For what purpose? I ask.

  To create, Lee. To expand. To stretch further and further. To go places even God hasn’t gone before. To create families and stories and inventions and homes and dreams and books and movies. To create that which has not been created before. With each new idea, with each new spark of interest, the Universe expands and grows and that, in a nutshell, is the purpose.

  But I haven’t expanded in many years, I say. Or think. Or whatever.

  Expansion doesn’t have to be the next great invention, Lee. It can be a desire to grow in small ways. A decision to be happier. A stirring for a new haircut, taking a cooking class, trying a new recipe, trying out a new route to work. Sometimes, these smaller expansions can be as delicious as the big ones.

  Is someone hungry? I ask.

  Another chuckle. The key here, Lee, is that the Creator, the Universe, God, call it what you want, is expanding whether we know it or not.

  I am dwelling on these words, when John Wang continues: But there is something here that you might be missing, Lee, something that is useful for all those who seek and hunger for more.

  And what’s that?

  This powerful force of creation that can be utilized, can be directed, can be used to enhance your own life. This is, after all, the force that creates universes. You are seeing but a small sample of it around you. Learn to use it, to play with it, to love it, and to live within it…and you might be very, very surprised at the results.

  I nod, although I do not know if my physical head nods or not. A part of me nods. An idea of me nods. Either way, I find myself scanning the room I’ve lived in in darkness for half a decade.

  This is really happening, I think. I’m seeing it. I can see the man sitting in front of me. I can see my couches, I can see the coffee table moved over to one side. All of which look exactly as I remember. Except…

  Except…I’m not seeing the exact couch. I’m seeing a ghostly hint of it, an echo of it, the vibration of it.

  I can feel my heart thumping in my chest, harder and harder as I look around more and more. This is real. This is happening now.

  This is magical.

  I see John Wang sitting in front of me, holding my hands, legs crossed, head bowed slightly, eyes closed. The light waves surround him powerfully, and seem to emanate from him as well.

  Yes, I think. Magic…

  I am taking all of this in and more, when I see movement to my left. I don’t so much turn as shift my focus to my left—and there she is, trotting into the living room from the kitchen, water droplets, sparkling like so many diamonds, dripping from her muzzle. A long, wet, glowing tongue unfurls and sweeps along her muzzle. She does this a few more times as she continues to stare at John Wang. And when she’s done licking her lips, she turns her gaze fully onto me.

  Betsie…my baby girl.

  I knew she was a golden retriever, I just wasn’t prepared to see how big she was. Hell, I wasn’t prepared to see her at all. I never, in a million years, could have predicted last night, when I went to bed, that I would wake up and, in a few short minutes, begin seeing my sweet doggie.

  It’s her. It’s really her.

  Unless, of course, I’m dreaming. I have often dreamed of her. In my dreams, she’s smaller, more petite. This dog before me is all business. Thick-chested. Long, curling fur. Paws that could take down a small plane.

  Her stinky paws.

  I am most impressed by her muscle tone, which ripples under her flowing fur.

  We should all be so ripped, I think.

  She stares at me for a long moment, undulating slightly in the blue-green light. No, I can’t see her golden color. I can’t see color of any type. But I can see shades and depth and detail. Not striking detail. But enough.

  More than enough, I think.

  She blinks long and hard, pants a little, and when she does, her dark lips curl into what I will go to my grave thinking is a smile. A beautiful, perfect smile. And then she looks over at the couch. Looks at me again, and then trots through the living room—the vibrations of which reach me now—and hops up on the couch. She turns once, twice, then curls into a tight ball of eighty pounds of pure muscle and love and devotion.

  I am left reeling and emotional and fighting tears.

  Never, never could I have hoped to see my doggie, and there she is now, on the couch, and bathed in blue-green light. In fact, everything is bathed in blue-green. My hands, the room, the man in front of me, the shimmering particles in the air. It is, I think, the most beautiful color I can imagine.

  It is called Winter Wind, says the accented voice, his words reaching me now as if from a great distance.

  Winter Wind, I say to myself forming the words in my mind. The words seem fitting. The room is, indeed, the color of a bleak winter landscape. What would happen if I were to stand? I ask.

  You would lose your focus and everything you see before you would disappear.

  So then, I must always be in a state of deep meditation?

  For now, Lee, but I will teach you how to work with the Winter Wind, to use it more readily. Now, let’s continue…

  And continue we do, for another hour or so, but I am often distracted, not always listening, looking at my dog, my apartment, the light coming in through the sliding glass doors, at the picture frames that sit forgotten on book shelves and the entertainment center. There’s my old TV, still in its same spot, although long since unplugged. There’s a picture of Gwen and me, of my brother, my now-deceased parents. All filtered through the greenish-blue lens of the Winter Wind, not quite turquoise but almost. That the word ‘turquoise’ would even occur to me again was a miracle.

  When the hour is up, I sense a change in the room, a retreating of light, a sort of drawing back…

  No, I say, as the light begins to fade. Please, not yet…

  The energy is always there, Lee. The well-being flows continuously, with or without me.

  Trust me, I couldn’t see this without you.

  You will, Lee, with practice.

  And with that, he releases my hands—and the world goes black, as I’m plunged into total silence and blackness. I reach out blindly to the little man in front of me—I know he is little, now that I have seen his staticy image in my thoughts, and hug him tighter than I’d intended, tighter than I’d ever hugged another man. Even my own brother. To John Wang’s credit, he hugs me back, patting my shoulder.

  Finally, my hands drop onto the Pergo floor, and I feel John Wang rise to his feet. Smoothly, I suspect. A moment later, I feel the floorboards shifting and shortly after that, the subsonic vibration of the front door opening and closing.

  Alone and still on my knees, I find myself weeping into my hands. Which is about the time Betsie comes over and curls up on the couch square next to me. Right there in the center of the living room floor. I remember again her longish fur, her thick paws, her thick tail.

  I’d seen her. Oh, yes; I’d seen her.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  It is the next morning and Rachel is with me.

  Prior to her visit, I had gotten a text message from Detective Hammer—a message spelled out in Morse code—that he had updated the file with medical histories. Additionally, he’d found something interesting and was adding it to the updated file, a file that Rachel would be bringing over.

  I’d spent last night and this morning going through the instructions left to me by John Wang, instructions for me to access the Winter Wind on my own. So far, nothing, and with each try, my hope diminishes, to the point that I’m now questioning the experience altogether.

  No, I think again, perhaps for the hundredth time. It happened.

  I either believe it happened…or else, I’m losing my mind. And I don’t want to lose my mind. Not now, not ever. I don’t want to have to open that drawer. Yesterday morning had been so beautiful, so earthshaking—that even if I never have another experience like that again, even if I am never able to access the Winter Wind again—that one experience was enough.

  At least, that’s what I tell myself.

  I debated telling Rachel about John Wang and the Winter Wind, and decided I would wait until I had some control over it—or until I gave up on it entirely.

  Now, while we take a break and she is in the kitchen making us more coffee on the Keurig, I wish like crazy that I could rise above myself now, up into that blue-green world of shapes and energy and light, and see what she really looks like. How did she look standing at the counter? How did she look when she smiled? How did she look when she concentrated and signed and kissed and held me? How did she look when she kissed me?

  Soon, she returns with the coffee and I smile and mouth the words ‘thank you,’ and when she sets the steaming mug in my hands, I sip it and love it and soon we are going through the reports again.

  That she needs to hold my hand to communicate with me is a pleasure and intimacy that few of the sighted will ever experience. As always, her touch is light and firm and sensual. Sometimes, her fingertips tickle me, often they caress me. I know her signs well now. Sometimes, I can predict the word and nod before she is finished. Always, I sit there with a half-smile on my face, even as she lays out the life stories of those who have gone missing.

  I had read the initial report in braille. I knew the names. I knew their stories. I hadn’t known their medical records. So far, none of the missing had any diseases worth noting. In fact, all of them seemed damned healthy. Almost too healthy.

  Soon, we come upon a new name, the latest addition to the file. An addition made by Hammer just the day before.

  “His name is Mack Carpenter,” she signs into my hand. “Retired. Lived alone. Wasn’t reported missing for weeks. There’s a notation here from Hammer saying that the victim may or may not be related to this case. Hammer is guessing not, which is why he had been left out of the Big Case. But you asked him to cull the surrounding area for anything of note, and this is the only thing of note he could find.”

  “When did he go missing?” I sign.

  There’s a pause as she reads the new file. “Over a year ago, before any of the others. Hammer’s notes indicate that Mack Carpenter’s disappearance is being investigated, as of now, as a separate case.”

  I nod. “What do we know about Mack Carpenter?”

  “A retired veterinarian with the Los Angeles Zoo, where he’d worked for over forty years. His home was paid off. His cars were paid off. His wife died a decade earlier from cancer. He lived alone. Nice retirement benefits. No sickness that the daughter knows about. No mention of suicide and no demons in his closet, as far as she’s aware. As in, no gambling, drugs or vices that could have gotten him into trouble.”

  “In short,” I sign, “he had no real reason to disappear.”

  “Hard to know,” she answers into my palm.

  “What are the circumstances of his disappearance?”

  She goes on to read the rest of the report. Mack was much older than the other missing persons, and his disappearance hadn’t been discovered for weeks, not until a neighbor had reported not seeing the old man for a while. No body was found. No sign of any foul play. Unlike the others, Mack Carpenter had taken out a large sum of money—most of his retirement, in fact. Additionally, they found a Greyhound bus receipt on his credit card. Apparently, he’d purchased a ticket to Arizona. A search of the local Greyhound surveillance had turned up nothing and the case was eventually pushed aside. No body. A missing old man. The department had bigger fish to fry, especially as others started showing up missing, others that followed a predictable pattern.

  She finishes signing and rests her hand in my own, and as I think about the Case, playing the names over and over, the circumstances over and over, sensing Rachel’s serenity, feeling her body warmth, something happens, something beautiful and magical and startling—and it only happens for the briefest of seconds.

  Blue-green light flashes in my mind, fills my thoughts. For the briefest of moments, I am in the Winter Wind…and I see myself sitting there next to a smallish woman in a long dress, who wears thick glasses and whose hair is bobbed just above her shoulders. And then the vision is gone and I’m plunged back into darkness.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  I’m at Chango, sitting in the shade, a mug of hot coffee in one hand and Betsie’s harness in the other.

  The walk down had been gradual and methodical, like always. We’d crossed the three-way intersection without incident. I had ordered and paid with my credit card, scribbling my name where Olga the barista had guided my hand to do so. They all know me here—and we all know the routine. In fact, many of the workers had even learned sign language over the years, often signing greetings into my open palm.

  The shade is nice. The sun is nice, too. In about an hour, the sun will angle over the nearby line of trees and shine full force onto this very spot. As I sit and drink and feel Betsie panting against my leg, I sense what I sometimes sense when I come here. I sense someone sitting opposite me. In fact, sometimes even Betsie looks up and looks over. But I don’t feel the table shift with the weight of, say, someone’s elbows, or the ground vibrate with the scraping of a chair.

  No, I only sense a presence. And it’s a strong presence. It has weight to it. Heft to it. It has intent and focus. That is, if it existed—which it doesn’t, because there’s never anyone sitting opposite me.

  Just my imagination.

  The hair on my neck is standing on end, as if there’s an electric charge to the air. As if a goose has walked across my grave.

  Someone’s here.

  And again I reach out across the table, reaching for something or someone that isn’t there. Indeed, I only feel the coolness of shade, the cold table, and not much of anything else.

  I must look ridiculous, reaching out. I am sure others are looking at the pathetic blind man reaching for something that is not there, confused and lost and miserable.

  Chango and I go way back. It is here that my now-deceased partner and I often started our days. It is here we often discussed our cases and developed plans of attack. It is here where we often got word of new homicides. It is here where we had laughed and goofed on each other, and made friends with the locals. It is here where we revisited the horrors of our jobs and found strength in each other, whether spoken or not.

  It is here where I feel my friend the most.

  If I hadn’t known better—if I hadn’t just verified that the seat in front of me wasn’t taken—I would have guessed that a living, breathing person had just sat across from me.

  I drink my coffee carefully, sipping. I breathe easily through the new tracheal tube I had installed this morning. Also this morning I had done the meditative exercises that John Wang had shown me. Unfortunately, the Winter Wind still eluded me when I sought it…and only seemed to come when I least expected it.

  I smell exhaust, although I do not hear the cars or motorcycles. I catch a faint whiff of a clove cigarette. Although my sense of smell seems to be working better and better, I hadn’t smelled anything this morning—not even my coffee—until the exhaust and the cloves.

  Take what you get, I think, and sip and feel Betsie shift at my feet. Betsie is a remarkable creature, as well-trained as a canine can be…but she is still a dog. Passing animals attract her attention. Children do, too. No, she would never leave my side, but her attention will shift with something that catches her eye, even while she waits obediently, protectively, for my next command.

  There is a small, gusty, cool wind this morning, just enough to ripple my hair or ruffle my shirt. The sound of the wind is something I miss the most. Hearing it blow over ears and through branches and open car windows…it is nature at its best, alive and moving and seeking.

  I can feel it on my skin now, in my hair and inside my bowling shirt. The hair on my forearms shifts, too, and I feel myself smiling—and feel myself slip away, but not really away. No, I am slipping up, if possible.

  Here, but not really here.

  Green-blue light fills my head and, perspective wise, I seem to be standing behind my body, looking down at the table, although I cannot see myself. No, that’s not true, I see a shape, a shadow, something…but I feel it’s not important to search for myself in this world of light.

  Instead, I focus on the hint of a man sitting before me—and not just any man. It is my deceased partner, Mitch Anderson. At least, what looks like him. I see the shape of a man, elbows resting on the table, hands loosely forming the shape of a coffee mug. The man is not clearly defined. Not the way John Wang had been in my apartment, when he had sat before me. No, this shape was staticy and not solid—and not entirely complete either. Sometimes I can see through him and sometimes parts of his body fade completely. His right shoulder is now wavering in and out of existence. Prior to that, it had been his hands.

  It could have been a hologram. It could have been a special effect. It could have been fake. But it was none of those.

  It was, I was certain, the ghost of my deceased partner.

  I feel my heart picking up, my breath quickening. Betsie looks up at me for a moment, then back at the ghost in front of us.

  My ex-partner—a partner I had rendered into this condition because of my recklessness—doesn’t appear to notice me. Hell, he doesn’t appear to even move. He just sat there, holding his imaginary cup of coffee. Or maybe the cup was real to him. Maybe a ghost cup is steaming away in his hands.

  He continues to flicker in and out of existence. No, I am seeing straight through him to the table beyond, where a young man is sitting with a laptop, although the laptop is much thinner than anything I’d seen before.

  Mitch continues staring down into his hands. And it is Mitch, I’m sure of it. Maybe I should feel frightened. Maybe I should be questioning my sanity. I feel neither of those, other than mild shock. Truth is, I am just as surprised that I can see the man sitting behind Mitch—and sometimes even through Mitch. That I can see at all is just as wondrous and bizarre and alarming. That a ghost is also in the frame is just an added bonus.