In the forest Blur loses his way in the riotous growth and is captured and briefly owned by a deer.
"Release me!" he cries, straining to spread the bars of his cage. "I am tired of your mind-control games!" The deer looks up from its book of spells.
"HUMAN HANDS
"9 black candles black dog hair black cat hair dried blackberry leaves 9 pins 9 needles 9 nails black washcloth 1 white offertory candle boy sugarcane some corn starch salt ginger root
"Start by wrapping sugarcane, corn starch and ginger root in the dampened black washcloth. DO NOT MIX the black dog hair and black cat hair. Keep them on opposite ends of the room, if necessary. Black candles should already be lit. Place your fins or stumps or whatever you have on the black washcloth bundle. Recite:
"Grubs, sub-grubs, wriggling grubs
One of the lowest animals,
in terms of intelligence,
man being one of the highest
if not the highest…'
Keep this chant on your mind throughout the day, gradually thinning out the respective piles of black dog hair and black cat hair by stealing one or two hairs every time you go by, from each pile, careful not to mix them, and burying them in different corners of the yard. Boy should be decapitated on the third day of the moon, stripped and promptly burned, in a large barrel if possible, all but his hands. These should be neatly folded and worn in a pouch of coarse salt around the neck. Stick all 9 pins, needles, nails, whatever else, through the black washcloth bundle. Sprinkle with dried blackberry leaves. Sprinkle with boy's ashes. Light white candle."
The deer fastens Blur with its red stare. "Do not harm the cage," it says.
When Blur finally manages to poison the thing, just hours before the moon, on the day, and hurls open the door of his cage, having surreptitiously acquired and stored in his person the key, for an uncomfortable two moons' duration, he turns on his way out to feast one final wondering gaze on the preposterous creature dead on the floor, with its human hands, or what more and more are resembling human hands…
"I'll miss you, worthy adversary," he says.