Page 47 of The Forest of Lost Souls

“Do you value him?”

“What’s to value? He’s a creep. He wasn’t who he seemed to be. He pretended to be someone he wasn’t.”

“Do you love him?”

“No. Hell no.” He considers the hardness in his voice. “I don’t hate him, either. There’s nothing to hate. He’s a big nothing. He’s empty. It’s almost scary how empty he is. No, not almost. It’s scary how empty he was. I don’t want to feel anything about him. I won’t give him that. Don’t say I have to love him no matter what.”

“You don’t, Sam. Nor do you have to respect him.”

“Yeah, well I don’t.”

“But you must honor him.”

“Honor him? What’s to honor?”

“He’s your father.”

“He’s got no honor himself.”

“That’s on him. Let it not be true of you. You don’t need to respect him, but you must not disrespect him. Never seek to harm him. Never allow hatred in your heart. By dishonoring him, you would dishonor yourself. Pity him and leave him to his own destruction. That’s already your intuitive reaction, and it’s the right one.”

She slides one photo back to Sam, a shot of him with his dad in front of a Christmas tree, the year he got his bicycle. “I’ll take the rest as payment, Sam. But you keep that one all your life, toremind yourself not to dishonor him as he dishonored you and your mother.”

He stares at the photo. “Keeping it feels weird.”

“But does it also feel right?”

“No. It feels ... I don’t know.”

“Those are my terms,” she says. “I keep the rest, but you keep that one. Now what did you come here to ask me?”

There must be a draft that Sam doesn’t feel, for the flames in the votive cups swell and lick above the ruby rims. Shaped on the wall, their light undulates like spirits swaying to music in some sphere beyond his hearing.

He has come to a sudden recognition that knowing the future can be a burden too heavy to be carried, a cause for despair. He winnows through the many questions he has conceived and finds only one that seems safe to ask. “My mother’s depressed, so beaten down by what my father’s done. Will she ... will my mother ever be happy again?”

“In time, yes. Your mother is stronger than you think.”

That is good to know. The seer’s answer brings Sam much relief. He could ask how long his mom will be sad before she’s happy again, how long her rediscovered happiness will last, whether he will make her proud and be part of the reason for her happiness. However, each question opens the door to dark knowledge. No one is happy all the time and forever. He doesn’t want to hear that his mother will be happy for five years and then be struck down by disease or violence before she’s forty.

“What else?” the seer asks.

“Maybe that’s enough. Knowing she’ll be happy.”

“What about you?”

“There’s a lot of stuff I’m better off not knowing.”

“True. But maybe there’s a question or two worth risking.”

He watches the three figures of light pulsing on the wall, looks down at the photo of him with his father, and meets the woman’s eyes again. “Will I be like him?”

“Your father?”

“Yeah.”

“Like him in what way?”

“Will I betray people?”

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