Reply To: The Searcher: Who is the Searcher?
I think the searcher is Trey Reddy, a thirteen year old looking for her older brother whom she thinks has been kidnapped. That is her quest. Apparently, he provided a sense of family and companionship which she did not otherwise have. Because of her mother and father, no one in the village seems to have a good opinion of any of the Reddys. The Guards have to go to their home to get the kids to school consistently. Noreen finds something missing whenever one the Reddy children come into the store. In Cal, Trey finds someone to help her. To a lesser extent, Cal is a searcher, looking for peace and a new beginning. He left his job when he no longer felt relief when he fixed something. Cal’s ex-wife said that “Cal was addicted to fixing things, like a guy jabbing on and on at a slot machine, unable to leave it alone until the lights flashed and the prize came pouring out.” But letting the world take care of itself makes Cal uneasy in ways he does not completely understand. He works on something or calls his daughter to get away from that restlessness. But it is more difficult because he doesn’t know the boundaries and what the village is willing to do. So when Cal finds out what happened to Brendan, he has to tell Trey to leave it for her own safety. For Trey, “the idea of a world with no quest in it has left her lost.” Cal gets one of Lena’s pugs for Trey and lets Mart know that Trey will continue helping him and he wants no shit about that. In the end, they help each other in their personal searches.
