Megan Lindholm - Wizard of the Pigeons

HE STARED UNSEEING out the bus window, trying to still the small moth of excitement that always fluttered inside him when he knew he was going to rendezvous with Cassie. Rasputin’s remarks of a few days ago came into his mind to haunt him.

He pushed the ideas away angrily. As if he would ever endanger his relationship with Cassie that way, let alone the magic she had shown him how to unlock. That he had always had the ability to be a wizard he did not doubt; but without Cassie it would never have developed past the stages of odd hunches and strange turns of fortune. He had not been anxious to develop it either.

The second time Cassie had come to him, he had thought he was having a vision. He tried to remember the exact alley. but all his memories from that time were shadowed, like portrait proofs slowly darkening in his mind. It had been winter. That much was certain.

It had been snowing as it did in Seattle once or thrice a winter, with large wet white flakes that spiraled down from the sky. For the first hour, the flakes had melted as soon as they touched the gray streets or the red bricks that cobbled the alleys.

Then the snow had begun to unite in ridges of gray slush in the streets, and in trackless white strips down the centers of the alleys. Soon even the edges of the streets turned white, and the snow filled in the black footprints of the few pedestrians as quickly as they passed. Tomorrow there would be school closures, and the buses would run on emergency schedules and refuse to stop in the middle of the steep streets. He had wiped a drop of moisture from the tip of his nose and slid his numbed hands back into the small warmth between his cramped thighs.

He had been crouching between the back of a dumpster and“ the brick wall of a building, where only the most persistent of the breezes could find him, and none of the snow. But the cold radiated from the bricks at his back and rose from the cobbled street beneath him. The earth was a cold fickle bitch that had turned her icy back on him. The seams of his old black boots were cracked and the faded denim of his pants was as stiff and rough as sandpaper against his chilled skin. His flannel shirt was not long enough to stay tucked in, and the denim jacket he wore was short, barely touching the top of his hips. The collar was turned up to chafe against his reddened ears whenever he turned his head.

He had been watching the snow as it fell past the glow of a streetlamp, trying to dream. There were two parts to the dream. The first was that if he sat still enough, crouched on his heels behind the dumpster, an envelope of body heat would form around his still body and protect him. Whenever the wind was still, he felt the warmth seeping out of his body and resting against his skin like a benign and transparent spirit. But then the wind would stir and rip his warmth away, and he would shiver again. The shivering made his spine ache and his muscles cramp. Every so often, his legs would give way beneath him and he would find himself sprawled flat on the damp, cold pavement. The bricks sucked greedily at his body heat until he raised himself to crouch on his heels again, his body in a shivering curl over his knees.

The other part of the dream was more frightening. When he stared at the swirl of flakes in front of the streetlamp, his perception of distance and speed changed. The flakes seemed to be originating in the lamp and zooming toward him in a dizzying rush. Stare a little longer, and he would feel teal he was the one in motion, journeying to that far-off tight, and me white bits of matter that rushed past him were (he bright stars of a thousand galaxies. He could feel himself drawn to me light like a moth to the candle flame, could fed the pull as he was lifted from his aching crouch and rushed through a thousand nights. Then his body would fall with a crash, jarring him from both dreams, and he would have to begin again. Each time he felt he was getting closer to the light. He did not know what he would find when he arrived there, but he hoped it would be warm.

Without warning, his dream changed. He frowned to himself in annoyance. What business had this vision in coming between him and the brightness of his light? She floated toward him, white face and dark eyes, dark hair outlined and tipped with silver white, wearing a long dark garment that sparkled and shifted with the wind and whirling flakes- She seemed familiar, and yet he was equally certain he had never met her before.

As she got closer to him, she became darker and darker, until she was a black shape between him and the light, nearly blocking out the glow of the street lamp. He blinked up at her.

“So here you are.” There was relief in her voice, tinged with exasperation. “I was beginning to think it was a fool’s errand to try and find you tonight. Rasputin told me not to waste my time. I told him there was a wizard lost in the city, and close to being dead. ‘If he’s a wizard, Cassie,’ he told me, ‘he’ll find himself, and then come looking for us.’ He can be so hard sometimes. But I told him no, I didn’t think you would.

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.