insane. Did she think this was the
fifties
? I didn’t need some guy to look after me. I could look after myself.
I hurried to administration to give Cowboy my medical records before the bell rang, but the office was empty. Even the statue had gone. I’d turned to leave, assuming the staff were in a meeting or something, when the long stretch of window on the other side of the counter began to rattle.
My first thought was that the wind must be high and hard, but the scene outside the window was placid; the trees across the street could have been sculpted, their pale yellow leaves motionless. The perennial East Texas cloud cover eased momentarily and allowed a shaft of sunlight to blaze forth. The light struck the windows. …
It was as though I were standing before a row of stained glass.
Reds and blues and yellows pinwheeled across the window. Colored light lasered into the office, falling across my dress, my skin.
A lone swirl of green flowed down the glass in a long, snaky line, dragging one of the pinwheels in its wake. At thebottom of the window the line of green spilled out and thickened, hitting the tile floor with a sound like wet clay before it lengthened and darkened, stretching upward, shape-shifting into black boots. Blue jeans. Green shirt. Smooth brown neck. Dark, closely shaved hair.
It was Wyatt before me, his back to me. Wyatt had poured from the glass.
The clouds regrouped once more and swallowed the sun, and the pinwheels of color in the glass disappeared, except for the one Wyatt, arms straining, had pulled halfway from the window, forcing it to lose its flat, pinwheel shape and all its color so that he seemed to have hold of a trickling stream of water.
I must have made a noise, because Wyatt whipped his head around. Saw me. Gaped. “What’re you—?”
He lost his grip on the sparkling mass, which, like a rubber band, immediately snapped back to the window. Wyatt, catlike, grabbed it before it could be fully reabsorbed into the glass.
“Is that a lure?”
“Get outta here!” Wyatt yelled, pulling that long, sparkling strand—of light? of glass?—farther from the window.
I didn’t get out. My body didn’t seem inclined to take orders from either Wyatt or me. I was in the presence of the one person on Earth who was more of a freak than I was; I wouldn’t have left even if I’d been able to.
He tried to reach into his pocket, but the struggling lure—was it a lure?—whipped forward and pulled him off balance. Before Wyatt’s face could smack into the window, he got his booted foot up between him and the wall and used the leverage to push himself and the lure he’d captured away from the glass.
My head felt stuffed with cotton, not because of the earplugs I had taken to wearing in school like everyone else, but because I couldn’t take it all in, couldn’t focus on the existence of lure
and
a boy who could flow in and out of window glass at will. Not at the same time.
“Hanna!”
“I don’t have to go if I don’t want to.” Extremity had turned me into a five-year-old.
“I don’t want you to go,” said Wyatt, sweating and fighting to keep hold of the lure. “I want you to reach into my pocket and—Hanna! Are you listening?”
“Okay.”
“Get the red card from my right front pocket.”
I moved forward past the counter, super-slow, as though I were in a dream where the air was thick and spongy and hard to move through. Up close, a thin reflection of my face drifted across the glassine surface of the lure in Wyatt’s hands; I looked like a ghost.
“Hanna! The card!”
I stood within kissing distance of Wyatt, close enough to smell his sweat and the minty gum on his breath. Rummaging in the pants of a boy you intensely disliked had to be the most obnoxious chore in the world.
The pocket of Wyatt’s dark jeans was warm, but the cards I encountered were chill enough to numb the tips of my fingers. I pulled out the small deck, half the size of regular playing
fifties
? I didn’t need some guy to look after me. I could look after myself.
I hurried to administration to give Cowboy my medical records before the bell rang, but the office was empty. Even the statue had gone. I’d turned to leave, assuming the staff were in a meeting or something, when the long stretch of window on the other side of the counter began to rattle.
My first thought was that the wind must be high and hard, but the scene outside the window was placid; the trees across the street could have been sculpted, their pale yellow leaves motionless. The perennial East Texas cloud cover eased momentarily and allowed a shaft of sunlight to blaze forth. The light struck the windows. …
It was as though I were standing before a row of stained glass.
Reds and blues and yellows pinwheeled across the window. Colored light lasered into the office, falling across my dress, my skin.
A lone swirl of green flowed down the glass in a long, snaky line, dragging one of the pinwheels in its wake. At thebottom of the window the line of green spilled out and thickened, hitting the tile floor with a sound like wet clay before it lengthened and darkened, stretching upward, shape-shifting into black boots. Blue jeans. Green shirt. Smooth brown neck. Dark, closely shaved hair.
It was Wyatt before me, his back to me. Wyatt had poured from the glass.
The clouds regrouped once more and swallowed the sun, and the pinwheels of color in the glass disappeared, except for the one Wyatt, arms straining, had pulled halfway from the window, forcing it to lose its flat, pinwheel shape and all its color so that he seemed to have hold of a trickling stream of water.
I must have made a noise, because Wyatt whipped his head around. Saw me. Gaped. “What’re you—?”
He lost his grip on the sparkling mass, which, like a rubber band, immediately snapped back to the window. Wyatt, catlike, grabbed it before it could be fully reabsorbed into the glass.
“Is that a lure?”
“Get outta here!” Wyatt yelled, pulling that long, sparkling strand—of light? of glass?—farther from the window.
I didn’t get out. My body didn’t seem inclined to take orders from either Wyatt or me. I was in the presence of the one person on Earth who was more of a freak than I was; I wouldn’t have left even if I’d been able to.
He tried to reach into his pocket, but the struggling lure—was it a lure?—whipped forward and pulled him off balance. Before Wyatt’s face could smack into the window, he got his booted foot up between him and the wall and used the leverage to push himself and the lure he’d captured away from the glass.
My head felt stuffed with cotton, not because of the earplugs I had taken to wearing in school like everyone else, but because I couldn’t take it all in, couldn’t focus on the existence of lure
and
a boy who could flow in and out of window glass at will. Not at the same time.
“Hanna!”
“I don’t have to go if I don’t want to.” Extremity had turned me into a five-year-old.
“I don’t want you to go,” said Wyatt, sweating and fighting to keep hold of the lure. “I want you to reach into my pocket and—Hanna! Are you listening?”
“Okay.”
“Get the red card from my right front pocket.”
I moved forward past the counter, super-slow, as though I were in a dream where the air was thick and spongy and hard to move through. Up close, a thin reflection of my face drifted across the glassine surface of the lure in Wyatt’s hands; I looked like a ghost.
“Hanna! The card!”
I stood within kissing distance of Wyatt, close enough to smell his sweat and the minty gum on his breath. Rummaging in the pants of a boy you intensely disliked had to be the most obnoxious chore in the world.
The pocket of Wyatt’s dark jeans was warm, but the cards I encountered were chill enough to numb the tips of my fingers. I pulled out the small deck, half the size of regular playing
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