Christopher Buehlman - The Necromancer's House

“Andy was right. You do look like a lion. I’m Michael Rudnick. Mike’s fine.”

Anneke stands on her front porch, perplexed.

She only got the text this morning.

Andrew B-ship

MAN WHO WROTE THE STONE BOOK COMING TO MENTOR YOU. LET HIM IN. HE’S THE REAL THING.

Mike Rudnick offers his big, tough hand and she allows it to swallow hers.

Tough, callused hands with small thick nails.

Worker’s hands, not reader’s hands.

And he’s had so much sun on him that the white in his mostly white beard almost glows. He looks like a less self-indulgent Hemingway, harder and leaner. Michael Rudnick is the last guy you’d look at and think user . He carries himself like a rancher, or maybe a circus man—someone who works with large animals and makes them do what he wants because that’s the only way.

He looks seventy.

“Nobody calls him Andy,” she says.

He ignores this, except to smile at it. Paternally, somewhat amused. She’s not sure she likes him.

She’s not sure she doesn’t.

But still.

A bird sings.

What the fuck was Andrew thinking, sending this old geezer here like some kind of replacement dad?

She knows she’s surly, knows the booze does that, feels good and surly anyway.

His truck cools.

Her hangover throbs like a bass line to the duet of chirping finch and ticking truck.

“So you’re good with minerals.”

“I sculpt.”

“That’s something. That’s really something. I sculpt, too. May I see?”

“Uh… now’s not…”

“Pottery, too, right? Mugs. Cups.”

“You know, I’m not sure this is going to work. This is a bad time for me.”

“It’s actually a good time.”

She blinks twice.

The balls on him!

“Says who?”

“Grief is a catalyst for magic. We get growth spurts when we’re hurting, and the worse we’re hurting the faster we might grow. If we push it.”

She looks at him, her mouth opening a little but not settling on a word. Her teeth are still dark from last night’s boxed wine, a thin line of dried cab/merlot circumnavigating her lips.

She looks rough and knows it.

Remembers spitting into the toilet last night, her spit nearly black from tobacco and wine.

He takes her hand again; she almost pulls it away but doesn’t. With his other hand he pulls a small pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket. Inspects her hand, looking for calluses. Like it’s a tool he might buy if the price is right.

“I’ll go away,” he says, turning her hand over, letting go of it, taking up the other one. Now he looks at her, over his glasses. “But I won’t come back.”

She returns his gaze, unblinking.

“Look, Mr.—”

She blanks.

“Rudnick,” he says, unoffended.

His face a brown-red mask, deep lines around his mouth and eyes.

“Nobody asked me about this. I appreciate you coming all the way out here.”

He just looks at her.

The bird chirps.

He waves a hand at it, a subtle gesture, and it flies away forever.

“But I just lost my father, days ago, and I can’t focus right now. All I do is turn pieces, play Sudoku and. And nothing. Sudoku is pretty much it.”

He looks at her.

He doesn’t know or care what Sudoku is.

“I know you’re the best teacher I could have, if I’m really doing this. I read your book. I can do a few of those things. But if now is the only time you have for me, I have to say no.”

This is where he should say graceful words, shake her hand, and get back in his truck.

Or tell her to fuck off, turn on his heel, and get back in his truck.

But he doesn’t move.

Just looks at her, like he’s waiting for her to realize she’s fucking up, and that makes her a little mad. Even Karl Zautke knew better than to patronize her; he learned that when she was a little girl. One may disagree with an Anneke Zautke, but one must not treat her like she’s stupid.

Big mistake, rock-mover-old-man.

“Well, enjoy your day,” she says, and shuts the door.

Not a slam, but neither an apologetically slow close.

Shuts it like she would if nobody was there at all.

Yeah, a bit rude.

She breathes for a minute, still looking at the door, knowing he’s just standing there. She doesn’t think he’s a danger to her, but she does wonder if she’s making a mistake. What does she really have to do just now but turn mugs for the festival and play number games until she can sleep? And wish she could cry for her daddy, drink, and then cry for her daddy. She nearly opens the door, then remembers his wizened, sure-of-himself half smile and gets pissed again.

Turns decisively away from the door.

Says Haaa!

She has been walled in. By her own stock. Every mug, bowl, and plate she has, finished, unfinished, purchased, every one of them, stands stacked before her. From floor to high, A-frame ceiling. A frozen waterfall of clayware. All precariously balanced, some pieces on their corners, the whole thing ready to fall. If she removes one cup, it will pour down like a dynamited chimney. On her. A month’s hard work wrecked. Black eyes, lacerations, worse perhaps, and a herculean mess of shards and clay dust instead of half a summer’s income.

Kat, the multiply pierced woman who manages Anneke’s booth at the Renaissance festival, is coming tomorrow in her bumper-stickered van with the dried roses on the dashboard to get the finished pieces. With her father’s illness, Anneke has put Kat off several times, and now her booth has bare shelves. Will have nothing but bare shelves if this deadfall crashes.

Fuck that old guy.

She breathes hard.

She turns to open the door.

Can’t.

It has been mortared shut, concrete caulking the jamb, the hinges. A tongue of poured stone licks down from the wrecked lock. The only part of the door not slathered with freshly set concrete is the brass mail slot. Which now opens. She steps back a half step, which is all the room she’s got if she doesn’t want to bring down the wall of pottery.

A Snickers bar and a small box of raisins slide through, fall on her hickory floor.

“What the FUCK!” she says. “You let me out of here, you old COOT! DO YOU FUCKING HEAR ME?”

The pottery wall shudders, a saucer slipping headily close to falling out, nearly releases the threatened avalanche.

“Temper,” he says. “Ask me a question civilly and I’ll answer you.”

She makes an uncivil noise.

Stamps the Snickers bar flat, pushes it flat through the slot.

It comes back.

“Try not to step on your food. You’re going to get hungry. Probably very hungry. Depends on how good you are and how well you listen. I’m going to tell you how to unstack that wall, if you want to know. But you’re not to use your hands. You’ll have to start from the top.”

She seethes.

He waits.

“What if I can’t?”

“After a day or two I’ll let you out if I have to.”

“Do it now.”

“Sorry. You were ready to waste my time by sending me away; now I’m wasting yours. If you can pull that wall down, I’ll be happy to teach you more. If not, well, it was nice to meetcha.”

She seethes, cools down.

“I’ll get thirsty before I get hungry.”

Silence.

“Well?”

Silence.

The garden hose pokes its snout through the slot, hangs there.

Waits.

The tailpipes really draw the eye.

Two perfect holes on a tight little rear end.

The car Andrew will give to Radha.

First, a distraction.

His phone chimes.

He pulls it out.

Anneke Zautke

Your friend is really an asshole.