Who's There?
Who's There?
Teddy shielded his eyes and shifted from side to side. With one long exhalation he felt time stretching. The ball slowed. He watched the fat part of the bat strike its blow. As the ball sailed into the afternoon's blue sky, the Moon rose above the horizon.
He ran like the wind, dove and caught the ball just a red seam away from landing on the tips of the close-cut green grass. Rolling over, he caught a glimpse of July's full Moon.
He rose from the earth and tipped his cap, knowing his new friend had granted him a lifetime catch.
The stands exploded with cheers. Teddy's catch had won the 1963 summer Little League Championship. But he didn't hear the cheering; the luminous Moon had captured his gaze.
Tem, his best friend, hoisted a surprised Teddy high.
His teammates encircled him, jumping skyward and chanting, "Teddy! Teddy! Teddy!"
Teddy emerged from one of his favorite reveries as the late-August sun bore down on all living things along the Kansas–Missouri border. In the cool comfort of his air-conditioned bedroom, he couldn't relive winning the championship too many times. But that had happened a month ago and time had moved on.
He was inspired by the memory, and he could still feel that lustrous moonlight shining. The July Moon that night had helped him see exactly where the ball and bat had met, giving him a jump on the catch; but he knew he couldn't share this knowledge with anyone. Who would believe him anyway? How could moonlight have helped him see in broad daylight? But it had, and he knew it.
Seeing things that others didn't had been happening to Teddy for a while. Without fear, he was determined to unlock the secret of his seeing. He loved mysteries.
The cool air drifted over his body, and he sank a little more into the softness of his bed. How had time slowed down? How had he seen the bat hit the ball? How had he made the catch? It had to have been the light of the full Moon.
Since that day the Moon's brilliance had faded and nothing but everyday moonlight shone now. But that bright light of the Moon had shone once, and it had fueled Teddy's delight in being alive.
He was also puzzled by how time had begun to move on that day and kept moving. One moment Teddy had been enthralled by the Moon, and in the next Tem was raising him high. Time had unfolded as a series of moments, but what had strung together all those moments?
Teddy glanced at his mitt, a gift from Jean. A truth pulled him out of his reverie. That ever-present thought, now sitting on his chest, roused him from his bed: Jean's not here.
Before Jean's death, he hadn't seen with the light of the Moon nor thought about time.
He sat down in his favorite chair and gazed out the window into the rising Kansas City heat. His eyes welled up. With his sister's laugh and smile beyond reach, he felt empty. With Jean's death had come the realization that all living things die. More mysteriously, he had found himself still living, but seeing differently. Thinking about time acted as a balm.
Teddy picked up his mitt and felt Jean's presence. Maybe she still lived in some way.
Since the day of the catch, Teddy had decided life was best lived breathing in the rising sun, the surging ocean, the twinkling Stars, the rustling trees, the buzzing bees. If he held all of this in his heart and hands he thought that maybe, just maybe, he could figure out the beginning of time, the beginning of how everything came to be.
Perhaps the Moon held time, strung the moments together. Balanced on his toes and the chair's back legs, Teddy rocked. Did the Moon create and hold time like some pulsing ancient rock? Did the Moon hold the secret to life?
He jumped to his feet. Could the Moon help him find Jean?
He cracked the window and crawled back into bed. The cicadas sang their early-evening lullaby.
Knowing that the Moon, and time, would be there tomorrow excited him. Teddy loved the thought of tomorrow. Yesterday and today were something he knew and remembered, but tomorrow, dreamlike, came riding in through some slit in the sky. To Teddy, the possibility that moonlight held a new way of seeing was irresistible.
As he drifted into the beginnings of sleep, he exhaled one last breath. Should I ask the Moon to find Jean?
Teddy woke to the wind blowing birdsongs through the window, and the last remnants of his dream floated off. As the crisp morning air mingled with his breath, the Sun peeped in through the window. Just before his dream drifted away completely, he caught it and pulled it back. Fu Hsi. That's whom he was dreaming about. He had to find Fu Hsi.
He dressed fast, and down the stairs he flew. A hurried breakfast of orange juice and cereal and he was off out the door to meet Tem at the movies. A weekly movie was part of their summer entertainment, and they still had a month before school started. The Sun warmed his body and cast shadows playfully on his path. The wind rustled the solid oak trees, announcing good fortune; the scent of summer surrounded him.
As he walked the sunlit street, kicking every rock in sight, he heard Fu Hsi's command echo: "I am Fu Hsi. Don't miss my movie."
Fu Hsi had first appeared to Teddy a month after Jean's death, when her loss had darkened his days. He would walk past his baseball mitt and ride his bike to nowhere. One day he gave in to his heart and walked into his sister's room. He longed to see her again and talk to her.
He had stepped through the door and seen an image of a Chinese man dressed in robes perched high atop a mountain, just past Jean's nightstand. Teddy had blinked, and the image disappeared. But in the time between two breaths, Teddy felt lighter, more alive.
Within a few days he was experiencing a renewed desire to play baseball.
Through the fall and winter and spring and summer, he continued to see fleeting images of this Chinese man in his dreams, and sometimes in the distance as a flash on the horizon.
Teddy rounded the corner and stopped dead; on the marquee was an announcement for Fu Hsi's Traveling Show. He walked up slowly and read the poster.
EXPERIENCE THE POWER OF FU HSI
THE LEGEND
STARRING YUL BRYNNER
Teddy felt light-headed. How was this possible?
Chapter 2
