Absolutely, Positively

detect.

    He prepared to concentrate. Really concentrate.

    He had not wanted to do this. He had not opened himself to this kind of intense contemplation since the day Wild Willy Trevelyan had been killed in the motorcycle stunt. Harry reminded himself that he had not liked the truth that hisinsights had revealed on that occasion. He might not like whatever truth he gleaned from tonight's contemplation, either.

    He certainly did not relish the sensation that he knew would accompany the exercise. He felt excruciatingly vulnerable whenever he experienced even small flashes of insight. The deeper exploration he intended to try for tonight would be far worse. He could expect to question his own sanity before it was over. He hated the fear that was waiting for him in the darkness of his own mind.

    But he had to take the chance. His need for answers was stronger than his terror of going mad.

    Harry plunged himself into the deepest level of thought. It was akin to sinking into a whirling void, a place at the farthest reaches of the galaxy. The trick was to avoid traveling too far into the darkness. Somewhere out there the abyss awaited him.

    His concentration became so intense that he lost all sense of his surroundings. He was no longer in his own living room. He was part of the night outside the windows.

    The metal burned into his palm. Something inside him screamed a silent warning, not about the mechanical gear he held, but about what was happening to his personal fortifications. He had forged those internal barriers over a period of years, working by instinct alone, not fully aware of what he was trying to accomplish.

    It was not until he was well into his twenties that he had begun to comprehend that he was attempting to build a wall at the edge of the abyss.

    He had done his work well, considering the fact that he had no model from which to work. Over the years he had learned to use the shallow reaches of the intense state of concentration that his mind was capable of producing. For the most part, he pretended not to see the dark depths below.

    But tonight he was going to reach down into them in a search for answers.

    Carefully, cautiously, he dismantled the barriers that protected him from the dangers of the abyss.

    There were few things Harry feared in life, but the feeling that descended upon him now was definitely one of them. The lack of control that accompanied the complete eradication of his inner fortress was the price he had to pay to accomplish his aims.

    He stood at the window, staring out into the night, and let the vibrations of awareness flood his mind. He gave himself up to the process ofknowing .

    The darkness on the other side of the window flowed into the living room and wrapped itself around him.

    Harry closed his eyes and tightened his grasp on the small gear in his hand. There was something important here. Something he needed to comprehend in order to help Molly.

    He saw the abyss. And the glass bridge that spanned it. He could not see the other side. He had never been able to see it. He had never allowed himself to cross the bridge. Only rarely had he even risked stepping out onto it.

    He did not know what awaited him on the far side of the abyss, but he knew with great certainty that madness lay below. He took a tentative step out onto the glass bridge.Don't look down , he told himself.Just don't look down .

    “Harry?”

    From out of nowhere the hunger rose within him, devastating his severely weakened defenses.

    “Harry, are you all right?” Molly's voice was a whisper of sound in the distance. It reached through the endless night that surrounded him.

    She was here in the living room. Right behind him.

    No. Leave. Go back to your bed. For God's sake, don't come near me. Not now.

    But the words were trapped in his mind. He could not utter them aloud.

    “Is something wrong, Harry?”

    Yes. Yes. Yes.

    He could not form the words with his tongue. His body would not obey his commands. Harry staggered as he turned to face Molly.

    He watched her walk toward him through the shadows and knew a savage despair. He was too far out on the glass bridge. He could not control the desperate, questing need within himself.

    Balanced on the knife-thin edge of glass, Harry glimpsed the opposite shore of the abyss. He suddenly understood why he had always crushed any speculation of what might await him there. It was better not to contemplate too closely that which he could not