Today I arrived at Yosemite National Park for my annual pilgrimage to the place that played an important role in me adopting a healthier lifestyle in 2012. I wish I could say that upon my arrival I immediately went and hiked to the top of a mountain. I did not. But I did buy a new Yosemite t-shirt. In case you all out there hadn’t heard about the brouhaha going on at Yosemite lately, Delaware North Company is surrendering control of all the hotels and food service to Aramark as of 3/1/16 at midnight. So everything at the gift shops is fifty percent off. I can’t wait to hit up the giant gift shop tomorrow! I’m somewhat concerned that checking out on Tuesday is going to be a shit-show, but I’m trying to not worry about it right now.

I got a fair amount of reading done on the road today, until the road got windy and I had to stop for fear of vomiting in my dad’s truck, and then I got to read during “cocktail hour” while simultaneously watching my mom, dad, and husband get drunk on pre-made Manhattan mix. I swear to God I’m not making this shit up. The most annoying thing about having to stop reading to avoid vomiting is that I was finally getting to the part of the book where the Horology/Anchorite feud/war is explained in detail. But I think I’ve got it all sorted out now. Sort of. I’ll give it a try.

I’ll start with the Horologists because they’re the good guys, at least as far as I know. The Horologists are a group of people also known as Atemporals, and from what I’ve learned so far there are two kinds of Atemporals, the kind who can jump from human to human right away when one body dies, and the kind who have to die and be reborn after a forty-nine day waiting period in someplace called the Dusk. The Atemporals take over the bodies of children who are about to die, and return to the earth with all of their memories of their previous lives intact. The most interesting parts of the book have been when the different Horologists share glimpses of their previous lives. The Horologists are involved in an ages-long war with the Anchorites, who are artificial Atemporals: they attain immortality by murdering children who have some psychic abilities and taking in their souls via a liquid called “Black Wine.” Or “Dark Wine.” I can’t remember which. The Horologists are dedicated to stopping the evildoing of the Anchorites, and somehow Holly Sykes has gotten dragged into all of this. The year is 2025, and she is finally going to learn the truth of her brother’s disappearance back in 1984. Turns out Jacko’s body was being inhabited by the oldest of Horologists, Xi Lo, because the real Jacko died of meningitis when he was five, but he didn’t really, because Xi Lo’s consciousness moved into Jack’s body, and he recovered. Weird, right? But it all makes sense in context, which may or may not be even weirder.

I think I’m going to stop now and leave any other important details for my next (and hopefully final) post on The Bone Clocks. I’ve got less than two hundred pages to go and I’m so excited to see how things end up. I’m enjoying the book, despite the weirdness that increases with every single page.