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he seems to have been born for this day Since dawn, a cold breeze has come off the sea, tinctured with an iodine scent fro across near-shore rock for chill, and the curdled gray sky, lowering by the hour with a pending storm of predicted ferocity, have combined to raise in the Har Norris Hiskott in Cottage 9, Aunt Lois thinks it’s curious that he’s wearing Gucci loafers, expensive tailored slacks, a gold Rolex—and a hooded jersey tattered at the cuffs and stained as if he fished it out of a Duh to justify gloves, the pair he’s wearing are as peculiar as the jersey These are gardening gloves, and he does not take theistration process Aunt Lois thinks perhaps some kid would wear a hoodie indoors, but not usually a man of about fifty and not one of this man’s social position and sophistication He see eye contact

Froe in Hiskott that brought him this cruel power also altered him physically in some disastrous way But this makes sense of his envy and of his too-beautiful-to-live decrees

Holed up in Cottage 9, he refuses ravely ill with the flu, yet he seems to have a healthy appetite, for he orders a lot of take-out fro his door unlocked, he asks that the food be left on the s area, and he leaves es plus tip Hiskott remains in the bathroom while the delivery is made

When he has been transforenetic material or other contamination he contracted in his work at Fort Wyvern, he round as his perverse kingdom His sphere of influence reaches in most places to the boundaries of the Corner, falls short here and there, extends farther in a few areas Because of the awful changes in his appearance, he will most likely never be able to venture into the world beyond this property

All brain activity is electrical, and Hiskott is able to calve off an aspect of his personality: Think of it as ahe knows and is, but without the stick, contained instead in a coherent electric field With certain limitations of distance, he is able to transmit this other essentially invisible self, this phantoh telephone land lines or by means of other systems, such as power lines and water pipes and television cables, or a combination thereof Like a snake, this Hiskott data bundle is able to coil in a TV, a lamp, an appliance; and when a potential host ventures near enough, it can leap to him and take possession, while the real Hiskott remains in seclusion elsewhere

Instantaneously, the data bundle, acting rather like a computer virus, does not merely seize control of whomever it invades but also downloads into the host’s brain a progra that person’s lifetime of memories available to Hiskott Task complete, the phantom Hiskott returns to the real Hiskott; thereafter, within Harmony Corner, he enjoys a permanent communications link to the person whom he has violated, as well as a control function that, at his whim, allows him to remotely operate that person’s body as if it were his own

All of this is at once fully understood by each person over whonty And each is acutely aware that his puppetmaster can kill hi down the autonomic nervous systeans, blood vessels, and glands—which will bring instant death

If one of them bolts beyond the Corner and doesn’t return, retaliation will be directed upon those family members whom the escapee most loves Their deaths will be cruel and slow and painful in the extreinative abominations as to fill them with humiliation, with such shame that their contempt for theot aill carry a weight of guilt that eventually will make life intolerable

Escaping with the intent to return with the police or cavalry of some other kind will be futile The escapee will probably soon find hiain, this time frootten hirily claieles In the unlikely event that authorities could be convinced of an extraordinary threat to such an apparently peaceful place as Harmony Corner, when they arrive on scene, Hiskott will take them one by one Because those outsiders can never be allowed to return to their offices with knowledge of Norris Hiskott or with any suspicion whatsoever, he won’t possess them in the same manner as he does the Harmonys, but he will instead slip deep into their s on an inhalation He will edit and hts without their awareness, and he will send them aith memories that he crafts for them

Until Jolie tells lehold that Hiskott has on them That the members of the Harmony family have persevered, held fast to their sanity, and remained hopeful is a feat almost beyond my comprehension

Orc lies quiet

Boo reat curiosity

The girl doesn’t see the dog She and I sit in contemplative silence

Finally I ask, “Hiskott, whoever he was and whatever he nohat does he want?”

“Control Obedience”

“But why?”

“Because of the way he now looks, he can’t be seen in public, he’s gross He lives through us”

For a ues me: “What does he look like?”

“When he e 9 to the house he took froht We weren’t allowed to see”

“But in five years, taking food to hilimpse of him”

She nods and see this subject “Only Uncle Greg and Aunt Lois And Hiskott’s made it impossible for them to share what they’ve seen Implanted a prohibition in their minds”

“Prohibition?”

She is a serious girl but still a child, lively in the way of children and eager for wonder and delight, serious but not to the exclusion of the possibility of joy, as an oppressed adult ht be But now a new solerave that I can see the worn and weary worind her down, and I aht fall to me, and me alone, to either help or fail her

Eyes downcast and hands plucking nervously at her deni the corner of her left eye, she says, “Greg and Lois tried They tried to tell us About his appearance Twice they really tried But each tiues, lips Chew their lips until they bleed The only words they can get out are obscenities Blasphemies Aords they wouldn’t say unless forced to They spit out the blood, the words, and for days their mouths are too sore to eat They don’t dare try to tell us a third time We don’t want the won’t change things”

We need another silence

Boo wanders away fro the hallway toward the doors that Jolie could not pry open

In time I return to our previous subject “Control Obedience But why?”

“Like I said Because of how he looks, he has to live through us, me and my folks He can eat He can drink But there is soand that house on the hill is his shell He tells us we’re his sensorium”

Jolie raises her head, and her eyes are the green of lotus leaves She stops plucking at her deni to a roost, her hands settle on her knees The tic is gone fro of her aunt’s and

uncle’s suffering distresses and agitates her I think this subject distresses and agitates her, too, and perhaps even to a greater degree But to speak of it at all, she needs to iic application of willpower, a serenity that allows her to comment from the clear upper air that lies above all storm and shadow

She says, “You knohat a sensorium is?”

“No”

“Like the sensory apparatus of the body All the sensory organs, nerves Through h us—he’s able to have the world that he can’t be seen in anyhts and sounds and tastes but all of that from lots of different perspectives, from all of our perspectives instead of just one And what he’s unable to experience there in his shell, in his gross body that no eye would want to look upon or hand would want to touch, he can feel by living in us, by feeling e feel, sharing our sensations, requiring us to provide whatever experience he wants most at any moment There’s no privacy in the Corner There’s no place in your heart where you can be alone to feel sorry for yourself, to heal fro he did to you He crawls in there with you He drinks your sorrow and ”

I am badly shaken

Chronologically she is twelve, but emotionally she is older, and intellectually older still

Co fry cook trying to do the best he can with his strange sixth sense, but she is Joan of Arc, fighting against impossible odds, not for her country but for her soul—while Hiskott, in the reach of his power and considering his cruelty, is a land Jolie, who began this ith the inadequate arms and defenses of a seven-year-old child, has triue of Orléans every day for five long years, and it seeht be a saint in the