Page 117 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

She wrote these things down in her notepad, hurrying because it was almost

twelve-thirty, bedtime, darkness, instant and complete, another head on the
pillow beside her, maybe she grew one more in the night and that’s why the
night sleep was so deep, it was a matching pair of sleeps.
—

A NEIGHBOR BANGED on the door and woke her to complain about wailing coming
from her flat. The neighbor was a middle-aged brown man in an unusually close-

fitting dressing gown, and she didn’t even need to warn him not to try to come in
—he stood well away from the front door. He felt the cold. His beard was
attractive; it was clear he took good care of it.
“Were you playing some kind of world music or do you need an ambulance,
or . . . ?”

“Or,” she told him. “Or.” And she apologized, and promised the noise would
stop, though she wasn’t sure it actually would. It must have, because she didn’t
hear from him again.
—

AT TWELVE-THIRTY she got up again, to go to the toilet. The TV was on again (or
still?) so she switched it off. She walked past the kitchen and then went back and

looked at the kitchen counter. There was the jar of gherkins, where she’d left it.
But now the lid was off. Good! She ate a gherkin and checked the room
temperature, which had dropped even further. She’d forgotten to find out
whether Presence was potentially life-threatening. It looked nice outside; she’d
go out soon. Maybe at twelve-thirty. Rain fell through sunlight. This was what
Sabine Akkerman called fox rain. In her mind’s eye Jill’s mother shook

iridescent raindrops off her umbrella and said: “Wolves are hosting wedding
feasts and witches are brushing their hair today.”
Presence certainly met its objective but perhaps the objective itself was
flawed and warranted adjustment. Jill wrote that down in her notebook.

—

THE NEXT TIME she went into the kitchen there was a boy sitting at the table

eating toast. Twelve years old, maybe twelve and a half. He looked like Jacob
and he looked like Jill, and he had mad scientist hair that looked to be his own
invention. She had to quickly pop back to the fifteenth century to find a word for
how beautiful he was. The boy was makeless. From head to toe he couldn’t be