James Van Pelt - The Radio Magician and Other Stories

Past the parking lot the road turned to dirt again to wind up the hill. Every fifty feet or so a private picnic area opened on the left or right, complete with a split-log table and iron charcoal pit. The first one was empty; a rusted pickup occupied the second. Romulus stayed low, just off the path, walking in the soggy remains of last year’s leaves, his nose telling him as much as his eyes. The breeze caressed his face. Other cars waited ahead; he could smell them, the still warm engines, their tires, cigarette smoke. Then he caught it, a distinct whiff of the troll. He growled. A girl’s quivery voice in a car ten feet away said, “What was that?” Romulus crouched even lower in a run, his hands nearly touching the ground.

Then, ahead, clearly in the forest’s silence, he heard Fay. “Don’t!” she said. “I don’t want…”

The road rose. At the crest he saw the final picnic spot in the clearing fifty yards below, the troll’s car in the middle, top down, bathed in moonlight. He paused. Where was Fay? He could smell her perfume, and he smelled troll. Romulus spotted them in the back seat, the troll’s dark letter jacket blending into the shadow; he was struggling, holding Fay down beneath him. Her hand rose above him, like a drowning person. Cloth ripped.

Romulus charged toward them, his lips pulled away from his teeth in a noiseless snarl, but everything suddenly felt underwater and syrupy. It took an hour for his foot to hit the ground and an hour for the next. Fay’s hand froze in the air like a marble statue. Slowly, it seemed, so slowly, he came closer.

The troll laughed, the throbbing sound coming to Romulus almost too low to hear. More cloth ripped. A button, a fine pearl colored disk, flipped lazily into the air. Only ten yards away now, but every step seemed to cover less distance.

Then the air about the convertible changed. Even in his urgency, breath tearing through his throat, his teeth aching to bite something hard, Romulus slowed. The air changed, centering on Fay’s hand. A circle of moonlight ten feet around slid toward her. It was as if the light wasn’t light at all, but a thin coat of paint, funneling to her hand. For a moment it seemed as if the stars themselves swarmed, each touching her hand until it shone with potency, and her palm turned down. Her elbow crooked as if she were about to embrace the troll. Romulus stopped, nearly touching the car. Now he could see it all. The troll had pushed her back, trapped her legs with his own, pinned her with his weight, one arm stuck behind her, his lips pressed against the side of her face. Her eyes were closed, but not in fear—Romulus had time to study her—she was concentrating. The light flowed down her arm, filled her face. She glowed from within, like a porcelain nightlight. Then all the brightness emptied from her hand in a cascade of sparks, slamming into the back of the troll’s head.

He stiffened.

Romulus stepped back, covering his eyes.

When he opened them, he had to blink away a black spot in the spark’s shape to see Fay, now sitting up. She’d rolled the troll onto the car’s floor, and her feet rested on his back.

“Dang,” she said. “Just look at my blouse.” She pulled the torn front together, then zipped her jacket.

She turned to Romulus and said in a voice no different than if she’d run into him in the mall, “What brings you to Chaney Park this time of night, Romulus?”

Her face still glowed, and something glimmered in the back of her eyes, very sharp and ancient. She combed her fingers through her hair. Romulus noticed her ears. They were distinctly pointed. He’d not seen that in her before.

“It seemed a good night for a walk,” he said lamely. The troll snorted beneath her feet, then settled into a comfortable sounding snore. “What are you?” Romulus said.

She stood on the back seat, brushed her hands down her pants in short, brisk strokes.

“Fairy, I think. At least that’s what my mother says. And you?” She jumped out of the car to land beside him.

Romulus tried to answer, but all his words had been sucked out of him. He attempted to speak a couple of times, but nothing came out.

Understanding came into her eyes. “It’s the moon thing, isn’t it?” She looked into the sky. “That’s why you couldn’t go to prom. Oh, I should have figured it out earlier. But I still don’t know why you’re here tonight.”

Finally Romulus said, “I couldn’t sleep.” His voice rose at the end, as if it were a question.

Fay glanced at the troll, then back at him. She shook her head. “You’re sweet, Romulus.” She looked thoughtfully into the car for a moment, then pulled the keys out of the ignition and threw them into the forest. “Would you like to walk me home? I think I’ve lost my ride.”

Romulus nodded dumbly, so happy that if he had a tail to wag, he would wag it a thousand miles an hour.

They started toward town, leaving the sleeping troll and his car behind.

Romulus took a deep, deep breath of night air. He could smell everything, all of it, leaf, branch and tree.

Fay cleared her throat. “You’re not going to try to bite me, are you?” She sounded only half-joking.

Romulus let the air out in a relieved rush. “Oh, no! Not you.”

“Good,” she said. “That would make it tough for us to date.” She moved next to him.

They walked down the winding dirt road, hands not touching, but very close, both so full of moonish power they thought they’d burst.

Old Jelly Roll Morton’s soulful voice fills the buglighter’s cabin.

Nothing more mournful and perfect than a good, solid dose of the blues while you’re waiting at the edge of the ring for the start of the race. That and the cloud-striped surface of Saturn turning below, the dusky-edged ridge of the rings above, catching a little of the reflected light, and between them both the sharp-eyed light of the stars. Lots of sad stringed guitar and bent-note blues harp, and his whiskey voice down deep. It’s a pool hall voice.

I met Elinor in a pool hall. She had an attractive way of blowing chalk dust off her knuckles that caught my eye. We racked up games till the bar closed. Only thing I can beat her at. I see the angles clear. “You got those angle eyes,” she said.

It’s true. I even like my hull transparent. Most of the equipment’s behind, all that stuff that shapes the forces around the buglighter, keeping me safe from danger, and, when the need arises, pushing me where I want to go. So with the hull clear, I’m sitting alone and pretty in the stars. That’s the way I feel, just like those blues songs tell me: “Lordy, I’m all by myself since my baby done left me.”

Lots of buglighters can’t do it—perch in the clear like I do—too much space around them. It’s hard on the heart. Elinor said to me, “Virgil, you’re too much of a sit down and look around kind of guy.” She would know, I guess. Of course I wasn’t paying attention at the time; we were playing pool and I said, “Shh. I’m concentrating.”

The starter’s voice interrupts the music: “Flyers, welcome to the 17th annual Greater Circumference of Saturn Ring Runners Challenge, 2,500 Kgram class. Five minutes to race time.”

A hundred meters around, dust motes spark off the bubble that contains me. Zap, zap… there go a couple more. That’s where we get the name, buglighter, little bits of ice and rock, zappin’ like firecrackers in the forces surrounding us. In five minutes the race will start, and I’ll adjust the bubble. Instead of flicking that ring sand away, it’ll suck it in, transform it in an instant, and shape the pulse into comforting thrust, rolling me around the inside of the ring on fission fire in my perfect sphere of protecting energy, sort of like a transparent cue ball bounding off the bumpers of the ring. From the start, all the way around again, about 578,000 Kmeters, or roughly 15 times the circumference of the Earth.