"It's true, and I don't
understand it any more than you do, Marci."
"Are you...*human*, Alan?"
"I *think* so," he said. "I bleed. I eat. I sleep. I think and talk and
dream."
She squeezed his hands and darted a kiss at him. "You kiss," she said.
And it was all right again.
#
The next day was Saturday, and Marci arranged to meet him at the
cave-mouth. In the lee of the wind, the bright winter sun reflected
enough heat off the snow that some of it melted away, revealing the
stunted winter grass beneath. They sat on the dry snow and listened to
the wind whistle through the pines and the hiss of loose snow blowing
across the crust.
"Will I get to meet your Da, then?" she said, after they'd watched a
jackrabbit hop up the mountainside and disappear into the woods.
He sniffed deeply, and smelled the coalface smell of his father's
cogitation.
"You want to?" he said.
"I do."
And so he led her inside the mountain, through the winter cave, and back
and back to the pool in the mountain's heart. They crept along quietly,
her fingers twined in his. "You have to put out the flashlight now," he
said. "It'll scare the goblin." His voice shocked him, and her, he felt
her startle. It was so quiet otherwise, just the sounds of breathing and
of cave winds.
So she let the whirring dynamo in the flashlight wind down, and the
darkness descended on them.
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