The stars are not stars, however: they are holes through which the "secret electricity" Jacobs has been using off and on throughout the novel pours. It's a vast, barren landscape through which a "wide and seemingly endless column" of people is being driven by "antlike creatures" beneath a black and starry sky. When the recently-deceased body of Mary Fay is revived, its hand grabs Jacobs', as does Jamie in this manner, the three of them close some sort of circuit, allowing Jamie (and Jacobs, presumably) to glimpse the world beyond the world. Jump forward several hundred pages, and we come to the final moments between Jamie and Jacobs. I didn't want you to think the concept was lost on me, though. That's my read, at least yours may vary, but we'll stare at each other across a gulf in this regard. So if anything, I think he intends for us to rely on Jamie more or less implicitly. When he wants us to think that, he usually has Jamie point it out to us. I will if I have to, but if I don't then I won't, and here I get very little sense that King is interested in having us feel Jamie is an unreliable narrator. I'm saying that it's a critical crutch upon which I'd prefer not to lean. I'm not saying it doesn't exist I'm not even saying it isn't a useful storytelling tool. The Jamie Morton who is narrating this story would probably recognize those as truths, wouldn't you say? Somebody is bound to raise the issue of Jamie being an unreliable narrator but if you know me, then you know that I mostly disregard the notion of the unreliable narrator. Perception might not be reality, but perception certainly can be memory, and memory can feel like reality. All of a sudden there were no kids yelling in the backyard, no records playing upstairs, no banging from the garage. I know it's only the sort of illusion caused by a faulty memory (not to mention a suitcase loaded with dark associations), but the recollection is very strong. He was blocking the afternoon sun, a silhouette surrounded by golden light - a human eclipse." Jamie tells us that there is plenty of activity in the area (various siblings making various kinds of racket elsewhere near and within their house), "but at that moment everything seemed to fall still. I looked up and saw a guy standing there.
During his play, "a shadow fell over the battlefield. Jamie is six years old, playing in the dirt near his house, having a mock battle with some toy soldiers given to him by his sister. Let's examine the manner in which Jacobs makes his first appearance in the novel, as Jamie tells it to us.
We began speaking about the relationship between Jamie and Jacobs earlier, so let's now get back to that.