Katie MacAlister: The Art of Stealing Time

“I don’t think we—”

“Meet me there,” I said in a growl that should have scared the pants off her. A whoosh of air from the arched tunnel at the end of the platform warned of the near arrival of a train. “Or else.”

“Or else what?” she asked, clearly curious.

“Or else I’ll invoke some very bad magic!”

“Oh, Gwenny,” she said with a dismissive laugh, “you couldn’t do bad magic if you had a spell book in front of you.”

“Try me,” I snarled, and hung up my phone.

I had a lot of things to do, and little time to do them.

“Hello, my old friend.”

The stone Animal Wall is one of my favorite places in Cardiff city proper. I was just a child when it was first carved, and I have vague memories of being taken to see the original painted animals. Sometime in the early 1920s, about thirty years after it was placed outside of Cardiff Castle, it was moved to the edge of Bute Park, where it still resides.

“You’re looking as placid as usual,” I told my favorite animal where he sat atop the wall, the stone images illuminated by the floodlights planted along the base of the wall. Directly in front of me, a stone seal gazed serenely into the distance, his flippers poised as if he were about to leap off the wall. “You know, Mr. Seal, I used to think that a spell would turn you to flesh and blood, and I’d beg my moms to give it to me so that you could slip out into the bay and swim away. They never did.”

The statue said nothing, for which I was extremely thankful—the last thing I needed was an animated statue, or a nervous breakdown. Although at times, I was ready to swear that the latter had some good points to it . . .

Around me, music sounded from a stage across the park, where a local Welsh band was entertaining folks who were out enjoying the history festival.

The air was filled with scents as well as sounds: the cooling of the sun-warmed lawn had a pleasant earthy note that mingled nicely with the salty tang wafting in from the bay. A more artificial, but no less pleasing, aroma came from the food stalls that had been set up for the festival, selling everything from Indian food to fish cakes to Welsh beef burgers. I salivated, my stomach rumbling uncomfortably while I contemplated enduring the crowds to feed my soon-to-be-uncontrollable hunger.

Common sense prevailed. I would never find my mothers in the throngs of people who queued up in front of the food area. Blue and red and gold lights lit Cardiff Castle beyond the Animal Wall, but I turned my gaze from its familiar ramparts to the crowd that moved like so many fireflies in a random pattern around the park. Fake torches lined pathways, while vendors in small pushcarts sold the inevitable glow sticks, bracelets, and necklaces. Soft neon glows of green, blue, and orange lit up faces old and young, but I ignored them to try to pick out the familiar shapes of my mothers: Mom, short and somewhat round (unfortunately, I inherited her propensity to abundance, although not her lack of height), and Mom Two, as tall and angular as Mom was the opposite.

I glanced at my watch, tilting it to catch illumination from a nearby faux torch. The fireworks would start in about fifteen minutes. “I swear, if I have to come and find you—” I started to grumble under my breath, pulling out my phone to call one of my mothers, but at that moment my peripheral vision caught the flicker of a familiar form.

“Mom!” I raised my hand and moved toward the three shapes. “It’s about time. I’ve been waiting for almost fifteen minutes. Hello.”

The last was spoken to the tiny old lady that both moms held in a firm grip.

“Gwenny, dear, we’re late, aren’t we? We had to stop for a wee. You know how your mother is.”

Mom Two made a grimace. “Pessary, you know. Makes me have to go sometimes. Must have shifted. Will have to have it checked out again.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, we don’t really need to talk about your bladder-holder-upper device right out here in the park. Is this Mrs. Vanilla?”

“Yes, it is. Oooh, is that Chicken Korma I smell?”

I grabbed my mother’s nearest arm and held on, as she was about to head straight for the food booths. “Yes, it is, and if I have to starve myself, so do you. It’s not on our diets.”

She sighed, and her shoulders slumped. “I know. But it smells so very delicious, and we’ve had a very stressful day, what with you returning to the States, and then the rescue of Mrs. Vanilla. Oh, I haven’t introduced you. Dear, this is my daughter, Gwenhwyfar. Mrs. Vanilla is our student, as I think I told you.”

I eyed the old lady between my mothers, trying to assess how likely she was to lodge a charge against them. If she was as confused as my mother made her sound, perhaps she wouldn’t remember anything that happened once she was returned to her nursing home. She was a tiny little thing, smaller even than my five-foot-three mother, but as delicate as a bird. She had narrow little hands that flitted about with graceful darting gestures that reminded me for some reason of shorebirds as they ran up and down the beach looking for food. Her hair was mostly white, cropped short, but there was an unusual black stripe right down the middle. A cowlick in the back made the tip of the stripe stand up on end, giving her a somewhat comical appearance. Her eyes were dark, but clouded with cataracts, and her hands had the faintest tremor to them. A thick greenish-black dressing gown covered her from neck to ankles, embroidered with what looked to be fanciful creatures from mythology. All in all, she looked like a perfectly nice little old lady.

I sighed, shaking my head at my moms, noting that a short distance away a family that was in possession of a bench had gathered up the remains of their dinner and moved off to a trash can. I steered my mothers’ captive over to the bench and turned to give both mothers the eye. “You two know you’ve gone way over the line this time, yes?”

Mom startled to bristle, while Mom Two looked haughtily down her long nose at me. “We have a duty to our students, Gwen,” the latter told me. “Not to mention a duty to save those who are under the protection of the god and goddess. We couldn’t hold up our heads if we were to let Mrs. Vanilla languish away in the mortal old-person prison.”

“OK, first, it’s a nursing home, not a prison. And second, you are not supposed to steal mortals. Third, and most important of all, you have no right taking this nice old lady from the people who care for her. What if she needs special medicines? Or stuff like adult diapers?” I gave the little old woman a twisted smile. “Sorry. Don’t mean to imply you need them. For all I know, your bladder is stronger than my mothers’ is.”

“It’s not,” Mom said with a wry look. “We thought of that, naturally, Gwenny. We’re not monsters, you know. We brought all of her medicines, and bought her a jumbo pack of bladder pants, as well as a pair of really warm wool socks in case her feet get cold at night like Alice’s do.”

“Always had poor circulation,” Mom Two said with a nod. “Got that from my father. He was a mage. Mages are notorious for their cold feet.”

“Regardless,” I said, attempting to keep the conversation from wandering, which I knew full well it would do if I didn’t keep the strictest control over it. “The fact remains that you stole a mortal woman. You can’t keep her, Moms. You have to take her back.”

“We will naturally take the very best care of her—” Mom Two started to say, but I cut her off with a sharp gesture. Mrs. Vanilla made little eeping noises of distress, her hands fluttering like the wings of tiny doves.

“She is not a pet! She’s a person, a mortal, an innocent woman who needs the care of the people who are paid to take care of her.”