I don’t think you believe in yourself yet. Maybe because you don’t want to. But it doesn’t work that way, wanting or not wanting to be a wizard. You just are. Look at me!“
He had been trying to see past her, to focus on the streetlamp again. Her sharp nudge sent him sprawling to the cold damp pavement. Pins and needles shot through his cramped legs. He couldn’t move, couldn’t crawl away from her if he tried. She towered over him, darker than the night, and silver. He cowered, awaiting the finishing blow.
“You know who I am.” It was an accusation.
He struggled with his mind, longing for his dream to come back, wishing that he were more stoned. But there was something about her that would have forced an answer from a rock.
“You’re the woman from the park bench,” he said, his words thick as settling snow. “The one who talked about popcorn.”
“Damn right I am. But only a wizard could have known that.”
She stooped beside him suddenly and he cringed away. “No.
Please, no!“ What was he denying? The charge of being a wizard, or the easy way she gripped him by the shoulders and lifted him to his feet? His knees, numb from his long inactivity and the cold, started to buckle under him. She slipped under one of his arms, bearing him up and taking charge of him. She staggered him along, he knew not where. The streets were silent, black and white and silver with snow and night and streetlights. Nothing else moved. No car passed, no other pedestrians struggled against the wind. Seattle was deathly silent, paused and poised between one moment and the next.
“Where arc we going?” he managed. Their feet made tracks in the pristine white sidewalks, and the snow filled them up behind them, making their passage a fantasy. He wanted so badly to lie down in the soft clean snow and rest.
“To shelter,” she told him, and in her voice he heard the telltale pant of effort. She was strong, but he was no easy burden for her.
“! don’t want to go to a shelter,” he half groaned. He had been to one of me shelters once. They had given him two pajama bottoms, one to sleep in and one to use as a towel after his shower. They had given him a box to put his own clothes in, and a piece of soap to wash himself. He had slept on a flat mattress on the floor with a rough blanket over him, listening to the coughs and rustlings and mutterings of a score of other men. The noises had brought back the old dreams and fears, so that he had sweated through his pajamas and blanket, soaking the mattress with sour fear stench. Never again. Better to freeze to death in the snow than to endure that long night again.
To my shelter. This way.“
The feeling came back to his legs and he supported his own weight, but she did not release his arm. He began to take note of the buildings they passed. Uneasiness sandpapered his nerves.
This was no Seattle he knew. The patterns of brick in the buildings suggested vague faces, the fireplugs that hunched beneath snow caps were like cossack trolls. It was all alive and watching, awareness in the details like a Kay Nielsen illustration for a metropolitan fairytale. Cassie’s grip was firm on his arm and he was suddenly grateful for it, sure she guided him past dangers and pitfalls. This was no place of dead stone and bare pavement, though thousands might walk its streets by day and believe so. This was an ecosystem, vital and aware, of interdependent life. of predators and prey and parasites. Wizard’s heart nearly stopped as be thought how blindly he had wandered through these streets.
“This way. Down this way.”
An alley mouth, and a wooden door in a brick wall. And then stairs. Stairs that barked his shins and cramped his cold calf muscles. He followed her up them, and through a door into a place that pressed him with silence and warmth. He noticed little more than that at first. He sank into the corner of a fat couch upholstered in cream cloth with large blue flowers on it. He let his head sag back against the cushioned support, feeling warmth and smelling dust. He heard her close the door, and men she moved into his field of vision again. She swirled a dark cloak free of her body, ridding it of snow with a snap.
The tack. tack of her boots faded into another room, and was followed by the homey clatter of pans and cups. His cheeks and forehead tingled as his skin began to warm. Somewhere a kettle whistled, and a spoon stirred against ceramic mugs. A refrigerator opened and closed. Then he heard the soft tread of bare feet on carpeting and suddenly smelled rich chocolate.
He opened his eyes, wondering when he had closed them. She was placing a tray on a low coffee table before me wide couch.
“Hungry?” she asked.
He dragged himself upright. The smell of the food beckoned him, but he hesitated, wary as the wolf lured to the trap. He stared at the woman.
She was dressed in a long soft robe as white as the snow they had come from. It fell to her bare feet and then puddled wound them as she suddenly sank down to sit gracefully on the floor by the table. Her long dark hair, dampened by the soow, hung straight past her shoulders, but short tendrils of it wisped around her face- And her face was classic, oval, with a straight nose and chiseled mouth such as one might expect to find stamped on ancient coins. Her eyes were darker than brown but not black, and the chill of the night had flushed her cheeks. He suddenly felt dirty and uncouth.
Behind her was a jungle. Hants lined and banked the wall, plants that trailed or climbed or stood upright on their stalks.
Some bore blossoms in a rainbow of colors and some were innocently green- He recognized none of them. Turning his head, he discovered more plants, in tubs and pots and basins.
Yet me room did not feel crowded. There was a harmony to this interior garden that he had never sensed before- They took in tension and breathed out peace.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked, and he realized she was repeating herself. He nodded dumbly and took the mug she offered.
It was a most unorthodox meal. There was hot chocolate topped with dollops of cream, small rich hiscuits swirled through with cinnamon and brown sugar, and little oranges she peeled for him because his hands were stilt too cold to manage them.
He watched the long curls of rind, more green than gold, trail from her graceful fingers. The oranges were sweet and tart, and strangely right with the chocolate. He had not realized how cold he had been until he abruptly stopped shivering, and breathed a deep sigh as his body relaxed.
“Warmer now?” she asked, and when he nodded, smiled and said, “A quick shot of sugar will do that for you. Helps the body chase off the chill.”
“You’re gentler this time,” he said suddenly, and then wondered what had prompted it from him.
“Am I? Sometimes I am. It depends on my mood more than on my form. Why, did I scare you before?”
“A little. I guess I’m just not that used to dealing with people anymore. I still don’t understand what’s happening, or who you are, or why I’m here. I’m just glad to be warm.”
“For now, that’s probably enough. But I’ll give you a little more than that to think on tonight. I’m Cassie. And you’re here because you have a lot to find out, and you won’t find out what you already know by crouching behind a dumpster and freezing to death.”
He nodded as if that made sense. “And where are we?”
“In my place. One of my favorite Seattles. We’re in the one that would have been if the great fire hadn’t happened at the turn of the century.”
“Right. Bring on the rabbits with pocket watches.”
“Not quite. More like bring on the wizards and wicked witches.”
“Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”
“Precisely!” and she laughed delightedly. He laughed with her, uneasily, and rose as he did so.
“I think I’d better be going.”
She shook her head with bemused tolerance. “I think you’d better stay. You need dry clothes, a haircut and a shave, and another meal or two before you’re fit to try your wings. It’s going to be a different world for you out there. Most of all, you need to understand who you are.”
Her amusement stung him. “Listen, lady. I already understand myself just fine- Maybe if you understood me a little better, you wouldn’t feel so cosy about what you’ve just dragged up to your apartment in the middle of the night. Picking up someone like me off the streets isn’t a smart way to get your kicks.”
“Maybe if you understood a little better just who had picked you up, you wouldn’t feel so comfortable about being here, either. Now sit down and stop ruffling your feathers at me. No one has to feel threatened. Does the idea of dry clothes and a bath hurt your feelings?”
“No. But then what?”
“Then whatever. We’ll take each step as it presents itself.
Look, uh… what is your name?“
She had him there. He just stared at her, knowing he knew it, knowing he could remember it if he had to, if he wanted to. Then he tried to remember it, even wanted to remember it, and couldn’t. And remembered that this had happened to him before.
“You see?” she said softly, and he suddenly felt the trap he had fallen into. She didn’t push it. “The bathroom’s down that hall, to the left. We’ll talk later.”
He stared at her for a long moment, thinking of a dozen possible courses. He could walk out the door, or insist that they talk right now, or throw the coffee table against the wall, or… She didn’t break away from his stare, but held him steady until it had alt passed. He felt suddenly hollow and old.
“To the left?”