“Pearl, don’t go, where are you going?”
Pearl was standing by the pool. The children tugged her hand.
“Why were you on your hands and knees, Pearl? Were you going to be sick?”
Ashbel said, “Sit down, Pearl. Peter’s going to do a trick.”
They pushed her gently back into the chair. The pool was empty now except for a raven drinking from the step at the shallow end. The raven was the bird who failed to return when Noah sent him from the ark. It was cursed with a terrible thirst. The raven’s wings shone like oil. It dipped its beak, it raised it to heaven. August was a thirsty month.
Pearl emptied the last of the wine into her glass. The label floated in the glints of ice. Cherubim on a black background.
“I have a new trick,” Peter said. “Watch.”
He made the other form a circle around him. He wore blue trousers upon which he had painted orange lightning bolts. The boy was utterly possessed by magic. He wanted to saw the other children in half and shoot bullets in their teeth.
Joy Williams, The Changeling
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