Tears welled up in Henry’s eyes and fell on my face like the beginnings of rain, and his mouth bubbled and trembled like a saucepan lid, and in the corner of the sky I caught a fork of white lightning and I counted to four before the thunder growled.

I looked at Novo, and I was so ready to call him cruel, so close to getting it wrong, but his eyes were full of tears too, so I bit my tongue, and held still, and just watched. He steadied himself to guide Henry down, and the old man landed lightly in his arms. So insubstantial and frail, hardly more than a heap of clothing. His panic vanished. He rested his head on Novo’s shoulder like a child, and Novo folded over him, a bird in sleep, and they were quiet, and they glowed like soft bulbs, there on the stopped lawn, their heads together, just touching. They made a circuit, and the current that passed through them was silent and lit with bliss.

I don’t know how long it lasted. I got lost just watching. Even to see it was the prize. When it was over, Novo opened his eyes, and in the time it took for him to blink the world sprang forward, catching up with itself like a piece of pulled elastic, stretched tight to its absolute limit and then let go—the birds circling, the ants seething, the nodding flowers and shivering leaves. Henry was at his window again, order restored, curtains fluttering, Charlie Parker hopping on the sill. He and Novo were still watching each other but there was no hint of cold stone anymore. All I could see in the air between them was a trace of hot light, fine as thread, and glinting like fire.

Novo reached for my hand again and held on to it, and my veins ran with warm honey. He laughed softly to himself and shook his head slowly from side to side, one hand still on mine, the other cradling his own cheek. He didn’t speak.

“Novo,” I said. “What just happened?”

Quick pulses of light still surged beneath his skin. The look on his face said he’d just seen a miracle, this miracle boy. I remember thinking that must mean there are infinite levels of wonder, like a never-ending staircase, so that everyone gets to look up at something like that, whoever they are, and I really hoped I was onto something. I really wanted to be right.

Novo hadn’t spoken. “Can’t you tell me?” I said, and he shook his head and his voice was soft and quiet when he said, “Not yet.”