Chap­ter 120 of All the Col­ors of the Dark fol­lows Patch as he wan­ders through the ele­gant man­sions of Charleston, tak­ing in the intri­cate details and vivid col­ors of the build­ings. His mind drifts to a let­ter he had received years ear­li­er from a girl named Mya Lev­ane. Dur­ing his walk, he encoun­ters a house­keep­er who reveals the unset­tling news that Mya’s body had been dis­cov­ered six months ago. When Patch press­es her for more details about Mya’s fate, the house­keep­er, although soft­en­ing a lit­tle, refus­es to pro­vide specifics, only men­tion­ing that Mya had been in Mex­i­co when she died. The con­ver­sa­tion leaves Patch with more ques­tions than answers, height­en­ing his sense of unease and con­fu­sion regard­ing Mya’s trag­ic end.

The nar­ra­tive shifts as Patch vis­its the Bank of South Car­oli­na, with­draw­ing a thou­sand dol­lars, most of which he gen­er­ous­ly dis­trib­utes to home­less peo­ple by the Ash­ley Riv­er. He keeps only two hun­dred dol­lars for him­self, donat­ing the rest to those in need. One par­tic­u­lar­ly mov­ing moment occurs when a young girl, no old­er than four­teen, embraces him tight­ly, deeply moved by his act of kind­ness. This inter­ac­tion high­lights Patch’s own emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty, as his small ges­ture has a pro­found impact on the girl, under­scor­ing the often-over­looked beau­ty of com­pas­sion and human con­nec­tion in a world over­shad­owed by hard­ship.

That evening, Patch boards a bus, begin­ning a long jour­ney where the land­scape shifts from the sun­set over the Blue Ridge Moun­tains to the encroach­ing dark­ness of the hills. Through­out the ride, Patch remains awake, his hand often rest­ing on his scar as he reflects on his past lives and expe­ri­ences. The flash­ing lights of pass­ing trucks serve as a con­stant reminder of his tumul­tuous jour­ney, and Patch begins to con­tem­plate the end­ing of his search and the inevitable pas­sage of time. As the jour­ney pro­gress­es, he reflects on Eloise Strike and her father, Wal­ter, sens­ing a con­nec­tion that hints they might be on sim­i­lar paths, dri­ven by a shared quest or loss tied to Mya Lev­ane. This chap­ter explores themes of mem­o­ry, loss, and the ongo­ing search for under­stand­ing as Patch wres­tles with the echoes of his past, the lessons learned, and the painful truths still yet to be uncov­ered.

Through­out this chap­ter, the jux­ta­po­si­tion of Patch’s exter­nal jour­ney and his inter­nal reflec­tion reveals a deep­en­ing sense of unre­solved grief and emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty. His encounter with Mya Levane’s death and the mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing it sets the stage for fur­ther explo­ration of his past and the unre­solved con­nec­tions that con­tin­ue to haunt him. The con­trast between the beau­ty of Charleston’s man­sions and the hard­ships of the home­less peo­ple he encoun­ters serves as a pow­er­ful metaphor for Patch’s inter­nal battle—caught between moments of gen­eros­i­ty and kind­ness and the weight of past trau­ma. Patch’s jour­ney on the bus, marked by his reflec­tions and con­tem­pla­tion, under­scores the idea that time and expe­ri­ences shape one’s path, yet the past con­tin­ues to hold an inescapable grip on his future deci­sions.

The recur­ring themes of mem­o­ry and loss in this chap­ter are intri­cate­ly woven into Patch’s per­son­al nar­ra­tive, as he begins to piece togeth­er the con­nec­tions between his own search for answers and the mys­ter­ies sur­round­ing Mya Lev­ane. The par­al­lel between Patch and the fig­ures of Eloise and Wal­ter sug­gests that they are bound by a shared sor­row or pur­suit, push­ing him fur­ther into the depths of his per­son­al inves­ti­ga­tion. The com­plex emo­tions Patch expe­ri­ences dur­ing this chap­ter reveal the inter­nal strug­gles that often go unno­ticed by oth­ers but shape his actions and deci­sions. This chap­ter empha­sizes the sig­nif­i­cance of under­stand­ing one’s past in order to move for­ward, while also acknowl­edg­ing the emo­tion­al weight car­ried by indi­vid­u­als who have been touched by loss, fur­ther draw­ing read­ers into Patch’s mul­ti­fac­eted jour­ney.