He said the journey back was always faster than the journey out. The way was easier once you’d travelled it, he said, and anyway he couldn’t settle properly after my news. He wanted to get away from his peak and his galls and feel the sea’s rough on him. He said he’d set his heart on my brother for a companion; one of his own blood, one of his own spirit. A monster like him. He knew enough about angels to see how it went with Boson. Enough about mainland folk to see where my brother was headed. Enough to know that to them angels and monsters were the same thing. In the beginning Boson carried the monster only in his inward parts. His outside parts looked regular. There was no fault or curse in him, such as a club-foot or hare-lip would have honestly admitted. He was a smooth, sound-limbed child with a straight gaze and beamy smile. He grew in plain sight into a tall, sound-limbed lad. His eye was still straight and his smile still beamed, but soon folk knew he’d been hiding his fault.
