“No. Have you noticed anything like that in yourself?”

“Well, if I’m crazy,” he told her, “I wouldn’t be the best judge, would I?”

“Well, consider the more obvious things, then. Have you had any lapses in memory, headaches, anything like that?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t think so. Would that be a symptom?”

“Perhaps,” she said. “Perhaps not.”

“That’s not much help.”

“Well,” she added coyly, “do you think you can fly?”

“I’m serious, Natalie.”

“It is an imprecise science,” she said. “And you are in a very unique situation here, Jeremiah. In your case, anything that might manifest could simply be a normal reaction under these circumstances. We really don’t know because we have no basis.”

“It sounds like you don’t have any idea whether I’m crazy or not.”

“I do not think you exhibit any symptoms of mental illness.”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

“Jeremiah,” she said, a hint of frustration in her voice, “this is precisely why using the Meld at regular intervals is so crucial to this project. Among other things, it allows me to see the first signs of any change in your psychological makeup. I really don’t think you have anything to worry about. If something were wrong, I’d very likely see it under the Meld before you even begin to show outward signs. I’d know it before you do.”

“And you’d tell me, right?”

“And I’d tell you,” she said.

“I suppose I have no choice but to take you at your word, then.”

“Tell me a little about your uncle, Jeremiah. We’ve never talked about him.”

“I never knew him, really. He died more than twenty years ago. I only met him twice, and that was ages ago. He spent most of his life in and out of asylums.”

“We prefer the word hospital,” she said. “He was your mother’s brother. Were they close?”

“Oh, she loved Charlie,” he said. “She used to talk about him all the time, told me all these stories about his ‘wild antics,’ as she called them. I think he made her sad.”

“I’m sure it had an effect on her. Watching someone you love spiral into the grips of mental illness is very difficult. You had a hard time seeing your mother just for a short while. Imagine watching that happen over the course of a lifetime.”

“She used to say he could talk to the fairies,” he said. “That’s why no one else could understand him. Like he was on some higher plane or something, had some secret that all the rest of us could only dream about.”

“That’s a good coping mechanism.”

“Thing is,” he said, “I think she believed it. I think she was even a little jealous of it, if you want to know the truth. The stories she used to tell me, the way she talked about him. She made him seem sort of magical. She made him sound like he was lucky.”

“What do you remember about him?”