staff had smashed out the fixed panes. The heat and stink were nauseating.
She saw the boy they’d brought with them. He sat all alone on the bare floor by the nurses’ station, a plastic action figure in each hand. His lifeless eyes were fixed on the wall before him. She went to him after checking to make sure she could see Johnson from where the boy sat. She had a couple of bottles of water, and she offered him one as she settled by his side. “You’re Jacob, aren’t you?”
The boy nodded.
She’d been searching for something to say to encourage him to talk, but it wasn’t necessary.
“What’s your name?”
“My name is Amaia.” She solemnly shook his hand.
“That’s a weird name!”
She smiled. “Yes, I guess so. It’s not from here. It’s from somewhere else.”
“What does it mean?”
“Mean?” she repeated, caught off guard.
“Jacob comes from the Bible. Bella is ‘pretty’ in Italian, and Diana was queen of the moon.”
Amaia assumed that for a child of his age, a queen and a goddess were practically the same thing. “Bella and Diana are your sisters? The girls they carried off?”
He nodded.
“Where are your parents?”
“They work in Baton Rouge.” She saw the distress in his face. “They’ll be here soon,” he said without much conviction. “Granny told me so.”
“It means ‘the end.’”
Jacob was confused by her comment.
“Amaia means ‘the end’ or ‘the last.’ Some people say it’s from the first mother. The earth mother, the mother of us all. She’s the beginning and the end.”
The boy smiled. “That’s a funny name!”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
The child held up his two little plastic figures. One was almost completely yellow, like a big, fat rabbit; the other was a little orange dragon, spitting fire out of the tip of its tail.
“Which do you like better?”
“The dragon,” she said without thinking.
“That’s Charizard, he flies and burns things up. Pikachu’s better than him.”
She gathered that Pikachu was the other figure, and she also saw that the boy was relieved she liked the dragon better.
“Okay, then, I like Charizard better.”
Jacob held out the toy. “For you!” He placed it on her palm.
Amaia was surprised. She’d assumed Jacob simply wanted to play. But no, he’d asked her to choose because he wanted to give her one of his toys.
“Jacob, thank you so much, but I can’t accept him.” She turned the little dragon over and saw that Jacob had written something underneath. She pointed to it. “Did you write your name?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you put it on all your toys?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you do that?”
“Diana collects Pokémons too, and she’s always saying mine belong to her.”
Amaia sat there with her eyes on Jacob as she loosened her vest and searched her pockets. She took out a folded piece of paper, opened it carefully, and showed the boy the photo she’d taken from the conference room the day before. It was a close-up of the mysterious mark along the side of the violin. “Take a look at this. What do you think it is?”
Jacob took the photo and leaned over to study it. “It’s a violin that belongs to some kid named Mic.”
“Mic? You think that’s what it says?”
Jacob nodded. “That’s what it says: Mic. It belongs to Mic!”
Surprised by that declaration, Amaia studied the image with the astonishment you experience when someone shows you how an impossible piece actually does fit into a jigsaw puzzle. She looked at Jacob. “How old is Mic?”
Jacob thought about it. “Four. Or maybe five.”
“Why do you think so?” she asked. She wanted to hear his explanation.
“’Cause he writes the letters all together. Really little kids always write them separate.”
“You’re older than that, of course.” Amaia smiled. She turned over the dragon and found that Jacob had carefully connected the letters as he’d inscribed his name. “Wow, Jacob, you’ve been a big help! I wasn’t going to accept your Charizard, but you know, I think I will take him with me, after all. He’ll be my lucky charm.” She refolded the photo and tucked it away along with Charizard. She saw Jacob watching her closely. “I wish I had something to trade you for him.”
The boy lowered his gaze. Amaia realized he was looking at the pistol on her belt. “You want my gun?” she asked, surprised.
Jacob nodded.
She assumed a very serious expression. “You know it’s a real one, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then you know I can’t give it to you, because a boy shouldn’t go around carrying a real gun.”
He nodded, disappointed.
“Why do you want it?”
“Because,” he said, starting to tremble