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bring terminal mischief upon the lad.
    Paul stopped coming by Kensington Gardens during the week or so it took the medicine to work its magic, which the Irishman did not know. We could have told him, of course; but we find it’s preferable to let the characters in the drama find these things out for themselves, lest they discover too much too fast and wind up stampeding toward the end of the book having learned none of what they were supposed to in their journey. The Irishman had almost given up hope of having the opportunity to kill the lad, but was both delighted and dismayed to spot him one day ambling through the Gardens in much his normal routine, briefly thought abandoned.
    He watched Paul walk away down the Broad Walk, without—as always—a mother in tow. This was fine insofar as the Irishman was concerned; for in his experience, mothers were nothing but a blamed nuisance. Paul got ahead of him and seemed to disappear and reappear almost at will, leading the Irishman to conclude that one of Paul’s parents was probably Irish, explaining possible leprechaun leanings that the Irishman could usually spot at twenty feet away.
    The Irishman stalked Paul while trying to remain casual, and finally caught up with him at two small tombstones. One read “W. St. M.” and the other “13a P. P. 1841.” Paul was staring at them, his hands behind his back. The Irishman came up slowly, prepared to both stab and shoot Paul just to make certain. He was prevented from doing this by two things: Paul’s suddenly turning and looking him right in the eyes, and the fact that he was unarmed.
    “I used to wonder if The Boy was buried beneath that one,” said Paul.
    He was pointing at the tombstone with “P.P.” upon it. The notion took the Irishman aback, and he looked leeways and sideways and thriceways at Paul, and then said, “I don’t think so. The year’s wrong.”
    “Maybe not,” Paul reasoned. “Maybe The Boy is just a boy who died and doesn’t know it, and won’t admit it, so he’s stuck in between, too lively to be dead, too dead to be alive.”
    “He was wounded. By Hack. Wounded and nearly died from it. How could one nearly die from a wound if one is not truly alive?”
    Paul nodded but then said, “He liked to pretend. Perhaps he pretended he was wounded.”
    “That could be,” allowed the Irishman. “That would be like him. To have the last laugh on Hack by being unkillable, since he’s already killed.”
    “So you know the stories of him, then?”
    “Stories? Who said we were talking about stories?”
    The true significance of the words filtered slowly through Paul’s mind, and then he turned and looked up at the Irishman as if truly seeing him, and understanding him, for the first time.
    “I was making things up just now,” Paul said. “Talking about The Boy as if he really was, when he’s just the stuff of dreams.”
    “Why should he be any different from the rest of us?”
    Paul tried to determine whether that was wise or just obscure, and didn’t bother to decide. Cautiously he asked the question he’d been afraid to voice, because it seemed to get him into trouble when he did. “Am I The Boy?” he said.
    “No,” said the Irishman, and then looked at him closer. “You look a bit like him though. Around the eyes. Enough around the eyes to stir up some bad memories.”
    “Were you about to kill me, then?” Paul said.
    “No. No, no, no. Yes, but no. Yes, in that I intended to do it, but no, in that I intended to lie about it.”
    “Have you killed many boys?”
    “Not hereabouts. Not for a while. If ever. My memory on that score is a bit patchy, I’m sorry to say.”
    “Oh. Well, I wish you wouldn’t do it now.”
    The Irishman considered this, then shrugged. “All right, then. I’ll do the next best thing to killing you. I’ll help you.”
    “You can’t kill someone by helping him.”
    “Course you can,” said the Irishman. “Best way, in fact. Whole races of people, poor