Ruth thought stilly by the door. Was this a migraine? Once at school she had heard of them.

Migraine. Half-head. A severe headache on one side of the skull. Perhaps due to an injury, a blow, or distortion in the vertebrae of the neck…

Ice. He had said that, ice.

The dogs were silent and almost as motionless as the furniture. Only Enki raised his nose and looked at Ruth, and when she moved, he wagged his tail, once, twice.

She walked into the kitchen and opened the ice-making section of the fridge. She put her hand on to the ice. The ice would not come away.

Ruth sobbed. Like the movement of the dog's tail. Once, twice.

She left her hand on the ice.

Her heart was racing. She was full of lights. She felt Malach's pain, a sharp instrument pressed through his skull, his eye.

Malach.

She squeezed her hand down on the ice.

It hurt terribly, a sort of burn. Like the rings—

"Don't," said Ruth.

She started to cry from the pain of the ice on her right hand. It gnawed at, ate at her.

She felt herself growing weightless and quiet inside the shell of anguish, his, hers. Wait, he had said.

Ruth waited. She waited fifteen minutes by the kitchen clock which worked.

By then she had completely turned to ice. The core of her, her groin, her breasts. Her stomach, heart.

Then she took her hand out of the fridge and walked from the kitchen and back across the living room.

She opened the door of Malach's sleeping place.

She seemed very tall, and to be floating in the air. She saw the chamber with its bare plastered walls, the bed, and Malach lying on it. He was rigidly immobile. He said, "Quod natura relinquit imperfectum—"

Ruth crossed the carpet, floating, and stood above him. Her plaits had somehow come undone, and black hair showered over her.

She took hold of his left hand and pulled it away from his face.

There was no mark on him. His face was only hard, clenched, a stone. He did not resist her. He said, "U doet me pijn."

Ruth put her right hand, frozen, against his left eye, forehead and temple.

Malach screamed. His whole body erupted into motion.

Ruth, too, cried out. She clamped her frozen hand against him. She forced her hand to remain on his face, which was like furnace heat.

The world seemed to crack.

Then she felt a hurt worse than before. The pain in him had come into her. Into her hand. She kindled. She was on fire.

Then it went out.

She felt bruised, perhaps smashed, but she sat on the bed. A band of flame still circled her right wrist. It was Malach's hand. He was looking at her.

His eyes were so pale they were nearly white;.

He said, "What did you do?"

"You said—ice."

He said, hoarsely, "You can heal as well as harm."