animals. Quite reasonably, he was a little dubious about meeting yet another stranger wanting
to probe and scrutinize him. A pretty regular kid. But there was a parallel Tommy, a hidden unease and pressure below the
surface. There was the Tommy you could see, the one who stuck his head above the waves, and there was the rest of him moving
in a different and darker medium.
Julieta went back to the barn and returned with another handful of grain. She put it into one of the pans and held it out
to the horses, rattling it temptingly. "Come on, kids," she called. "Let's take our evening constitutional. C'mon, Breeze.
Spence! Shake a leg!"
The horses sashayed toward her. As Julieta coaxed them into a walk around the fence line, the sun drifted below the shoulder
of a rise to the west. Only a dwindling strip of orange lingered at the top of the mesa, and a mercury vapor light came on
at the corner of the house, gilding the near wall of the barn with a silver tinge. Julieta strode in front of the ambling
horses, Tommy among them with an arm thrown over one or another. As they headed along the far fence, he slipped onto the back
of one of the mares and lay comfortably along her spine. The horse ignored him. After a few paces, he slid off the mare and
up onto the gelding, where he sat with one leg down the horse's belly and the other crossed over its shoulder, hands relaxed
on his thighs.
Cree was struck by the pleasure on Julieta's face, how lovely and rare. Despite his tension, Dr. Tsosie made a soft noise
of satisfaction as he watched them.
And Tommy: Tommy looked almost happy. Maybe Mason Ambrose was wrong about this whole thing, Cree thought. Maybe the hospital
doctors were right and the nagging buzz she felt was just Tommy Keeday, a relatively typical teenager with some normal-world
issues that made him act out in an unusual way.
As if he'd read Cree's thoughts, Dr. Tsosie turned to her. The sunlight was almost gone now, and his face was lit with silver
from the searing light on the house as he regarded her thoughtfully.
"Just wait," he told her.
9
YOU'D NEVER know there was anything wrong with him, Lynn Pierce thought, watching Tommy. Good luck, Dr. Lucretia Black.
The boy was playing with the little marshmallows that floated on the top of his cup. He dipped his teaspoon and boated the
white clots back and forth across the surface of steaming chocolate, then selected one and ate it. Some of it was an act;
with the new psychologist there, he was working hard to play normal. Julieta sat at one end of the table, positively dripping
martyred noblesse oblige, making quick insincere smiles whenever Tommy or Joseph looked her way and losing them just as fast
when either male focused on anything else. The psychologist, who introduced herself as Cree, had alert hazel eyes and a neutral
expression as she watched Tommy. Lynn wondered if she was perceptive enough to see just how bogus Queen Julieta was, how many
secrets lurked below the surface here.
The five of them had settled in the infirmary's dayroom to drink hot chocolate and play cards, an exercise transparently thought
up by Julieta to allow the psychologist to observe Tommy at close range. The wide, beam-ceilinged chamber was furnished with
more institutional furniture than it no doubt had been when the queen was in her heyday here, but more than any other room
in the building it retained reminders that this had once been a rich person's home: creamy stucco walls, huge fireplace with
a step-shouldered mantel, brilliantly varnished old-board floors, built-in bookshelves, fancy light switches—something of
a Santa Fe ambience. Right now the windows were hard black rectangles of night, and outside the temperature had dropped, but
Lynn had lit a fire in the grate. It crackled behind its screen and made the place feel snug and pleasant despite Julieta's
preening and that god-awful sense of latent menace in Tommy.
Joseph
to probe and scrutinize him. A pretty regular kid. But there was a parallel Tommy, a hidden unease and pressure below the
surface. There was the Tommy you could see, the one who stuck his head above the waves, and there was the rest of him moving
in a different and darker medium.
Julieta went back to the barn and returned with another handful of grain. She put it into one of the pans and held it out
to the horses, rattling it temptingly. "Come on, kids," she called. "Let's take our evening constitutional. C'mon, Breeze.
Spence! Shake a leg!"
The horses sashayed toward her. As Julieta coaxed them into a walk around the fence line, the sun drifted below the shoulder
of a rise to the west. Only a dwindling strip of orange lingered at the top of the mesa, and a mercury vapor light came on
at the corner of the house, gilding the near wall of the barn with a silver tinge. Julieta strode in front of the ambling
horses, Tommy among them with an arm thrown over one or another. As they headed along the far fence, he slipped onto the back
of one of the mares and lay comfortably along her spine. The horse ignored him. After a few paces, he slid off the mare and
up onto the gelding, where he sat with one leg down the horse's belly and the other crossed over its shoulder, hands relaxed
on his thighs.
Cree was struck by the pleasure on Julieta's face, how lovely and rare. Despite his tension, Dr. Tsosie made a soft noise
of satisfaction as he watched them.
And Tommy: Tommy looked almost happy. Maybe Mason Ambrose was wrong about this whole thing, Cree thought. Maybe the hospital
doctors were right and the nagging buzz she felt was just Tommy Keeday, a relatively typical teenager with some normal-world
issues that made him act out in an unusual way.
As if he'd read Cree's thoughts, Dr. Tsosie turned to her. The sunlight was almost gone now, and his face was lit with silver
from the searing light on the house as he regarded her thoughtfully.
"Just wait," he told her.
9
YOU'D NEVER know there was anything wrong with him, Lynn Pierce thought, watching Tommy. Good luck, Dr. Lucretia Black.
The boy was playing with the little marshmallows that floated on the top of his cup. He dipped his teaspoon and boated the
white clots back and forth across the surface of steaming chocolate, then selected one and ate it. Some of it was an act;
with the new psychologist there, he was working hard to play normal. Julieta sat at one end of the table, positively dripping
martyred noblesse oblige, making quick insincere smiles whenever Tommy or Joseph looked her way and losing them just as fast
when either male focused on anything else. The psychologist, who introduced herself as Cree, had alert hazel eyes and a neutral
expression as she watched Tommy. Lynn wondered if she was perceptive enough to see just how bogus Queen Julieta was, how many
secrets lurked below the surface here.
The five of them had settled in the infirmary's dayroom to drink hot chocolate and play cards, an exercise transparently thought
up by Julieta to allow the psychologist to observe Tommy at close range. The wide, beam-ceilinged chamber was furnished with
more institutional furniture than it no doubt had been when the queen was in her heyday here, but more than any other room
in the building it retained reminders that this had once been a rich person's home: creamy stucco walls, huge fireplace with
a step-shouldered mantel, brilliantly varnished old-board floors, built-in bookshelves, fancy light switches—something of
a Santa Fe ambience. Right now the windows were hard black rectangles of night, and outside the temperature had dropped, but
Lynn had lit a fire in the grate. It crackled behind its screen and made the place feel snug and pleasant despite Julieta's
preening and that god-awful sense of latent menace in Tommy.
Joseph
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