TENMy little rant ruined the mood for a good thirty minutes or so. We wandered silently up and down Main Street, looking for somewhere to blow an hour or two. Nothing really caught our interest until we hit The General Store.Yep. It really was named that. It pretty much had everything you needed for just about any occasion: hardware, housewares, linen, toys and books. After wandering our way through the store, using our mutual silence to heal the sores my little outburst had opened, we eventually made our way to its bookstore out back.See, I may love rock’n roll and heavy metal, but I’m not stupid. I love to read, even now. It’s one of the few pleasures I have left. Anyway, I was making straight for the non-fiction section, searching for a Paul McCartney biography I’d wanted, when we came across them: loud and proud, in a screaming yellow cardboard display at the end of the Philosophy/Religion rack.They were hardcover and blazing yellow. The faced-out copies displayed Reverend

TWELVEOf course, there were decent—if not really convincing—reasons for me not noticing that I was still carrying that book. Not only was I confused, annoyed and maybe even a little hurt that Bobby was buying into that bullshit, but in all honesty I was worried about him, too. Bobby was a lot like me. His asthma wasn’t just some lame wheezing now and then, he had it bad. He got the kind of attacks that closed his throat right up. They could land him in a hospital under an oxygen tent if he wasn’t careful.I’m not gonna lie. My cerebral palsy is no picnic. Everywhere I go, I shuffle-lurch-walk. Running is tragically comic. At the end of every single day my joints throb, feeling like they’re filled with jagged bits of glass. But, I can breathe. I can do things without gasping for breath.Like that walk in the woods. I went slow and picked my way carefully because, as I’ve mentioned, my crooked feet tend to trip more easily than others. However, at least I could walk that path alone.

FOURTEENI blinked and jerked awake, nearly falling off the stump I’d obviously sat on to rest. A sudden weariness washed over me. I blinked some more, feeling very much like I’d just woken up from a long sleep.I looked around.The clearing was empty. The man in yellow—Reverend Alistair McIlvian—had gone, leaving me alone. Or had he ever been there to begin with? I yawned, thinking how unlikely it was I could’ve nodded off and dreamed the whole encounter.I looked up. The sun had moved on. Time had passed. How much? Enough for the sun to move. How long had I slept, if in fact that’s what I’d done? Was it late afternoon, early evening . . .Sounds.Laughing. Clapping. Singing?Hymns. People singing hymns somewhere past the end of the path, near the church . . .“Brothers’n sisters of His mercy, ‘ere in Tahawaus . . . ”I lurched off the stump (dimly realizing I still clutched that book under my arm) and shuffle-stepped my way out of the clearing and down the path. I rushed as

SIXTEENIn the dream I was walking down the path again, this time at night. I shouldn’t have been able to see much, but the moon above seemed strangely large and bright. It cast an odd luminescence that filtered through the trees, bathing everything in an eerie yellow glow. The path seemed different. Alien. As if I didn’t belong there. It looked like the path running through the woods from the gas station to the church, but it also looked like it led elsewhere, somewhere different . . .Somewhere beyond.Up ahead on my left, I recognized the break in undergrowth leading to the clearing where Bobby and I discovered those two dead dogs and that weird altar. As I quickened my pace, compelled toward that clearing, I felt myself moving along the path smoothly, quickly, with purpose, strength and ease. I was walking with a rhythmic, even gait. I felt no pain in my extremities or my lower back at all.I didn’t look down at my legs, however, just marveled at how fluidly I was moving down t

EIGHTEENIt didn’t take long to figure out why Dad hadn’t heard me scream, if indeed I had. The house was empty. Six-thirty in the morning—way too early for VBS to start, but the house was empty. I had no idea where Dad was. I assumed the church. Where else would the pastor of the town’s only church be during VBS? He’d left no note, however, and I had no idea when he’d left. For all I knew, he could’ve gone two hours ago, thirty minutes ago, or maybe he’d even snuck out last night after I’d fallen asleep. He always made his bed in the morning, so that didn’t offer much in the way of evidence.All these things tumbled through my head as I sat at the den table, staring into nothing. I didn’t know what to think or feel. Three days ago, Bobby and I had skipped the opening Sunday night services of our annual VBS to get snacks from the gas station and to chill. On the way back to the church we stumbled across those two dead dogs and that weird alter with the symbol carved into it. Both of