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Or empathy.
* * * *
Blake helped him with various repairs to the house. Valentine went into St. Louis and got kerosene and tallow for light, a big bag of rice, chicken feed, and tar for a couple of weak spots in the roof and drainspouts.
Valentine watched Blake with Narcisse. She touched Blake fre-quently, patting him on the head or shoulder or arm, and he smiled, but he rarely touched or returned hugs with much enthusiasm.
But then he loved to nap with his head pillowed on her lap or breast.
Once, while Blake was sleeping away the morning, Valentine asked Narcisse if she was ever afraid.
"Daveed, don't be silly. I am safer with the boy here than with a whole pack of guard dogs.
He tells me when the Grogs come ten minutes before I hear them."
"No, I mean of Blake."
"He cares, in his way. He is like-he is like the cat who just takes affection on his terms.
One time I fell from my wheel-stool and before I knew it he was beside me and righted it.
After, I had a scrape on my arm and he got a cloth with vinegar for it."
Valentine gave voice to his doubts. "Maybe he just thought he was repairing you, the way he did the chicken wire."
"One night in August it was hot and I did not kiss him good night. He asked me why I didn't as I left, and I told him I was worried that he was getting too big for a kiss good night. He said he liked it because it made him feel warm and sleepy. He has love and caring. Do not worry for me."
Valentine let the matter rest.
* * * *
They said their good-byes in the driveway. The garage now had a two-wheeled rig for Valentine's packhorse. Wobble sniffed at the new feed trough Valentine had built.
Narcisse had shown herself adept at driving the trap and Blake found the challenge of driving a horse fascinating. Blake approved of simple action-result loops much more than E. B.
White.
Valentine had acquired the rig by pledging to a loan of trade goods at the old church office in the city. He'd pay it back through the river rats.
"No sneaking blood out of that horse, now," Valentine said to Blake.
"No, papss," Blake said. Neither of the horses were happy about Blake's presence. They sidestepped and danced every time he moved. The carthorse would get used to him eventually.
"Help Sissy all you can. I may be gone for a while, so you've got to look out for her."
"No trouble for sissy" Blake said. Narcisse stroked his odd tufts of hair. It looked as though someone had glued old toothbrush heads in odd patterns on his scalp. It just grew in that way.
He remembered one of the Miskatonic researchers saying something about it possibly being an identifying mark.
"Go with the magic of the right hand, Daveed," Narcisse said.
He plucked her out of her wheelchair and hugged her. She'd put on a little weight since he'd met her in Haiti.
"Can't thank you enough, Sissy," Valentine said.
"I go where the most need is. Blake needs someone to teach him. My whole life, I never fit in anywhere," she said. "That is something I can teach Blake. How not to fit in right. The people here, especially the captives of the Grogs, they need me too."
Valentine knew she'd been practicing her folkloric brand of medicine with the humans.
