the library floor with bundles of new children’s picture books and lots of cool comic books that Giles has bought for them. When at last they become bored, Nanny Sayo retrieves the scattered reading material to stack it on a table.
At one point, Crispin turns and finds himself standing over the woman as she kneels to gather the discarded comics. He is looking down the scooped neck of her blouse, where he sees on the curve of one breast a birthmark identical to that on Mr. Mordred’s forehead.
As if she is aware of his attention, Nanny Sayo begins to raise her head. Crispin turns away, flustered, before their eyes can meet.
Although he is only nine, he is embarrassed to have been staring at her breasts, the sight of which has affected him in some new and disturbing way that he can’t define. His face burns. His heart knocks so loud he thinks Nanny Sayo must hear it.
Later, in bed, he wonders how Mr. Mordred and Nanny Sayo can have the same birthmark. Maybe it’s something contagious, like a head cold or the flu.
He feels sorry for Nanny Sayo, though at least her disfigurement is in a less visible place than Mr. Mordred’s.
That night he dreams of Nanny Sayo dancing naked in firelight. She has several horsefly birthmarks, not just one, and they are not fixed. They crawl across her skin.
Crispin wakes in the morning with a fever, plagued by nausea and aching muscles.
His mother says that he’s just caught a virus. Antibiotics won’t help him cast off a virus. He must remain in bed a day or two until it passes. She sees no need to call a doctor.
During the day, Crispin reads and takes short naps and reads again. The book is an adventure story set at sea and on various tropical islands.
Although the author has kept the tone light and has never put the young leads in any danger that they couldn’t handily escape, although no characters in the novel are named Crispin or Harley or Mirabell, near twilight he turns the last page and reads this line:
In disbelief, Crispin reads the line again.
His heart races, and he cries out, but the cry largely dies in his throat. He drops the book, throws off the covers and erupts from bed. As he gets to his feet, dizziness overcomes him. He totters a few steps, collapses.
When he regains consciousness, he knows that little time has passed because the formerly pending twilight has just arrived. The sky beyond the windows is purple pressing toward a red horizon.
His dizziness has passed, but he feels weak.
He gets to his knees, claws the book from the bed, and dares to read the last page again. The words he saw before are gone. No mention is made of Mirabell, Harley, Crispin, slaughter, rats, or sharp-beaked birds.
With trembling hands, he closes the book and puts it on the nightstand.
Wondering if a delusion born of fever had put the words before him on the page, he returns to bed. He is more worried than afraid, but then more confused than worried, and finally exhausted.
A chill overtakes him. He pulls the covers up to his chin.
When Nanny Sayo rolls a service cart into his room with a bed tray that holds his dinner, Crispin first intends to tell her about the threatening words in the book. But he is embarrassed to have been so frightened by something that, in the end, proved to be entirely imaginary.
He doesn’t want Nanny Sayo to think he is, at nine years of age, still a big baby. He wants her to be proud of him.
His sick-boy dinner consists of lime Jell-O, buttered toast, hot chocolate, and chicken noodle soup. Anticipating that her patient might not have much appetite, that he might take his dinner in fits and starts, Nanny Sayo has put the chocolate and the soup in separate thermos bottles to ensure that they stay warm.
When Crispin expresses disinterest in the food, Nanny Sayo leaves the footed tray on the cart.
She perches on the edge of his bed and urges him to sit up. As Crispin leans against the headboard, Nanny Sayo takes his hand to time his pulse.
He likes watching her face as she stares solemnly at his wrist, counting his heartbeats.
“Just a little fast,” she says.
A curious disappointment overcomes him when she lets go of his wrist. He wishes she would continue to hold his hand, though he does not know why he has this desire.
He is consoled when she presses one hand to his forehead.
“Just a little fever,” she says, though it seems to him that her palm and slender fingers are hotter than his brow.
To his surprise, she undoes the first two buttons of his pajama top and places her delicate hand on his chest. She has already taken his pulse. He doesn’t understand why she would need to feel the thump of his heart, if that is indeed what she’s doing.
She moves her hand slowly back and forth. Slowly and smoothly. Smoothly.
He almost feels that she could make him well just by her touch.
Removing her hand from his chest, leaving the buttons undone, she says, “You’re a strong boy. You’ll be well soon. Just rest and eat all your dinner. You need to eat to get well.”
“All right,” he says.
She stares into his eyes. Her eyes are very dark.
She says, “Nanny knows best.”
In her eyes, he sees twin reflections of himself.
“Doesn’t Nanny know best?” she asks.
“I guess so. Sure.”
He sees the moon in her eyes. Then he realizes it is only a reflection of his bedside lamp.
“Trust Nanny,” she says, “and you’ll get well. Do you trust Nanny?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Eat your dinner before you go to sleep.”
“I will.”
“All your dinner.”
“Yes.”
Leaning forward, she kisses his brow.
She meets his eyes again. Her face is very close to his.
“Trust Nanny.”
On her breath is the scent of lemons as she kisses one corner of his mouth. Her lips are so soft against the corner of his mouth.
Nanny Sayo is almost to the door before Crispin realizes that she has risen from the edge of his bed.
Before stepping into the hallway, she looks back at him. And smiles.
Alone, watching TV but comprehending none of what he sees, Crispin eats the Jell-O. He eats the buttered toast and drinks the hot chocolate.
He isn’t delirious anymore, but he’s not himself, either. He feels … adrift, as though his bed is floating on a placid sea.
The chicken noodle soup will be too much. He will eat it later. Nanny Sayo has said that he must.
After returning the tray to the cart and after visiting the bathroom — he has one of his own — Crispin settles in bed once more.
He turns off the TV but not the bedside lamp. Night waits at the windows.
Tired, so tired, he closes his eyes.
In spite of having eaten the toast and drunk the hot chocolate, he can still vaguely taste her lemony kiss.
He dreams. He would not be surprised if he dreamed of Nanny Sayo, but he dreams instead of Mr. Mordred, their teacher.
Crispin, Harley, and Mirabell are sitting at a reading table in the library. Mr. Mordred strides back and forth in
