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They stood beside the bed, gazing down at led arirl, the bruises gone from her milk-white skin, and the little Arab boy, the Bedouin boy, for I realized now that that is what he truly was Fearlessly they stared at what must be unspeakable to behold for human eyes

"You are so shiny!" said Benji "Does it hurt you?"

"What can we do!" said Sybelle, so ht injure me Her hands covered her lips The unruly wisps of her full straight pale hair ht, and her arms were blue from the cold outside, and she could not help but shiver Poor spare being, so delicate Her nightdress was crumpled, thin white cotton, stitched with flowerets and triin Her eyes brimmed with sympathy

"KnowGod wouldn't take me And the Devil wouldn't either I went into the sun so they could have , without fear of Hellfire or pain But this Earth, this very Earth has been atorial prison I don't kno I caave me those brief seconds to stand here in your roo like a shadow over you "

"Oh, no," she whispered fearfully, her eyes glistering in the dihts of the room "He would never have killed me "

"Oh, yes, he would!" I said, and Benjamin said the very same exact words in concert with me

"He was drunk and he didn't care what he did," said Benji in instant rage, "and his hands were big and clumsy and mean, and he didn't care what he did, and after the last time he hit you, you lay still like the dead in this very bed for two hours without ! Do you think a Dybbuk kills your own brother for nothing?"

"I think he's telling you the truth, irl," I said It was so hard to talk With each word I had to lift my chest In crazy desperation, suddenly I wanted a id with pain

The tere thrown into a panic

"Don't move, Dybbuk, don't!" Benji pleaded "Sybelle, the silk, all the silk scarves, get them out, wind them around him "

"No!" I whispered "Put the cover up over me If you must see my face, then leave it bare, but cover the rest of me Or"

"Or what, Dybbuk, tell me?"

"Lift me so that I can seemirror "

They fell silent in perplexity Sybelle's long yellow hair lay flaxen and flat down over her large breasts Benji chewed at his little lip

All the room sith colors Behold the blue silk sealed to the plaster of the walls, the heaps of richly ee, and there beyond, the wobbling baubles of the chandelier, filled with the glistering colors of the spectrulass as these baubles touched It seeed mind that I had never seen such siotten in alland exquisite the world was