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against the soft doughy skin of the larger boy’s throat. Mucus and blood poured from his nose and
     dripped onto Henry’s hand, but the smaller boy seemed not to notice. Billy, beaten and exhausted, slumped awkwardly on the
     ground, legs splayed and head twisted upward. He had stopped crying and now whimpered in steady intervals. Henry crouched
     behind him with his pale and thin left arm wrapped around Billy’s neck just above the scissor points. The playground smelled
     of wet wood chips and rubber tires. Behind them, faces peered out of the elementary school windows, students staring in wide-eyed
     fascination at the tense scene outside. Some had begun to cry.
    “Henry?” Dr. Heath, the school principal, inched forward, her manicured hands extended in an unthreatening manner. “Henry?
     Listen to me. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Let go of Billy.”
    “Please, honey,” Miss Richards, Henry’s third grade teacher, pleaded. “You don’t want to hurt anyone. You’re a good boy.”
    “No, I’m not.”
    “Henry!” Reggie shouted as she raced across the thick lawn toward her brother. “Let him go!”
    “I told you to leave me alone,” Henry said again, this time in a whisper audible only to Billy. “Why couldn’t you just leave
     me alone?”
    “Henry.” Reggie stopped ten yards away and just stared. Was this really happening, or was it another vision? “What are you
     doing?”
    Henry’s hand trembled; the scissor points quivered against Billy’s exposed skin. He looked pleadingly at his sister.
    “What
am
I, Reggie?”
    Reggie approached him slowly and knelt on the ground a few feet away. Billy wailed and clutched Henry’s red cap tightly in
     his fist. Henry’s deformed ear, almost lost completely from frostbite the night on the lake, was exposed for everyone to see.
    “You’re my brother. You’re Henry.” She inched forward on her knees. “You’re just my Henry.”
    “I see things, Reggie.” The scissors shook in his small hand. “I close my eyes and I see awful things.”
    Tears welled in Reggie’s eyes. She fought to keep them back. “I know. I see them, too.”
    “You do?”
    “Yes.”
    “Can you make them stop?”
    The principal took small and cautious steps toward them.
    “I’m going to try.” Slowly, Reggie reached out her hand and laid it gently on Henry’s arm. “I know you don’t want to hurt
     anyone. Now let him go.”
    Henry sobbed and dropped the scissors. Billy jerked his head free and scrambled across the wood chips on hands and knees.
     Dr. Heath scooped him up like an infant and raced him into the building, just as a patrol car zoomed onto the grass with lights
     flashing and spinning. Thom Halloway’s old pickup followed. Miss Richards ran to address the first police officer as he jumped
     out of his car, a hand on his holstered sidearm.
    Reggie ignored the noise and hugged Henry tightly. He whimpered into her shoulder.
    “What happened to me?”
    “I’m so sorry, Hen. This is my fault. I should have told you.”
    “Told me what?”
    Thom Halloway raced across the playground but stopped several feet short of his two children.
    “Reggie?”
    “Take us home, Dad.”
    “What the hell is going on? Henry—?”
    “Dad. Please. Take us home.”

    But the Halloway family didn’t pull into their driveway for another several hours. After such a disturbing incident, the Cutter’s
     Wedge police chief, the emergency medical team on the scene, and the school district’s superintendent demanded that Henry
     be evaluated before being released to his father’s care.
    Dr. Heath sent the rest of the students home for the day, and Dr. Unger, the child psychologist from the Thornwood Psychiatric
     Hospital who had been treating Henry for the past two months, was summoned to the elementary school. It was near dark before
     he cleared Henry to go home with his father and sister—provided that the entire family commit to immediate and intense group
     sessions