[ WP ] Becoming a god .

It began with practice; in the books, no matter the god, no matter the power, or strength, to conceal and alter the paths of the people was like second-nature. They were predictable, single-faceted, and to know them, intimately, was to control them. 
 
 She spent her mornings before school in the diner. By the fourth week they knew her, although she had known them for days. At the start, if there was no one else there but Andrew, bringing her coffee, she would push herself up against the glass, read the books of Norse myths she had found in the library. Soon enough, she left the book in her bag, and tried to read Andrew. 
 
 She listened to the band whose badge was pinned to his parka in the hall; and on Thursday, she drew their conversations toward it. She let him talk about movies, and comic-books, and promised to read them; on the weekend, she took her laptop up to the old house, leaving *The Crow* and *The Lost Boys* on in the background as she painted the lines on the floor. 
 
 On Tuesday, they talked again, and he was snared. She let her words spill out, and ebb away, Andrew's voice chasing after her. 
 
 On Thursday, in the bathroom, she pushed her breasts together, and pulled the neck of her shirt down, and re-applied the Kohl she had borrowed from her sister. In the booth, she leaned over an issue of *Hellblazer* he had bought her, her hand at the hem of her shirt. 
 
 On Friday, she mentioned the house, and when he began talking about it, she drew herself away. He asked her if she'd like him to take her up there. 
 
 On Saturday, he helped her over the fence and gave her back her backpack. He pushed open the doors that led inside, and showed her the strange, delicate patterns painted on the floor. He brought her to the drawing of the tree in the center of the room; and she told him it looked to be his size. He lay down, while her hands moved in her bag. 
 
 The wound had not killed him; but where she had thrust it, the shaft had gone up from his side into his chest, maybe pierced a lung. His arms moved strangely, haltingly, his hands grasping at the piece of wood, and at his shirt, and sliding across the floorboards. She broke the bones in one of his hands with her boot; and as she knelt at his neck to finish what she had started, she could hold off the grip of his other arm. It was desperate, but clumsy. 
 
 She watched him very carefully. As something passed over his expression, and she knew in the chambers of her chest that this was the moment, she dedicated his life to herself. As she stood up, she felt felt a quiver run from her hands to the well above her stomach, build, and recede like water into the earth. 
 
 Then she grabbed him by his coat, and dragged him into the yard.
