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showed you. Do it now."
Aiffe wriggled under his arm, refusing to look straight at Sia.
"Nick, let's go, I need some more practice, okay?" Her acne patches
were boiling up like stigmata.
"Focus," the boy said. "You can do it, it's just focusing. Just
like in the park, exactly the same, now." He turned her body between
his hands with a raging precision, aiming her. She neither resisted nor
cooperated, but kept whimpering, "Nick, I want to go, let's go home."
Nicholas Bonner took hold of her limp arm, holding it out, making her
point at Sia.
Farrell gave up trying to lift Ben and began hauling him away
from the door. He heard Sia's voice, full of a terrifying pity, "Child,
no," and the boy saying, "_Now_," as the air suddenly smelled violently
of lightning and the vast inhalation happened a second time. Farrell
scrambled toward the stairs, feeling the old house lunging and aching
in the ground, while the walls curtsied slowly to each other and the
chess table, the chairs, and the fire tongs hurtled into his legs. He
held fast to Ben, pulling against a power like the disemboweling
undertow of a sinking ship. The floor seemed to be slanting steeply
under him, and he knew that he heard the girl cry out in bitter shock
and pain, a chattering moan that laid Farrell's spine bare. But it was
Nicholas Bonner's voice, not hers; and with that, chaos came to an end
almost as confounding as itself. In the tumbled, freezing house, the
only sound was Sia's rasping sigh. Ben had finally stopped saying her
name.
"You see," she said without triumph. "You cannot come in. Not
even with her to make the way."
Aiffe was almost doubled over Nicholas Bonner's supporting arms,
her mouth wrenched up at one corner like a hooked fish. Farrell half
expected to see the boy drop her; but the dreadfully perfect face had
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already smoothed itself back into a bright mask of pleasure, and
Nicholas Bonner held Aiffe most gently, stroking her shoulders, drawing
his fingers down the back of her neck. He was murmuring to her, so
quietly that Farrell could not hear the sound of the words.
"She is not harmed," Sia said. "Take her home. And if there is
any mercy in you, any--" She struggled briefly to say something that
could not even be thought in English, then used a phrase in the wind-
language. "--then leave her there, leave her alone. She can never do
what you want; she has not that kind of power. You have made a mistake
about her. Let her go."
Ben was sitting up with Farrell's aid, speaking calmly and rather
cheerfully in Old Norse. The lights of a passing car swam over the
porch, and Farrell saw Nicholas Bonner carefully lift Aiffe and turn
her toward him to lean her head on his chest. He smiled at her with
something so much like tenderness that it chilled Farrell's heart twice
over: once because in that moment the boy looked like someone who had
always loved Aiffe deeply; and again because Farrell had no doubt that
that particular smile was Nicholas Bonner's top-of-the-line model, the
very best he could ever do. A dark splotch was spreading slowly on the
girl's jeans, and Farrell realized that she had wet herself.
Nicholas Bonner raised his clear eyes to Sia. He said, "But it's
what she wants. She called me here, she asked for my guidance--demanded
it, really--and if I left her now, she'd come right after me, she'd
come looking." He chuckled fondly, caressing Aiffe's matted hair. "Oh,
and you _would_ find me, too," he praised her, slipping into a baby-
talk singsong. "Oh, yes, yes, she would, of course you would." He might
have been crooning to a wriggly puppy.
Aiffe was still plainly too dazed to stand, and abruptly he
picked her up in his arms, holding her easily as he confronted Sia. The
Sunday-best smile withered to a cicatrice on the soft golden face.
Nicholas Bonner whispered, "She has no idea how close she came. You and
I know." Sia did not move or reply. The boy said, "That kind of power.
She almost broke you. Ignorant, unpracticed, frightened out of her few
wits, she almost walked over you. You aren't quite senile enough not to
know."
Ben began to chant very loudly, thumping the time on Farrell's
knee: "_Hygg, visi, at--Vel soemir pat--Hve ek pylja fet--Ef ek pogn of
get_." The tune was dull, but it had a fine swing.
Nicholas Bonner said politely, "Till next time. Or the time after
that." He turned and walked away, carrying Aiffe as if she were his
partner in one of the old court dances. On the porch steps, he stopped
and set her on her feet, keeping an arm firmly around her. Aiffe
staggered once, clutching at him. They moved slowly off down Scotia
Street, leaning their heads together like dreaming lovers.
Sia said, "Joe." Farrell propped Ben against a newel post and
went to her. She made no room for him in the doorway, and he felt
uneasy about squeezing in beside her, so he stood cautiously at her
shoulder, watching her watch the street.
Behind them, Ben droned, "_Flestr maor of fra--Hvat fylkir va_,"
and outside, the Avicenna night flowed past Sia's house, bearing
someone's barbecue guffaw and the crackling bustle of a baseball game
approaching on a portable stereo. Farrell caught a twinkle that he
thought might be Nicholas Bonner's T-shirt vanishing behind a camper
truck. His right knee ached where the fire tongs had bruised it.
"I cannot control what you will remember of this," she said. "I
don't think I can." She turned to face him for the first time since
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