Winter Moon

explain the condition of Tommy's site. Jack made a mental note to ask Paul Youngblood about it.
        The last monument, at the head of the only grassy llot, belonged to Stanley Quartermass, patron of them. An inscription in the weathered black stone surprised a chuckle out of Jack when he least expected it.
        Here lies Stanley Quartermass dead before his time because he had to work with so damned many actors and writers.
        Toby had not moved.
        "What're you up to?" Jack asked.
        No answer.
        He put one hand on Toby's shoulder.
        "Son?"
        Without shifting his gaze from the tombstone, the boy said, "What're they doing down there?"
        "Who? Where?"
        "In the ground."
        "You mean Tommy and his folks, Mr. Quartermass?"."What're they doing down there?"
        There was nothing odd about a child wanting to fully understand death.
        It was no less a mystery to the young than to the old. What seemed strange to Jack was the way the question had been phrased.
        "Well," he said, "Tommy, his folks, Stanley Quartermass… they aren't really here."
        "Yes, they are."
        "No, only their bodies are here," Jack said, gently massaging the boy's shoulder.
        "Why?"
        "Because they were finished with them."
        The boy was silent, brooding.
        Was he thinking about how close his own father had come to being planted under a similar stone? Maybe enough time had passed since the shooting for Toby to be able to confront things that he'd been repressing.
        The mild breeze from out of the northwest stiffened slightly. Jack's hands were cold. He put them in his jacket pockets and said, "Their bodies weren't them, anyway, not the real them."
        The conversation took an even stranger turn: "You mean, these weren't their original bodies? These were puppets?"
        Frowning, Jack dropped to his knees beside the boy.
        "Puppets? That's a peculiar thing to say."
        As if in a trance, the boy focused on Tommy's headstone. His gray-blue eyes stared unblinking.
        "Toby, are you okay?"
        Toby still didn't look at him but said, "Surrogates?"
        Jack blinked in surprise.
        "Surrogates?"
        "Were they?"
        "That's a pretty big word. Where'd you hear that?"
        Instead of answering him, Toby said, "Why don't they need these bodies any more?".Jack hesitated, then shrugged.
        "Well, son, you know why-they were finished with their work in this world."
        "This world?"
        "They've gone on."
        "Wwhere?"
        "You've been to Sunday school. You know where."
        "No."
        "Sure you do."
        "No."
        "They've gone on to heaven."
        "They went on?"
        "Yes."
        "In what bodies?"
        Jack removed his right hand from his jacket pocket and cupped his son's chin.
        He turned the boy's head away from the gravestone, so they were eye-to-eye.
        "What's wrong, Toby?"
        They were face-to-face, inches apart, yet Toby seemed to be looking into the distance, through Jack at some far horizon.
        "Toby?"
        "In what bodies?"
        Jack released the boy's chin, moved one hand back - and forth in front of his face. Not a blink.
        His eyes didn't follow the movement of the hand.
        "In what bodies?" Toby repeated impatiently.
        Something was wrong with the boy. Sudden psychological ailment.
        With a catatonic aspect.
        Toby said, "In what bodies?"
        Jack's heart began to pump hard and fast as he stared into his son's flat, unresponsive eyes, which were no longer windows on a soul but.mirrors to keep out the world.
        If it was a psychological problem, there was no doubt about the cause.
        They'd been through a traumatic year, enough to drive a grown man-let alone a child-to a breakdown.
        But what was the trigger, why now, why here, why after all these many months, during which the poor kid had seemed to cope so well?
        "In what bodies?" Toby demanded sharply.
        "Come on," Jack said, taking the boy's gloved hand. "Let's go back to the house."
        "In what bodies did they go on?"
        "Toby, stop this."
        "Need to know. Tell me now. Tell me."
        "Oh, dear God, don't let this happen."
        Still on his knees, Jack said, "Listen, come back to the house with me so we can-" Toby wrenched