Megan Lindholm - Wizard of the Pigeons

He had shifted impatiently all through the story, not wanting to be touched by it, not wanting to hear any of the silliness.

She was so solemn as she told it, as if she were revealing the secrets of the universe. The mood she had created stretched like a bubble around them both, and he felt a compulsion to pop it.

“And the old man was Merlin, and the little girl was Cassie. The End.”

But his mocking words did not shatter the bubble, nor even dent it. Cassie sat looking at him with cat-green eyes (hadn’t they been brown a moment ago?) and smiling to herself. He had missed something, and his smart-ass remark hadn’t made him seem any the wiser to it. He had only embarrassed himself and would have called his words back into his mouth if he could.

“You need a haircut,” was all she said. “Shall I get the scissors?”

He nodded, and later sat on a straight-backed chair in the kitchen, looking at the newspapers on the floor that told the news of a Seattle that never existed. He felt the cold of the shears against the back of his neck and the tickling brush of his own hair as it fell.

And still later, he stood awkwardly by the couch as she unfolded it into a bed and brought out a stack of clean white linens and soft blue blankets. “I want to thank you. But there’s no way I can ever repay you for any of this.”

“There are many coins to repay kindness.”

“I don't have any money,” he told her, momentarily taken aback by her words. She had smiled and shook her head over him, and left him to sink into warmth and sleep. He had dreamed that in the night she came to lie beside him and watch over him while he slept. He had dreamed that he felt her warm breath on his skin, felt her eyes touch his face.

And he had awakened shivering in the melting snow behind a blue dumpster in an alley.

THE HOMER was already perched on the back of his bench when Wizard arrived. He saw no sign of Cassie, but then he hadn’t expected to. She would come when she was ready. The pigeons rose in a gray cloud to greet him. They wheeled once over the park and settled around his usual bench. His flock awaited him.

He waded through his congregation to set his bag and overcoat on the bench and seat himself beside them. He took the crumpled bag of stale popcorn from the overcoat pocket. The pigeons surged forward in anticipation. But he was not to be rushed. He pushed his hand into the soft wrinkled bag and pulled out a handful of popcorn fragments. Leaning down, he sprinkled them in a wide swath before his feet. The multitude came to feed. The cocky young homer fluttered into his lap and tried to stuff his head into the bag. Wizard gently restrained him, but did allow him a small pile on the seat beside him.

About every five minutes he scattered another handful of feed. The flock surged and retreated around his feet like a feather ocean. As individual birds became sated, they came to perch sleepily on the bench beside him. Several young ones pushed under the fold of his overcoat and huddled there, enjoying the warmth and security. Their immature beaks were pink and too wide for their heads. Tiny yellow hairs stuck out from the unfinished plumage on their necks.

Wizard gazed over his flock, at the majority of gray pigeons with black striped wings and iridescent blue neck feathers. and at the minority of escapees whose selective breeding showed.

Darwin had concluded that if any naturalist had come across these results of controlled selection in the wild, he would not even classify them as pigeons. There was a black fan-tail strutting his peacock-span tail, and here a brown King pigeon, twice the size of any other bird there. There was an owl pigeon with a stubby black beak. yellow eyes, and half its feathers on backwards. There were three helmets, brown caps and tails looking like uniforms on their white bodies. And there were a number of renegade homers, drop-outs from some city race.

A few showed feathered feet and legs, and one wore a tiny metal band around one leg. Given a generation or two of nonselective breeding, and their offspring would return to the gray and black uniforms of sidewalk pigeons everywhere.

Time dissipated. Wizard felt no chill as the gray afternoon wheeled overhead, and dipped slowly away. A break in the cloud cover let in the slanting light of a setting sun. Like ancient lovers, the gray light touched the cobbled face of the park. One sensed rather than saw the beauty between them. They took one another on faith.

The pigeons rose suddenly, gusting cold wind past him and disappearing into the sky. Slowly Wizard folded his popcorn bag and stuffed it back into his coat pocket. Leaning back on the bench, he surveyed the square leisurely. It was all but deserted. Those who still hunched on the benches were as gray as me cobblestones. It only seemed fitting to leave them out alt night. Then he became aware of Cassie.

Down the gray park strip she came like the last ray of daylight. Her gray sweatsuit was trimmed in yellow; a yellow sweatband held her mahogany hair back from her gray-blue eyes and high cheekbones. The bright flush on her cheeks showed that she was ending, not beginning, her run. Her pace became a jog as she passed his bench. She paid him no attention. He rose and gathered his things He saw her vanish through the tall wrought iron doors of the Grand Arcade. He followed, and as the doors closed behind him, he glimpsed her going down the stairs to the underground shopping. She strode quickly away, her sneakers making no sound as she fled.

Sighing at this whim of hers, he gave chase. Where was she going? He needed to talk to her. The footlocker leaped into his mind, submerging him in panic. Cassie gleamed before him like a lifeline. He bit down on his tongue to keep from calling her name aloud. Clutching his bag and overcoat, he went down the steps two at a time.

She threaded her way through the maze of underground shops and he gave chase. Past the Fireworks Art Gallery she strode, not even tarrying for a glance at the pottery. Wizard sidestepped a couple strolling arm in arm. She was hurrying up the stairs that led back to street level. That particular staircase would let her out in the cobbled square, scarcely a block from where she had entered the mall. Mystified, he raced up the steps after her. He reached the street level landing and stood panting as he stared about.

A door to his left was just closing. He tucked his bag more securely under his arm as he watched it swing toward him. It could not be there. The glass door in front of him revealed the cobbled square. The stairway emerged in the square, well clear of any buildings. There was nowhere for this door to lead. He caught it just before the catch snicked.

It opened onto a staircase, wooden and very dusty. The walls were white, lit by a single bulb that glared down at him.

He thought he caught a whisper of her sneakers far above him.

He panted up the steps, dust coating his mouth and throat. The steps went straight on, and on, with no. windings or turns, lit at intervals by identical bare lightbulbs. The steps became steeper with every light be passed; there were no landings or hand rails to rest on. Wizard tried to calculate how far he had climbed, and failed miserably. He heard a far laugh. Shifting his coat and bag to his other arm, he hurried on. The light changed subtly. The next fixture he passed was a gas lamp in a glass chimney. Six of these he passed, and then he came to a sconce with white beeswax tapers. Wizard’s face throbbed; he hoped his nose wouldn’t bleed. His shirt stuck to him.

The stairs began to be in poor repair. He slipped twice on their worn edges, barking his shins. The wood creaked ominously, and once he snatched his foot up just as a rotting riser gave way beneath him. He passed bare windows, curtainless, with glass shattered away. Outside was blackness and stars; nothing else. He hurried past their empty stares. The lights were farther apart now; he climbed in a dusky twilight.