The Last Handful of Clover - Book 2: Gifts Both Light and Dark

2.06 Spectral Mumbo Jumbo

June 8, 11:55 pm

Billy paused in his story. Richard didn't think it was because he was waiting for him to speak, but because the boy was just lost in memories he hadn't revisited in decades. It was clear that, in the telling, Billy had been transported back to the horrors of that summer. Richard finally broke the silence.

"Why couldn't she escape from the cabin?" he asked. "You said most of us can walk through walls fairly quickly."

Billy took a deep breath, and finally, his eyes focused on Richard.

"Most can, but it can vary widely. Remember, it took me months before I finally realized it was possible. It was the day that the rain fell through me as I was walking with the Fancher train. But even if Mattie had learned that trick early, as you did, likely it was the terror that prevented her from using it. Her mind was so tortured by what she experienced she couldn't summon the calmness required to pass through the cabin walls."

"I wasn't calm," Richard countered. "In fact, I was freaking out and hurling myself at the door to get out, just like she was. How could I have done it then, if being able to pass through walls requires calm?"

Billy looked frustrated that he didn't have a simple answer for that question. Finally, he just sighed and said, "There are many things about you I don't understand, Richard."

The older man gritted his teeth. "Okay. We'll let that be. Let's try this one: Why was it you couldn't see her then, but you can now?"

"The Eye is one of the gifts. And like the other gifts, it develops over time. The gifts are like images on a photograph. At first, there is nothing there. Only slowly and with the proper conditions, do you first see shapes, and then eventually, details. And the Eye takes much more time than the simple trick of walking through walls. For both Mattie and myself, it was decades before we could actually see, and then eventually hear, each other."

"And so all you did while you were waiting for all those years was just follow her around, because of the tug in your head. Forgive me, but that sounds rather pathetic."

Billy actually smiled at that. "I'm a patient guy, Richard, but nobody is that patient. No, I didn't follow her all the time. I always knew where she was, and I would check in on her from time to time over those first years. But it did neither of us any good for me to just follow her about. I soon sensed that my presence with her actually increased her anxiety, rather than relieving it."

"So what did you do?"

"I had something else to do that seemed more important during those first years."

"And what was that?"

"Why, finding a way out of the Hereafter, of course."

Now it was Richard's turn to laugh. "And obviously, you didn't."

"No. But not for lack of trying. I still wanted desperately to find my parents in California, so I needed to understand where those boundaries were between our world and the outside. So I methodically worked on charting it out, in my head. I learned to sense when I was near the boundary, and I could then walk parallel to it, testing to see if there were gaps or weak spots."

"And you found none."

"None. I had hoped that the Hereafter was like a bottle, and I'd eventually find the open end. But it's not a bottle. It's a complete bubble, with no way out at all." Richard could see a veil of melancholy drop over Billy's face. "At first, I dreamed of finding my parents. But after fifty years of trying to find a way out, I realized they were probably dead. But still, I finished mapping it. In my mind only, of course, not being able to chart it out on paper."