Lost & Found

Chapter 5

Oliver was just starting to appreciate the peace and quiet on the journey back to the wall when Pipsqueak spoke up. Great, he thought. More questions. And when we're right at the exit, too.

"Is there anything else we can do? You were batting him around earlier. Could we grab him and drag him back with us?" The black cat sounded quieter than usual, which made Oliver pause to look back at her.

She seemed less perky than usual, but she didn't seem to be hurt, so he flicked his tail dismissively and continued walking. "No. Or rather, we could, but it wouldn't matter. He would just end up right back here as soon as we left."

"Why? The Natives are able to mess around in the land of the living. You said the mouse that I killed was one of them, right? That we have to catch them or else they don't come back here. Can't Roger do something like that, too?"

"No, because he's from there." Oliver sat down and tried to remind himself that the black cat didn't know any better, and didn't have anyone else to ask questions. "When something travels from the land of the living to the land of the dead, it leaves behind a kind of dirty spot. Like when you catch prey and then have to clean the blood off of you. There's something stuck on us now that wants to go back to a specific time and place in the land of the living. With you and I, or with other animals that are supposed to go back and forth between the lands, that dirty spot guides us back to when we left. We get put back at the point our nap ends."

Oliver closed his eyes slowly as Pipsqueak began looking herself over. "No, it's not something you can see or feel. It's just there. The Natives don't have anything like that because they didn't come from the land of the living, so they can show up pretty much anywhere. And yes, they can decide when and where they end up at. They're doing all sorts of things they shouldn't be doing just to get to the land of the living, so it's easy for them to do one more weird thing on top of that."

"But with Roger or someone else that dies, that dirty spot is there. He can't decide when or where to go back to. He's going to go right back to the moment that led to him leaving the land of the living – the moment he made the decisions that killed him. So..." Oliver trailed off to let Pipsqueak think it through.

He saw her ears droop as she understood. "...if he hasn't decided to do anything different, he'll make the same decision. He won't care about staying in the land of the living, or with his friend. So he'll do the same thing that brought him here in the first place."

Oliver closed his eyes slowly in an acknowledgement. "Exactly. This is why it is important for us to catch any Natives we find in the land of the living. One must have slipped past us and found Roger while he was alive. Roger listened to it, probably for several seasons, and now his head is so twisted that he is convinced he should be here. So, we could drag him along with us and leave for the land of the living... but he would be right back here before we even woke up."

"Then could we..." Pipsqueak looked blankly down at the ground as she trailed off, unable to think of anything.

"Why the sudden concern? This whole time you've been complaining about how you wanted me to hurry up and bring you back, and how helping Roger was a waste of time. Now you want to help him, when we're almost out of this place?" Oliver glanced back to the side, where the wall was just barely visible through some of the trees.

"I thought I smelled something in that last memory, and I...." Pipsqueak looked away. "It doesn't matter. If there's nothing more we can do, then there's nothing more we can do." She was quiet for another moment before looking back at Oliver. "There's not, is there?"