'Oh now,' Jacob chided, 'think again.' Will obeyed. And as had happened several times in Steep's presence, his mind grew strange to itself, filling with thoughts it had never dared before. He looked down at his guilty hands, and the blood seemed to throb on them, as though the memory of the bird's pulse was still in it. And while he looked he turned over what Jacob had just said. Suppose they were the last, the very last, and the deed he'd just done irreversible. No resurrections here. Not tonight; not ever. Suppose they were the last, blue and brown. The last that would ever hop that way, sing that way, court and mate and make more birds who hopped and sang and courted that way. 'Oh ...' he murmured, beginning to understand. 'I ... changed the world a little bit, didn't I?' He turned and looked up at Jacob. 'That's it, isn't it? That's what I did! I changed the world.' 'Maybe ...' Jacob said. There was a tiny smile of satisfaction on his face, that his pupil was so swift. 'If these were the last, perhaps it was more than a little.' 'Are they?' Will said. 'The last, I mean?' 'Would you like them to be?' Will wanted it too much for words. All he could do was nod. 'Another night, perhaps,' .Jacob said. 'But not tonight. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but these- he looked down at the bodies in the grass -are as common as moths.' Will felt as though he'd just been given a present, and found it was just an empty box. 'I know how it is, Will. What you're feeling now. Your hands tell you you've done something wonderful, but you look around and nothing much seems to have changed. Am I right?' 'Yes,' he said. He suddenly wanted to wipe the worthless blood off his hands. They'd been so quick and so clever; they deserved better. The blood of something rare; something whose passing would be of consequence. He bent down and, plucking up a fistful of sharp grass, began to scrub his palms clean. 'So what do we do now?' he said as he worked. 'I don't want to stay here any longer. I want to ...' He didn't finish his chatter, however, for at that moment a ripple passed through the air surrounding them, as though the earth itself had expelled a tiny breath. He ceased his scrubbing and slowly rose to his feet, letting the grass drop. 'What was that?' he whispered. 'You did it, not I,' Jacob replied. There was a tone in his voice Will had not heard before, and it wasn't comforting. 'What did I do?' Will said, looking all around for some explanation. But there was nothing that hadn't been there all along. Just the trees, and the snow and the stars. 'I don't want this,' Jacob was murmuring. 'Do you hear me? I don't
want this.' All the weight had vanished from his voice; so had the certainty. Will looked around at him. Saw his stricken face. 'Don't want what?' Will asked him. Jacob turned his fretful gaze in Will's direction. 'You've more power in you than you realize, boy,' he said. 'A lot more.' 'But I didn't do anything,' Will protested. 'You're a conduit.' 'I'm a what?' 'Damn it, why didn't I see? Why didn't I see?' He backed away from Will, as the air shook again, more violently than before. 'Oh Christ in Heaven. I don't want this.' His anguish made Will panic. This wasn't what he wanted to hear from his idol. He'd done all he'd been asked to do. He'd killed the birds, cleaned and returned the knife; even put a brave face on his disappointment. So why was his deliverer retreating from him as though Will were a rabid dog? 'Please...' he said to Steep, 'I didn't mean it, whatever it was I did, I'm sorry... But Jacob just continued to retreat. 'It's not you. It's us. I don't want your eyes going where I've been. Not there, at least. Not to him. Not to Thomas-' He was starting to babble again, and Will, certain his saviour was about to run, and equally certain that once he was gone it would be over between them, reached and grabbed hold of the man's sleeve. Jacob cried out, and tried to shake himself free, but in doing so Will's hand, seeking better purchase, caught hold of his fingers. Their touching had made Will strong before; he'd climbed the hill light-footed because Jacob's flesh had been laid on his. But the business of the knife had wrought some change in him. He was no longer a passive recipient of strength. His bloodied fingers had been granted talents of their own, and he could not control them. He heard Jacob cry out a second time. Or was it his own voice? No, it was both. Two sobs, rising as though from a single throat. Jacob had been right to be afraid. The same rippling breath that had distracted Will from cleaning his hands was here again, increased a hundredfold, and this time it inhaled the very world in which they stood. Earth and sky shuddered and were in an instant reconfigured, leaving them each in their terror: Will sobbing that he did not know what was happening; Jacob, that he did.
CHAPTER X
i
Later, with the good butcher Donnelly dead, Geoffrey Sauls, who had accompanied him into the Courthouse that night, would offer a bowdlerized version of what happened within. This he did to protect both the memory of the deceased man, who'd been his drinking and darts partner for seventeen years, and Donnelly's widow, whose grief would have been cruelly exacerbated by the truth. Which was: that they had climbed the steps of the Courthouse thinking that perhaps they'd be the heroes of the night. There was somebody inside, no doubt of that, and more than likely it was the runaway. Who else was it going to be, they reasoned. Donnelly had been a pace or two ahead of Sauls, and had therefore arrived in the Courtroom first. Sauls had heard him mutter something awestruck and had come to Donnelly's side to find not the missing boy but a woman, standing in the middle of the chamber. There were two or three fat candles set on the ground close to where she stood, and by their flattering light he saw that she was partially undressed. Her breasts, which had a gloss of sweat upon them, were bared, and she'd hoisted up her skirt high enough that her hand could roam between her legs, a smile spreading across her face as she pleasured herself. Though her body was firm (her breasts rode as high as an eighteen-year-olds) her features bore the stamp of experience. Not that she was lined or flabby; her skin was perfect. But there was about her lips and eyes a confidence that belied her flawless cheeks and brow. In short, Sauls knew the instant he set eyes upon her that this was a woman who knew her mind. He didn't like that one bit.