Megan Lindholm - Wizard of the Pigeons

The name was like a talisman against the realities Lynda brought. Wizard stiffened in its spell. He dropped her hand and put both his cold hands against 4iis hot. dry face. The enormity of the day fell on him. He had broken the rules, his magic was gone, he was drunk and sick, his den was invaded, and he was helpless. He pressed his icy fingers against his temples and wished for a tourniquet he could bind around his temples and tighten and tighten until the pain went away. His head was so crowded with it, it was threatening to crack his skull and dribble down his face like blood.

“Headache, honey?” Lynda asked sympathetically. She began to dig yet again in her bottomless pit of a purse. Even in his pain. Wizard was tempted to make an outre request (Got a ham sandwich?) just to see what she could dredge up from in there. “I think I got some Tylenol or Bufferin or something in here. Dammit. No, I left it at work, in the bathroom. You got anything around here?”

Wizard shook his head in silent misery. It wasn’t a hurt that pills could take away. You could take enough pills to kill yourself and it wouldn’t touch this pain. Lynda had risen with the candle and was drifting around the room. She stopped by his food box, methodically shifted the items in it until she was certain it held only food, and then moved on. Wizard shut his eyes against the harshness of her candlelight. His own flames had always burned with a yellow softness and left a blessed dimness over the room. Hers burned white and harsh, showing every ball of dust, every cobweb and mouse dropping in every corner. It was searching and merciless as an illumination flare.

A sudden fear that the light of the candle would find him seized Wizard. He opened his eyes and stood, ignoring the scream in his skull. Too late.

The scene remained forever fixed in his memory, like a tinted illustration from an old book. The light from the candle frame limned Lynda in gold, setting off her silhouette from the darkness that crouched before her. She knelt in the maw of the closet, her hands curled in front of her breasts, her mouth slightly ajar with intent interest. The lid of the footlocker gaped open before her.

Wizard’s heart stopped. The pain inside his head became a roaring in his ears like a high wind rising. He expected to feel the air rush past his face, expected to be showered with dust and grit and bits of leaves. He sank to a crouch on his mattress.

Her voice cut through his internal distress.

“Is this yours?”

The unanswerable question. Whatever truths he had known about the trunk were hidden from him now, lost with the magic.

He heard himself evading- “It’s in my room, isn’t it?”

“Oh… yeah. Well, I thought someone else might have left it here. Well. Aspirin. Let’s see.”

It was apparent to Wizard that she was not really looking for aspirin. She began to lift items from the trunk and set them on the floor. The big manila envelope she raised looked nearly new, until he spotted a mildew stain on one corner. “Service Record. Mitchell Ignatius Reilly. Ignatius?” She raised a pitying eyebrow. “No wonder you didn’t want to tell me your name.

Just imagine hanging Ignatius on a newborn baby. But Mitchell isn’t so bad. Do they call you Mitch?“

“No.” He denied the name firmly, but Lynda was not listening. He thought for a moment that he heard evil gray laughter outside the window, but it was only the spattering of rain against the glass. It was falling in swift, large drops that rattled the old panes in their frames. Lynda ignored his denial. She was already opening the envelope and peering within.

“It’s empty,” she pouted, and set it on the floor. On top of it she set two olive drab T-shirts with the sleeves ripped off.

They filled Wizard with a nameless disgust. Then came a tumble of paperbacks, the bright colors of their covers chafed away by long confinement. Then a handful of photos in a plastic sandwich bag. Lynda slipped them out as casually as if they were hers. The old polaroid's stuck together. Even from his place on the mattress., he could see their crumpled corners.

“Who are these?” she demanded, sorting through them.

“I don’t know.” He could scarcely be expected to know. He couldn’t see them from here. They could be photos of anyone, of anything. Anything at all, he told himself firmly.

Cute baby. Yours?“

“I don’t know.”

“Who’s the girl on the bicycle?”

“I don’t know.”

“An Oriental woman holding up a six-pack of beer?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know much, do you?” Lynda teased gently. She set the pictures down on the pile. A pair of black-soled sandals joined them. “What’s in here?” Lynda held up a locked document box. Wizard looked at the flat gray box with the inscrutable keyhole. She shook it at him and something slid around inside, whispering unmentionable secrets.

“Not aspirin,” said Wizard briefly-

“Oh. Well, ex-cu-uuse me!” She laughed aloud at some joke he didn’t know and set the box atop the pile on the floor. It teetered there and then slid drunkenly to the floor. Wizard stared at it, half-expecting it to scuttle off into the darkness, but it kept still.

“This looks gross! What’s this?” Lynda held it out at arm’s length for his inspection. The candle shone on it brightly with a merciless white light. A heavy piece of twine with something strung on it. Something small and brown and shriveled. Very far away, someone screamed out in the night-

“It’s the cat’s foot,” Wizard admitted miserably.

Lynda gave an abbreviated shriek as she dropped it. Then, with a suspicious glance at him, she picked up the candle and leaned over to inspect the object more closely. “It is not!” she exclaimed indignantly. “It’s got no fur and it’s flat and wrinkly.

That is not a cat’s foot.“

“It is,” Wizard insisted, knowing it was true. She ignored him, digging into the footlocker again. “Hey! Look at this! Not aspirin, but good enough, I’ll betcha. Kinda old, though. Maybe it’s not good anymore. Geez! Look at the buds there. Not a stem or a seed anywhere. You got some papers?”

Wizard stared at her in mystification. She was holding a plastic sack of something. She shook it at him and it rattled like a shaman’s charm. “You got any rolling papers?” she demanded again, a shade of irritation in her voice. “Geez, you’re hard to talk to: you never say anything. Wait! Wait just a moment! Here’s the pipe, down in a corner where the light didn’t reach it. Okay, we are in mighty fine shape now.” ‘

‘ She dug down into the footlocker and came up with an oddly carved little pipe. It was ivory and dirty orange, the color of old bones lying on red earth. The little face carved on the bowl had a pointy beard and squinchy little eyes. Wizard knew that face from somewhere. Somewhere nasty.

Lynda was carefully packing the herb into the pipe bowl.

She had put the pipe completely inside the bag and was loading it mere, loath to let any particle spill. There was a childish glee to her actions and the little sideways glances she kept shooting at Wizard. He felt acutely uncomfortable. Threatened.

Every muscle in his body tensed as she crossed the room to him. She squatted and then sank onto me thin mattress. beside him. Her thigh warmed his. Her perfume was stronger than the musk of frightened cat and sweat. Her presence pushed away the familiarity of the room.

Her lighter flared a third time, scalding his naked eyes. She drew the flame down into the bowl of the pipe. She sucked at it, making embers glow in me tiny bowl. She held her bream and then released a stream of gray smoke that coiled around them like incense. Wizard had a sudden flash of the cathedral with its vaulted ceilings and lofty ideas. The squinchy’eyes of the pipeman winked at him.