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Her eyes narrowed sharply, leaving a slit of blue and white. “If you’re here to make fun of me, you can just—”

“No,” I cut her off quick. “No, nothing like that, I swear. Sort of the opposite, in fact. I need to ask some questions, and I don’t want you to make fun of me. Can we agree to that, and can you hear me out?”

Kitty thought about it, and twisted her chin in a motion that might have been a nod, except it dipped sideways. “I guess,” she mumbled. “But don’t you make fun of me. If you make fun of me, I’ll go to sleep and I won’t talk to you. I don’t have any more patience for that sort of thing. I’ve been here too long, and I’m too old. ”

“I promise,” I repeated. “I swear. ”

“Okay then. But I’m not stupid. Don’t treat me like I’m stupid. ”

“I won’t, if you don’t treat me like one of these doctors here. You can tell me exactly what you mean, and whatever you know, and I’m more likely to believe you than anyone you’ve ever met in your life. When I came out here to get Malachi, we had some problems with the car. We got stuck over by the woods for a little bit, and before we could get out, I saw the Hairy Man you were talking about. ”

Her eyes didn’t open any wider, but she didn’t curl up and implode into silence, either. “You saw him, huh?”

“Yeah, I saw him. And I’ve got some thoughts about who and what he might be. But I bet you’ve seen him more than I have, and I wanted to know if you could tell me anything about him before I go jumping to conclusions. ”

“Malachi said that you saw stuff. He thought it made you wicked. ”

“He’s had a change of heart on that matter. It nearly killed him, I think, but we’ve come to terms. I do see stuff. And I want to talk to you, because you see stuff too. ”

She digested this, and then did her funny tic of a nod. “What did you see?” she asked. “Tell me. People don’t ever tell me what they see—they only ask what I see. So you talk first. ”

The faint hint of hunger in her face made me uncomfortable; it reminded me how short the distance was between us, and I understood a little too well her desire to listen. After all, who ever reads the cards for the fortune teller?

I gave her the rundown from the beginning, when I got the frantic phone call from Malachi, and filled her in regarding the small wreck. She let out a laugh when I told her how he had run out in front of me and I’d gone off the road.

“That sounds like something he’d do,” she interjected.

“No kidding. It shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. But once I stopped and we checked out the car, I began to hear this noise—it’s hard to describe, like TV static, kind of. Or like a radio stuck between stations. ”

Kitty bobbed her head, but didn’t offer any additional commentary.

“It got louder and louder as he got closer. Even Malachi heard it, which sort of surprised me. But Malachi, he—well, he got his head hit, and I had to leave him for a minute. I went following the noise, and I saw the Hairy Man sitting down by the river. He was talking to himself. Have you ever heard him talking?”

“Not exactly,” she admitted. “You don’t ‘hear’ it really. You feel it in your ears. ”

“That’s a good way of putting it. I felt it in my ears, then. He wasn’t talking to me, I don’t think, but he didn’t seem to care if I could hear him, either. ”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘The dead are my children,’ and that he shouldn’t have left them. I think I know what he meant, but I’m not sure. That’s why I came here. I wanted to know if you knew anything that might flesh out what I’ve gathered. So please—if there’s anything you can contribute to this, I’d really appreciate it. ”

She wrinkled her toes up until they cracked, and then lay one long leg down so her foot was pointing at me. She didn’t bother to meet my eyes. She didn’t need to. “Why did you really come here, anyway? You already know who he is. You guessed it before you got home that night, like I’d guessed it too, a few weeks ago. Is it just that you want to say it out loud, and not be laughed at? ’Cause I understand, if that’s all it is. ”

It was my turn to stay silent for too long.

“It’s not that, exactly,” I said.

“What is it, then? Don’t you know anyone else like you? Have you got a mother, or a sister—or brother? Anyone else who sees?”

If we were really playing turns, this would have been her round to keep quiet, but she had me twice in a row. “No,” I finally confessed. “I guess I really don’t. ”

Kitty hunched her shoulders in a shifting shrug. “Makes it hard to get a second opinion, don’t it?”

“It does. ”

She closed her eyes and opened them, too slowly to call it a blink. “I don’t blame you for coming. It’s hard, when it’s only you—and you don’t have anyone else to ask. It’s hard, when you think you’re the only one who can hear it. And if you

listen long enough, and no one else butts in to say, ‘Hey, I heard it too,’ I think after a while you start to misunderstand. ”