“The child remained unaltered by the experience afterward but for one peculiar souvenir—an image of the tree had become emblazoned upon his back! This ‘daguerreotype of lightning’ is one of several documented in recent years, making it yet another wondrous curiosity of science.”

The Prologue and Epilogue are both newspaper articles written about Silas, and they represent the only sections of the novel that employ third-person narration instead of Silas’s first-person perspective. Silas’s experience of being scarred by lightning physically marks him as unique, but this event also consistently reminds him that he can survive impossible hardships. The comparison of Silas’s lightning scar to a daguerreotype (a type of photograph) also enhances the connection between Silas and his Pa, who is a photographer.

“I have already mentioned that Mittenwool is a ghost, but I’m not entirely sure that’s the right word for him. Spirit. Apparition. Fact is, I don’t know what the right word for him is, exactly. Pa thinks he is an imaginary friend or some such thing, but I know that’s not what he is. Mittenwool is as real as the chair he sits on, and the house we live in, and the dog. That no one but me can see him, or hear him, doesn’t mean he’s not real.”

This passage complicates The Tangible Effects of the Supernatural. Silas knows that Mittenwool is a ghost and is therefore invisible to most people, but he wisely reasons that the ghost’s invisibility does not negate his existence. Furthermore, to Silas, Mittenwool is even more important than most people because he has been an important companion since Silas was a baby. Mittenwool’s existence suggests that the supernatural and the real are not mutually exclusive.

“A violin? That made no sense. All I can think is that maybe life knows where it’s going before you do sometimes, and somewhere deep inside me, in the rooms of my heart, I knew that I would not be coming home again.”

In addition to being able to see ghosts, Silas has either psychic abilities or very keen intuition. The metaphorical phrase “rooms of my heart” suggests that sometimes Silas can feel things before he consciously thinks about them, as when he intuitively senses that he won’t be returning home again.