HE TRIED TO SAY IT—TWO years old.
There was something wrong with his tongue, something the matter with the way he had to use his mouth, with the way his lips refused to shape the words he meant to say.
He tried to define the words, tried to tell himself what he meant by two years old and one moment it seemed that he knew the meaning of it and then it escaped him.
The bat came again and he huddled close against the ground, shivering as he crouched. He lifted his eyes fearfully, darting glances here and there, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the looming house and it was a place he knew as refuge.
“House,” he said, and the word was wrong, not the word itself, but the way he said it.
He ran on trembling, unsure feet and the great door loomed before him, with the latch too high to
