Bone by Bone

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Many thanks to those who helped me with my research, among them an entire army that operates from a five-sided building and prefers to go nameless on this page (something to do with not going through proper channels for an interview). And thank you, Mr. Hanlon of Hanlon's Razor.

A batty old man of the cloth had once described the Hobbs boy as a joke of God's: an archangel of the warrior cast and a beacon for women with carnal intentions.

An angel.

Would that he had wings.

Oren Hobbs, now a man full grown, opened his eyes in the dark and took deep breaths to quell the panic. Every time he dreamed, he died. Neither awake nor asleep, he was caught, for a second or two, between the nightmare of going home again and the solid world, where he had arrived-where a dog was barking in the yard.

He lay sprawled upon the old horsehair sofa. The upholstery smelled of tobacco and spilt whiskey, the best-loved vices of his father and the housekeeper. These stale odors were cut with a slice of a cool, sweet air from the open porch window. He had forgotten to lower the sash after climbing inside, and now Oren recalled that the door to the house had been locked against him for the first time in memory. Still drowsing, his eyes were slow to pick out the surrounding shadows of furniture that took on familiar form but no detail.

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