“Gave you a body and a voice,” Timony told him. “That’s all. I . . . oh, lad, who did this to you? Who killed you?”

I’m . . . dead?

Timony nodded.

But . . .

Geordie held his arms in front of his face, seaweed wrapped around pieces of driftwood. He tried to touch his fingers to each other, but the doonie hadn’t made them particularly flexible. He hadn’t been trying for an exact anything, since he’d had no idea what the body that once housed the spirit had originally been. Mostly, he’d concentrated on the changeling’s head, giving it sight and hearing and a voice.

“I’m sorry, lad,” he said. “This is the best I could do with what I had at hand.”

Geordie didn’t reply. He let his hands drop. It was impossible to read an expression in that grotesque face of his, but the doonie could feel the continuing waves of confusion and despair coming from him.

“What happened to you?” Timony asked.

Geordie told him. It wasn’t a long story. He’d arrived in the bedroom of some old farmhouse where he’d had a few moments to be with Jilly before her brother had changed him into a creature much like the one Timony had just built to hold his spirit. And then Del had kicked that changeling apart.

But do you know what she said? he added. She said I was the only thing she ever really cared about.

When he spoke of Jilly, he gained a strength and an inner glow.

This was the thing that was keeping his spirit here, Timony thought. Except . . .

“Tell me again what he did,” the doonie said. “When he made that changeling of his.”

There wasn’t much to it, it happened so fast. He just appeared in the doorway . . .

Timony listened carefully as Geordie repeated that part of his story, interrupting him a couple of times to make sure had the details right.

“Maybe you’re not dead,” he said. “That world you found her in is still open. We can go back and put together the changeling Del kicked apart. If he could convince your body to turn into the creature, I can make it go back to what you were.”

It’s not there anymore, Geordie said. Jilly scraped it all together into a pail and took it with her.

“And she’s with Lizzie?”

Geordie nodded. With Lizzie and the dog. Her name’s Honey.

“That’s still good,” Timony told him. “We’ll go to them.”

And you can do this?

The doonie nodded confidently.

“So long as she gathered up all the parts of the changeling her brother made,” he said.

Geordie stood up and teetered for a moment on legs made of driftwood, held together with seaweed.

Then what are we waiting for? he asked.

Walker