Hunkered down, his friend was holding one hand out and staring at him strangely. After a moment, Raj’s hand withdrew and he said, “I think it’s odd they’re still alive somewhere. My dad even knows where I am.”

“Why doesn’t he come for you?”

“Multiple choice, Lew. Is it because A: I’m too beautiful? B: too brilliant? C: a lanky, dusky, illegitimate child begat from a shameful union?”

“Or D: He’s a bonehead, peckerwood, half-ass pile of horse shit.”

Raj looked into the ground.

“You’re lucky, in a way,” Lewis said. “My dad spends his life fixing broken things. He’s never going to die; Wah’Kon-Tah doesn’t know how to kill him because he made him out of dead things. Everything around him has died instead. Life begins with a mistake. What’s living is alive because it’s wrong in some way, Raj. And I’m left to teach myself the language of death-in-life, so I can say what I did to my brother, so I can say I did it, and if I can say it in that language then my brother will not have died. He will come back from the waters.”

Raj was just staring at him, crouching, almost cringing.

“Does this sound crazy?”

“Come back from there.”

“Does it sound crazy?”

“No. Lew, I swear it doesn’t sound crazy. I’ve never heard you say a thing that sounds crazy. Never. Not once. Not once. Please come over here.”

“I’m not crazy.”

“You’re saner than I am, Lew. I’m just slightly more athletic and attractive. Come away from the edge there.”

Lewis kept his eyes on his friend, who was hunched low and looked as if he wanted something desperately but was afraid of being beaten. He could feel the birds, suspended in the wind behind him, as if they had unfurled from his back, were his own freed wings. Soon they would return, dig in, nest, mate, quarrel, preen. He felt something at his nape. With a shock, he realized what it was, could feel that tentacle inching into his throat. He reached both hands back to get it off but felt nothing and saw then that Raj was afraid for him.

Dropping his hands, he returned to his friend, who stood up, exhaling, puffing out his cheeks with relief. He realized why Raj had been so afraid. “You thought I was going to do something?”

“No.”

“You should never worry about me like that. I’d never do a thing like that to you and Annie. Or my dad.”

Though Raj nodded, he felt his friend’s arm slide firmly around him. “Come on, Buster Brown. I promised Annie fresh blood.” Raj slipped into his black-mammy voice. “Why, lordamercy, massa, she gon’ be madder than a wet hen.”