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herself into invisibility and Thin Elderly, beside her, did the same. Just in time. The woman, tying the belt of her robe, hurried from her own bedroom across the hall and into the room where the boy was calling.

    "John!" she said in a firm, quiet voice. She sat on the bed and put her arms around him. He struggled, crying. "Help me!" he sobbed.
    "Wake up, John," she said to him firmly. "You're having a nightmare."
    In a moment his eyes opened and he looked around, whimpering. The bedroom was unchanged: his little suitcase was on the floor by the chair, his clothes draped over the chair's wooden arm. A nightlight glowed in the corner.
    "Someone was—" the boy said. He blinked. "He was chasing me!"
    "It was a nightmare," she told him again. "You're safe here."
    He lay back down. She pulled the covers up over him and stroked his back through the blanket.
    "I'll tell you a story," she said to him in a quiet voice.
    "Okay."
    "Once upon a time," the woman said, "there was a little boy. His name was John, and he was—"
    "At the beach. He was at the beach with his mom," the boy said sleepily.
    "Yes, he was at the beach with his mom on a beautiful sunny day. It was warm, with a nice breeze. Seagulls were overhead, and—"

    "Shells," he said, but his eyelids were fluttering and his voice was drowsy.
    She glanced over to the table, where the boy had placed a delicate pink seashell that he had taken from his suitcase. "Yes," she said, "there were beautiful shells on the beach." She continued stroking him for a moment, whispering, "Shhh, shhh," until it was clear that he was sleeping again. She gazed at him briefly, then tiptoed back to her own bedroom.
    From their watching place, Thin Elderly stirred himself and reemerged. Littlest did the same. "Now we have much work to do," he explained to her in a low voice. "Gather your best fragments. We must strengthen him."

14
    "Who's this jerk?" John asked. He had taken a framed photograph from the piano and set it down on the kitchen table, where the woman was still sipping her morning tea.

    She reached for it. "He was a friend of mine," she said, and touched the edge of the silver frame with her fingertips.
    "Now he hates you, right? You thought he was your friend, right? But now he hates you."
    "No, he never hated me. But this was a long time ago. We were both very young then."
    "So where'd he go? California? I bet you don't even know. I bet he just left and didn't tell you where." John picked up his spoon and ate another mouthful of cereal, then made a face. "I hate this kind of cereal. I only like Sugar Pops."
    "Don't eat it, then. I can make you some toast if you'd like." With her napkin she wiped the smudgy fingerprints from the glass that protected the old photograph.

    The boy held a fingerful of soggy cereal under the table for Toby, then withdrew it quickly when the dog came to sniff. He wiped it on the knee of his jeans and kicked the dog lightly with his sneaker.
    "I bet he never wrote to you or anything," he commented. "I bet he didn't send you any money. You should throw the dumb picture away."
    "He wrote to me often. But then he died. Do you want toast?"
    "Yeah."
    She looked at him wryly. " Yes, please? " she said.
    He repeated it sarcastically. She smiled, rose, and dropped two pieces of bread into the toaster on the counter.
    "How did he die? Did he get murdered? I know somebody who got murdered."
    "Not exactly. But he was shot."
    The boy made his fingers into a gun. " Blam, " he said, and shot Toby, the dog. Then he shot the refrigerator. "I'm gonna get a gun," he said, and ate another spoonful of cereal.
    "So did his wife shoot him or what?" he asked, with his mouth full.
    "He didn't have a wife. He was killed in the war, in France."
    "I know a poem about France: 'I see London, I see France—'" he began in a singsong voice, then interrupted himself. "Does your dog ever run away?"

    "No. Toby always stays close to the house. He's always waiting for his next meal," she