"Nothing to it," he said, and led the boy through the kitchen to the workshop downstairs.

Here the greater illusions were built. Common screws and paste comprised a cartilage of miracles. The old man grabbed a hammer and the knuckles went white. With each knock the boy blinked, even when he tried not to. He cupped hands to his eyes and pressed them hard. Pressed the spaces where light came through until no more light came through.

"That's how it looks to get swallowed up," he thought. "Swallowed like in a whale."

Reddened forms rippled with lapping thrusts of sound. Same happened with his eyelids squeezed shut, a liquid depth receding and returning.

The hammering stopped.

"Look here. I'm tryna show you something."

In his undershirt now, fibrous muscle stretched as the bench caught the discarded tool. The thimble was deformed to no longer resemble its kind until turned a certain way. His movements went slow; ordinary movements that seemed unrelated to sought effect. A few repeats and he passed it along. Still, it felt hot.

The boy fumbled and dropped it, picked it up.

"Look at me when you do it, not your hands."

Again it fell.

"Look at me, I said. Letcher hands do it."

At last it seemed he had not done it, could not do it, that next he would have to be told what to do next.

"Easy, aint it?"

The old man pulled on his shirt and his hardened fingers went to buttoning.

"Go show Ma," the old man said.

The boy repeated the move, this time pulling from the old man's pocket.

"You got it. Go show Ma." Meaning his daughter, the one never drowned.

The boy stood doing it over, watching fingertips tap tobacco into paper.

"Go on."

One by one, steps took him up. Up to a phone cord hung limp. Up to the stench of uncanned meat and pots gone tepid, emptied of skinned tomatoes. Crackers lay amid ossified cheeses. An oven mitt at the floor, fingers bent, pointed. Pointing past the counter. Past the pantry. Beyond swinging doors. Beyond chairs to where his mother sat.

He stood before her.

"Look."

Her eyes fixed elsewhere, a hand stroked his back. She sat among the aunties. To one side, Auntie Dorothy. Behind, Ant Dorthy. To the other side—not auntie once but auntie now—Kathleen.

"Look, Ma. Watch."

Auntie Kathleen gave a tender smile. Ma said, "Hush."

To the ground he dropped, sat, rolled under the table.

"Now whether there is more than one time appointed for men to rise it matters not; for all do not die at once, and this matters not. All is as one day with God, and time only is measured unto men— Therefore there is a time appointed unto men that they shall rise from the dead, and there is a space between the time of death and the resurrection. And now, concerning this space of time, what becomes of the souls of men is the thing which I have inquired diligently of the Lord to know; and this is the thing of which I do know— And when the time comes when all shall rise, then shall they know that God knows all the times which are appointed unto man—"

Underneath he stared.

Up at the underneath he stared, then rolled around, squirming to the vent. He peered into the floor, into where it went below, bending down into dark earth. Bending though he might get there. He might squeeze through. He closed one eye, angling the other with floor. Metal and then black. Other side, other eye, the same. If he pulled the vent off—could finger through the slits and pull it off—he might go down. Squeeze down beyond where it bent, beyond where sight could see to.

He yanked at the vent.

"Willy, come out from there!"

He yanked again, then slid all his fingers down one slit, his hand too thick to go through. Knees folded beneath him, he took hold with both hands and pulled.

"Come here, Willy—now!"

He let go of the vent and crawled out to his mother's reach. She pulled him to her scent. In his hair her touch spread tingle down to his neck.

"—Yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame."

The man stopped speaking, then stood aside. They closed the lid. His father and three uncles lifted the box. Without hardship they hauled it off. Now light befell the vent in plain view. Others arose, talking. He tugged her sleeve until she looked. Aunties too; Kathleen with primed interest. All of them looking. Eyes on him.

"Watch."

With steady absorption he made the thimble gone. They waited. He stalled, scanning—among them no pockets from which to redeem it. Kathleen's lap shrouded in blue cloth offered nearest hollow, a dark cavity between knees where he reached, producing the object anew in godly triumph.

Ant Dorthy clapped.

His mother looked away.

"Did you see, Ma? Did you see?"

"I saw."

Auntie Kathleen spoke through a ruddy grin. "Your grandpa teach you that?"

He nodded, head wandering. "He can do it to anything. Even the house."

The box removed, aunties followed to the door; none yet widowed, husbands ahead. His mother took his hand and led him out. Outside they were lifting, hoisting up to the car. His gaze stopped on the old man, somehow gone to the road beyond the fence. He glanced back to the door, searched the porch and yard for a way of passage.

None found.

That trick he had never seen.

He gaped at the figure, high and immobile. Break of clouded sky released a blazing spread across land. The old man abided still distance. From his fingers fell a smoking fag, then crushed underfoot.

"He held on a long time," one said.

Tears immersed cheeks and chins of aunties. He watched them wipe with pale spiders. He thought of the uncle, of his name, of things done and said, unmoved. He screwed his eyes to make them flood. It was not hard to do.