Tears make his eyes sting. He holds his breath to gain control over them. Ancient, intrigued in spite of himself, takes off his glasses.
“Tell me what you were feeling. I can’t know that until you tell me. Let’s talk.”
“It was . . . like arms. Not like they grew out all of a sudden. More the other way around. Like I could choose to have them or not have them. As if arms are not something everyone needs.” Grasshopper is shaking his head and rocking back and forth. “I can’t explain. It’s like I was whole. I thought that’s how the Great Power was.”
“You were whole? When you left here, you were whole?”
“Yes.”
Grasshopper finally lifts his gaze and looks hopefully into the albino’s wine-colored eyes.
“When did it go away? When you returned to your dorm?”
“No. It was there through the night, and the next morning, and for a while after that. And then it went away. I thought it would come back, but it didn’t.”
Ancient’s colorless eyebrows shoot up.
“And even when you tried to do something that you couldn’t do by yourself, you still felt whole? Is that what you’re saying?”
Grasshopper nods. His cheeks are burning.
“I was a bird,” he whispers. “A bird that could fly. It may walk upon the Earth when that’s what it wants, but if it decides . . . as soon as it decides . . . Then it just flies.”
Ancient leans over to him, across the mat, the plates, and the ashtrays. His face no longer seems purely white.
“You felt that you could do whatever you want whenever you decide to want it?”
“Yes.”
“You are a marvel, my boy.”
“It’s not me! It’s the amulet!”
“Ah, yes, of course,” Ancient agrees. “I seem to have forgotten. Well, it looks like it came out even stronger than I thought. I wouldn’t mind making one like that for myself. Pity that’s impossible.”
“Why?” Grasshopper’s voice is full of sympathy.
“Things like that are only given to you once.” Ancient stubs the cigarette in the ashtray. “So you’re saying it stopped working?”
Grasshopper shifts uneasily and licks his parched lips.
“That’s why I came. I mean, I thought I’d wait at first. In case it returned. I waited and waited, and then I decided to come. Ancient, can you help me? Only you can fix it. Put it back.”
Ancient realizes too late that the trap has sprung. He makes a face and looks at his watch.
“I’d love to, but I’m afraid we don’t have much time left. They are going to return soon. And we can’t discuss things like that when others are around. So, some other time. And the power might still come back by then.”
“Tonight it’s a double,” Grasshopper reminds him. The suspicion that Ancient is trying to get rid of him drains all color from his voice. “The movie is a double feature,” he repeats softly.
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
Grasshopper gets up.
“You can’t help me,” he says and shrugs his shoulders, looking down intently. “I would have thought it was all fake, except I still remember the way it was in the beginning. And besides, the water pan fell down,” he adds desperately. “They were mopping the floor when we returned. It doesn’t just happen like that, when it all comes together, does it? By accident? It doesn’t, right?”
“No. You’re right, nothing happens by accident. Sit down.”
Grasshopper sits back down eagerly, legs folded. Ancient’s annoyed face stirs up hope inside him. The seniors are powerful and subtle. There will come a day when he’s going to be like that, too.
“Are they still bullying you? I seem to remember Blind telling me about it.”
“It’s less now,” Grasshopper answers readily. “They got bored, I guess. Just . . . pick on me sometimes, that’s all.”
“All right.” Ancient ponders something behind the closed snow-white eyelashes. “Tell me again how you felt that Great Power of yours. There must be a way to revive it. We may still find it. I need to hear one more time.”
Grasshopper shrugs his shoulders again to throw back the sleeves of his jacket and tries to explain everything one more time from the beginning. Ancient looks almost asleep, but he’s not sleeping. The lamp, turned to the wall, casts a golden halo on it. The fish bump against the glass of the tank with their puffy lips.
“I see,” Ancient says after Grasshopper stops talking. “I understand now. Well, this happens sometimes. I thought I was giving you power, but instead it was something else. Something much better. Only now you lost it. That happens too.”
Grasshopper’s lips tremble. Ancient pretends not to see that. The smoke writhes transparently between his fingers.
“And the reason is,” he continues softly, “that you are still too little for that amulet. I warned you, I never make them for children. But you can turn it back on. Even if you aren’t able to do it right away, I’m almost sure you will when you’re older. It’s for an adult, see.”
Grasshopper isn’t even trying to conceal his disappointment.
“And now? What about now? I can’t wait that long.”
Having caught Ancient’s rising irritation, Grasshopper rushes to explain.
“It’s not because I want it right now. I swear! But they all say that I’m not good for anything, and even those who don’t say it must think the same. They’re all stronger than I am because they all have arms. All of them,” he says with quiet horror. “And if I am going to remain like this until I grow up, there would be nothing I could do about it then. They are all going to remember that I was useless. Always. How am I supposed to become the next Skull then?”
Ancient clears his throat and waves the smoke away.
“Good question. Don’t you think you just might become someone else instead? Two Skulls would be a bit much for one House.”
“All right, not Skull,” Grasshopper agrees. “Someone else. But only if that someone else is like Skull.”
Ancient averts his gaze, unable to look at the empty sleeves and the burning eyes.
“Yes,” he says. “Of course.”
His face is angry now, scaring Grasshopper, even though the anger is not directed at him.
“Right,” Ancient says. “Tell me, who’s the most powerful man in the House?”
“Skull,” Grasshopper says without hesitation.
“And who’s the smartest?”
“Well . . . they say . . . you?”
“Listen, then, to what the smartest man in this big gray box is telling you. There is one way to give the amulet its power back. Only one. It’s very hard. Harder than anything. You’ll have to do everything exactly as I say. Not once, not for a couple of days, but for many, many days. And if you fail to do it completely and fully, even once, even if it’s the teeniest, tiniest thing . . .”
Grasshopper shakes his head vigorously.
“If you miss something, or forget, or just get lazy”—Ancient pauses ominously—“the amulet will lose all of its power forever. Might as well throw it in the trash.”
Grasshopper freezes.
“So think about it,” Ancient concludes. “You still have time.”
“Yes,” Grasshopper whispers. “Yes. I’ll do everything. I’m not going to miss or forget.”
“You didn’t even ask what it is that you’re promising to do.”
“I forgot,” Grasshopper admits. “What is it I’m promising to do?”
“Things,” Ancient says mysteriously. “Some of them may even seem dull or boring. For example”—his extinguished cigarette zigzags in the air—“I might order you to think magic words. Every morning as you wake up and every night before you fall asleep. Or say them to yourself very softly. They may sound simple, but you’ll have to repeat them like you mean them. Every time. Or here’s something I might say.” Ancient smiles at his thoughts. “I’d say, ‘Today you’re not allowed to utter a single word.’ And then you must be silent.”