Buddy’s eyes opened, and there he was, propped on his walking seat in front of Mural #36 – The Hermit.
So beautiful! he contemplated the quality of its bluish-green light, the dappled brushwork, and the sensation of being inside this mural even when you’re outside of it.
“But so full of horror!” he recoiled, remembering his and Harry’s flight from the crazed vagrant, then Gypsy’s death howl.
A woman who happened to be standing nearby, taking a photo of the mural with her mobile, gave Buddy a strange look when he awoke, mumbling like a madman. She departed hurriedly, glancing over her shoulder as she strode away.
“Sorry,” he begged forgiveness, watching her exit the ally out onto Willow Street. It’s not that I don’t care, he said by way of apology. But there’s things to express more important than the appearance of ‘being normal’ right now.
You’ve become a Mural Gazer, Harry would have pronounced. Buddy imagined the spirit of his ancient friend bestowing the title as if it were some kind of knighthood. He resisted the urge to kneel and bow before the mural’s receding image of Charlie Abbott…
Go! an inner voice commanded.
“Where?” Buddy balked.
Into the Hermit’s Trail.
“Who are you?”
I am White Raven, Hong Hing, Charlie Abbott, Arthur and Gypsy, Harry Sanderson himself, and all your murmuring ancestors. You are a droplet that bonds with a trickle, that merges with a brook, that babbles as it becomes a stream, which glides into a river, then rushes down to the crashing sea and becomes…
Becomes what?
Nothing and everything.
Buddy shivered, suddenly aware of the atmosphere, cool against his skin; the touch of light; the vibrations of sound; the chemistries of taste and smell.
Follow! his inner voice beckoned. Become what you are not.
Not that way! it corrected when Buddy prepared himself to re-enter the mural.
“Huh? Which way, then?”
“Follow.”
Not sure where he was being led, Buddy made his way through the courtyard where Mural #36 was located; down a lane, past Mural #6 – Arrival of the ‘Reindeer’; out onto Mill Street; across Chemainus Road; up the gravelled E&N trail… on and on; up a steep hill then down the other side; to a place where a couple of boulders and what appeared to be a colonnade of giant cedars led into the forest.
This is the Hermit’s Trail, his guide informed him. Where you will find the end and beginning of your story.
Buddy hesitated a moment, not out of doubt or fear so much as a desire to mark the spot in memory—impress it on the geography of mind.
Then he entered.
Next: Stone by Stone – Part 4