From the Corner of His Eye

shoes."
        "Do you like the way my hair-"
        "Show us, show us, show us!" Angel urged.
        "Okaaaay," Mary said. "Koko, let's play."
        The dog rolled off her back and sprang up, tail wagging, ready for fun.
        Mary had a yellow vinyl ball of the type Koko would happily chase all day and, if allowed, chew all night, keeping the house awake with its squeaking. "Want this?" she asked Koko. Koko wanted it, of course, needed it, absolutely had to have it, and leaped into action as Mary pretended to throw the ball.
        After a few racing steps, when the dog realized that Mary hadn't thrown the ball, it whipped around and sprinted back.
        Mary ran-"Catch me if you can! "-and darted away.
        Koko changed directions with a fantastic pivot turn and bounded after the girl.
        Mary pivoted, too, turning sharply to her left -and disappeared.
        "Oh, my," said Tom Vanadium.
        One moment, girl and yellow vinyl ball. The next moment, gone as if they'd never been.
        Koko skidded to a halt, perplexed, looked left, looked right, floppy ears lifted slightly to catch any sound of Mistress Mary.
        Behind the dog, Mary walked out of nowhere, ball in hand, and Koko whirled in surprise, and the chase was on again.
        Three times, Mary vanished, and three times she reappeared, before she led the bamboozled Koko to her mother and father. "Neat, huh?"
        "When did you realize you could do this?" Tom asked. 64 just a little bit ago," the girl said. "I was sitting on the porch, having a Popsicle, and I just figured it out."
        Barty looked at Angel, and Angel looked at Barty, and they dropped to their knees on the grass before their daughter. They were both grinning… and then their grins stiffened a little.
        No doubt thinking about the land of the big bugs, into which she had pushed Enoch Cain, which was exactly what Barty had suddenly thought about, Angel said, "Honey, this is amazing, it's wonderful, but you've got to be careful."
        "It's not scary," said Mary. "I just step into another place for a little, and then back. It's just like going from one room to the next. I can't get stuck over there or anything." She looked at Barty. "You know how it is, Dad."
        "Sorta. But what your mother means-"
        "Maybe some of those are bad places," Angel warned.
        "Oh, sure, I know," Mary said. "But when it's a bad place, you feel it before you go in. So you just go around to the next place that isn't bad. No big deal."
        No big deal.
        Barty wanted to hug her. He did hug her. He hugged Angel, too. He hugged Tom Vanadium.
        "I need a drink," Father Tom said.
        Mary Lampion, little light, was home-schooled as her father and mother had been. But she didn't study just reading, writing, and arithmetic. Gradually she developed a range of fascinating talents not taught in any school, and she went exploring in a great number of the many ways things are, journeying to worlds right here but unseen.
        In his blindness, Barty listened to her reports and, through her, saw more than he could have seen if never he had lost his eyes.
        On Christmas Eve, 1996, the family gathered in the middle of the three houses for dinner. The living-room furniture had been moved aside to the walls, and three tables had been set end to end, the length of the room, to accommodate everyone.
        When the long table was laden and the wine poured, when everyone but Mary settled into chairs, Angel said, "My daughter tells me she wants to make a short presentation before I say grace. I don't know what it is, but she assures me it doesn't involve singing, dancing, or reading any of her poetry." I Barty, at the head of the table, sensed Mary's approach only as she was about to touch him. She put a hand on his arm and said, "Daddy, will you turn your chair away from the table and let me sit on your lap?"
        "If there's a presentation, I assume then I'm the presentee," he said, taming his chair sideways to the table and taking her into his lap. "Just remember, I never wear neckties."
        "I love you, Daddy," she said, and put the palms of her hands flat against his temples.
        Into Barty's darkness came light that he had not sought. He saw his smiling Mary on his lap as she lowered her hands from his temples, saw the faces of his family, the table set with Christmas decorations and many candles