“I t’s called a what kind of church?” Ob said as he looked over Cletus’s shoulder at the newspaper clipping that had been pulled from the famous suitcase.

“Spiritualist,” Cletus said. “The Spiritualist Church of Glen Meadows, it says right here. Over in Putnam County.”

The two of them sat down on the couch while I took the La-Z-Boy, wondering to myself whether Cletus wasn’t just some alien pretending to be a human life. Surely he knew he’d never get Ob and me inside of a church, even if it served a thousand different kinds of doughnuts.

Ob took the clipping from Cletus’s hand while Cletus went on talking.

“The pastor there, it says, can communicate with the dead. Says that’s what the whole church is about. Making connections between this world and the other side. This isn’t any ordinary church.

“I clipped this out of the paper last year because I loved that picture of her. ‘The Reverend Miriam B. Young: Small Medium at Large.’ Don’t you just love that? I’d dearly love to write newspaper titles when I’m grown. Anyway, some call her the Bat Lady because she keeps bats as pets. Others call her the White Lady because she only wears white.”

Cletus beamed at Ob.

“But I’m calling her the Just-in-Time Lady because that’s what she is. She’s showed up here in my suitcase just in time to lead us to May.”

Ob didn’t smile back. I knew he was thinking, thinking of a kind way to let Cletus know that this new idea ranked right up there with the one that gave us Cheez Whiz, and that instead of heading to Putnam County Cletus had better get himself checked into the Pineville Sanatorium.

“How long a drive you figure it is over to that part of Putnam County?” Ob finally said.

“Ob!” I shouted. “Are you crazy? We can’t go to Putnam County looking for Bat Woman!”

Ob and Cletus just stared at me.

“How come we can’t?” Ob asked. “You got something better to do for school break?”

“School break? We’re going to spend school break in Putnam County? In some Spiritual church?”

“Spiritualist,” Cletus corrected.

“Hell, why not,” Ob said, looking at Cletus with a grin. “We just might learn us a thing or two.”

I saw that grin on his face, that glint in his eyes, and I knew that Ob had suddenly found himself a reason to get out of bed on time in the mornings, at least for a little while longer. The three of us might look like complete pure fools tracking down this preacher lady and her bats. But if it kept Ob grinning and chasing after some hope, I knew I’d have to be willing to follow him.

“Three hours,” Cletus said.

“Say what?” Ob said.

“I figure on three hours to get there,” Cletus continued. “I already looked at the map. It’s an easy drive. We can take the turnpike almost all the way in. Maybe we can even stop in Charleston and look at the capitol on our way back. I’ve not ever been to the capitol. Never been anywhere, really, except the middle part of Raleigh County and the middle part of Fayette County. Hard to be a Renaissance Man when you can’t get your nose any further than that.”

“A what kind of a man?” asked Ob.

“Renaissance. Learned it in history. Back in Europe there were these men who were real well-rounded. You know, they could paint, play music, write poems. They could talk science and philosophy. Knew a lot about a lot. Folks called them Renaissance Men.”

Cletus got this cocky little look on his face.

“I’m training to be one of them,” he said with a big grin. “Deep Water needs itself some Renaissance Men.”

“Ha!” Ob laughed and slapped Cletus on the knee. “After our little trip, you might be calling yourself a Rent-a-Séance Man!”

Both of them burst out laughing while I just sighed and went to the refrigerator to pull out some Cokes. I could tell Cletus was going to be with us a while.

He hung on till suppertime. Then when it became apparent Ob and I were probably going to rely on peanut butter to pull us through, he finally got the notion to go on home.

Cletus never once asked why I wasn’t at school that day. Never once commented on Ob being in his pajamas.

He sure had some gifts.

May would have liked him. She would have said he was “full of wonders,” same as Ob. May always liked the weird ones best, the ones you couldn’t peg right off. She must be loving it up in heaven, where I figure everybody must just let loose. That’s got to be at least one of the benefits of heaven — never having to act normal again.

Ob and I agreed to meet Cletus at his house on Saturday, so Ob could meet Cletus’s parents and get the go-ahead for Cletus to come with us to Putnam County next week. Pretty soon we’ll all be in Ob’s Valiant, traveling like wise men to Bethlehem, looking for that star in the sky that might point us to May.

I’m afraid. Already I’ve lost many things, important things, and I don’t want to lose more in Putnam County. Cletus seems always to live full of hope and confidence. He thinks he’s found an answer for Ob and now all we have to do is get ourselves heading out the turnpike to pick it up.

But I’ve got too much to lose if this Bat Lady turns out to be a hoax. If May decides not to fly along with us, if she doesn’t show up in Putnam County and say whatever it is Ob needs, for life, to hear, then I figure there’ll be no use us returning to our home in Deep Water. Because we will have waded out too far, out past the point of no return, too far to ever make it home again.

Cletus had sure better be right about this.