From The Search for Belle Prater

"Woodrow," I said. "I found the hole in the air you told me about."

"Huh?" he said, lifting his eyes from a cigar box full of papers and photographs.

"You know, the place where the two worlds touch. I felt it! Cassie did, too."

"Oh, that," Woodrow said, unimpressed. "Aunt Millie said it was some kind of natural phenomena having to do with the air currents coming down the holler between the hills."

"But you told me—" I tried to protest.

"Yeah, I know, I told you a lot of stuff," he said irritably. "Something's there all right. You can feel it. But it ain't no place where the two worlds touch. Me and Mama made that up to entertain ourselves. I told you we made it up!"

He turned again to his chore like he was dismissing the whole subject, and me with it.

"You usta think your mama was in that place," I said, hoping he would talk to me and not be so mad all the time. But my words had the opposite effect. He slammed the cigar box on the floor.

"That's stupid, Gypsy," he yelled at me. "You just don't get it, do you? I told you what happened. She dressed up in my clothes and snuck out of here. My daddy said she left him and she left me on purpose, 'cause she didn't love us anymore. And he's right. Case closed!"