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The pain did not deter him; if anything, it made him all the more desperate and reckless. He pulled back his head and drove his skull into the glass. It felt as if someone had set a three-inch iron railway spike against his brow and pounded it in with Charlie Manx’s silver hammer. Wayne was snapped back into blackness. It was as terrible as falling down a long flight of stairs, a sudden stomach-turning plunge into the dark.

His vision returned to him momentarily. At least he thought it was momentarily—maybe it was an hour later. Maybe it was three hours. However long it had been, when his sight and thoughts had cleared, he found that his sense of calm had been restored as well. The inside of his head was filled with a reverberating emptiness, as if someone had played a great crashing chord on a piano some minutes ago and the last echoes of it were only now fading away.

A dazed lassitude—not entirely unpleasant—stole over him. He felt no desire to move, to shout, to plan, to cry, to worry about what was next. His tongue gently probed at one of his lower front teeth, which felt loose and tasted of blood. Wayne wondered if he had struck his head so hard he’d managed to partially jar the tooth out of its socket. The roof of his mouth prickled against his tongue, felt abrasive, sandpapery. It didn’t concern him much, was just something he noticed.

When he did finally move, it was only to stretch an arm out and pluck his moon ornament off the floor. It was as smooth as a shark’s tooth, and its shape reminded him a bit of the special wrench his mother had used on the motorcycle, the tappet key. It was a kind of key, he thought. His moon was a key to the gates of Christmasland, and he could not help it—the notion delighted him. There was no such thing as arguing with delight. Like seeing a pretty girl with the sunlight in her hair, like pancakes and hot chocolate in front of a crackling fire. Delight was one of the fundamental forces of being, like gravity.

A great bronze butterfly crawled on the outside of the window, its furred body as thick as Wayne’s finger. It was soothing to watch it clamber about, occasionally waving its wings. If the window was open, even a crack, the butterfly might join him in the backseat, and then he’d have a pet.

Wayne stroked his lucky moon, thumb moving back and forth, a simple, thoughtless, basically masturbatory gesture. His mother had her bike, and Mr. Manx had his Wraith, but Wayne had a whole moon to himself.

He daydreamed about what he’d do with his new pet butterfly. He liked the idea of teaching it to land on his finger, like a trained falcon. He could see it in his mind, resting on the tip of his index finger, fanning its wings in a slow, peaceful sort of way. Good old butterfly. Wayne would name it Sunny.

In the distance a dog barked, soundtrack of an indolent summer day. Wayne picked the loose tooth out of his gums and put it in the pocket of his shorts. He wiped the blood on his shirt. When he went back to rubbing his moon, his fingers spread the blood all over it.

What did butterflies eat? he wondered. He was pretty sure they dined on pollen. He wondered what else he could train it to do: if he could teach it to fly through burning hoops or walk across a miniature tightrope. He saw himself as a street performer, in a top hat, with a funny black stick-on mustache: Captain Bruce Carmody’s Bizarre Butterfly Circus! In his mind he wore his moon ornament like a general’s badge, right on his lapel.

He wondered if he could teach the butterfly to do wild loop-de-loops, like an airplane in a stunt show. The thought crossed his mind that he could rip off a wing and then it would fly in loop-de-loops for sure. He imagined that a wing would tear off like a piece of sticky paper, a slight resistance at first, then a satisfying little peeling sound.

The window rolled itself down an inch, the handle squeaking softly. Wayne did not rise. The butterfly reached the top of the glass, beat its wings once, and sailed in to land on his knee.

“Hey, Sunny,” Wayne said. He reached out to pet it with his finger, and it tried to fly away, which was no fun. Wayne sat up and caught it with one hand.

For a while he tried to teach it to do tricks, but it wasn’t long before the butterfly tired out. Wayne set it on the floor and stretched back on the couch to rest, a bit tired himself. Tired but feeling all right. He had milked a couple of good loop-de-loops out of the butterfly before it stopped moving.

He shut his eyes. His tongue restlessly probed the prickly roof of his mouth. His gum was still leaking, but that was okay. His own blood tasted good. Even as he dozed, his thumb went on stroking his little moon, the glossy-smooth curve of it.

Wayne did not open his eyes again until he heard the garage door rumbling into the ceiling. He sat up with some effort, the pleasant lethargy settled deep into his muscles.

Manx slowed as he approached the side of the car. He bent and tilted his head to one side—a querulous, doglike movement—and stared in through the window at Wayne.

“What happened to the butterfly?” he asked.

Wayne glanced at the floor. The butterfly was in a pile, both wings and all its legs torn off. He frowned, confused. It had been all right when they’d started playing.

Manx clucked his tongue. “Well, we have tarried here long enough. We had best be on our way. Do you need to go winkie-wee?”

Wayne shook his head. He looked at the butterfly again, with a creeping sense of unease, maybe even shame. He had a memory of tearing off at least one wing, but at the time it had seemed . . . exciting. Like peeling the tape off a perfectly wrapped Christmas present.

You murdered Sunny, Wayne thought. He unconsciously squeezed his moon ornament in one fist. Mutilated it.