“But something had changed; the air felt different. The fear was no longer oppressive. Will tested the strength of his limbs, then took clean clothes to the bathroom to change. On the way out, he looked at me and said, ‘A psychopath did that?’ and left me with a new type of fear and a thought or two about stakes.

“When he returned, he said, ‘Amy’s gone down there. C’mon. We’ve got to go now.’

“ ‘Wait a minute, Will,’ I said. ‘Amy can’t get to her, nor she to Amy, right?’

“ ‘Well . . . Right. I guess . . .’ His answer was not as confident as I would have liked.

“ ‘Don’t you think we should wait until just before dawn, like we said? She’s secure in the box, right?’

“ ‘I’ve got to get Amy.’

“ ‘Wait. Can Amy open the box?’

“ ‘No.’

“ ‘But you could.’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘If Angelina can make you that afraid, maybe she can make you open the box.’

“Will came back in and sat down on his bunk. His face wore the pain of self-sacrifice in the name of guilt. ‘Boyd,’ he said, ‘she’s my baby sister.’

“ ‘I know.’ I looked at my watch. ‘It’s just after midnight. Dawn is at five. Let’s at least wait a couple of hours.’

“Will pulled at his hair. ‘Oh, God,’ he said, then buried his face in his hands, while we sat there, waiting.

“I believe I did the best I could do under the circumstances. My conscience is as clear as it can be about that night. I truly believed that Will’s box was strong, and that his little sister couldn’t open it. I guess maybe I was a little afraid to go down there—I mean, who wouldn’t be?—but I really, honestly, believed that the little girl would be all right.

“But it was less than a half hour later that Will cried out, and I knew that I had underestimated everything.”

40

40

Curious, it was, that my enjoyment of the child was heightened by the presence of the two upstairs. It was reminiscent of Joshua and his newspaper stand back in Colorado. Not the circumstances, certainly, but the publicness of it. There in the picture window of his store; here under the feet of the child’s brother and Boyd—humanity’s self-appointed savior.

I despised them.

The child was sweet and wonderful, warm and nourishing, and I enjoyed every drop of her, until the very end. At the very end, when life finally winked out and the torrential outpouring of memories and experiences flooded my mental vault, I felt the child cry out for her brother, and I felt his answer. I knew at that moment that I had sucked in a little of this Will person as well. The two of them were close, very close indeed.