“You’ve been on this whole road before,” he told me. “Start at the other side of the bridge.”

“I never thought of that. I figured I had to do the whole thing, every inch.”

“Maybe you won’t have to, maybe you will, but the bridge will be easy to cross when you’ve covered everything else. Maybe there’s nothing of value on the bridge and maybe there is, but you can’t get near it till you’ve looked everywhere else.”

“Let’s go.” I was real eager, somehow.

“Mind a suggestion?”

“No.”

“Just talk,” he said. “Don’t try to get too far into what you’re saying. That first stretch, when you were eight—you really lived it. The second one, all about the kids, you just talked about. Then, the visit when you were eleven, you felt that. Now just talk again.”

“All right.”

He waited, then said quietly, “In the library. You told her about the other kids.”

I told her about…and then she said…and something happened, and I screamed. She confronted me and I cussed at her.

But we’re not thinking about that now. We’re going on.

In the library. The leather, the table, and whether I’m able to do with Miss Kew what Lone said.

What Lone said was, “There’s a woman lives up on the top of the hill on the Heights section, name of Kew. She’ll have to take care of you. You got to get her to do that. Do everything she tells you, only stay together. Don’t you ever let any one of you get away from the others, hear? Aside from that, just you keep Miss Kew happy and she’ll keep you happy. Now you do what I say.” That’s what Lone said. Between every word there was a link like steel cable, and the whole thing made something that couldn’t be broken. Not by me it couldn’t.

Miss Kew said, “Where are your sisters and the baby?”

“I’ll bring ’em.”

“Is it near here?”

“Near enough.” She didn’t say anything to that so I got up. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Wait,” she said. “I—really, I haven’t had time to think. I mean—I’ve got to get things ready, you know.”

I said, “You don’t need to think and you are ready. So long.”

From the door I heard her saying, louder and louder as I walked away, “Young man, if you’re to live in this house, you’ll learn to be a good deal better mannered—” and a lot more of the same.

I yelled back at her, “Okay, okay!” and went out.

The sun was warm and the sky was good, and pretty soon I got back to Lone’s house. The fire was out and Baby stunk. Janie had knocked over her easel and was sitting on the floor by the door with her head in her hands. Bonnie and Beanie were on a stool with their arms around each other, pulled up together as close as they could get, as if it was cold in there, although it wasn’t. I hit Janie in the arm to snap her out of it. She raised her head. She had gray eyes—or maybe it was more a kind of green—but now they had a funny look about them, like water in a glass that had some milk left in the bottom of it.

I said, “What’s the matter around here?”

“What’s the matter with what?” she wanted to know.

“All of yez,” I said.

She said, “We don’t give a damn, that’s all.”

“Well, all right,” I said, “but we got to do what Lone said. Come on.”

“No.” I looked at the twins. They turned their backs on me. Janie said, “They’re hungry.”

“Well, why not give ’em something?”

She just shrugged. I sat down. What did Lone have to go get himself squashed for?

“We can’t blesh no more,” said Janie. It seemed to explain everything.

“Look,” I said, “I’ve got to be Lone now.”

Janie thought about that, and Baby kicked his feet. Janie looked at him. “You can’t,” she said.

“I know where to get the heavy food and the turpentine,” I said.

“I can find that springy moss to stuff in the logs, and cut wood, and all.”

But I couldn’t call Bonnie and Beanie from miles away to unlock doors. I couldn’t just say a word to Janie and make her get water and blow up the fire and fix the battery. I couldn’t make us blesh.

We all stayed like that for a long time. Then I heard the bassinet creak. I looked up. Janie was staring into it.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“Who says so?”

“Baby.”

“Who’s running things now?” I said, mad. “Me or Baby?”

“Baby,” Janie said.

I got up and went over to bust her one in the mouth, and then I stopped. If Baby could make them do what Lone wanted, then it would get done. If I started pushing them all around, it wouldn’t. So I didn’t say anything. Janie got up and walked out the door. The twins watched her go. Then Bonnie disappeared. Beanie picked up Bonnie’s clothes and walked out. I got Baby out of the bassinet and draped him over my shoulders.

It was better when we were all outside. It was getting late in the day and the air was warm. The twins flitted in and out of the trees like a couple of flying squirrels, and Janie and I walked along like we were going swimming or something. Baby started to kick, and Janie looked at him a while and got him fed, and he was quiet again.

When we came close to town, I wanted to get everybody close together, but I was afraid to say anything. Baby must of said it instead. The twins came back to us and Janie gave them their clothes and they walked ahead of us, good as you please. I don’t know how Baby did it. They sure hated to travel that way.

We didn’t have no trouble except one guy we met on the street near Miss Kew’s place. He stopped in his tracks and gaped at us, and Janie looked at him and made his hat go so far down over his eyes that he like to pull his neck apart getting it back up again.

What do you know, when we got to the house somebody had washed off all the dirt I’d put on the door. I had one hand on Baby’s arm and one on his ankle and him draped over my neck, so I kicked the door and left some more dirt.

“There’s a woman here, name of Miriam,” I told Janie. “She says anything, tell her to go to hell.”

The door opened and there was Miriam. She took one look and jumped back six feet. We all trailed inside. Miriam got her wind and screamed, “Miss Kew! Miss Kew!”

“Go to hell,” said Janie, and looked at me. I didn’t know what to do. It was the first time Janie ever did anything I told her to.