And I’m not going anywhere.” The boy did not say much.

But he ate the sandwich, and when Santiago stood to go, the kid asked, very quietly, when he would come back — and Santiago understood that the door had opened, just a crack, just enough, the way it had once opened for him at the side of a dark road.

Chapter 42 — The Cemetery, Clear Sky

That morning, before anything else, he went back to the cemetery.

The sky was clear this time — no storm, no mud, no rain running down a boy’s face in the dark.