He said, “No, not teleported, exactly, this involved a spell requiring a monkey’s paw and a dozen nightshade berries. But they were last year’s berries, and not potent enough to hold me. I had a spell of my own up my sleeve and…”
“You blasted him to kingdom come,” I guessed.
“No.” He looked a little abashed. “Actually, it was the Incessant Rectal Itch‘ spell, a little crude, but always effective and simple to use. I doubt that he’ll be bothering us again soon.” He paused, then added, “As I’ve told you, magic isn’t what it used to be.” Then he sniffed a few times and said, “Actually, I’ve found that Pinesol is the best stuff for getting rid of spell residues…”
So we cleaned up the bathroom. I poured hydrogen peroxide over his scraped knee and he made gasping noises and cursed in a language I’d never heard before. I left him doing that and went into the kitchen and began re-heating the hot chocolate. A few moments later he came out dressed in a sort of sarong he’d made from one of my bed sheets. It looked strangely elegant on him, and the funny thing was, neither of us seemed to feel awkward as we sat down and drank the hot chocolate and shared the plum pudding. The last piece of plum pudding he took, and borrowing some cream cheese from my refrigerator, he buttered a cabalistic sign onto it. Then he went to the door and called, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”
The neighbor’s cat came at once, and the ratty old thing let the fortyish man scoop him up and bring him into my living room, where he removed two ticks from behind its ears and then fed it the plum pudding in small bites. When he had done that, he picked it up and stared long into its yellowish eyes before he intoned, “By bread and cream I bind you. Nevermore shalt thou shit upon the threshold of this abode.” Then he put the cat gently out the door, observing aloud, “Well, that takes care of the curse you were under.”
I stared at him. “I thought my curse had something to do with me working at Sears.”
“No. That was just a viciously cruel thing you were doing to yourself, for reasons I will never understand.” He must have seen the look on my face, because after a while he said, “I told you, the magic is never quite what you think it to be.”
Then he came to sit on the floor beside my easy chair. He put his elbow on my knee and leaned his chin in his hand. “What if I were to tell you, Silver Lady, that I myself have no real magic at all? That, actually, I climbed out my bathroom window and sneaked through the streets in my towel to meet you here? Because I wanted you to see me as special.”
I didn’t say anything.
“What if I told you I really work for Boeing, in Personnel?”
I just looked at him, and he lifted his elbow from my knee and turned aside a little. He glanced at his own bare feet, and then over at my machine. He licked his lips and spoke softly. “I could get you a job there. As a word processor, at about eleven dollars an hour.”
“Merlin,” I said warningly.
“Well, maybe not eleven dollars an hour to start…”
I reached out and brushed what hair he had back from his receding hairline. He looked up at me and then smiled the smile where he always looked aside from me. We didn’t say anything at all. I took his hand and led him to my room, where we once more disproved Lindholm’s Rule of Ten. I fell asleep curled around him, my hand resting comfortably on the curve of his belly. He was incredibly warm, and smelled of oranges, cloves, and cinnamon. Misplaced Dreams Tea, that’s what he smelled like. And that night I dreamed I wore a peacock feather gown and strolled through a misty garden. I had found something I had lost, and I carried it in my hand, but every time I tried to look at it to see what it was, the mist swirled up and hid my hand from me.
In the morning when I woke up, the fortyish man was gone.
It didn’t really bother me. I knew that either he would be back, or he wouldn’t, but either way no one could take from me what I already had, and what I already had was a lot more magic than most people get in their lives. I put on my ratty old bathrobe and my silver ladies and went out into the livingroom. His sarong sheet was folded up on the easy chair in the livingroom, and the neighbor’s cat was asleep on it, his paws tucked under his chin.
And my Muse was there, too, perched on the corner of my desk, one knee under her chin as she painted her toenails. She looked up when I came in and said, “If you’re quite finished having a temper tantrum, we’ll get on with your career now.” So I sat down at my machine and flicked the switch on and put my fingers on the home row.
Funny thing. The keys weren’t even dusty.