The Singing Bone by Beth Hahn Page B

Are you connected?” Allegra pulled her long black hair over one shoulder and lit a cigarette. She passed the pack around the table.
    â€œConnected?” Stover asked.
    â€œLike twins,” Allegra explained. “You know how if one gets hurt the other one feels it? That kind of thing.”
    â€œIs that true?” Alice asked.
    Allegra nodded. “There was something in Psychology Today about it,” she said.
    â€œI guess. Sometimes,” Molly said. “Like if Alice is upset about something, I totally know. I can usually guess what it is, too.”
    â€œWhat does Alice get upset about?” Mr. Wyck looked from Molly to Alice, but neither of them answered. Alice flushed and Molly shook her head and shrugged. “That’s called empathy,” Mr. Wyck said. “When we’re upset about something, it’s because we’re holding on to things, collecting, if you will, emotions and thoughts. Say you have something that belonged to someone else and whenever you look at that thing, you feel sad. You don’t know why, but it’s because you’re absorbing fear and pain.” He touched Alice’s hand again, but this time she had it under the table and she almost jumped, because she was thinking of her mother and the narrow hallways filled with other people’s belongings, filled with sorrow. His voice was so soothing—listening to him was like following a path. “No one should ever give you her fear and pain,” he said. “Never.” He squeezed Alice’s hand once and then let it go.
    Allegra sighed. “You said it, baby.”
    Mr. Wyck laughed. “Tell me.” He leaned forward, looking at each of them in turn. “Do you know what each of you is really good at?”
    â€œOh my god, yes,” Trina said. “Molly’s crazy creative. She can dance and sew and do hair. And Stover can play the guitar and fix shit. Like you’ve got a bike and the brakes are crap, Stover can look at it and know what needs work.”
    â€œYou,” Molly said, looking at Trina. “People love you. They want to look at you and talk to you. You are mysterious and beautiful.”
    â€œWhat about Alice?” Mr. Wyck asked, looking at her. “What’s Alice good at?”
    Alice liked it when Mr. Wyck said her name. Like Dan, he made it into something different. Was he handsome? She couldn’t decide. Hadn’t she read, in one of Molly’s magazines, that beauty could be measured by the evenness of one’s features? She’d looked at her face in the mirror for days after reading that, wondering if her eyes were perfectly parallel, if her nose were straight and her mouth centered just below. She remembered her doll’s faces: the round, rolling, long-lashed click of the lids over the eyes, the slightly turned-up nose, the tiny pink sweetheart mouth. Molly’s face, certainly, had that quality, but with her own it was hard to know. She’d wanted to ask, but it was a strange thing to ask someone. Are my features even?
    Mr. Wyck’s features weren’t even. His eyes sat too close together, she thought, and nestled in the sockets below, the skin held that unearned darkness. A thick crease of worry beset the bridge of his nose, and when he turned his chin up, she saw that his nose was crooked. Perhaps it had been broken? She wanted to ask him for the story. Maybe he’d turn his gaze fully upon her as he had earlier, when she’d fought the urge to look away, as if whatever fire made him go was too bright. He squints, she thought, but the jaw, that was solid. Square, with the unintentional beginnings of a beard. When he listened, he sometimes rubbed the rough stubble, one elbow resting on the table, his mouth slightly open. His lower lip was full and soft, but his upper was thin, like a taut bow. His hair was closely cropped, light colored, but decidedly brown. She was surprised it wasn’t