“A while, I’d say. You’ve got the first marks on you—the marks of somebody who’s bound to turn one of these days, if he ain’t careful.” She took his jaw in her hands again. She met his eyes by force, and he decided that she was really kind of pretty. Not too pretty, but nicer than plain. A smattering of light brown freckles dusted her nose and the tops of her cheeks. Her freckles were less obtrusive than his vivid orange ones. He liked hers better.

“I’m careful,” he told her in his oldest-sounding voice. “I was always careful.”

“Yeah, and I’m your mother. Let me make some guesses, and you tell me how close I get.”

He shrugged, trying to make it look easy, as though he didn’t care. He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back against the headboard. “Shoot.”

“You started a long time ago, probably four or five years. But back then you were just a boy, and you had a hard time getting your hands on it, so you didn’t do it much. Then you got bigger, and I’ll guess you took the most likely work you could find and started selling it. Once you were selling, you had it in your hands all the time—and then, maybe a year or two ago, you were doing it so regular you probably never went a day without it. How am I doing?”

One nostril twitched involuntarily. “Not bad.”

“See, I can tell it from your skin, how it’s going that funny color around your eyes. Almost like you’re god-awful tired all the time and just don’t sleep enough. But those aren’t regular circles under your lids like we tired old people get; those are pockets of sap residue, collecting there and staining your skin from underneath.”

His chilly attitude slipped. “It can do that?”

“It builds up in your body, and some of it stays,” she confirmed.

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Years? Forever, maybe. I haven’t had a chance to watch anybody use it that long. Heavy smokers don’t live to a ripe old age, in my experience. That’s why I’m watching every user I can, trying to learn more.”

“You … you want to watch people use sap?”

“Do I want to?” She stood up again, and smoothed her skirts with her hands. “No. I don’t want to watch anybody use it, least of all a young man like yourself. But it teaches me, when I can see what it does to people. Look, I don’t read or write real well, but I’m taking notes as best I can, for doctors here and back East. I’m trying to learn how this stuff works, and how long it takes to kill.”

“Were you taking notes on me?”