It was a steep two-hour scramble down to the North Fork and a tough four-hour pull back up. Daniel had expected to see the river gliding smooth and bright along a wide plain; instead, high with the late winter runoff, it was brawling through a narrow, boulder-strewn gorge. The roar of the coffee-colored water was so loud he didn’t hear the bear crashing through the thin screen of stunted willows toward him. Fortunately, he saw it. He threw a piece of handy driftwood at the bear, and in the same moment vanished. He moved behind the willows, reappeared, and watched. The bear was standing motionless, peering at the stick Daniel had thrown, occasionally wriggling his nose along its length. He touched it with a paw. When it didn’t leap at him, he picked it up in his jaws. Daniel was astonished when the bear shambled down to the river’s edge and almost delicately released the stick into the swift current.
Going to the river each morning was Daniel’s favorite part of the program he developed for himself. Food was a close second. The fresh air and exercise, coupled with a full recovery from Charmaine’s flu, unleashed a tremendous hunger. He ate a huge pre-dawn breakfast before he left for the river. When he returned at noon, it took at least two hours to prepare and demolish lunch. From two to five he read from Volta’s small but excellent library, followed by three hours of dinner. That left eight to nine for vanishing practice. He wasn’t sure if it was perversity or respect, but he followed Volta’s program, vanishing once a day for an additional minute each time. He did this with an ease that quickly became boring. Though Volta hadn’t seemed overly impressed, Daniel felt he’d found the secret – imagining himself invisible by recreating his state of mind, bypassing the mirror, the fall, the fear, leaping the wall instead of drilling through it. If he didn’t have to fight his way through, the energy saved could be used to sustain his stay in invisibility. Daniel was confident he could vanish for an hour easily. The twenty minutes he’d done to impress Volta hadn’t even strained him.
Jump out.
Jump back.
Simple.
Returning from his seventh trip to the river, wondering how much longer Volta would be gone, Daniel spotted a huge deer browsing in a clearing across the draw. It was the biggest deer he’d ever seen. His intuition told him it was a buck, but he couldn’t see any horns. It moved like a buck. Chagrined, he remembered it was late March and the antlers shed in mid-winter would have barely started growing back. He decided to take a closer look. The draw between them was choked with brush, but was no obstacle to those with powers. Daniel vanished, and instead of walking through it, walked it through him.
Daniel’s odor evidently vanished with him since the deer continued feeding, apparently oblivious, as he approached. Daniel noted the swollen, velvety knobs where the new antlers were forming and congratulated his intuition. He thought, If nothing else, this invisibility gets you in close, lets you see the world without the influence of your presence. Yet the closeness was wrong somehow – a voyeur’s intimacy, hollow because it wasn’t reciprocated, sterile because it lacked permission.
Daniel spread his arms out wide and reappeared, announcing cheerfully, ‘Good morning, fellow creature!’
The deer replied by leaping twenty feet straight up, executing a ninety-degree turn in the air. It was already running before it landed. A rear hoof nailed Daniel squarely in the center of his forehead, dropping him to his knees. Hands covering his face, fingertips pressed to the wound as if to hold back the pain, he listened to the buck crash loudly downhill through the brush.
Daniel was examining his forehead in the living room mirror when Volta walked in. Daniel jumped as high as the deer.
‘Pardon me,’ Volta said, ‘I didn’t know you were back.’
‘Me either,’ Daniel yammered. ‘That you were.’
Volta narrowed his gaze. ‘What happened?’
‘I hit my head.’
Volta stepped closer, took Daniel’s head firmly in his hands, and tilted it toward the light. ‘It looks like you were hit with a cloven hoof.’
Daniel twisted his head free and stepped back out of reach.
Volta shot his right arm out, pointing a trembling finger inches from the wound. He bellowed, ‘You bear the mark of Satan! I leave you for one week and you’re claimed among his hellish clan, flesh for his flames, fuel for his sick desires!’
‘All right, goddammit,’ Daniel snapped, ‘a deer kicked me in the head.’ He waited, expecting Volta’s laughter.
Instead, Volta said wearily, ‘Well, are you all right?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ Daniel grunted. He looked at Volta more closely. His eyes were raw and glazed with exhaustion, his face haggard. ‘I’m fine,’ Daniel repeated, ‘but you don’t look so good.’
‘I shouldn’t. It’s been seven long days of nervous waiting for bad news. I’ll give you the grim details after dinner, and we’ll consider possible approaches.’
‘Is it really that grim?’
‘Look at it this way, Danieclass="underline" you are the only break we’re getting.’
Daniel wasn’t sure what that was supposed to reveal. He was still considering when Volta said, ‘How’s the deer’s hoof?’
‘It bounded away nicely, thank you.’
‘That deer must have been truly startled – as if you appeared right in front of him, out of nowhere.’
Daniel wanted to discuss more successful applications of invisibility. ‘Vanishing saved me from a bear.’
‘I wasn’t being critical, Daniel. I’m glad to see it wasn’t all work and no play in my absence.’
‘Other than the bear – which was necessity – and the deer – which was convenience and curiosity – I stuck exactly to your program.’
‘Thank you. Was that out of perversity or respect?’
‘I’m not sure. Probably some of each.’
‘I appreciate your candor. I would also appreciate it if you would cook dinner this evening and not disturb me till it’s ready. I’ve been up thirty hours and have spent the last three on the radio making thousands of tiny, interlinked decisions, some of which may prove crucial to our success. It has lately been forced on my reluctant attention that I’m getting old. No complaints – I am ready to be old – but I can no longer go two days without sleep. I’m tired, Daniel. I’m going to bed.’
‘Dinner around six?’ Daniel said.
Volta nodded in gratitude. ‘Bless you.’
While he was mashing potatoes, Daniel thought of a foolproof way to steal the Diamond. He could hardly wait to cheer up Volta. But when Daniel announced at dinner that he’d thought of a way to steal the Diamond, Volta brusquely said, ‘It can wait. Let’s devote our dinner conversation to a subject appropriate to the season, the erotic unfurling of Spring. Let’s talk about blow jobs.’
Daniel nearly dropped his fork. ‘What?’
‘Blow jobs. Cock-sucking. Fellatio. Let’s talk in particular about two blow jobs: the one you received the night before your mother died and one I was forced to witness while in jail.’