It was hard to imagine anyone objecting to these kindly people. Then again, similar prejudices were among the reasons peculiars had withdrawn from society. Such was the way the sad world turned.
The children and I dismounted. I stood behind the others, hoping no one would notice my trembling legs. Just as we were about to go, Bekhir’s boy sprang down from his father’s horse and cried, “Wait! Take me with you!”
“I thought you were going to talk to him,” Emma said to Millard.
“I
The boy pulled a knapsack from the saddlebag and slung it over his shoulder. He was packed and ready to go. “I can cook,” he said, “and chop wood, and ride a horse, and tie all sorts of knots!”
“Someone give him a merit badge,” said Enoch.
“I’m afraid it’s impossible,” Emma said to him gently.
“But I’m like you—and becoming more so all the time!” The boy began to unbuckle his pants. “Look what’s happening to me!”
Before anyone could stop him, he’d sent his pants to his ankles. The girls gasped and looked away. Hugh shouted, “Keep your trousers on, you depraved lunatic!”
But there was nothing to see—he was invisible from the mid-section down. Morbid curiosity compelled me to peek at the underside of his visible half, which earned me a crystal-clear view of the inner workings of his bowels.
“Look how much I’ve disappeared since yesterday,” Radi said, his voice panicky. “Soon I’ll be gone altogether!”
The Gypsy men gawked and murmured. Even their horses seemed disturbed, shying away from what seemed to be a disembodied child.
“I’ll be winged!” said Enoch. “He’s only half there.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” said Bronwyn. “Can’t we keep him?”
“We aren’t some traveling circus you can join whenever the notion takes you,” said Enoch. “We’re on a dangerous mission to save our ymbryne, and in no position to play babysitter to a clueless new peculiar!”
The boy’s eyes grew wide and began to water, and he let his knapsack slide off his shoulder and fall to the road.
Emma took Enoch aside. “That was too harsh,” she said. “Now tell him you’re sorry.”
“I won’t. This is a ridiculous waste of our precious and dwindling time.”
