stories into this one. It is a plea for peace and acceptance I could not ignore. My shadows are all here, and I believe what they have to say can direct those lost in their own darkness to the light of a brighter future.