Page 83 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

she had tried and liked a little of it—shyly, Myrna reached for Rowan again,

touched her wooden wrist, and felt something like a pulse flicker through it—she
feared it would be hard to go on without any more. It took time for Rowan and
Myrna to understand each other’s words; they had to take hold of each other and
think clearly, then know. Finder’s keepers. Zabaveno nálezcem . . . and humans
only lived a few years, so afterward Rowan could go home again, back to half-
sleep and voices that asked nothing of her. She and Myrna took their time
presenting the situation to Professor and Mrs. Semyonov. They waited until the

family was reunited in London, their chief concerns being that Mrs. Semyonova
might call in an exorcist and the professor might try to find out how to make
more living puppets by taking Rowan apart. But the Semyonovs weren’t like
that. There were a few words of Neruda’s they were fond of:

I don’t know anything about light, from where

it comes, nor where it goes
I only want the light to light up . . .

Rowan took a little bow, to indicate that he’d told all that he wished to tell.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
He sighed. “I’m afraid Myrna is not turning out well. All she seems to have
learned is a way to take pain away without touching anybody.”

“And that’s bad?”
“It is if your method involves causing the pain in the first place. But don’t
worry, I’ll deal with her and Tyche both. But the main thing for you is that
though you wish to alter your condition that wish will not be granted through
me, if at all.”

I made no reply, since he’d given me much to consider.
(How much of this do I tell Radha?
As much as will change her feelings.
None of it, then.)
Rowan carried me home in his rucksack—to Radha’s house, not Myrna’s.
Gustav answered the door. Behind him Radha was practicing a choreographed
dance with Petrushka and Loco Dempsey, jumping in and out of different pairs

of shoes.
“I’m sorry,” Rowan said, as he set me down on the doorstep.