With only one course open, the matter could be quickly laid to rest. As I opened the door the heat flew in my face. The man might have been breathing flames at me himself, I felt so nervous about approaching him. Since first finding him there I had never entered the room without company. Any words spoken had been around him, and dried in my throat now they were asked to speak direct. Finally they burst out in a voice high and unfamiliar.
"What is it you think about?" The sentence burnt out before its close, shutting off the polite 'sir' that should have followed. Convinced that I had been unforgivably rude I allowed him the briefest moment to reply, then fled. Into the garden, through the gate and scampering up the hill I was eager to make the incident as unreal as possible. Looking back down at our house, the chimney stack puffing smoke out into the blue, I knew grandfather was contained. He could never follow me across a summer's day.
I tried to avoid the living room over the next few days, and found a powerful ally in mother. "It's no place for a young boy to be in this weather," she said, propping the back door open to leave me a clear escape. When I had to enter I sought the wealth of shadow to hide me.
Mother occasionally whirled a cloak of busyness around herself that nothing could penetrate. Blocked by one such moment I played defiant and marched straight for the living room door. Timidity took root again as I breached the door just slightly. The airs of our two worlds mingled, then drew my head in through the gap. Grandfather was rocking still. The flames conjured up the demon through his glasses, bouncing a vivid reflection where his eyes should have been. The bellows of the rug at his feet became a concertina that wheezed a voice out of his body.
"Hello, Billy." It was a thin, treble voice, unlike any I had ever heard in an adult. It seemed he had found this voice to accord with mine, and it was tingling with the game. I moved in closer.
"Come here," he said, patting his mitten soundlessly upon his lap. Father would have whisked me into the air and landed me on a table; this invitation showed a delicacy I did not wish to cope with. I grew brittle with horror at the very thought of touching those knees.
"Come on." The rocking stopped as the mitten padded up and down. I edged nearer, reached forward to offer a handshake, and was gripped under the armpits. the strength in his hands was unexpected, the feel of two steel hooks lifting me off my feet. I was dropped, ready to hear the violent whisper of his legs as they flaked under my weight. Instead it was like landing atop a double-barred gate, and swung as wildly. The chair rocked, shocked out of its rhythm, as I grasped for its arms. I drew my body in tight, perched on this man, as the chair settled.
"You asked me what I was thinking, Billy."
"You asked me
what I was thinking, Billy."
I nodded into the protracted silence.
"What do I think?" He suggested the question to himself, hoping the words would strike some actual meaning into his mind. "Whatever you do, that's what I think. That, and a great deal more. The other day, when you ran out of here?"