THE LITTLE GIRL WITH THE BAND-AID on her forearm sat holding her coat on her lap like a small pink pet that she was afraid might run off. Bunches of wadded-up Kleenex lay around her everywhere, on the bench and on the floor. Sitting next to her, a woman in an outmoded brown suit and thick glasses sat patting her knee. She looked up at Scott and Owen with a kind of startled alarm.

“Mr. Mast?”

Both men answered “yes” simultaneously, and the woman looked momentarily confused. “I’m Principal Vickers,” she said, standing up and turning. Scott saw a run in her left nylon, from ankle to calf. “Henry’s in my office. Would you come with me, please?”

“What happened?” Owen asked as they walked.

“I think at this point I should just speak with the father.”

“That’s me.”

Principal Vickers stopped with her hand resting on the doorknob, her lens-distorted eyes sweeping from Scott to Owen, back to Scott, and then, with what appeared to be genuine reluctance, to Owen, where they stayed. “We’ve never had any sort of trouble with Henry in the past,” she said. “He’s a very sweet little boy, always plays with the other children. That’s what makes this kind of thing all the more … confounding.” Scott realized he’d misjudged the scowl; it wasn’t severity but profound, almost heartfelt dismay. “Frankly I’m at a loss.”

“I don’t understand,” Scott said. “What did he do?”

Principal Vickers let them both in.

ON THE WAY HOME Henry sat in the backseat of Scott’s rental car, silent, his shoulder belt twisted across his chest. He hugged his backpack in both arms, the same way he’d held on to it when Scott had dropped him off this morning, like a paratrooper about to jump out of a plane.

“You know who bites people?” Owen asked, staring at his son’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “Animals, that’s who. Are you an animal? Huh?”

Henry picked a dust mote in the air and stared at it.

“That principal said the girl might need stitches. What if her parents decide to sue us? You think I’ve got money for lawyers?”

The wrinkles in the backpack deepened.

“Fuck this shit,” Owen said. “I’ve got half a mind to lock you up inside the house where you can’t hurt people. That’s what you do with wild animals that bite, you lock them up in cages. Did you know that?”

“Or set them free,” the boy mumbled.

“What was that?”

“Owen—” Scott began.

“When we get back to the house, you’re going right upstairs. I don’t give a shit, you understand? You can stay up there all day and rot. Think about what you did. And hope and pray that kid’s dad doesn’t decide to take me to court.”

Scott pulled up in front of the house. There were no vehicles here, and he remembered Owen’s truck still parked outside Fusco’s from last night. Owen got out and stormed across the sidewalk, slowing down among the piles and heaps of snow and almost falling over on his way to the front door. Scott looked in the rearview mirror at his nephew’s face.

“Uncle Scott?”

“Yes.”

“Are rats wild?”

“No. I don’t know. Henry …” He turned around. “Why did you bite that girl?”

“She wanted to look in my backpack.”

“Why didn’t you let her?”

“It’s private.”

Scott looked at the pack in the boy’s arms, black smudges and streaks across the side. Ashes, he thought. It had been in the back of Sonia’s car this morning, meaning … what? The backpack had been with him last night when Red found the boy in the theater’s wreckage.

“Can I look?” Scott asked.

It took several seconds before Henry reluctantly opened his arms, allowing Scott to take the backpack. He found it to be surprisingly heavy, as if packed to the seams with wet sand, and he realized he’d never actually touched it this morning—Henry had held on to the backpack, all the way to school. He started to open it; the zipper got stuck on something inside. Scott tugged harder, and it sprang open with a little puff of black dust. The burned smell came out, filling the car with a stench worse than simple ash. The backpack was bulging with cinders.

“What is this?” Scott asked.

Henry didn’t answer. His eyes gleamed and two big tears welled up and fell, cutting clean tracks over his dirty cheeks. But when he spoke, his voice was clear, almost defiant.

“It’s my brother.”