He walked over to it and folded his arms. "What is it?" he said. The golem bent its head slightly and looked him in the eye. It was man-shaped, but baggier, muscles like frozen mud. An overhang of belly covered its smooth crotch like a kilt. Its chisel-shaped teeth clacked together as it limbered up its jaw. "Your father is sad," it said. Its voice was slow and grinding, like an avalanche. "Our side grows cold." "I don't care," Alan said. "*Fuck* my father," he said. Behind him, perched atop their mother, Davey whittered a mean little laugh. "You shouldn't --" Alan shoved the golem. It was like shoving a boulder. It didn't give at all. "You don't tell me what to do," he said. "You can't tell me what to do. I want to know what I am, how we're possible, and if you can't help, then you can leave now." The winds blew colder, smelling now of the golem's side of the mountain, of clay and the dry bones of their kills, which they arrayed on the walls of their cavern. The golem stood stock still. "Does it...*understand*?" Marci asked. Davey snickered again. "It's not stupid," Alan said, calming a little. "It's...*slow*. It thinks slowly and acts slowly. But it's not stupid." He paused for a moment. "It taught me to speak," he said. That did it. He began to cry, biting his lip to keep from making a sound, but the tears rolled down his cheeks and his shoulders shook. The flashlight's beam pinned him, and he wanted to run to his mother and hide behind her, wanted to escape the light. "Go," he said softly to the golem, touching its elbow. "It'll be all right." Slowly, gratingly, the golem turned and lumbered out of the cave, clumsy and ponderous. Marci put her arm around him and he buried his face in her skinny neck, the hot tears coursing down her collarbones. # Davey came to him that night and pinned him in the light of the flashlight. He woke staring up into the bright bulb, shielding his eyes. He groped out for the light, but Darryl danced back out of reach, keeping the beam in his eyes. The air crackled with the angry grinding of its hand-dynamo. He climbed out of bed naked and felt around on the floor. He had a geode there, he'd broken it and polished it by hand, and it was the size of a softball, the top smooth as glass, the underside rough as a coconut's hide. Wordless and swift, he wound up and threw the geode as hard as he could at where he judged Davey's head to be. There was a thud and a cry, and the light clattered to the ground, growing more dim as its dynamo whirred to a stop. Green blobs chased themselves across his vision, and he could only see Darren rolling on the ground by turning his head to one side and looking out of the corner of his eye.