get out of here, and quickly. A speedy exit, however, would require Shep’s cooperation. He seemed to be teetering on the edge of emotional turmoil, and if he was not calmed, he might prove difficult to manage in an excited state. He wasn’t as big as Dylan, but he stood five ten and weighed 160 pounds, so you couldn’t just grab him by the back of his belt and carry him out of the motel room as though he were a suitcase. If he decided he didn’t want to go, he would wrap his arms around a bedpost or make a human grappling hook of himself in a doorway, hooking hands and feet to the jamb.
“Shep? Hey, Shep, you hear me?”
The boy appeared to be no more aware of Dylan now than when he’d been working the puzzle. Interaction with other human beings didn’t come to Shepherd as easily as it came to the average person, or even as easily as it came to the average cave-dwelling hermit. At times he could connect with you, and as often as not, that connection would be uncomfortably intense; however, he spent most of his life in a world so completely his own and so unknowable to Dylan that it might as well have revolved around an unnamed star in a different arm of the Milky Way galaxy, far from this familiar Earth.
Shep lowered his gaze from an eye-level confrontation with the invisible presence, and although his stare fixed upon nothing more than a patch of bare carpet, his eyes widened from a squint, and his mouth went soft, as though he might cry. A progression of expressions fell across his face in swift succession, like a series of rippling veils, quickly transforming his grimace of anger to a wretched look of helplessness and tremulous despair. His tightly gripped ferocity swiftly sifted between his fingers, until his clenched fists, still at his sides, fell open, leaving him empty-handed.
When Dylan saw his brother’s tears, he went to him, gently placed a hand on one shoulder, and said, “Look at me, little bro. Tell me what’s wrong. Look at me, see me, be here with me, Shep. Be here with me.”
At times, without coaching, Shep could relate almost normally, if awkwardly, to Dylan and to others. More often than not, however, he needed to be guided toward communication, constantly and patiently encouraged to make a connection and to maintain it once it had been established.
Conversation with Shep frequently depended on first making eye contact with him, but the boy seldom granted that degree of intimacy. He seemed to avoid such directness not solely because of his severe psychological disorder, and not merely because he was pathologically shy. Sometimes, in a fanciful moment, Dylan could almost believe that Shep’s withdrawal from the world, beginning in early childhood, had occurred when he had discovered that he could read the secrets of anyone’s soul by what was written in the eyes…and had been unable to bear what he saw.
“By the light of the moon,”
Shep repeated, but this time with his gaze fixed on the floor. His whisper had fallen to a murmur, and with what sounded like grief, his voice broke more than once on those six words.
Shep seldom spoke, and when he did, he never spouted gibberish, even if sometimes it seemed to be gibberish as surely as cheddar was a cheese. Within his every utterance lay motive and meaning to be discerned, although when he was at his most enigmatic, his message could not always be understood, in part because Dylan lacked the patience and the wisdom to solve the puzzle of the boy’s words. In this case, his urgent and fiercely felt emotion suggested that what he meant to communicate was unusually important, at least to him.
“Look at me, Shep. We need to talk. Can we talk, Shepherd?”
Shep shook his head, perhaps in denial of what he seemed to see on the motel-room floor, in denial of whatever vision had brought tears to his eyes, or perhaps in answer to his brother’s question.
Dylan put one hand under Shepherd’s chin, gently lifted the boy’s head. “What’s
“Shep? Hey, Shep, you hear me?”
The boy appeared to be no more aware of Dylan now than when he’d been working the puzzle. Interaction with other human beings didn’t come to Shepherd as easily as it came to the average person, or even as easily as it came to the average cave-dwelling hermit. At times he could connect with you, and as often as not, that connection would be uncomfortably intense; however, he spent most of his life in a world so completely his own and so unknowable to Dylan that it might as well have revolved around an unnamed star in a different arm of the Milky Way galaxy, far from this familiar Earth.
Shep lowered his gaze from an eye-level confrontation with the invisible presence, and although his stare fixed upon nothing more than a patch of bare carpet, his eyes widened from a squint, and his mouth went soft, as though he might cry. A progression of expressions fell across his face in swift succession, like a series of rippling veils, quickly transforming his grimace of anger to a wretched look of helplessness and tremulous despair. His tightly gripped ferocity swiftly sifted between his fingers, until his clenched fists, still at his sides, fell open, leaving him empty-handed.
When Dylan saw his brother’s tears, he went to him, gently placed a hand on one shoulder, and said, “Look at me, little bro. Tell me what’s wrong. Look at me, see me, be here with me, Shep. Be here with me.”
At times, without coaching, Shep could relate almost normally, if awkwardly, to Dylan and to others. More often than not, however, he needed to be guided toward communication, constantly and patiently encouraged to make a connection and to maintain it once it had been established.
Conversation with Shep frequently depended on first making eye contact with him, but the boy seldom granted that degree of intimacy. He seemed to avoid such directness not solely because of his severe psychological disorder, and not merely because he was pathologically shy. Sometimes, in a fanciful moment, Dylan could almost believe that Shep’s withdrawal from the world, beginning in early childhood, had occurred when he had discovered that he could read the secrets of anyone’s soul by what was written in the eyes…and had been unable to bear what he saw.
“By the light of the moon,”
Shep repeated, but this time with his gaze fixed on the floor. His whisper had fallen to a murmur, and with what sounded like grief, his voice broke more than once on those six words.
Shep seldom spoke, and when he did, he never spouted gibberish, even if sometimes it seemed to be gibberish as surely as cheddar was a cheese. Within his every utterance lay motive and meaning to be discerned, although when he was at his most enigmatic, his message could not always be understood, in part because Dylan lacked the patience and the wisdom to solve the puzzle of the boy’s words. In this case, his urgent and fiercely felt emotion suggested that what he meant to communicate was unusually important, at least to him.
“Look at me, Shep. We need to talk. Can we talk, Shepherd?”
Shep shook his head, perhaps in denial of what he seemed to see on the motel-room floor, in denial of whatever vision had brought tears to his eyes, or perhaps in answer to his brother’s question.
Dylan put one hand under Shepherd’s chin, gently lifted the boy’s head. “What’s
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