“Hey, Ni-i-ick,” she said next to him, her voice full of dread, “what is that?” He hoped she had seen something that would justify the hair-raising tone, the delicate, insidious edge that scraped his nerves in exactly the wrong way, like an emery board covered with iron filings. Grow up, he thought wearily. There are a hell of a lot more strange things out there in this world than you know, things you haven’t seen or dreamed of yet, some of them so terrifying, if you let them get to you that way, you’d never make it even partway through the fire on your own. You’d have to be strapped to somebody’s big, strong back like a papoose the whole time in order to get anywhere at all that’s worth getting to—like home through the Gulf Stream in hurricane season, or the rest of the way into your thirties, say. Well, I’m not Daddy. I know that. I sure as hell didn’t feel like Daddy when I saw you waiting back at the house an hour ago, and you must have known it.
