Alex sat holding the old toy robot. He tried to push away his anxiety about not being able to do what was needed and turned over his vague theory about some of the times when he had experienced the power—moments it had come when he was practically unconscious of it. It was somewhere to start.

“If I could really learn how to control it,” Alex began, still thinking aloud, “we could use it to protect us. And then, yeah, if we were protected like that, if we could find the tall man we could maybe even talk to him, so—”

“Talk to him?” His grandfather shot him an incredulous look.

“Well, yeah. I mean . . .” Alex paused, took a breath, let it go. “You told me the two of you were once friends. You must want that, too. If you could. Don’t you?”

“What? Alex, the last thing I want is to ever have to hear his voice again.”

“But that night, on the bridge in Prague, he tried to talk to me,” Alex broke in. “He wanted to talk to me.”

“And say nothing worth hearing. Alex, whatever’s gotten into you? You sound almost as insane as he is.”

“But don’t you want to at least try? I mean, he’s . . .” Alex’s voice dried up. He was suddenly close to saying it, and suddenly close to tears. Finally, here it was, boiling up and out. “He’s . . .”

“What, son? What are you trying to say?”

Mouth moving. No words. Alex felt like he was choking. Through his watery eyes, the unknown road outside wavered and winked, lights forming into a shimmering string. His grandfather laid a hand on his shoulder. Alex blinked and caught a momentarily sharp sight of the old man’s concerned gaze in the rearview. He swallowed and forced himself on.

“He’s . . . my dad.”

The hand was gone from his shoulder. They swerved sharply as horns started screaming in an outraged choir. Alex looked up to see a chaos of cars blurring around them while his grandfather cut across traffic in a reckless diagonal, streaking straight for the hard shoulder. He bounced in his seat belt as the old Citroën lurched into a long, skidding stop, tires squealing in protest. A deep silence settled.

“My dad,” Alex eventually whispered again, still amazed he’d said it. “I’ve known it all along, Grandad. He’s my dad. That’s what you wouldn’t tell me. That’s why you wouldn’t tell me.”

“Suffering cats.” His grandfather slumped over the wheel, burying his face in his forearms. Alex resisted the urge to reach out and touch his shoulder. Now that he’d opened this door, there was no going back. They had to go through this.