So there they go, Jim running slower to stay with Will, Will running faster to stay with Jim, Jim breaking two windows in a haunted house because Will’s along, Will breaking one instead of none, because Jim’s watching. God, how we get our fingers in each other’s clay. That’s friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of the other.

Jim, Will, he thought, strangers. Go on. I’ll catch up, some day…

The library door gasped open, slammed.

Five minutes later, he turned into the corner saloon for his nightly one-and-only drink, in time to hear a man say:

“…I read when alcohol was invented, the Italians thought it was the big thing they’d been looking for for centuries. The Elixir of Life! Did you know that?

“No.” The bartender’s back was turned.

“Sure,” the man went on. “Distilled wine. Ninth, tenth century. Looked like water. But it burnt. I mean, it not only burnt the mouth and stomach, but you could set it on fire. So they thought they’d mixed water and fire. Fire-water, the Elixir Vitae, by God. Maybe they weren’t so far wrong thinking it was the Cure-all, the thing that worked miracles. Have a drink!?”

“I don’t need it,” said Halloway. “But someone inside me does.”

“Who?”

The boy I once was, thought Halloway, who runs like the leaves down the sidewalk autumn nights.

But he couldn’t say that.

So he drank, eyes shut, listening to hear if that thing inside turned over again, rustling in the deep bons that were stacked for burning but never burned.

Chapter 4

Will stopped. Will looked at the Friday night town.

It seemed when the first stroke of nine banged from the big courthouse clock all the lights were on and business humming in the shops.