Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond(147)
Author: Kim Harrison

She had to try. Maybe Zach was the exception. "Mrs. Thomson? Please, I just want to talk."

"I said go away!" the frustrated woman all but screamed, making Grace even more tired.

"Zach put my partner in the hospital. He’s okay. I thought you might want to know." She hesitated, motioning Hoc to stay where he was, and the dog’s ears drooped. "I know Zach’s a good boy," she said, hoping it was true. "He reminds me of me when I was found. It was hell."

Uneasy, she tugged her uniform straight as she turned to face the street. "I want to help Zach," she said, feeling a twinge of doubt and guilt. "I’m sorry, Mrs. Thomson. It’s going to go harder on him if I can’t bring him in today. The next people coming out here will . . . not be understanding."

Depressed, she took a step down, Hoc’s tail waving as the door cracked open behind her. Grace didn’t smile. She’d come out here hoping to find that Zach was morally sound, but a part of her wanted the boy to rot in hell for trying to kill her dog.

"Someone was here already this morning," Mrs. Thomson said, her voice trembling, and Grace turned.

"Here? Already?" she said, and the scared woman opened the door a little more.

"A sandy-haired man. Your age, your height. Thin, like my Zach. He was alone, but I knew it was one of you. His coat had silver in it and his hat had a triton on it."

"Jason?"

Hoc whined at hearing the man’s name, and the woman came halfway out onto the shady porch. "He said his name was Stanton."

Grace turned all the way around. Jason. She glanced back at her car, a hundred options going through her mind. "Can I come in?" she asked, and the woman withdrew, her head down. "Mrs. Thomson, you don’t want Jason to bring your son in. He’s a lying bastard." Not to mention he would pass him into the Strand for the promotion.

"There is nothing wrong with my son!" the woman said, then dropped her eyes again.

Nodding her agreement, Grace crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the post holding up the porch’s roof. "My grandmother realized what I could do when I was three," Grace said softly, her voice distant in memory. "Ten years after the poles flipped and everything fell apart. She said there was nothing wrong with me, too. She gave me a big girl’s watch for my birthday that year. It was a secret between us. Even my mom and dad didn’t know. I broke it the first fifteen minutes I had it on, and she gave me another just like it to hide what I’d done."

Grace looked down at her far more complicated timepiece, smiling as she remembered. Her grandmother was one smart woman. "That second watch lasted three days, and she gave me another. By the end of the month, I wasn’t breaking them anymore, just slowing them down. It helped, finding that control. Having a secret. I loved my grandma. Still do."

Guilt tightened her jaw, and she shoved the memory of casseroles and well-meaning neighbors away. "I watched three kids make a lightbulb glow the following year in prekindergarten," she said. "The teachers made it into a game. Made the kids who could do it feel special. They couldn’t make the bulb glow the next year after summer vacation."

She turned back to the house, seeing that the woman was listening. They didn’t use the lightbulb test anymore. Too many kids like her had been coached to feign ignorance. "My mom might have guessed. My dad, probably not. I don’t know. They died when I was sixteen." Her hands fisted, and she forced them to open. It was the year before she’d been collected.

"Mrs. Thomson," she pleaded, shoving her guilt aside, "Zach needs professional instruction. If he wants to go through the rigors of training, he can, and there will always be a job for him. If not, they will safely burn the ability from him and he can return to you otherwise unchanged. He can’t be allowed to remain as he is. It’s not safe for him or anyone else."

Damn the Strand. She was going to do her job. Wasn’t I?

"They’ll chip him," the woman said sullenly, as if anyone really had any freedom.

Grace lifted a shoulder and let it fall. "Any form of ungrounded GPS wouldn’t last thirty seconds. It’s easier to find us with our cell phones."

"Brainwash him," the woman said, still hiding behind the door.

"Why?" Of all the urban legends, this was the hardest one to dispel, the easiest to believe, probably because it was somewhat true with those under the age of five. They didn’t bother trying with anyone older, just deadheaded them if they were unsuitable and let them go home. "If he doesn’t want to develop his abilities and control, he’s free to go without them."

"They will butcher him!" she almost hissed, as if Grace was betraying her own kind. "Strip him of what he can do if he refuses to work for the Strand. There is nothing wrong with my son!"

Grace nodded. "I agree. But you don’t give a man who shows no restraint a gun full of bullets. It’s a sucky system, but it’s the only one we have." Coming up a step, Grace blinked as she found the shade. "Without control and regulation, throws like Zach and me would be hunted and killed like witches in the 1800s." There’d been a class at the Strand promoting the theory that witchcraft scares had been caused by natural dips in the earth’s magnetic field, brief instabilities that triggered an aberration in the human genome that wouldn’t fully express itself until the poles flipped.

"Zach has control," Mrs. Thomson said, but Grace heard her voice softening. She wanted the best for her son; she was just afraid.

"He attacked my partner, Mrs. Thomson. It wasn’t an accident, but we forgive a lot in the name of fear and ignorance. He’s not beyond acceptance. Let me help him. He’s scared. He doesn’t need to be." No need to bring up that her son had stopped her dog’s heart. Killing a dog wasn’t a punishable crime, even if it was reprehensible. It would, however, enter into her own private deliberations, and she clenched her jaw. Damn Jason, anyway . . .

The woman before her dropped her gaze, her brow furrowed and her feet shifting in agitation. Her head came up, a dangerous light in her eyes. "Promise me."

Grace’s expression blanked. "Promise you what?"

The woman came out, still holding the door as if she might dart back inside. "Promise me you won’t let anyone hurt him. You said you understand him. He’s only seventeen. He’s just a boy!"

She had been seventeen when they’d found her, backed into a corner like a wild thing spewing threats. It had taken three of them to bring her down. That she hadn’t hurt anyone had been a miracle-and the only reason they gave her a chance-the only reason they wanted Zach now. "I’ll do my best. It’s up to him."