footsteps receded.
“I thought humans were supposed to be kind to their mothers,” said Knife to Paul, who pretended not to hear. He opened the window and stuck his head out.
“Right, she’s gone,” he said a few moments later, wheeling around. “Let’s go.”
Knife jumped onto the seat beside him, looping her arm around a steel post for support. Paul barely gave her time to sit down before he began to move again, steering the chair across the room and out into the hallway.
Opening the front door was simple enough, but they had to take two runs at the frame before they cleared it. Then as Paul’s chair bumped down the wooden ramp and onto the gravel drive, Knife thought her teeth would rattle out of her head. Even when they reached the smoother paving of the road, her jaw still ached.
“May I go now?” she asked, a little peevishly.
“Yes,” said Paul, gliding to a stop. “You can go. Sorry to have kept you.”
Knife hesitated. There was an artificial calm about his manner she did not trust. “Where are you going?” she asked, sliding off the seat and leaping to the ground beside the chair.
“Not far. Just up the road.” He forced a smile. “I could use the exercise.”
“Oh,” said Knife.
“Well, I’m glad to have met you, if only for a little while. Can you get home all right from here?”
Knife curled her fingers about the unfinished hilt of her dagger, feeling the metal’s hardness against her palm. “I’ll be fine.”
“Right, then,” said Paul, too cheerfully. “I’ll just go ahead.” His hands stroked the wheels, and the chair rocked into motion, picking up speed as it rolled down the lane. “Good-bye, Knife,” he called back over his shoulder.
She had thought she would be glad to see him go. But the farther away Paul went the more Knife’s uneasiness grew. She debated a moment, then decided that she would follow him a little way and see where he was going. Not for his sake, of course; just for her own curiosity.
Instinctively she spread her wings, then grimaced and folded them again. No chance of following him that way. She would just have to run, and hope he did not get too far ahead of her. Knife broke into a trot, then threw caution aside and began sprinting after him.
She had followed Paul only a short way down the road when he surprised her by turning the chair away from the pavement, bumping down a grassy incline toward the nearby wood. A path led into the trees, but it was rocky and overgrown, barely wide enough for Paul’s chair. Still, he forced his way onward with such determination that Knife had to scurry to keep up with him.
Eventually the forest thinned, and they entered a clearing where a weed-ringed pool lay at the bottom of a slope, half hidden by stooping elms. Knife looked about, frowning. Why had he come here?
“I’ve always loved this wood,” Paul said aloud, startling her. “It was my favorite place as a kid. I tried to build a house in that tree.” He pointed to the stoutest of the elms.
“You knew I was here?” said Knife.
His mouth bent wryly. “I guessed you might come along. But you’re going to be disappointed. There’s really nothing here to see.”
“Then why did you come?”
He shrugged, his eyes sliding away from hers. “Just a whim. I wanted to look at the old place again.”
Knife nodded distractedly. She walked to the top of the slope, damp earth squashing between her toes. If Paul was telling the truth, then humans were even stranger and more impractical than she’d thought. He’d had enough of a struggle just getting down the hill-how did he think he was going to get back up?
“Knife?” said Paul. “It’s all right, you can go.” Then, with a hint of desperation: “Just-go now. Please.”
Knife did not look back; her eyes were fixed on the pool. It was perhaps thirty crow-lengths wide, and so murky that her eyes could not penetrate its surface.
“I used to swim here when I was young,” said Paul, rolling up behind her. He sounded resigned; he seemed to have realized that she had no intention of leaving. “It wasn’t half so muddy then-or perhaps I just didn’t care how muddy it was.” He gave the wheels another push, and the silver throne lurched past her.
“Paul,” said Knife sharply. “You’re too close!”
For the rest of her life she would never forget the look he gave her then. There was pity in it, and a touch of regret; but on the whole it was a look of terrifying serenity. “Yes,” he said, and with a powerful thrust of both arms he propelled himself straight down the slope.
His wheels hit the mud at the pool’s edge, slowed, stuck fast. Paul toppled out of the chair and hit the oily water with a splash. His legs were dead weight, and he made no effort to move his arms. He simply relaxed into the pool…
…and was gone.
Knife stared at the ripples spreading outward across the gloomy water, the last flurry of bubbles as Paul’s bright hair sank beneath the surface. Her throat closed up, and a dull pain spread beneath her rib cage.
There was nothing she could do. With her crippled wing she couldn’t fly for help, and she was far too tiny to rescue him by herself…
Knife’s shoulders slumped. She turned away, took one step-then spun around, hurtled down the slope, and dove straight into the pool.
Her hands swept circles through the grainy water, searching the spot where he had sunk, but touched nothing. She broke the surface for a gasping breath and dove deeper, flailing in all directions; but she snatched at emptiness, and when she came up again she found nothing but black water running from her hands.
One more time, she pledged silently. Come on, go! Again she dove, as deep as she could, kicking a little sideways this time. Her left arm sliced down through the water And her hand closed on something soft. Paul’s shirt. She grabbed it with both hands and hauled, legs thrashing, every muscle strained to its limit. But even as she struggled, she knew it was hopeless: She could never hope to lift him so much as a beetle-length, let alone drag him to the surface. She had to let go, before she drowned as well.
Yet something in her refused to give up. She tugged again, fiercely, as her vision filled with sparkling lights. A million tiny moths fluttered beneath her skin, and she felt as though her lungs were bursting. Was this death?
Still clutching Paul’s shirt, she gave one last kick-and shot upward, shattering the pool’s surface. She flung her head back and gulped air, then scissored her legs, propelling herself and the limp body in her grip toward the shore.
Her feet touched bottom almost at once. She stood up and dragged Paul through the shallows to the edge of the pool. His face was spattered with mud, eyes closed and mouth hanging open. Pulling him as far as she could up the shore, she wrenched him onto his side and began to pound his back. He lay motionless as she thumped him, and she feared that she had reached him too late. Then suddenly he coughed, and water gushed from his mouth.
She waited until he had stopped coughing before rolling him over again. His eyes remained closed, but when she laid a hand on his chest she could feel his breathing, ragged at first, but growing deeper. She slapped his cheeks. “Paul. Paul! Can you hear me?”
He did not respond. With her smallest finger she wiped the slime from his lashes, looking for some glimmer of consciousness beneath those lids. “Paul, please-”
His cheeks puffed out in a last, weak cough; he stirred, and opened his eyes.
“Aaaah!”
Alarmed, Knife snatched her hands away from his face. Only then did she realize what had made him cry out, and she stared at her filth-spattered palms in disbelief.
“You,” croaked Paul. “You’re-”
“I’m big,” said Knife blankly.
“You’re human,” said Paul in a voice husky with wonder, and his cold fingers brushed her cheek.
Blood surged into her face; she jerked away from the touch. “I am not!”
“Your hair…” He lifted a strand. “It’s blonde, instead of white. And your eyes look…lighter. Sort of gray.”
“Stop it.” She slapped his hand away. “I may be your size, but I am not human. It must be a trick of the light.”
“Then where are your wings?”
Slowly Knife reached back and felt between her shoulders. “They’ll come back,” she said, fighting to keep the
