He began to see how it was using bits and pieces of this and that to build with. A lot was happening that was far too small and fast and complicated for Alvin to get hold of with his mind. But he could get his body to free up what the artery needed in order to grow. He could send it where it was needed, and after a while the artery linked up with the rotted tissue. It took some doing, but he finally found the end of a shriveled artery and linked them up, and sent the blood flowing into the sewn-on patch.

Too soon, too fast. He felt the heat on his leg from blood pouring out of the dead flesh at a dozen points; it couldn’t hold in all the blood he sent. Slow, slow, slow. He followed the blood, now seeping instead of pumping, and again linked up blood vessels, arteries to veins, trying to match it, as best he could, to the other leg.

Finally it was done, or well enough. The normal flow of blood could be contained. Many parts of the patch of skin came back to life as the blood returned. Other parts stayed dead. Alvin kept going around and around with the blood, stripping away the dead parts, breaking them up into bits and pieces too small for him to recognize. But the living parts recognized them well enough, took them up, put them to work. Wherever Alvin explored, he made the flesh grow.

Until he was so weary in his mind from thinking so small and working so hard that he fell asleep in spite of himself.

“I don’t want to wake him.”

“No way to change the bandage without touching it, Faith.”

“All right, then—oh, be careful, Alvin! No, let me!”

“I’ve done this before—“

“On cows, Alvin, not on little boys!”

Alvin Junior felt pressure on his leg. Something pulling at the skin there. The pain wasn’t as bad as yesterday. But he was still too tired even to open his eyes. Even to make a sound to let them know he was awake, he could hear them.

“Good laws, Faith, he must have bled something awful in the night.”

“Mama, Mary says I have to—“

“Hush up and get on out of here, Cally! Can’t you see your ma’s worried about—“

“No need to yell at the boy, Alvin. He’s only seven.”

“Seven’s old enough to keep his mouth shut and leave grown-ups alone when we’ve got things to—look at that.”

“I can hardly believe it.”

“I thought to see pus coming out like cream from a cow’s tit.”

“Clean as can be.”

“And skin growing back, will you look at that? Your sewing must’ve took.”

“I hardly dared to hope that skin would live.”

“Can’t even see no bone under there.”