Charles De Lint - Dreams Underfoot

He likes People and Us and Entertainment Weekly and Life and stuff like that. Lots of pictures, not too many words. He gets me to cut out the pictures of the people and animals and ads and stuff he likes and then he plays with them like they were paper dolls. That’s how he gets away, I guess. Whatever works.

Anyway, I’ve got a post office box down on Grasso Street near Angel’s office and that’s where I have the subscriptions sent. I go down once a week to pick them up—usually on Thursday afternoons.

It’s all a little more than I can afford—makes me work a little harder at my garbage picking, you know?—but what am I going to do? Cut him off from his only pleasure? People think I’m hard—when they don’t just think I’m crazy—and maybe I am, but I’m not mean.

The thing about having a post office box is that you get some pretty interesting junk mail—well at least Tommy finds it interesting. I used to throw it out, but he came down with me to the box one time and got all weirded out when he saw me throwing it out so I bring most of it back now. He calls them his surprises. First thing he asks when I get back is, “Were there any surprises?”

I went in the Thursday this all started and gave the clerk my usual glare, hoping that one day he’ll finally get the message, but he never does. He was the one who sicced Angel on me in the first place.

Thought nineteen was too young to be a bag lady, pretty girl like me. Thought he could help.

I didn’t bother to explain that I’d chosen to live this way. I’ve been living on my own since I was twelve. I don’t sell my bod’ and I don’t do drugs. My clothes may be worn down and patched, but they’re clean. I wash every day, which is more than I can say for some of the real citizens I pass by on the street. You can smell their B.O. a half block away. I look pretty regular except on garbage day when Tommy and I hit the streets with our shopping carts, the dogs all strung out around us like our own special honor guard.

There’s nothing wrong with garbage picking. Where do you think all those fancy antique shops get most of their highpriced merchandise?

I do okay, without either Angel’s help or his. He was probably just hard up for a girlfriend.

“How’s it going, Maisie?” he asked when I came in, all friendly, like we’re pals. I guess he got my name from the form I filled out when I rented the box.

I ignored him, like I always do, and gathered the week’s pile up. It was a fairly thick stack—lots of surprises for Tommy. I took it all outside where Rexy was waiting for me. He’s the smallest of the dogs, just a small little mutt with wiry brown hair and a real insecurity problem. He’s the only one who comes everywhere with me because he just falls apart if I leave him at home.

I gave Rexy a quick pat, then sat on the curb, sorting through Tommy’s surprises. If the junk mail doesn’t have pictures, I toss it. I only want to carry so much of this crap back with me.

It was while I was going through the stack that this envelope fell out. I just sat and stared at it for the longest time. It looked like one of those ornate invitations they’re always making a fuss over in the romance novels I read: almost square, the paper really thick and creamcolored, ornate lettering on the outside that was real highclass calligraphy, it was so pretty. But that wasn’t what had me staring at it, unwilling to pick it up.

The lettering spelled out my name. Not the one I use, but my real name. Margaret. Maisie’s just a diminutive of it that I read about in this book about Scotland. That was all that was there, just

“Margaret,” no surname. I never use one except for when the cops decide to roust the squatters in the Tombs, like they do from time to time—I think it’s like some kind of training exercise for them—and then I use Flood, same as I gave Tommy.

I shot a glance back in through the glass doors because I figured it had to be from the postal clerk—who else knew me?—but he wasn’t even looking at me. I sat and stared at it a little longer, but then I finally picked it up. I took out my pen knife and slit the envelope open, and carefully pulled out this card. All it said on it was, “Allow the darkrobed access tonight and they will kill you.”

I didn’t have a clue what it meant, but it gave me a royal case of the creeps. If it wasn’t a joke—which I figured it had to be—then who were these blackrobed and why would they want to kill me?

Every big city like this is really two worlds. You could say it’s divided up between the haves and the havenots, but it’s not that simple. It’s more like some people are citizens of the day and others of the night. Someone like me belongs to the night. Not because I’m bad, but because I’m invisible. People don’t know I exist. They don’t know and they don’t care, except for Angel and the postal clerk, I guess.

But now someone did.

Unless it was a joke. I tried to laugh it off, but it just didn’t work. I looked at the envelope again, checking it out for a return address, and that’s when I realized something I should have noticed straightaway. The envelope didn’t have my box number on it, it didn’t have anything at all except for my name. So how the hell did it end up in my box? There was only one way.

I left Rexy guarding Tommy’s mail—just to keep him occu—

pied—and went back inside. When the clerk finished with the customer ahead of me, he gave me a big smile but I laid the envelope down on the counter between us and didn’t smile back.

Actually, he’s a pretty goodlooking guy. He’s got one of those flattop haircuts—shaved sides, kinky black hair standing straight up on top. His skin’s the color of coffee and he’s got dark eyes with the longest lashes I ever saw on a guy. I could like him just fine, but the trouble is he’s a regular citizen. It’d just never work out.

“How’d this get in my box?” I asked him. “All it’s got is my name on it, no box number, no address, nothing.”

He looked down at the envelope. “You found it in your box?” I nodded.

“I didn’t put it in there and I’m the one who sorts all the mail for the boxes.”

“I still found it in there.”

He picked it up and turned it over in his hands.

“This is really weird,” he said.

“You into occult shit?” I asked him.

I was thinking of dark robes. The only people I ever saw wear them were priests or people dabbling in the occult.

He blinked with surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

I grabbed the envelope back and headed back to where Rexy was waiting for me.

“Maisie!” the clerk called after me, but I just ignored him.

Great, I thought as I collected the mail Rexy’d been guarding for me. First Joe postal clerk’s got a good Samaritan complex over me—probably fueled by his dick—now he’s going downright weird. I wondered if he knew where I lived. I wondered if he knew about the dogs. I wondered about magicians in dark robes and whether he thought he had some kind of magic that was going to deal with the dogs and make me go all gooshy for him—just before he killed me.

The more I thought about it, the more screwed up I got. I wasn’t so much scared as confused. And angry. How was I supposed to keep coming back to get Tommy’s mail, knowing he was there? What would he put in the box next? A dead rat? It wasn’t like I could complain to anybody. People like me, we don’t have any rights.

Finally I just started for home, but I paused as I passed the door to Angel’s office.

Angel’s a little cool with me these days. She still says she wanted to help me, but she doesn’t quite trust me anymore. It’s not really her fault.