Charles De Lint - Memory and Dream

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Izzy finished The Spirit Is Strong the next day, but she had no time to admire her portrait of the Kickaha brave in his urban setting. She had to rush to another class that afternoon and then, when it was done, she spent what was left of the day at the university library, working on a paper that was due the next Monday. When she finally stepped outside, she blinked in surprise. She’d lost all track of time and night had fallen while she was cloistered away in the study cubicle with a stack of art-history books.

Her stomach rumbled and she realized that she’d not only missed lunch, but supper now as well. She felt so tired she could have lain down right there on the library steps and gone straight to sleep except she had just enough common sense left, in the fuzzy space between her ears that was passing for her mind at the moment, to know that she should get herself home first.

“You look beat,” a stranger’s voice said from behind her. “What’re you doing—burning the paintbrush at both ends?”

“You mean candle,” Izzy corrected absently as she turned to see who’d spoken.

A figure stood leaning in the shadows beside the stone lion statue on the left side of the library’s doors. She could see he wore a white T-shirt and blue jeans, and his long hair was dark, but his face was just a daub of shadowed skin color in the bad light and she couldn’t make out his features. There was enough of a nip in the air that she found herself wondering how he could stand being outside in only those short sleeves.

“But you’re an artist,” he said, “so I thought paintbrush would be more appropriate.”

“Do I know you?” Izzy asked. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

“Does it matter?”

Izzy had been about to take a step closer to get a better look at him, but she paused as the memory of Rochelle’s bruised features rose in her mind. Oh shit, she thought, taking a quick look around herself, but they were alone on the library steps. Through the leaded panes of the doors, she could see people moving around inside the building, but she knew they were too far away to do her any good if she had to yell for help.

She wanted to turn and run, but the idea of crossing the dark common with this guy chasing her held no appeal whatsoever. But she couldn’t get by him to go back inside either. All he had to do was grab her and drag her away into the bushes and nobody’d know. Nobody’d know at all.

“Look,” she said. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“I’m not here to hurt you,” the figure in the shadows told her. “Then what do you want from me?”

“Nothing, really. I was just making conversation. Go ahead and leave. I won’t stop you.”

Right, Izzy thought. I’ll just walk off onto the common and make it easy for you. Then something else struck her.

“How’d you know I’m an artist?” she asked.

“You’ve got paint under your nails and you were reading up on art history.”

“So you saw me inside,” Izzy said.

“Probably.”

Izzy shivered. What kind of an answer was that? It was so creepily vague. “Look,” she said. “You’re starting to freak me out a little.”

“Sorry. I just wanted to meet you, hear what your voice sounded like—that’s all. I didn’t mean to upset you. You can go back inside or wherever you were going. I won’t bother you.”

Izzy started to relax then. Now she thought she knew what he was doing out here, waiting for her.

He’d seen her inside and was trying to work his way around to asking for a date.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Mizaun.”

“I’m sorry,” Izzy said, leaning forward a little. “What did you say?”

“Call me John.”

Izzy frowned. The first thing he’d said hadn’t sound at all like “call me John.”

“Well, John,” she said. “Being mysterious and everything’s kind of interesting—I’ll give you that—but considering what happened a couple of nights ago, it’s not exactly all that endearing at the moment, if you know what I mean.” The figure in the shadows shook his head. “What happened two nights ago?”

“You don’t know? What planet did you beam down from tonight anyway—Mars?”

He hesitated for the length of a few heartbeats, then said, “I’m not sure I understand the question.”

Oh boy, Izzy thought. Maybe it was time to reevaluate the idea that he wanted a date.

“This is getting a little too weird for me,” she began. “Maybe we should just forget about—”

Before she could finish, the door to the library opened and two girls came out, a brunette and a blonde, chatting to each other, books bundled up against their chests. Izzy stepped aside to let them pass by, but when she turned back to where her mysterious companion had been standing in the shadows, he wasn’t there anymore. Alarm bells went off in her mind.

“Hey!” she called to the departing girls. When they paused to look back at her, she added, “Are you going as far as Lee Street?”

“Just as far as the bus stop at the Green,” the blonde said.

“Mind if I walk with you?”

“Not at all.”

“Great. I’m kind of nervous of walking over the common by myself tonight.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” the brunette confided when Izzy joined them. “Everything feels a little weird after what happened the other night.”

Izzy looked back at the library steps, but they were still empty. Where had he gone? Hopped over the wall into the vegetation that grew on either side of the steps? But then why hadn’t she heard him moving in the bushes?

“You’re telling me,” she said slowly.

Her nerves felt all on edge and she realized that she wasn’t at all tired anymore. Or hungry. The strange encounter had stolen both her fatigue and her appetite. She was never so glad to be in her apartment as she was that night, even if Kathy was out for another hour before she returned home as well.

“Oh yuck,” Kathy said after Izzy related what had happened to her. “You’re giving me goose bumps.”

“Do you think he was dangerous?” Izzy asked.

“Jeez, that’s a hard call. But let me assure you, I would’ve done exactly the same thing you did.

There’s no way I would’ve stuck around to find out. Uh-uh.

“No, of course not,” Izzy said thoughtfully.

Kathy had to shake her head. “Oh, ma belle Izzy. Don’t start romanticizing it.”

“I’m not. It’s just ...”

“Just what?”

Call me John. Not “my name is John.”

“I don’t know,” Izzy said. “I guess I just felt like I knew him from somewhere.”

Kathy sprawled out on the cushions under the window and laced her fingers behind her head. “Let’s see now,” she said. “You said that he didn’t strike you as either threatening or shy—right?”

Izzy nodded.

“Well, then how did he strike you?”

Izzy had to think about it for a moment. “Odd, I guess,” she said finally.

“And maybe a little lost. Like he was a stranger, still trying to get his bearings.” Kathy started to play an imaginary violin until Izzy threw a pillow at her. “Be serious,” Izzy said.

“I’m seriously glad you took off when you did,” Kathy told her. “I’m just not all that keen on hearing you mooning over this guy. You don’t know anything about him except that he hangs around outside the library, giving people the willies.”

“If it was all innocent—”

“And he can make a good exit.”

Izzy sighed. “I suppose. But I can’t help but wonder if the reason it all seemed so weird is because of what happened to Rochelle. I mean, everybody’s been feeling weird lately.”