Surely not! said the Teacher’s incredulous voice.
Curious, she flitted back down to see.
The dream resolidified around her. The lamp-filled bedroom had been replaced by the cramped bedroom of a small, urban apartment, its floor strewn with books and yarn. Kimberly Reed lay on her side in the bed, curled protectively around a small, trembling shape. Not so small, Jadwiga realized. It was a grown man, sickly thin, balled up into a hard knot of protruding bones and twitching flesh and white skin. Kimberly Reed held him tightly and stroked his hair, ignoring the sharp eyeteeth displayed in his grimace. There was a pistol on the table, but it was not there to be used on him. It was there to defend him against something else, something worse.
No fear, no hate. Just pity.
Dimly, Jadwiga wonde
