She closes her eyes and shivers. It
never goes away, no matter how much you think it does. The sense of
wrongness, the tightening of muscles in the back, the knowing that
something was off about the world. They say spies always pay
attention to vehicles, the police to people: it was like that, only
not at all the same. Everyone watches rivers, but fewer pay attention
to the deep currents and the banks as well.“This isn’t me. I gave it up,”
she hisses to nothing, to no one, to Everything.“Honey?” her husband calls from the
back door. “Something wrong in the back yard?”“It’s nothing,” she says. But it
wasn’t. Were they safe? She didn’t know. Couldn’t know. But her
daughter, her husband. “Stay inside; I’ll look,” she says, and
wishes she only imagines his start, reflexive movement as his body
responds to the power threaded in her voice.You let it all go, give up the magic
and power, the gift and the prices, but it just waits. Patient.
Biding it’s time until you need to become again what you always
were.“I am not a magician. I let go of the
magic: I gave it up,” she snarls, knowing the universe hears her.
Knowing, too, that it does not care at all.There is something out beyond the
darkness that is not just hunger. This city has a magician,
she thinks. but no one can be anywhere. The magic does not stop
magicians from behind human, or from making mistakes. She knew a
magician once a lifetime ago who died crossing a highway. Focused on
stopping something Other, on magic, on will and intent, forgetting
the street was also occupied by humans driving vast metal machines
that can end lives all too soon indeed.It could be something like that, or
something worse by far. Being a magician isn’t a profession one
lasts in, so she gave it up. For Aram, as much as for herself. But
now there was Sam to think of too. And the rest of the street as
well. It would not come here. It would not harm them. She was sure of
that, in that old, old way of being so very certain of things. But
someone else on the street. Some other home. A different family
wailing in agonies that would shatter the ties that bound them
together.There are always griefs that run deeper
than love, and both of those run deeper than magic. She returns to
then back door, gets her coat. Aram never knew her, not as a
magician. She did not know him during his younger days, but both have
some idea of the secret lives each set aside to try and find a better
future for themselves. Aram begins to speak, about a gun without
serial numbers, and she shushes him gently.“This is not something that can be
shot,” she says. “Stay home. Keep the phone on. Neighbours will
call, and you are good at calming them.”He closes his eyes, nods. She gets her
coat, walks back outside. She does not ask him to keep an eye on Sam,
not wanting to insult her husband like that. They will need to talk
later, about many things. For now she sets that aside and walks onto
the sidewalk, the gate opening and closing without the usual squeak
of hinges it should have. The universe responds to magicians.“This is not being a magician,” she
says, low and hard. “One time only. A burden I will carry for this
one moment. That is all.” But there is no response to her words and
they do not linger in the air with power or with promise. She walks
quickly, passing suburban house after house. There seems to be too
many lights on, but she she is not sure if this is a true thing or a
projection on her part. Her feet pull her, the old instincts turning
her from Oak Shade Drive down Hickory Lane.The Smith’s home is lit up, but the
lights don’t look right. Their dog is silent. A small beagle, whose
name she can’t recall. The house is old-suburban in style: they
even added a swing set and white picket fence, boast their own garden
in the back as if it was a different decade. As though giving their
house such protections would stop the police from barging into it. It
almost never did, not unless the neighbourhood was far more upscale.She walks, and the gate opens before
she touches it. The swing set is occupied, because even monsters are
bound to old clichés. A teenaged boy sits on the swing. Barefoot,
wearing proper pants and a shirt whose collar is devoid of stains.
His hair is pale, parted perfectly, eyes gleaming in a smile that
would be natural only on magazine covers. The boy’s skin is devoid
of blemish, save for one discreet dimple that turns it from inhuman
into a beauty that seems human.“They wanted a proper son, not the
one they have.” His voice is deep, but some boys have deep voices.
“They wanted it so badly that I came.”She does not know enough about the
Smith’s to know what that means. They are a street away. She has a
young child. There are limits to how far you can spread yourself.“The parents are already dead. You
were slow, magician.”“I’m not a magician anymore. But
you do not belong here.”The creature laughs. “And you think
you can banish me with words alone? There is no power to you!” And
he jumps down, laughs again as only wild things can.“I have done this before and more.”
She smiles, and the creature steps back at the smile. “One becomes
a magician by banishing, creature. By doing what must be done without
power, with will, with intent.”“I am part of this world, not
something from Outside,” the creature hisses. It is fast, and
furious, but it has killed. That slows it down, on some level. There
is less hunger to drive it forward.“I told you I have done more,” she
says, and soft, so softly she speaks. “You have killed, and you
have broken the peace this area held. I banish you, as one who lives
here, as one who cares for this place. Be broken and begone,” she
says, and this time there is authority, and power under the words.
She gestures, the gesture aching familiar, and the world opens up and
the creature is pulled far Outside the universe.She lowers her hand. She would like a
moment, even two. To breath, to break down, but she turns instead,
walks into the home and up the stairs. The master bedroom has no
door, and has been turned into a terrible work of art. She reaches
out, into the world, to the house, to the wishes of the newly dead,
and the effect is deadened, reduced, their failings no longer visible
for a world to witness. It is easier the second time, like swimming
slowly after treading water.The bedroom door opens at her touch.
The boy on the bed is shivering, knees up to his chin, arms wrapped
tight about himself as tears move down his scarred face, but his eyes
meet hers. There are scars on his right arm from a fire years ago,
and it is hard to tell where acne scars and freckles begin and end on
his face under a mop of red hair savagely cut to hide nothing at all.“What is your name?” she asks.
“Noah.” His voice is little more
than a whisper. “It – it came into my room. Said mom and dad had
called it, wanting a perfect son right now. Ignoring the – the
doctors, the – everything. Said he was going to see if they were
worthy and they suh – screamed.” He shudders all over, and he is
too thin, too gaunt, but somehow not broken.“The creature is gone. I was too late
for them.” She closes her eyes, opens then.Noah gets off the bed slowly. “You
saved me?” he asks, and there are worlds of shock under the words.“I have done this before and more,”
she says again. It seems important to say that, to have him hear it.
“But not more than I may need to do now. It will be on the news,
but you are – hidden, for they tried to hide you. I can keep you
out of that, and we have a spare room at our home.” And more
never went this far, not before. She has no idea what Aram will make
of this. No idea if this will be enough to make the magic go quiet
again.But
even if it is not, she cannot turn away from those eyes. They remind
her of Aram, when he’s remembering things he won’t speak of.Noah
stares. “Why?”“It
is the right thing to do,” she says, and the boy bursts into tears
again. She holds him until he stops, accepts his pained words and
gently ushers him out of the house and down the street. Noah
is not broken, and the best she can do is help keep him that way. And
hope, in a way wholly human, that this is the only time the magic
will try and wake the magician in her again.
“I have done this before and more” YES!
