Megan Lindholm - Wizard of the Pigeons

Her face was flushed, her mouth wet. She took a gasping breath. “Rough doesn’t have to be bad, baby.” She licked her mouth, “if you’re so sony, prove it.” Reaching up, she caught at his hand and dragged him down. His heart was beating thunderously in his chest and his legs felt rubbery. He couldn’t get the air down to the bottom of his lungs. He sagged onto the mattress. beside her.

“Don’t tell me sony,” she murmured against his chest. “Show me sony.” He closed his eyes to her brushing touch, blacking out the memories.

“I don’t like the man I was,” he tried to explain. “It’s him or me in the gray place. I won’t go back to being him. I don’t have to, and I won’t.

“All right, baby, all right. It doesn’t matter, it’ll be fine now. Lynda’s not angry.” She wasn’t listening to him, any more than he was tuned into her hands and mouth on him. He kept himself divorced from it, holding back the touching and feeling that could unleash the pain. It was a fair trade. If he let himself be reached, she would hurt him, would drive him with agony until he destroyed the source of me pain. No touch of pleasure, no touch of pain. Being numb was the key to it all. He found the balancing point again and felt a certain bitter satisfaction with it. He was safe from her now. She’d get nothing from him. He felt her squirm against him, heard the rustle of clothing as she arranged her body against his. He let her, unwonted. There were other things he could think about, things that were safe to remember.

“IF YOU COULD DO ANYTHING, be anything, what would you do?”

It had been an expansive afternoon, roaming the city with Cassie. He was beginning to get the hang of this new life, starting to realize the possibilities. It was a heady sensation.

She was in a tweed skirt; he wore a corduroy jacket with learner patches at the elbows. They had gone everywhere that eccentric scholars could go, with numerous side trips en route. They had merged unnoticed with a group touring underground Seattle, and had nearly managed to be left behind in the dank dark below the streets. She had shown him a bakery where a kindhearted assistant set out the discarded baked goods on a tin foil tray atop the dumpster to save the street people the trouble of digging for them. They had explored what was left of the old plant at Gas Works Park and sampled five kinds of coffee at Starbucks. Cassie had taken him to the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Museum on Main, and introduced him to me ranger there as her associate. Eh“. Reynolds. The ranger had shown them films and opened the display cases for them, to let them handle the relics of that remote time. Wizard had promised to return soon, and spend more time talking about the Gold Rush era and how it had affected Seattle.

“Especially on rainy days.” Cassie had offered as soon as they were on the sidewalk again, and they had giggled together like wayward truants.

It had been a very mellow day. No schedules to keep and no assigned tasks. They had turned down every street that had appealed to them, in their conversations as well as in their wandering. He had learned that she loved roses and pansies, but thought orchids a cold flower. She knew that he liked green grapes more than wild blueberries, and commercial blueberries not at all. So now, as they strolled, he asked her the childish question, and waited for her answer. She disappointed him.

“I’d be Cassie, and do what we did today,” she replied blandly.

“Not me!” Wizard had been expansive, risking her displeasure. “I’d be a hero, a saint, or a mystic. When I was small, I always wanted to be a prophet. Sackcloth and thunder. I’d drive violence from Seattle and let peace reign.”

Cassie snorted. “And under your protection, no seagull would peck another, no children would quarrel over marbles, no drunk would bloody another drunk’s nose over a baseball pitcher’s reputation.”

“Not that kind of violence. You know what I mean.”

“No. I don’t. You keep acting like I’m some sort of mystic myself, some seer who knows all. Well, I’m not. I’m just Cassie, and while I know more than some, I don’t know it all.

I’ve only just met you, though I’ve been noticing your presence in Seattle for weeks. I suppose you could say our paths have crossed before. But that doesn’t mean I know you from the soul out. So tell me. What kind of violence do you mean?“

“The sickest kind. I mean the kind where someone strong finds someone weaker and hurts him. And hurts him and hurts him and hurts him. Hurts past the point of damage, past retaliation, hurts him past the point of resistance, and beyond.

Like parents who beat infants, tike rapists who batter bodies and minds, like men who turn on other men too confused or different to defend themselves, and hurt them. -.“

“Which end were you on?” Cassie had muttered the question, looking at him with eyes both sympathetic and wary. His voice had thickened as he spoke, some emotion choking him, but the words tumbled from him, refusing to stop until he clamped his teeth and closed his eyes. Cassie slipped her arm under his, drew him aside to a bench and sat him down. He sat far-eyed, kneading his hands together, rubbing at the tiny scars that marred them.

“I’m sony,” he said finally. “I don’t know…”

“Me, neither,” she cut in. “But listen. Number one. You arc taking on too large an opponent. Do you think you’re Saint Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland? No. At most you’re Saint Wizard, feeding the pigeons. Number two. You’re too close to it to fight it. Not yet. I won’t ask you how or why you’re so close to it, but I’ll remind you of this. When the enemy’s on top of you, you can’t win by bombing his position.”

He wished she had asked him then. Back then, he might have been able to tell her about it, while she was still the stranger Cassie, before she became so important to him. In days to come he swallowed his secrets in large, choking lumps, lest she discover his flaws. He struggled to learn it all, to be the best at it as he had been the best at his tasks before. His failures he kept to himself. He coped, living hand to mouth at times, trying to believe her when she told him the city would open to him as soon as he opened himself to it. At first she fed him often, and he was sheltered many a night in her various domiciles. But he began to fee) overexposed, fearful that he might be revealing more of himself than he wished her to know.

And he began to have days when he ached with a dull hunger to be even closer to her. Never mind that it would destroy all she had made of him. Never mind that it would drive her completely from his life. The depth of me sudden need that would come upon him was terrifying. Lust he could have dealt with- But this was the forbidden hunger, the desire to be less alone. He found his strength before it was too late; he knew he had to separate his life from hers.

His wits and the skills she showed him helped him create his own niche. If she missed his daily presence, she never rebuked him for it. He suspected she was relieved by his independence, and he worked for her respect- For an instant he wondered where she was this night.

His eyes rolled open of their own accord- Lynda lay atop him, her hair straggling across his face. Sleeping. Stoned or drunk, she had finally given up her attempts to arouse him. It gave him a perverse satisfaction to have defied her. Her body was heavy and lumpy, her perfume oppressive. He reached up to wipe her hair away from his nose and mouth. He shifted to heave her chin off his collarbone. She stiffened suddenly and wriggled to get her wrist up to her nose.

“Oh my god!” She peeled her body off his, letting the cold in to fill the places she had made warm. “Look at the time!” She shook her dress back down over her hips, tugged the hem straight. “It’s okay, baby. Don’t lay and worry about tonight. You were just tired, that’s all. I read about it in this book, says it’s normal, can happen to any guy when he’s tired, and being stoned might have made it worse. Promise me you‘’ aren’t going to get all depressed about it. I really don’t mind.