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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 aically 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

Now I fully understand why she has no fear of Orc Or perhaps of anything

At the end of the hallway, head cocked and curious, Boo stands before the sealed pair of stainless-steel doors

Jolie says, "This time, with you here, if Hiskott tries to possess me while I’m beyond his reach, and he can’t find me … well, then he’ll kill me as soon as I reappear"

"So you’ll stay here until I can take him down"

"I can’t stay here forever and ever," she says

"And I don’t have forever Today It’s got to be done today--and sooner than later"

She has restrained her curiosity until now "Why can’t he get into your mind and possess you?"

"I don’t know, Jolie But I always have been hard-headed"

"I don’t believe that"

"Maybe I just don’t have et his tentacles around"

"Or that He says he can’t access the woood to know"

"Who is she?"

Getting to my feet, I say, "Now that is the million-dollar question"

"You don’t knoho she is?"

"I just met her yesterday I know her first name That’s a start In a year or two, I’ll know her last name, if she has a last na to her feet, Jolie says, "Are you always a little silly?"

"I’et you killed in the Corner"

"Maybe not So far, being at least a little silly has keptfor you, anyone who doesn’t have to be up at the diner or the service station You can’t go anywhere in the Corner without being seen"

"Well, I’-special fry cook People tend to look right through guys like me"

She stares at me solemnly for a beat, but then she proves to be still capable of a s to hear Jolie laugh one day I don’t think she’s laughed in a long ti walks through the steel doors

NINE

Before I leave the fearless girl with Orc the inhueway between the possessed land of Harovernment-sponsored atrocities of Wyvern (which makes this already as unusual a sentence as any I’ve ever written in thesethat I should know before I try to beard the lion in his den

And speaking of peculiar language, why do we say beard the lion instead of confront the lion? The i recklessly into a cave to use spirit gu size Because no lion is ever going to be induced to play Abrahae play, there would seelue a beard on a lion other than to poke fun at it and laugh at its humiliation as the other lions in of that expression, and no doubt our finest universities are crawling with intellectuals who have spent their entire acade lions--not to mention thick, learned volu the cat and spanking the monkey--but from time to time I a enough or have sufficient leisure to research such peculiarities of language

Anyway, the one additional thing of importance that Jolie has to tell h Hiskott is secretive and self-contained, he doesn’t live alone in the big house on the hill Over the years, he has read the uests who stay in the es, and on three occasions, he has asserted permanent dominion over them and has taken theain In every case, these seem to be individuals who are pretty htthe plates off those people’s cars, Donny parks therove of oaks, halfway down the hills between the motor court and the family’s houses, where they are cannibalized for parts as the service station needs them and are allowed otherwise to fall into ruin Food and anything else Hiskott deht to him by the family, but no one has cleaned for him in over three years; therefore none of the Harmonys has seen the inside of the house since the first of those three luckless souls walked zoh the front door

"So it see," Jolie says "But we’re pretty sure they aren’t just used like we are He’s got some other purpose for them, which is why he never lets us see them"

"Maybe he uses them as his Praetorian Guard, his ultimate protectors, in case one of your family should ever slip the leash and try to kill hio caht without finding it a fully satisfactory explanation "But ouldn’t he be just as worried that one of thes in o and doing what I have to do Therefore, uess I’ll find out"

Jolie surprises ainst th, steadiness, and truth of it She is ht for such a strong girl