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eBook Category: Alternate History
eBook Description: A man searches for information about the death of his son 30 years after the boy has died a mysterious death in Vietnam. The only person who can answer his questions is a magical, mythical being known as "the One-Half Boy," hidden away in the mountains of an unknown land. Finding him, though, is only half the battle....

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: In the Shadow of the Wall: Vietnam Stories That Might Have Been, ed. Byron Tetrick, 2002
Fictionwise Release Date: October 2003

12 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [78 KB], eReader (PDB) [32 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [18 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [17 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [53 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [88 KB], hiebook (KML) [71 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [46 KB], iSilo (PDB) [15 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [19 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [47 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [28 KB]
Words: 6132
Reading time: 17-24 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"In "The One-Half Boy," Nick DiChario also describes the quest for knowledge: this time, it is a father desperate to learn what has happened to his missing son. The grieving father journeys to far-away territory in his quest for the fabled One-Half Boy who, at great cost to himself, can link the father to his son at the son's moment of death. But he is not able to satisfy this father's craving for knowledge--he can give only one half of the picture. A pilgrimage to the name on the Wall is needed to complete the picture of the son's death--but the complete picture may be more than any father can bear. This story, too, is moving, using its magical themes to explore quite realistically the unbearable and unquenchable need of a father who has lost his son without knowing how or why."--Matt Nadelhaft, Tangent Online (Learn more about Tangent Online, the Internet's leading SF&F short fiction review website)

I've heard grown men say there's magic on this mountain. I've seen them shrug and motion toward the hills without looking me in the eyes. I've seen the magic blow cold, dead leaves at their feet when there was no wind, almost as a warning to remain silent. The One-Half Boy is a secret for plenty of reasons, most of them good, but I've decided to tell my story anyway, or as much of it as I can without betraying the trust of the people who live here. I think it's important that somebody say something even if it's me, a man who has learned wisdom only through failure.

"Are you sure you want to know?" asked a man I'll call Smith. He had a lazy eye, and the left side of his face sagged as if he'd suffered a stroke, although he couldn't have been more than fifty years old at the time. He was a heavy smoker; you could hear it in his lungs when he spoke.

Someone had introduced us at a tavern that lay in the shadow of a jagged northern peak, on a ridge hundreds of feet above a pine valley that stretched for miles. The tavern was as roughly hewn as the wilderness that surrounded it. I won't tell you the name of the place, but I guess it's all right to say that you couldn't reach it by car. You had to hike there. Someone who lived in the area had to trust you enough to mention its general whereabouts giving you, for all intents and purposes, the okay to find it.

It took me a year of living among these people to gain that trust. I wasn't trying to fool anyone. I had made it known to as many people as possible that I had come to the mountain looking for the One-Half Boy.

"I want to know. I need to know," I told Smith.

"That's what they all say till they find him."

"It's true, then?" I still wasn't sure I believed it, although I'd spent years hoping and praying.

I'd heard talk, rumors. Hang around enough support groups and Vietnam vets, you'll hear all kinds of stories. I'd fallen into the habit of showing my son's dog tags around and asking if anyone knew him. No one ever did. I can't remember the first time I'd heard mention of the One-Half Boy, but it went something like this:

"Even if you find somebody who remembers your son, ain't nobody ever gonna know what happened to him, 'cept maybe the One-Half Boy."

After that, my questions became less about my son and more about the boy. Who was he? Where did he live? What did he know? And how did he know it? Why was he called the One-Half Boy?