The moon was low but it didn't matter, dawn was coming and there was enoughlight to find his way home, splashing through the stream until he came to theplace where he had left his shoes. He wondered if his parents had even noticedhe was gone. Probably not. It was damn sure Deckie wouldn't have told them hewas missing. If Deckie even went to the room. Still, if they did notice he wasgone, there might be some kind of uproar. He'd have to tell them where he wasand what he was doing and why his feet and shirt and shorts were wet. He wasstill trying to think of some kind of lie when he came into the cabin, throughthe back door because there was a light on in the living room and maybe he couldsneak into bed.

But no, there was someone in the kitchen, too, though the light was off. "Who'sthere?"

Reluctantly Paulie leaned into the kitchen door and saw, to his relief, that itwas the nurse who looked after Nana. "I'm making her breakfast," the woman said,"but she's fretful. She moans when she's like that, unless somebody sits therewith her, and I can't sit there with her and make her mush too, so would youmind since you're up anyway, would you mind just going in and sitting with herso she doesn't wake everybody up?"

The nurse was all right. The nurse wouldn't get him in trouble. He could hearNana moaning from the main floor bedroom that had been given over to her sonobody had to carry her frail old body up and down the stairs. The light was onin Nana's room and she was sitting up in her wheelchair, the strap around herribs so she didn't fall over when the trembling became too strong. Paulie couldsee the cot where the nurse slept. It was silly, really -- the nurse was alarge, big-boned woman and the cot must barely hold her, not even room enough toroll over without falling out of bed. While tiny Nana had slept in a hugekingsize bed. It would never have occurred to them, though, that Nana should getthe cot. The nurse was of the serving class.

I am of the serving class, too, thought Paulie. Because I have more of myfather's blood than my mother's. I don't belong among the rich people, except towait on them. That's why I never feel like I'm one of them. Just like Fathernever belongs. We should be their chauffeurs and yard boys and butlers andwhatever. We should wait on them and take their orders in restaurants. We shouldrun their errands and file their correspondence. We all know it, even though wecan't say it. Mother married down, and gave birth down, too. I should have beenon a cot in someone's room, waiting for them to wake up so I could rush down andmake their breakfast and carry it up to them. That's how the world is supposedto work. The nurse understands that. That's why she knew she could ask me tohelp her. Because this is who I really am;

Nana looked at him and moaned insistently. He walked to her, not knowing whatshe wanted or even if she wanted anything. Her eyes pierced him, sharp andunyielding. Oh, she wants something all right. What?

She looked up at him and started trying to raise her hands, but they trembled somuch that she could hardly raise them. Still, it seemed clear enough that shewas reaching out to him, staring into his eyes. So he held out his hands to her.

Her hands smacked against one of his. She could no more take hold of him thanfly, so he took hold of her, one of her hands in both of his, and at once thetrembling stopped, the effort stopped, and the unheld hand fell back into herlap on the wheelchair. "The nurse is fixing your breakfast," Paulie said lamely.

But she didn't answer. She just looked at him and smiled and then, suddenly, hefelt that light that was hidden within him stir, he felt the pain in his backagain from the musket ball, and now the death of the Cherokee swelled within himand filled him for a moment with light. And then, just as quickly, it flowed outof him, down through his fingertips just the way it had come. Flowed out of himand into her. Her face brightened, she dropped her head back, and as the last ofthe Cherokee's deathlight left him, she let out a final groan of air and died,her head flopped back and her mouth and eyes wide open.

Paulie knew at once what had happened. He had killed her. He had carried deathout of the cave with him and it had flowed out of his hands and into her and shewas dead and he did it. He sank to the floor in front of her and the wearinessand pain of last night and this morning, the fear and horror of the two long-agodeaths that he had witnessed -- no, experienced -- and finally the enormity ofwhat he had done to his greatgrandmother, all of this overwhelmed him and whenthe nurse came into the room she found him crying silently on the floor. At onceshe took the old woman's pulse, then unstrapped her, lifted her out of thechair, and laid her on the bed, then covered her up to her neck. "You just staythere, son," she said to him, and he did, crying quietly while she went back tothe kitchen and rinsed the dishes. It occurred to him to wonder that herresponse to death was not to waken everybody but rather to wash up after anuneaten breakfast. Then he realized: That's what the serving class is for, toclean up, wash up, hide everything ugly and unpleasant.

Hide everything ugly and unpleasant.

I didn't kill her, or if I did, I didn't mean to. And besides she wanted it. Ithink she saw the death in me and reached for it. I brought her what shecouldn't get any other way, release from her family, from her body, from hermemories of life unmatched by any power to live. Nobody will be sorry to see herdead, not really. Somebody can move into the Richmond mansion again and becomethe main bloodline of the Brides. The nurse will get another job and everythingwill be fine. So why can't I stop crying?

He hadn't stopped crying when the nurse went to waken Mother even the nurse knewthat it was Mother who had to be told first. And even though she held him andmurmured to him, "Who could have guessed you'd be so tenderhearted," he couldn'tstop crying, until finally he was shaking like the girl in the cave, shiveringuncontrollably. I have another death in me, he thought. It's dangerous to comenear me, there's another death in my fingers, the cold death of a slavegirlwaiting in some cave in my heart. Don't come near me.

Mother and Father left that morning, to take him home and make funeralarrangements in Richmond. Others would take care of arranging for the ambulanceand the doctor and the death certificate. Others would dress the corpse. Motherand Father had to take their son who, after all, had found the body. No one everasked him what he was doing up at that hour, or where he had spent the night,and if anyone noticed that his shirt and pants were damp they never asked himabout it. They just packed up his stuff while he sat, tearless now, on the sofain the parlor, waiting to be taken away from this place, from the old lady whohad drawn death out of his fingers, from the people who had jockeyed forposition as they waited years for her to die, and from the children who playeddark ugly games with each other by the swimming pool when no adult could see.

At last all the preparations were done, the car brought round, the bags loaded.Mother came and tenderly led him out onto the porch, down the steps, toward thecar. "It was so awful for you to find her like that," she said to him, as ifNana had done something embarrassing instead of just dying.

"I don't know why I got so upset," said Paulie. "I'm sorry."

"We would have had to leave anyway," said Mubbie, holding the door open for him."Even the Brides can't keep a family reunion going when somebody just died."

Mother glared at him over Paulie's head. He didn't even have to look up to seeit. He knew it from the smirk on Mubbie's face.

"Paulie!" cried a voice. Paulie knew as he turned that it was Deckie, though itwas unbelievable that the older boy would seek a confrontation right here, rightnow, in front of everybody.