wire of your hook, or tie the frogâs leg above the upper joint to the armed wire; and in so doing, use him as though you loved him.
It made her shiver. Thus use your frog. Use him as though you loved him. She read the passage a third time.
Was she really a user, as Emily claimed?
Speaking of Emily. âTomorrow is Emilyâs party,â she said to Adamus.
âGood. You go. Have a nice time.â He had given up on finishing his fourth waffle and was sitting lumpen on the table. Nothing sits quite as lumpen as a frog.
âYouâre invited, remember? She specifically asked for you.â
âI am not going to be made a show of.â
Buffy read, âTo secure a reluctant lover, catch a frog, wrap in white cloth, put onto an anthill after sunset. The frog croaks in agony as ants eat itââ
âStop it!â
She realized that she was being as offhandedly cruel as Izaak Walton, but could not seem to help it. Adamus had kept her up at night. Adamus had frightened her. Adamus had left her and made her cry. Moreover, this was too good. ââand the lover suffers the pangs of love. Finally all that is left of the frog is a small bone in the shape of a hook. Fasten it to the clothing of your reluctant lover, who should cleave to you, suffering like the frog.â
âLady,â said Adamus in a trembling voice, âyou can make me suffer. And you can make me go to your daughterâs festivity, and you can humiliate me, and you can make a show of me. But you cannot make me speak.â
His eyes, rings of ancient gold floating on black pools, black wells as deep as timeâseeing herself reflected in those eyes, Buffy experienced a sudden, slewing disorientation as her point of view skidded out of control and did a 180. She closed Batracheios and held it in her lap, looking into her frogâs wide, distraught, lichen-colored face.
She said softly and slowly, waiting for the right words, âOnce upon a timeâthere was a princeâwho was turned into a frogâand forced to go from his bright palace to live in a dark swamp in a rank and wildering forest.â
Addie stared sullenly at her.
Buffy found more words. âThere he shivered in peril of everything from snakes to otters to men who hunted him with spears for the sake of his meaty thighs. Fishes in the water and foxes in the forest and ospreys in the sky all prey on frogs, for frogs are small and thin-skinned and sweet.â
Addie, no longer sullen, had lifted his heavy, dewy head to gaze at her intently.
âBut the frog prince became clever; he survived. All alone he lived there for a thousand years.
âThen one day a small girl like a sunbeam came toddling to the dark pool where he was hiding. He rested on his log and looked at her, unafraid because she was merely a babe, like the babies in their long white christening gowns he remembered from his princely palaceâbut he underestimated her. She reached for him all too quickly and caught him in her questing hands, as dainty as a raccoonâs hands. She lifted him and kissed him, but because she was so young and innocent, her kiss had no effect; he remained a frog. Yet from that moment he became her baby, for even though she was only a baby herself, she was as much larger than the frog prince as the other humans, her family, were larger than she.
âSo she took him home in a pocket of her apron and dressed him in baby dollâs clothes and gave him a dollâs cradle to sleep in and mothered him the way her mother mothered her. And he lived in terror of her love, for her power over him was immense. She was his goddess. At any time she could have killed him with a hug.â
Adamusâs golden eyes glittered like beer-bottle caps flattened on a black road.
Buffy said, âYet he survived. And he had hope, for if he could live with her another thousand years, until she grew less than innocent, then one day she would kiss him