He recognized that hand. The sight of it, for some reason, brought on the tears that previously wouldn't come. Looking at the veined, mottled skin, the bony, excessively lined knuckles, he could conjure up images of the past that were not prompted by the still face, the sheeted body. He saw that hand helping him climb the metal ladder out of the YMCA pool, spanking him when he shot the Werthers' dog in the butt with a BB gun, showing him how to tie knots for his Boy Scouts merit badge, dribbling a basketball.
It was this that made him cry, that triggered the emotional outburst for which he'd been prepared .......... He touched his dad's hand, patted it, held it.
And when the doctor came in, five minutes later, he was still crying.
Then
The girl sat trembling in the darkness, her frightened features only partially illuminated by the flickering orange glow of the fireplace.
Her hands were clasped tightly together, and though her fingers moved nervously, they did not leave her lap.
"There is nothing to be afraid of," William said kindly. He smiled at the girl, trying to calm her nerves, but this only seemed to make her more agitated. "It will not be painful," he told her. "It is a very simple procedure."
The girl's hands clenched and unclenched in her lap. Under any other circumstances she would probably be very pretty. Now she just looked troubled and scared. She took a deep breath, a sound audible even over the crackle of the burning log in the fireplace. "Will" she began. She coughed nervously, cleared her throat. "Will you have to see me?"
William shook his head. "Not if you don't want me to," he said softly.
"But I must warn you that it will come out. I can take care of that for you, but if you do not want me to see you, you will have to get rid of it yourself." He paused for a moment to let his words sink in. "It will be embarrassing for you, but it will be easier if I do it all. I promise I will not look at you as a man. If it makes you feel any better, I have seen many other young women the same way."
"Who?" the girl asked, her fear temporarily overtaken by curiosity'.
William shook his head. "I cannot tell you."
She thought for a moment, then met his eyes for the first time. "You will not tell about me, either?"
"Not upon pain of death." He stood, went to the window, parted the curtain. The land outside was empty, tall grasses swaying in the chill winter wind that blew across the plains. In the distance, the flickering gaslights of town shone like yellow stars at the edge of the horizon. He let the curtain fall and walked across the room to the series of shelves next to the bed. Taking out a match, he struck it against the log wall and lit a candle.
He had a bad feeling about this. As he'd told the girl, he'd done this many times before, but this was different. He could sense it. He'd been run out of towns in the past, had been whipped and beaten. But that was not what was coming here, that was not what he foresaw happening. No, this was something else.
And it frightened him. -The girl's name was Jane, and, like all of them, she was in love. She had given herself to the boy, though her father wanted her betrothed to another--perhaps because her father wanted her betrothed to another--and thanks to that one encounter was now with child. She was not yet showing, but: she had not been visited by the menses twice now, and a, innocent as she was supposed to be, she knew what that meant.
Like many of them, she had en on the verge of kinin herself when a friend of a friend told Jane about him, an
William had received a hurriedly written note the next day a badly misspelled missive begging him to put an end to her condition. As always, he had agreed to do so. And that had led her here, to his hut, in the middle of the night.
He knew that what he was about to do was illegal. And he had been beaten and chased in the past not only for per
forming such an act but for the way in which he performed it.
For using magic.
He looked around his little room. He had been here for over a year. It was the longest time he'd spent anywhere since leaving the East, and he liked the place, liked the people. He'd become a member of this community, and the suspicions that had always seemed to grow up around him elsewhere had failed to materialize here. He had helped some girls, even helped a few men, but this was a strongly Christian town, and those mores had kept people from talking.
That was about to end. He knew it, he sensed it, and that made him sad.
It was also going to end badly.
Violently.
And that scared him.
William forced himself to smile reassuringly at Jane, who was still sitting primly in the small chair, her hands clasping and unclasping nervously on her lap.
"I'd like you to move over to the bed," he suggested. "And you'll have to remove your clothing."
Jane nodded, stood. Her hands were trembling. She took off her coat, took off her dress, took off her undergarments. She was crying as she placed her clothing on the chair, sobbing by the time she lay down on the bed. Her legs and feet were pressed tightly together, and standing to the side of the bed, William cleared his throat to get her attention and motioned with his hand that she was to spread her legs open.
She did so, sobbing loudly now, her hands held over her face so she could not see him, as if, by shielding her face she could shield the rest of her body.
He set the candle on her stomach, carefully placed a rag between her legs. Closing his eyes, he concentrated for a moment, gathering the strength he needed. As always, it started with a tingle deep in his midsection, a fluttering of
the heart that grew into a warm vibration and spread outward through his body, through his limbs, into his head, lighting up the world inside his brain.
He opened his eyes, and the room was tinged with extra color.
Everything had a halo about it, auras of different tint that emanated from the walls, from the floor, from the ceiling, from the furniture, and especially, from the girl.
Her head was bathed in yellow, most of her body in blue, but both the candle on her stomach and her abdomen had auras of gray.
William took a deep breath, then slowly passed his hands over her abdomen, muttering the Words that would terminate her pregnancy. From the hairy cleft between her legs came a small trickle of blood that was immediately soaked up by the rag. Jane was still crying, but from shame and humiliation. It was obvious that she felt no pain.
Once more his hands passed over her, and this time a gloppy mess spilled out from between her legs onto the rag, a bloody mass of undistinguishable flesh that he quickly covered and took away. He tossed the entire rag in the fire, said a few Words, then turned back toward the girl. "It is over," he told her. "You may dress."
She took her hands from her face, and the expression he saw, in the second before he turned away to give the girl her privacy, was one of surprise. She had not known it was over because she had not even known it had started.
He heard from behind him the creak of bed and floorboard, the rustle of clothes. It was not over yet, however. His premonition of lurking disaster had not abated one whit, and though the auras were fading before his eyes, though the tingle in his body had subsided into almost nothing, he still had the sense that something was wrong, that what had transpired here tonight would lead to... to... To what? Death.