Ned laughs, then, but there's no humor in it. It's a hysterical sound, brief and unhinged. "I don't know how it happens, either," he says. He can feel Ginsberg's hand on his shoulder, shrinks away from it. For Ginsberg's own sake, he thinks. Once he knows the truth, he won't want to touch Ned ever again, won't want to come near him.

The worst part of it is that he'd been so happy. He'd been careless because he'd let himself slip into a mindset in which he didn't think anything could go wrong. He ought not to have gotten up on that wall, should have known that he could trip and fall and ruin everything.

But Ginsberg is waiting, staring at him, and Ned is going to have to say something sooner or later. The words are jumbled and rushed as he says, "You're not crazy. That's what happened. She was dead, and I touched her, and she came back to life. Then I touched her again and she went back to being dead. Because that's what always happens. Because I'm a f-freak of nature. I'm cursed, or magic, or an alien, or a monster, or something. I don't know. I just know how it works."

Now that he's started talking, Ned finds that he can't stop. It's all pouring out of him, like water from a broken dam. "Ever since I was a kid, I've had this- this thing. I can't control it, or make it go away. And it's always been a secret. T-til now. And you saw the whole thing."