February Thaw

and other stories of contemporary fantasy

by Tanya Huff

Copyright © 2011 by Tanya Huff

Cover design by Jenn Reese at Tiger Bright Studios

Published as an ebook original by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

ISBN 978-1-936535-56-9

Contents

1. February Thaw

-first published in Olympus, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Bruce D. Arthurs, DAW Books, Inc., 1998; collected in What Ho, Magic! Meisha Merlin 1999

2. Burning Bright

-first published in Earth, Air, Fire, Water edited by Margaret Weiss, DAW Books, Inc. 1999; collected in Relative Magic, Meisha Merlin, 2003

3. When the Student is Ready

-first published in Apprentice Fantastic, edited by Russell Davis and Martin H. Greenberg, DAW Books Inc., 2002; collected in Relative Magic, Meisha Merlin, 2003

4. Jack

-first published in Little Red Riding Hood in the Big Bad City, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers, DAW Books Inc., 2004; collected in Finding Magic, ISFiC Press 2007

5. Symbols are a Percussion Instrument

-first published in Tarot Fantastic edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Lawrence Schimel, DAW Books Inc., 1997; collected in What Ho, Magic, Meisha Merlin, 1999

6. Shing Li'ung

-first published in Dragon Fantastic edited by Rosalind M. Greenberg and Martin H. Greenberg, DAW Books Inc., 1992; collected in What Ho, Magic, Meisha Merlin, 1999

7. A Midsummer Night's Dream Team

-first published in Elf Fantastic edited by Martin H. Greenberg, DAW Books, Inc., 1997; collected in What Ho, Magic, Meisha Merlin, 1999

Cover design by Jenn Reese at Tiger Bright Studios (www.tigerbrightstudios.com)

February Thaw was chosen to be the cover story for this 2nd e-collection because Symbols are a Percussion Instrument was just too long. Sometimes it's art. Sometimes it's craft. Sometimes, it rains.  (Bonus points if you recognize what I'm quoting here.)

As I recall, the editor of Olympus wanted stories where we wrote the ancient gods living in a modern world. I'd already done exactly that in Summon the Keeper, but was willing to rise to the challenge of doing it again. Differently. The great thing about the ancient gods is that once you've done the research and accepted all the mythic information as fact, you realize that the Power and the Presence are just window dressing; they're really nothing more than a highly dysfunctional family.

February Thaw

Scuffing across the rec room floor in a pair of well-worn fuzzy slippers, Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest, pulled open the door to her small wine cellar, took a bottle of wine from the rack and held it up to the light. A Tignanello, 1990; lovely vintage. Most of the family didn't think much of Dionysus but she rather liked him. Not only did he do very nice things with the grapes she provided, but, in his other guise as God of Theatrical Arts, he saw to it that she got complimentary tickets to all the big shows.

She'd seen Cats a dozen times before the novelty had worn off.

Tucking the bottle under her arm, she scuffed back to her chair and settled into the overstuffed cushions with a satisfied sigh. One thumb popped the cork – there were perks to being an immortal goddess after all – and a moment later she settled back with a glass of wine in one hand, the television remote in the other.

Demeter loved winter. Not so much because she had nothing to do after the rush of planting, tending, and harvesting, but because her house was her own again. She could eat what she wanted, she could drink what she wanted, she could wear what she wanted, and, most importantly, she could watch what she wanted. During the winter, she wore stretchy fabrics and watched absolutely nothing with socially redeeming value.

"I admit it," she announced to the fat, disinterested tabby sprawled in the middle of a braided rug. "I was an overprotective mother. Well, what do you expect? I was a single, working mom. He was never around. Still..." She took a long, contented swallow of the wine and turned on the first of the afternoon's talk shows. "...if I had it to do over, I'd give them a nice set of salad bowls and my blessing."

"Mom?"

Having just taken another drink, Demeter choked.

"Mom? Where are you?" Fashionably high heels ringing against the worn carpeting on the stairs, Persephone descended into the rec room to find her mother dabbing at the stains on her turquoise track suit with one hand and trying to fish a tissue out of the box with the other. "Mother! Honestly!" She shoved a tissue into Demeter's searching fingers. "It's the middle of the afternoon!"

Wiping at the wine dribbling out her nose, the goddess glared up at her only daughter. "What," she demanded, "are you doing here? There's two more months until spring."

"Two more months?" Persephone repeated, volume rising with every word. "Two more months? I couldn't stay with that man two more minutes!"

While she had every intention of being supportive, Demeter couldn't help looking a little wistfully toward the muted television as she asked, "What did he do?"

"What didn't he do?" Throwing herself down on the sofa, Persephone ran a slender hand through corn-silk blonde hair. "He leaves his socks and underwear on the floor, he never gets any exercise..."

Just why the Lord of the Underworld, who was not only slender bordering on downright skinny but also an immortal god, needed to exercise, Demeter had no idea.

"...he spends all his time playing poker with Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Aeacus, and he lets that stupid dog up on the furniture."

"Sephie, these don't sound like reasons for you to leave a god you've been married to for millennia. In fact, they sound an awful lot like the things you complain about every spring." She leaned forward and patted her daughter's knee with one plump hand, trying to sound more sympathetic than she felt. "What's the real reason you're here when you shouldn't be?"

In the silence between question and answer, the cat wisely got up and left the room.

"We had a fight."

"What about?"

"Pomegranates."

"What, again?"

"This was a different fight." Persephone's face crumpled. "Hades doesn't love me anymore!"

Picking up the box of tissues, Demeter moved to the sofa beside the weeping goddess. "Of course, he loves you, sweetie."

"No, he used to but now he doesn't." She blew her nose vigorously. "And I'm never going back to him."

"Never?" Demeter repeated. She reached for her wine.

Outside the cozy, country cottage, the snow – currently, the goddess' preferred symbolism of her time off – began to melt.

*

"Is that what you're having for breakfast?"

Demeter sighed and paused, fork halfway to her mouth. "What's wrong with my breakfast?"

"Eggs, sausages, and home-fries? Not to mention toast and beans? Mom, you've got enough bad fats in front of you to kill you, and trust me, I know what can kill you." Before Demeter could secure it, the plate was whisked away. "I'll make you some whole grain porridge, just like I do in the summer. No saturated fats, plenty of fruits and vegetables; we'll get that extra weight off you in no time."

"Sephie, I'm the goddess of the harvest, I'm supposed to be ample. And trust me, dear, you can't get ample on fruits and vegetables."

Persephone shot her a glittering smile. "Isn't that a bit of a contradiction?"

"I've learned to live with it."

A sheet of snow slid off the steeply raked roof and landed on the burlap wrapped foundation plantings, crushing them under the wet weight.

*

Demeter stared into her whole wheat pita stuffed with alfalfa sprouts, humus and god knew what else because the goddess certainly didn't. "I wonder what Hades is eating right now."

"I don't care."

"Probably something greasy and bad for him."

"I know what you're trying to do, Mom, and I appreciate it, but my marriage can not be saved." Persephone bit the top three inches off a raw carrot with more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary. "After we eat, I've got a new low-impact aerobic workout that I want you to try."

"Sephie, I usually rest in the winter."

"If you mean you usually spend the winter in front of the television, well, that's not resting."

"It's not?"

"It's vegetating. And you won't have to do it this winter because I'm here. Think of it, we'll have such fun. Just like we do in the summer."

"Oh, I'm thinking of it,sweetie..."

Out in the garden, a confused iris stuck its head above ground.

*

"I'm going for a walk, Mom. Do you want to come?"

"No, dear. I thought I'd..." Demeter racked her brain for something that her daughter couldn't object to. "...chop up some vegetables for a salad."

Persephone sniffed disapprovingly. "How can you stand being stuck inside on such a beautiful day? You're not like this in the summer."

"It's not summer, Sephie."

"Hades and I walk all over the Underworld in the winter: through the Asphodel Fields, along the Styx, and back home to Erebus by way of the Lethe. We walk..." The second sniff was much moister. "...and we talk and then, later, we curl up in front of the fire."

Encouraged by the longing in Persephone's voice, Demeter dared to suggest that her husband probably missed her very much.

"Good."

"Maybe you should just talk to him."

"No."

"But..."

"You don't understand, Mother."

Demeter smiled tightly. "That's because you haven't told me anything, dear. If I knew what the fight was about, maybe I could help."

"It's between Hades and me, Mother." Throwing an elegant sweater over slender shoulders, Persephone opened the back door. "I'm going for my walk now."

"Put on a coat, Sephie."

"I don't need one."

Glancing over at the calendar, Demeter sighed.

*

A few days later, standing in the kitchen making a cup of tea while Persephone went through her winter wardrobe and got rid of everything comfortable -- as Queen of the Underworld, she favoured haute couture – Demeter stared out the window at the bare lawn and wondered what she should try next. Nothing she'd said so far had made any difference; although she cried herself to sleep every night, Persephone was not going back to her husband and that was that.

"There's a robin on your lawn."

Sighing deeply, the goddess dumped an extra spoonful of sugar in her cup and turned to face the man sitting at her kitchen table. "I figured it would only be a matter of time before you showed up."

Zeus squared massive shoulders and laid both hands flat on the table top. "Spring seems to be early this year."

"No shit. What was your first clue?" The head of the pantheon was still an impressive looking god and certainly well suited to populating Olympus, but in Demeter's opinion, he'd never been that bright.

"In fact, spring appears to have arrived two months early."

And he had a way of making pompous pronouncements that really ticked her off. "Persephone's had a fight with her husband and come home."

"I can not allow the seasons to be messed up in this manner." Folding his arms, Zeus leaned back in the chair, grey eyes stormy. "Send her back."

"It's not that easy..."

"Why not?" he demanded. "You're her mother."

Demeter smiled and stood. "You're her father. You send her back." Pitching her voice to carry to the second floor, she headed for the rec room, ignoring Zeus' panicked protests. "Persephone! Your father wants to talk to you!"

She kept the volume on the television turned low so she could listen to the ebb and flow of the argument. It seemed to be mostly ebb. A very short time later, quick, angry footsteps headed upstairs and slow, defeated ones headed down.

"Well?" she asked.

"She said, no." Zeus dropped onto the recliner and dug both hands into the luxuriant curls of his beard.

"She said, no?" Demeter repeated with heavy sarcasm. "The Father of Heaven unsuccessful with a woman?"

"She cried, Demi. What could I do?"

"Did you ask her what was wrong?"

He looked indignant. "You told me they had a fight."

Demeter sighed. "Did you ask her what the fight was about?"

"What difference does that make?" His full lips moved into what was perilously close to a pout. "She has to go back and I told her so."

In spite of his many opportunities for practise, Zeus had never been, by any stretch of the imagination, a good father. More of a realist than most of the pantheon, Demeter recognized that they were all in part responsible for that. He'd been the youngest in a wildly dysfunctional family and they'd all indulged him. She'd been just as bad as the rest of their siblings, but she'd long ago stopped indulging him where their daughter was concerned. "Well," she said dryly, "that was stupid, wasn't it?"

All things considered, he took it rather well. Thunder rumbled in the distance but nothing in the immediate area got destroyed.

"Demi, it can't be spring yet. When it's this early, it screws everything up."

"Zeus." She leaned forward. She would've patted his leg except that he took physical contact as an invitation and this was not the time for fertility rites. "I know."

"What are we going to do now?" he sighed.

Demeter grabbed her favourite lamp as it blew by on the gust of his exhalation and placed it on the floor by her chair. "We?"

Heaving himself up onto his feet, the ruler of Olympus had grace enough to look sheepish. "Deal with it, would you, Demi?"

She sighed in turn. "Don't I always?"

Having sloughed off responsibility once again, Zeus grew more cheerful and his step lightened as he headed for the stairs. "You should visit Olympus more often. We miss you."

"No, you don't. Whenever I'm there, Hera and I fight then you go off and do one of those swan, shower of gold, quail things and we all know how that ends up – Hera blames me since she can't seem to blame you, I get ticked off and crops fail over half of the southern hemisphere. Better I just stay here."

He threw her a brilliant smile. "I miss you."

"No, you don't." In spite of everything, she couldn't help adding, "But it's sweet of you to say so."

At the bottom of the stairs, he paused and half turned back to face her as another thought occurred to him. "Oh, by the way, what's Iacchus up to these days?"

"How should I know, I'm only his mother." Her son was a great deal like his father. "If you see him, tell him to call."

*

"Sephie, what are you doing?"

Persephone rubbed at a smudge of dirt on one peaches and cream cheek and looked up at her mother, her other hand continuing to vehemently, almost violently, poke seeds into the ground. "Planting radishes."

"Now?"

"We've got the year off to an early start." She frowned, suddenly noticing the jacket and boots. "Where are you going?"

"Eleusis," lied the goddess. "For the Mysteries."

"Now?"

"You've got the year off to an early start," Demeter reminded her. "We've had to make a few changes because of it." The Eleusinian Mysteries had always been a convenient way to ditch a grown, and often disapproving, daughter for more, as it were, fruitful company. Being Mysteries, they never had to be explained. Patting Persephone fondly on one shoulder, she continued down the garden path. "I won't be long."

*

"Evenin' yer Ladyship." Boat at the dock, Charon rested on his oar as Demeter approached. "Haven't seen you in these parts since the wedding."

"I try not to interfere in the lives of my children." She glanced down at a full load of the dead. "Do you have room for one more?"

"Well now, I'd have to say that depends."

Demeter sighed and rummaged through a change purse full of breath mints, jiffy pots, and wildflower seeds, finally pulling out a coin. The ferryman reached for it but she held it back. "When we reach the other side."

"Good enough, yer Ladyship." Reaching down, he grabbed his nearest passenger by the head and tossed him overboard. "Fool already paid me," he explained as he held out a hand to help the goddess over the gunnel.

It was a quiet trip across the Styx. Charon didn't encourage chatter and Demeter had a lot on her mind. Not far from the landing, she frowned, suddenly unable to ignore the tormented screaming any longer. "Is it just me or are the cries from Tartarus louder than they should be."

"They're louder," Charon agreed. "He's been depressed since she left. Makes him cranky."

The newly dead, sitting shoulder to shoulder on a triple row of uncomfortable benches, shuddered as a group.

*

Stepping out onto what was essentially land – it squelched underfoot a great deal less since she'd recommended they have it tile drained – Demeter braced herself.

"Down, Cerberus! Down! Good dog." She scratched the centre head behind the ears as the other two stretched around her body and snarled at the disembarking spirits. When one or two hung back, Charon smacked them with his oar. "Oh for pity's sake," she snapped, "he won't bother you if you're supposed to be here. Who's a good boy? Who's Demeter's favourite puppy?"

Tail whipping from side to side, the tapered back end of his body moving back and forth in time, Cerberus drooled happily on the goddess' feet.

Glad she'd worn her wellies, and beginning to realize why Persephone didn't want the dog up on the couch, or on anything else that couldn't be hosed down immediately afterwards, Demeter gave all three heads a final scratch and started toward the Asphodel Fields. Winter or not, she didn't intend staying in the Underworld for too long. Cerberus bounded along beside her for half a dozen steps then the wind shifted and he took off downstream, howling, snarling, and barking furiously.

Pulling her jacket more closely around her, she hurried along the path toward Erebus trying to ignore the grey and boring landscape and the incessant twittering of the undistinguished dead. Although a few of those who'd known her in life waved a limp hand in greeting, most ignored her.

Most.

"Greetings rich-haired Demeter, awful goddess, lady of the golden sword and glorious fruits."

"Hello, Orion." The ghost standing on the path before her, the son of Poseidon and the gorgon Euryale, had been the handsomest man alive until he'd taken up with Artemis and run afoul of an over-protective Apollo. As she'd often thought it unfair the way the Olympian powers fell, Demeter smiled kindly on her nephew. "Still hunting the shadow deer?" She nodded toward his bow.

"The hunt is all I have." He paused and then continued ponderously, "The Queen is gone early from Erebus."

"Yes, she is, isn't she."

"She has returned to your hearth?"

"Oh, yes." My cold hearth, the goddess added silently. And I still don't believe gas fireplaces give off unhealthy fumes.

Orion nodded. "Good. I am glad she is safe. Do you now descend to see the Lord Hades, your brother?"

"Not exactly," Demeter told him tightly. "I descend to see the Lord Hades, my son-in-law."

The hero's eyes widened and his Adam's apple bobbed in the muscular column of his throat. "Oh," he said, and stepped off the path. "Look, uh, don't let me get in your way, Aunt Demi." He faded back toward the trees. "And, uh, if there's anything I can do, don't hesitate to call."

Picking up her pace again, Demeter rolled her eyes. Honestly; men. Even dead ones. And Hera wonders why I never married.

*

There were gardens down the middle of the wide avenue that lead to the palace. In spite of the inarguable presence of the pomegranates, Demeter hadn't expected that. If they'd been in place during the wedding, she hadn't noticed them, but then as mother of the bride, not to mention sister of the groom, she'd had other things on her mind.

All the flowers were black – except for one corpse-lavender rose she was fairly certain she'd seen in the upper world – and the beds had been edged in giant uncut diamonds. She could see her daughter's taste in the design. Persephone had always loved order. A closer look and she realized the flowers desperately needed dead-heading and everything wanted water. Sighing deeply, Demeter reached under the lip of a black marble fountain and turned on the irrigation system.

"This is her garden," said a gardener, who'd been standing so quietly she hadn't noticed him. "His Majesty said we weren't to foul it with our touch."

"Hades said that?"

"Yes ma'am."

Demeter smiled. This might be easier than she'd thought.

*

The palace was a mess.

Demeter had no idea how it could have gotten so bad in only eight days. Then she remembered how it had gotten at her house in those same eight days and tried to be less critical, although it wasn't easy.

The servants, drawn from the ranks of the dead, huddled confused and insubstantial in corners. She could feel them watching her hopefully as she passed. Well, with any luck, their ordeal and hers would soon be over.

She found the King of the Dead in a small room he used for a den, slumped in a chair, mournfully eating peanut butter straight from the jar. His clothes were wrinkled, he didn't smell very good, and it looked like he hadn't shaved in about three days.

He looked up when Demeter came in, too far gone in misery to be surprised. "Have you come for her things?"

"I've come for an explanation."

His gesture took in the drifts of potato chip bags in the immediate area as well as the chaos in the rest of the palace. "She's left me, Demi."

"I know that, you idiot. Where did you think she'd gone?"

"To you?"

"That's right. To me." She kicked a pizza box out of her way. "And do you know what happens up above when Persephone comes home to me?"

"The upper world is not my concern." If he'd intended to sound regal, he didn't quite make it past petulant.

"This time it is, because it's spring up there." Demeter's voice grew sharper as she put both fists on the back of the couch and leaned toward her son-in-law. "And it's not supposed to be spring for another two months! I want to know what happened and I want to know right now!"

A single tear rolled down alongside Hades' aquiline nose. "She's left me, Demi."

Even the most gentle goddess had a line that shouldn't be crossed.

When the dust settled, He Who Has Many Names picked himself up off the floor and lowered himself gently back into his chair. "You blasted me," he said, shaking his head in disbelief, slightly singed black hair falling over his eyes. "In my realm. In my palace. In my den."

"That's right. And I'm going to do it again if I don't start getting some answers that make sense."

Scratching at the stubble on his chin, Hades sighed. "We had a fight," he said in a small voice.

"What about, and don't say pomegranates because I know that much."

"But it was about pomegranates, Demi. I had the tree cut down."

Demeter took a deep breath and counted to ten. "What tree?"

"The pomegranate tree." When she made it clear she needed more information and what the consequences would be if she didn't get it, he went on. "You remember back when I was courting Persephone..."

The goddess snorted.

A patch of colour stained the son of Chronos' pale cheeks. "Yeah, well, do you remember how Zeus said she didn't have to stay with me if she hadn't eaten anything?"

"I remember."

Hades took a hint from her tapping fingers and began to speak faster. "Well, as it turned out she'd eaten those seven pomegranate seeds. Anyway, we worked all that out years ago and I thought we were happy, but in the midst of a small disagreement about saturated fats, one of the servants put a bowl of pomegranates on the table. She said I was trying to run roughshod over her feelings just like before and I said I wasn't, then, to prove it, I had the gardeners cut down the tree."

Demeter stared silently down at him. "The tree that bore the fruit Persephone ate from to become your bride?" she asked when she finally found her voice.

"Well, yeah, but..."

"You putz! For her that tree was a symbol of your union and you got miffed and cut it down to prove a point."

"I didn't want her to be reminded of less happy times," Hades protested indignantly.

"Did you tell her that? Of course not," she went on before he had a chance to answer. "No wonder she thinks you don't love her anymore. That you regret marrying her."

"How can she think that?" He started to pace, kicking accumulated flotsam out of his way with every step. "Persephone is the only bright light in my world. While she's here with me, she rules over all. Without her, I dwell in darkness. I adore her. I always have and I always will." Face twisted in anguish, he turned toward the goddess. "You've got to talk to her, Demi. You've got to."

"Oh no," Demeter shook her finger at him. "I'm not the one who has to talk to her. You go up top right now and you tell all this to my daughter."

Hades stopped pacing so suddenly Demeter thought at first he'd walked through some spilled chip dip and glued his feet to the floor. "I can't."

"You what?"

"I can't go up top. It goes on too far." Glancing up at the ceiling, he looked beyond it to the arcing dome of rock that covered the Underworld. "There's no roof."

"Don't start making excuses, Host of Many, Brain of Pea," Demeter snarled. "You went up there to get her originally."

"That was a long time ago."

"So?"

"I've got agoraphobia."

"So stay out of the marketplace. Or don't you want her back?"

"I want her back more than anything!"

Not more than I want to get rid of her. "Then get off your skinny butt and do something about it. And speaking of getting off your butt, why is this place such a pig sty? You've got servants."

"Persephone always dealt with them. I don't know what to say."

"She's with me half the year." Which was quite long enough. "You can't possibly live like this for all that time."

"She always leaves lists." The King of the Dead bent down and pulled a piece of cold pizza out from under the sofa cushions. "Very precise lists."

Demeter sighed. She knew she was enabling his helplessness, but she couldn't have her daughter return to this mess. "Would you like me to take care of it?"

"Could you?"

The goddess put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. Almost instantly, as though they'd been waiting for a signal, a crowd of worried spirits wafted into the room. Demeter waved at the mess. "Compost this crap," she told them.

Hades frowned as the mess began to disappear. "I'm pretty sure that's not how Persephone does it."

Remembering that his argument with her daughter had started over saturated fats and fully aware of what side of the issue Persephone came down on, Demeter looked more kindly on him than she had. "You're probably right.

*

"Did you have a nice Mystery, Mother."

Demeter stuck her heel in the boot-jack and pulled off her left wellie. "I planted a seed, time will tell if anything comes of it."

"I hate it when you've been off talking to your priests," Persephone sniffed. "You get all obscure." She patted a pile of paper before her on the table. "While you were gone I worked up a plan to redecorate the kitchen."

"But I like my kitchen."

"Our kitchen. It's hopelessly old fashioned. The microwave still has dials."

"I only use it to reheat tea," the goddess protested.

"The kitchen in the palace has all the most modern equipment. Very high tech."

"Yes, well Hades is God of Wealth," Demeter muttered. "He can afford to get every new piece of junk that comes out."

Persephone ignored her. "And we'll have to get some servants." She smiled brittlely at her mother's aghast expression. "Mother, we're goddesses. Cook-outs and things are all very well in the summer..."

Demeter had long suspected Persephone regarded the seasons spent with her as an extended visit to Guide camp.

"...but it's not something we should have to live with year round."

"Sephie, when you're with me, it is summer year round."

"That's no reason why we shouldn't have servants. We can add on a wing out back." Rummaging through the pile, she held up a sheet of paper. "I drew a sketch. What the...?"

Both women stared at the paper, trembling like an aspen leaf in Persephone's hand.

Suddenly concerned, Demeter reached for her daughter. "You're shaking."

"No, I'm not." A mug fell off its peg and crashed into a dozen pieces against the floor. "The whole house is shaking."

"Earthquake?" Demeter folded her arms. "When I get my hands on the god who's doing this," she growled, "he'll get a piece of my mind and boot in the backside!"

"Not now, Mother." Grabbing the goddess' shoulders, Persephone pushed her toward the door. "We've got to get outside. This whole place could come down any moment."

"If it does," the goddess promised, "I'm going to be very angry."

They'd got only as far as the porch when the lawn erupted. Four black horses, nostrils flared and eyes wild, charged up from the depths of the earth pulling behind them a golden chariot. In the chariot, stood Hades, ebony armour gleaming, the reins in one hand, a black rose in the other.

Demeter had to admit the rose was a nice touch.

His eyes beneath the edge of his helm almost as wild as his those of his horses, Hades turned toward the cottage. "Persephone, this time I do not pull you from your mother's arms but implore you, for the sake of love, to come home with me."

"Very prettily said. Almost classical." Demeter poked her daughter in the hip. "Well?"

Persephone tossed her head. "You cut down my tree."

"And I have caused another seven to grow in its stead. One for each of the seeds you ate so that you can see how much my love has multiplied."

"I ate?" Persephone repeated, her voice rising dramatically. "You fed them to me."

"I only offered them to you," Hades protested. "You ate them."

Her chin rose. "I didn't know what it meant."

"And now you do." He opened the hand that held the rose and, like drops of blood against his pale skin, were seven pomegranate seeds.

Persephone gave a little cry Demeter wasn't quite able to interpret, but her eyes were dewy and that seemed a good sign.

"Please come back to me, Sephie. The Underworld is empty without you. All my wealth is meaningless. I'll stop spending so much time with the guys. I'll cut out saturated fats. I..." The horses jerked forward. Muscles straining, Hades brought them back under control. "I love... Damn it, you four, stop it or I'll feed you to the dog! I love you, Persephone."

Could have been a more polished declaration, Demeter acknowledged but not more sincere. "Well?" she said again, this time with a little more emphasis.

"But spring...?"

The goddess smiled, trying not to let the relief show. "Spring can wait two months."

With a glad cry, Persephone ran forward and leapt into both the chariot and Hades' arms. Finding no hand on the reins, both of the god's hands being otherwise occupied, the team did what horses always do under similar, if less mythic, circumstances. Hoofs striking sparks against the air, they bolted down toward their stable carrying their two oblivious passengers back to the Underworld with them.

The last Demeter saw of her daughter and her son-in-law, they were feeding each other the pomegranate seeds and murmuring things she was just as glad she couldn't hear.

"Happy endings all around," she muttered, and added as she went to work tucking the spring growth back into bed, "I have no idea how Aphrodite puts up with this kind of nonsense day in and day out."

With Persephone back in the loving arms of her husband, it didn't take long for Demeter to return the season to normal, although she felt a little bad about the radishes.

When Dusk approached, the goddess wandered down to the rec room, opened a new bottle, and poured herself a glass of wine. The house was blessedly quiet. Even the cat had returned from wherever he'd hidden himself.

Slippered feet up on a hassock, she picked up the remote. Maybe she'd heat up a frozen pizza for dinner.

The lawn was a disaster. In the spring, the actual spring, it would have to be rolled.

It seemed a small price to pay.

Outside the cottage, it began to snow.

As I recall – and my recall isn't the best, but, all things considered, this seems like a no brainer – stories written for the anthology, Earth, Air, Fire, Water, were to be about one of the four elements in the title. Edited by Margaret Weiss and Janet Pack, it was the second in the Tales from the Eternal Archive series. I'm not sure there was a third.

I wanted to use Fire because I'd recently bought a book called Fire: Technology, Symbolism, Ecology, Science, and Hazard by Hazel Rossotti who is a Fellow and Tutor in chemistry at St. Anne's College in Oxford. I suspect it may be her thesis. I love this book. It pretty much proves to me that, if you look hard enough, you can find a book about anything.

As for the story, well, this is another one that started about three thousand words before it was supposed to and had to be ruthlessly edited until the actual beginning appeared.  Now, I have no problem setting my urban fantasy in a distinct time – the tech is going to out you anyway – and two lines set this story firmly in the time it was written, back before DVDs of television shows were quite so omnipresent and before George Lucas proved he should've quit while he was ahead.

Burning Bright

"Mom?"

Beth Aswith opened her eyes and stared up at the young woman bending over her. "Good, you made it. Did you come alone?"

"No, Alynne gave me a lift."

"Alynne?" Beth glanced suspiciously around the small room as if she expected to see her daughter's oldest friend hiding behind the curtains or under one of the ugly, orange plastic chairs. "Where is she?"

"She's waiting for me down in her car. She wouldn't come in."

"Why not?"

"I think it has something to do with a guy she was dating."

Silver brows dipped down. "She put a date in the hospital?"

Beginning to feel like part of a Three Stooges routine, Carlene dragged a chair over to the bed. "I think he works here, Mom."

"Well, I wouldn't be surprised if she had put a date in the hospital." Thin fingers clutched at the blanket. "She's an eccentric little person."

Circumstances helped Carlene resist the urge to announce it takes one to know one. As a child, her mother's eccentricities had been fun, as a teenager they'd been embarrassing, and as an adult, well, they put Alynne's in perspective. "I don't want to argue with you, Mom. Not here, not now." She caught up her mother's hands in both of hers. "Tell me what’s happening?"

"Didn't they tell you? I'm dying."

"Mom, you're not dying." Elbows braced on the mattress, Carlene leaned forward until she could capture her mother's pale gaze with her own. She knew it was a mistake the moment she did it – no argument could stand against that pale stare. When shaking her head failed to dislodge the unwelcome truth, she leaned back. "Oh my god. You really are."

"I really am. We all have our allotted time and mine has run out. I meant to end this properly, but I thought I had another year. Such a pity because I was so looking forward to seeing how the experiment came out. Let this be a lesson to you." Her fingers returned the pressure of Carlene's grip. "Always check your math."

"Mom, what are you talking about?"

"What do you think?"

"Mother!"

"Sorry, force of habit. That whole answering a question with a question thing; we're all trained to do it." Beth frowned slightly. "It's supposed to make us seem mysterious. Can't see how."

Silently vowing not to lose her temper at her mother's deathbed no matter how surreal things got, Carlene fought to keep from grinding her teeth. "Mysterious, no. Annoying, yes."

"Thought so." Beth snorted. "Make them work it out for themselves, they told us. Once you start solving their problems, they'll expect you to solve all their problems."

"Mom."

"But enough about me, I'm dying..."

"Stop saying that!"

"...we need to talk about you."

"I'll be fine."

"No, you won't."

Releasing her mother's hand, Carlene pushed back the chair, walked over to the window, counted to ten, and returned. Only her mother could turn what should be a touching moment of resolution into a petty argument. "Yes, I will. I'll miss you very much, but, after a while, I'm sure I'll be fine."

"Fine is a relative term."

"Mother..."

"I’ve enjoyed being your mother." Sagging back against the pillow, Beth seemed faintly surprised by the revelation. "Watching you grow and learn was the most fun I ever had."

"Even when I got suspended for pounding Terry McDonnell's head against the playground?"

"The little snitch deserved what he got."

Carlene returned the smile. "Thank you. I’ve enjoyed being your daughter."

"You're not human, you know."

"What?"

Her free hand raised to forestall further protest, Beth suddenly struggled to draw a breath. "What time is it?" she gasped as she released it.

"Ten thirty."

"Oh, bloody hell." The eyes that locked on Carlene's might have been the eyes of a dying woman, but they were also the eyes of a woman who expected to be obeyed. "Stay away from the oxygen tanks."

Carlene waited for the next breath.

There was no next breath.

Barely breathing herself, Carlene slowly stood and backed away from the bed. The too conditioned hospital air had picked up a shimmer and she could hear nothing through the sudden roaring in her ears.

Her mother was dead.

Beth Aswith was dead.

Bindings began to unwind.

Carlene remembered.

"Oh crap..."

She barely had time to move away from the curtains before she returned to her true form.

The flesh she'd worn for twenty-four years turned to ash so quickly there wasn't smoke enough to register on the alarm over the door. The flooring got a little scorched and the ambient temperature of the room went up about fifteen degrees, but she managed to regain control before she set the whole hospital on fire.

It wasn't easy and had there been an oxygen tank handy she wouldn't have been able to resist, but there wasn't and she did and, eventually, she calmed down.

Burning only enough oxygen to maintain a brilliant white flame barely an inch high, she danced over to the bed and, leaving a scorched line along the blanket, settled in the air above the dead wizard's nose. "See," she said, unable to stop herself from flickering, "I told you I'd be fine."

They’d been together for over a hundred years before the final experiment. Even measured in combustion rates, that amount of time, that kind of companionship, couldn't be burned away as quickly as flesh. Her flame dimmed and she dipped down close enough to temporarily warm cold lips.

"And I miss you very much."

A change in air currents warned her that the door was opening.

"Ms. Aswith?"

She sped past the nurse and out into the hospital corridor. Staying close to the ceiling where the glare of the fluorescent lights rendered her virtually invisible, she followed the blue line to the elevator, took the elevator to the ground floor with a pair of grumbling orderlies, and finally flew out the front doors.

The sense of freedom was intoxicating. She ignited a dead leaf just because she could then sped off to rediscover the joys of a world with no boundaries.

A nickel smelter in Sudbury.

Fifteen hundred acres of spruce forest in Siberia.

The marshmallow on the end of a boy scout’s stick.

A lava flow on Maui.

She was everywhere fire burned and everything burned if the fire was hot enough.

There was only one, small problem. She couldn’t burn away Carlene.

She’d gotten into the habit of being human and burning bored her.

*

"Tell me again; you're a what?"

"A fire elemental."

"Cool." Feet up on the trunk that served her for a coffee table, Alynne took another swallow of beer. "And Beth wasn't really your mother, she was a wizard who gave you a body so you could see what it was like to be human?"

Resting on the wick of a meditation candle, Carlene flared. "That's right."

"And you liked being human and now you want my help to get you another body."

"Yes."

"I don't know." Alynne's eyes narrowed as she studied the flame. "You needed my help yesterday afternoon and then you ditched me in a hospital parking lot."

"I said I was sorry!"

"Easy to say." Setting the empty bottle carefully on the frayed arm of the couch, Alynne stood and shrugged a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey jacket on over a faded Grateful Dead t-shirt. "Well, let's go."

"That's it?"

"That’s what?"

"You're going to do it?"

"You thought I wouldn't?" One hand beat dramatically at her chest. "You cut to the quick."

"Sorry." Carlene carefully disengaged herself from the wick and followed her friend out into the hall. "I have to say, you're taking this whole thing a lot better than I expected."

"How long have we been best friends?"

"Ever since you bit me in second grade."

"And I should throw all that away?" There were five locks on Alynne's door but only one of them worked. "What kind of best friend would that make me? Besides, that whole voice out of a burning bush thing is historically kind of hard to argue with, not that a pot of winter savoury counts as much of a bush." She lifted the gate on the freight elevator just high enough to duck under. "Although the next time you show up to tell me you've turned into something weird, you could wait until I'm not holding something breakable." Using the hammer left in the elevator for just such an occasion, she whacked the button for the first floor. "You owe me a Princess Leia Star Wars glass."

"Sorry."

"Actually, you're a lot more interesting now than you used to be."

"Thanks a lot," Carlene muttered, lightly charring the two-by-six bracing the back wall.

*

Given the gasoline fumes leaking out of Alynne's car, Carlene thought it might be safest if she made her own way home.

To the wizard's house.

It looked different, dark and empty. She'd lived there as human for twenty-four years and for almost fifty years in her true form before that – had, in fact, helped the wizard decide to buy it – but she felt no more connection to the house now than she did to any other building on the street. Burning a little copper out of the air pollution, the brief blue flare the elemental equivalent of a human sigh, she wondered if everyone who discovered they were adopted felt as disconnected to their past.

The distinctive sound of Alynne parking by Braille pulled her out of her funk and she swooped down to windshield level.

"Swamp gas ahoy." Alynne stepped out onto the sidewalk and hip-checked the driver's side door closed. "You look like one of those will o' the wisp things."

"Sometimes I was."

"Yeah? You ever lure men into swamps to drown them?"

"Once or twice in the old days to protect the wizard." Carlene lead the way up the path. "It's not something I could do now."

"Not even to a really bad man?"

"Well, I guess..."

"Not even to some guy who like broke your best friend's heart and ripped off her favourite pair of motorcycle boots when he left?"

"I'm not luring Richard into a swamp to drown him."

"Bummer."

"Now be quiet until we get inside. Ever since he retired, Mr. Chou has taken it on himself to be a one man neighbourhood watch."

"Was he the guy who found your mom passed out in the garden?"

"Beth wasn’t my mother." It was more of a sizzle than a snarl.

"Oh yeah. Sorry."

The spare key to the side door was inside the hollow body of the hedgehog boot scraper. Alynne fished it out, unlocked the door, and the two of them slipped into the house.

"Don’t turn on the lights," Carlene cautioned.

Moving carefully down the basement stairs in the dim glow from her friend, Alynne snorted. "This is your house now. There's no law against breaking into your own house."

"If I don't have a body, I can't have a house."

"But we're here to get you another body."

"And until we do, we shouldn't be here."

Alynne paused and shook her head hard. "Whoa. Paradox. I hate it when this happens."

Carlene decided it might be safest not to ask how often Alynne had found herself in similar situations, although she was beginning to realize how much of their friendship seemed to be built on a willing suspension of disbelief.

The workshop door was locked as well, but there was no spare key.

"It's a wooden door, can't you burn through it?"

"I can burn one molecule of oxygen at a time and slip through the key hole, but I need you in the room with me."

"So burn the whole door down."

"The heat would ignite the rest of the house."

"Not good." Alynne boosted herself up onto the washing machine and sat swinging her legs. "Well, you've always been the smart one."

Carlene settled into the recycling box and absently started burning old newspapers one sheet at a time. She'd always done her best thinking on organics.

"I thought you quit smoking?"

"Ha. Ha." Extending herself a little, she burned the smoke as well.

"So how come you're not igniting the rest of the house now?" Alynne wondered unwrapping a stick of gum.

"Paper burns so quickly it's easy to control."

"You think your mom's cable is still hooked up? 'Cause if we're not accomplishing anything down here, I'd like to go upstairs and watch bull-riding."

"Beth wasn't my mother." Rising off the paper, Carlene moved toward the door. "There has to be a way in."

"Fire's not out."

"What?" Adjusting her point of view back the way she'd come, Carlene flared briefly orange. "Crap. Could you throw some water on that..."

"What’s the magic word?"

"Water!"

Alynne shrugged and blew a bubble. "Close enough."

*

Burning around the lock did, indeed, set the door on fire, but after Carlene had moved up by the ceiling and safely out of the way, a bucket of water put it out again.

"Could I put you out with this?"

"No. I'd just burn the oxygen in the water. I’m not a fire, I am fire."

Alynne shoved the bucket back under the laundry room sink. "Then why'd I have to wait until you moved out of the way?"

"Carlene didn't want to get wet."

"But you're Carlene."

"I know."

"Girlfriend, you need help."

"That's why we're here."

"Right." Shoving the door open with the toe of her boot, Alynne moved cautiously into the workshop.

"You can turn on the light. This room has no windows."

The four banks of three foot fluorescent bulbs temporarily blinded human eyes, but had no effect on Carlene. She swooped slowly around the cluttered room, lightly touching down on the worn chair pulled up close to the furnace vent, on a coffee mug still holding an inch of cold liquid, and on an old, stained apron.

"You miss your mom, don't you?" Alynne asked softly from the threshold.

"Yeah." This time she didn't protest the relationship. "It's funny; in spite of all the junk in here, this room seems empty without Beth puttering about, or sitting reading, or blowing something up. She summoned me back in 1859, when she needed a really hot and precise burn and we got to talking, you know the way you do, about combustion rates and stuff, and then the next time she summoned me, it was just to talk. I think she was lonely. I was her only companion for over a hundred years before she gave me flesh."

"Why? Was she was the last of her kind?"

"No, there's other wizards. They just don't get along." Carlene snorted, a tiny tendril of flame flicking in and out. "A group of wizards together is called an argument."

"Like a flock of geese?"

"Amazingly similar."

Carefully picking her way around stacks of ancient tomes, worn copies of Reader’s Digest, and piles of boxes labelled, National Geographic: HEAVY! Alynne made her way to the stained wooden table in the centre of the room. Unlike every other horizontal surface in the workshop, it held only two things; an enormous crystal ball on a gleaming brass base and a bulging loose leaf binder. "It looks like Beth wrote everything down," she said, flipping the binder open. "Hey, in 1968 you could buy a loaf of bread for twenty-seven cents and you could exchange six ounces of virgin's blood for a quarter pound of dragon's liver. Probably not at the same store..."

Picking up one of the loose pages, she squinted at the crabbed handwriting. "So what do you want me to do? Find her original recipe and follow it again?"

"I don't think it's going to be that easy." Discovering that the old steel brazier had been set up for use, Carlene settled into it.

"Why not?"

"First of all, you couldn't follow a recipe unless it lead you to Chinese take-out. Second, you're not a wizard and these things are a lot more complicated than they seem."

"Well, duh." Tapping the edges more or less square, Alynne closed the binder and turned to face the pale flame slowly consuming charcoal briquettes. "So why am I here?"

"I need you to summon the other wizards."

"Cool." She grinned and reached for the crystal ball. "I always wanted to take one of these babies out for a spin."

"Not with that." Carlene flared briefly blue again. "We have to find her address book."

*

The metal utility shelves along one wall of the workshop weren't as much crowded as they were stuffed. Old margarine tubs of troll parings were pressed up against tubs of gooseberry jam were pressed up against tubs of...

"Whoa! This is not oregano." Pulling a surgical glove from her pocket, Alynne filled it, tied off the wrist and stuffed it back out of sight. "I always wondered why your mother was so mellow."

"I think it may be more pertinent to wonder why you're wandering around with a pair of surgical gloves."

"Not a pair, just one."

"Oh, well, that's different." Wishing she still had eyes to roll, Carlene continued her own search.

"Hey, can I have this unicorn horn?"

"If you promise not to use it on Richard."

"Cross my heart."

"Or David, or Amend, or Bruce."

Pouting, Alynne tossed the two foot long, spiralled horn back onto the shelf. "Are you even sure the address book is here?"

"It was in 1972."

"That’s the last time you saw it?"

"I was never allowed in here as a human child."

"Hate to break it to you, girlfriend, but you haven't been a child for a while now. How'd she keep you out as an adult?"

"She was a wizard."

"Oh, yeah."

Fire saw the world as variations on a fuel source. Magical items, being both highly flammable and completely inflammable gave off a unique signature. In any other room, Carlene could have found the address book in less time than it would take her to initiate pyrolysis. In this room, it could take hours.

Hours passed.

"I am so bored." Sitting on the floor, surrounded by unboxed magazines, Alynne listlessly dumped a Slinky from hand to hand. "You know my mother kept her address book by the telephone."

"Beth wasn't my mother and she certainly wasn't yours." Irritated enough to be burning almost orange, Carlene blistered paint across the front of a shelf as she tried to work out where the book could be. It had to be in the workshop because there was nothing magical in the rest of the house, but it wasn't on the shelves and it wasn't in the boxes. "Wizards know when they’re going to die. She should’ve been prepared!"

"Anger." Alynne nodded wisely. "Comes after denial. Then there's grief, acceptance and something else."

"Sneezy, Grumpy, or Doc?"

"Just trying to help."

"Then find the address book!"

"Fine." Rolling up onto her feet, Alynne stretched to the limits of the Grateful Dead T-shirt and ambled over toward the armchair. "Why do you want to have a body again anyway? You're fire. You rock!"

"No, that would be earth." Carlene settled back down into the brazier. "And while being fire doesn't totally suck, I'd never be able to eat ice cream again, or have sex, or watch television."

"Sequentially or simultaneously?"

"Does it matter?"

Alynne shrugged. "Just curious."

"I want to be able to walk in the rain, feel clean sheets against my skin, keep doing all the things I took for granted for so long."

"You hated walking in the rain. You said it made your hair frizzy." Kneeling in the armchair, Alynne lifted a tangled pile of dried herbs off the phone, lifted up one end of the old black rotary machine, and pulled a small leather-bound book out from under it. "Is this what we've been looking for?"

The steel bowl of the brazier pinged as it expanded in the sudden heat. "You know, you're a really irritating person."

Alynne's smile could only be described as smug. "I'll accept that as the compliment you intended it to be."

*

The address book updated automatically. All but one of the eight wizards listed had a phone number, six had email accounts, and three had fax numbers. The eighth had only a three word address – New York City.

"Sometimes wizards have trouble fitting in," Colleen explained, hovering over the book and trying not to set her friend's hair on fire. "They can't cope with being so incredibly different and they finally snap."

"We're talking a street wizard here? Eating out of dumpsters, sleeping on vents, freaking out the tourists?" Alynne's lip curled. "That sucks. You've got unimaginable powers and you're eating someone else's spit off used pizza crusts."

"And thank you for that image. Just dial the first number."

"There's no name."

"Of course not. Names have power. Wizards don't give them out to just anyone."

"The number's in Sweden. What if this wizard doesn't speak English?"

"It's a wizard; just dial."

Dialling involved rather a great many numbers, including a few Carlene hadn't seen for the last twenty-four years. Alynne either didn't notice, or didn't care that there were suddenly numbers between eight and nine. But then, in all the years they'd known each other, Carlene could only remember Alynne actually taken aback once – after a grade eight track meet when Tommy Elliot had stripped off his sweaty T-shirt and spontaneously...

"Rude bastard didn't even say hello." Alynne's announcement dragged Carlene's attention back to the present. "He's demanding to know who I am and why I'm using this phone. Sexy accent though." She turned her mouth back to the phone. "Hey, say that you knew our passion was doomed from the start. Why? Because I’ve always wanted to hear that from a man with a sexy Swedish accent." Her fingers tightened around the receiver. "Yeah? Same to you and your mother!"

"Alynne!"

"Should you be burning that colour?"

Carlene got herself under control just as a number of magazine pages began to curl. "Tell him Beth Aswith is dead."

"He says he knows."

"Tell him that while she was alive, she gave a fire elemental a body."

"He says he knows and when she died it returned to fire."

"Tell him it's still around and it wants another body."

"He says that's impossible and that you don't exist and then he called me something that probably wasn’t an endearment and he hung up." Holding down the button with one finger, she pointed the receiver at the smouldering edge of the worktable. "Should I put that out before I call the next number?"

*

Six of the other seven wizards were even less inclined to believe or help. The seventh's line was busy.

Carlene thought over everything she knew about wizards and, had she a mouth, she would have smiled. As it was, she burned a bundle of lavender. "They must be calling each other."

"And that's good?" Alynne asked, waving the heavily scented smoke away.

"Oh yeah. They know someone's in Beth's workshop."

"That's bad?"

"Well, they can't just leave you here, there's dangerous stuff lying around."

"Oh yeah, I could really give someone a major hernia asking them to lift those boxes of National Geographic. So one of them's going to show up?"

"No, all of them. They can't leave you here, but they don't trust each other not to try and rip off Beth's spellbook, making the rippee significantly more powerful than the others 'cause he or she would then have access to all Beth's spells as well as their own. Wizards maintain a very delicate balance of power."

"And once they're all here, they'll give you a body?"

Carlene burned brighter. "They may not want to, but I'm sure we’ll figure out a way to light a fire under them."

*

The only uncluttered area in the room was on top of the workbench so that's where all seven wizards appeared – four women and three men of various races, every one of them looking annoyed. The crowded conditions resulted in a lot of pushing and shoving and the experience didn't improve their moods.

Carlene finally ended the bickering by moving just a little too close to a flask of mentholated essence.

The magical resonance of the explosion faded into a stunned silence broken by Alynne's impressed observation. "Cool. Cough drops."

Seven jaws dropped. Seven right hands rose and traced the sign of banishment.

Carlene felt herself flicker, felt the pull of pure burning, and suddenly remembered that in spite of syndication on three networks, she'd still never seen the episode of Friends where Rachel moves into Monica's apartment and loses the big hair and she wasn't going anywhere until she had.

Seven sets of silver brows drew down.

"That should have worked," a small Asian woman muttered, staring down at her hand in confusion.

Burning a little more oxygen, Carlene danced forward. "You have to know something before you can banish it."

"We know fire."

"Yeah, but you don’t know me."

A tall man in a turban sniffed disdainfully. "It is clear you have been corrupted by human thoughts and feelings."

"Well, duh."

"You should never have been given a body," declared a blond man hiding most of his face behind impressive whiskers. "In creating you, Beth Aswith created a perversion."

"Perversion!"

Alynne leaned away from the sudden heat. "Have you, like, really considered the consequences of making her angry."

One hand clutching the smoking edges of his beard, the blond man added weakly, "And, quite frankly, we have no idea how she did it."

*

"We have found the spell." The tall man in the turban moved out of the clump of wizards, spellbook open across his hands. "But we still do not understand it."

"No, no, no!" The Asian woman snatched the book from him. "We understand it. We just can't repeat it."

"Oh, you understand it, yah?" asked the bearded wizard, grabbing the book in turn. He snapped it shut. "There is nothing to understand. She has left out whole sections."

"She leave out only basics," someone back in the pack announced. "If you study basics..."

"Basically, you're an idiot!"

It degenerated into a seven part shouting match fairly quickly after that.

"If you're going to have to blow something up again..." Alynne tossed another piece of charcoal into the brazier. "...could you wait until I cover my pudding cup? The last time you got their attention, you dusted ash over my sandwich."

*

"We have decided..." An indeterminate noise caused the bearded wizard to pause and glance back at the semi-circle of wizards behind him. "We have all decided," he began again, returning his attention to Carlene. "That since we can not banish you, we had best do as you wish and contain you. We have figured out the spell, but there is a problem, yah?"

"Yah what?"

"We have no... What do you call them? Raw materials. Usually, we would use straw, or leaves, or other organics. But the wizard you called Beth Aswith used..." He looked a little embarrassed. "...herself."

"Say what?"

"You were the spark of life added to an inert ovum. Flesh of her flesh, contained by her magical force."

"Wait." Carlene flared, the wizards stepped back in unison, and Alynne covered the mouth of her glass. "Are you saying she really was my mother?"

"In all essential particulars, yah. Your mother. But unless you want to be an infant again, we can not repeat the spell."

"We?" the Asian wizard muttered, her eyes boring holes in the reindeer knit into the back of his sweater.

He ignored her. "We know how to build a body from organic matter and we know how to animate it, creating a golem of flesh as it were, but none of us..." One hand waved in the general direction of the wizards behind him. "...know how to keep it together more than a few days. It would not hold the magic necessary to hold you and to truly live."

"She really was my mother." Burning couldn’t express what she was feeling. Grief. Joy. Loss. Confusion. Overwhelmed, Carlene burned up a bundle of sage, Alynne's two sugar cookies, and Beth's old apron.

"Fire should not have emotion," the bearded wizard observed as Alynne smothered a spark that had fallen from the apron into the chair.

"So give her a body," Alynne snorted.

"I have explained why..."

"Use Beth's."

Carlene flickered and nearly went out before she remembered to begin combustion again. "What?"

Alynne settled back into the chair and took a deep breath. "Look, she died two days ago right? But Carlene disappeared so they don't know where to send the body so it's still in the hospital morgue. Beth isn't using it any more so you guys use it as the organic matter to build another body. Wizards hold magic so this new body made out of an old wizard will hold the magic needed to contain Carlene who does that whole spark of life thing again and voila! That's French for bride of Frankenstein lives," she added when all seven wizards reacted by staring at her in confusion.

Seven pairs of eyes blinked.

"But I don’t want to be the Bride of Frankenstein," Carlene protested as the wizards went into a huddle.

"You won't be; they'll make you a new body."

"Out of a dead body! That's just gross. How can you even think of something like that?"

"Oh, yeah, that's fine talk from someone who crispy crittered the body she was in."

"That was different. I am fire!"

"Yeah. And you don't want to be."

Carlene could see herself reflected in Alynne’s eyes – a yellow white flame, four inches high. Magical. Elemental. She turned away first. "You're right. I don't want to be."

"All right. It might work." Once again the bearded wizard spoke for the group. "But how do we get the body out of the morgue?"

Alynne snorted. "Well you all poofed in here without any trouble."

"This is a wizard's workshop. We can not poof in, as you say, anywhere."

"Figures. If I can get you into the morgue, can you poof the body out?"

"It will need two of us."

"Whatever." She checked her watch. "Oh look, Mickey's little hand is almost on the seven. Day shift'll be on in an hour. I'm heading upstairs to shower and borrow some clothes from Carlene's closet and that ought to give you time to decide which two are going with."

Fitting actions to words, Alynne pushed past the wizards. They watched her go, sharing varying expressions of disbelief. The bearded wizard leapt back out of her reach.

"But how she get into morgue?" asked one of the less fluent English speakers.

"She used to date one of the morgue attendants," Carlene told him.

"Somehow, I am not surprised," the bearded wizard muttered.

Carlene burned blue. "Look, if she keeps pinching you, just tell her to stop."

*

"Was that Mr. Chou you were talking to?"

Alynne sat down on the bottom step and watched Carlene burn slowly up a broom handle. "Yeah. I told him you were crashing at my place and I just came by for some of your stuff. He says if you need anything let him know. He's a sweet old guy. Those two turkeys get back with the body okay?"

"A few hours ago. I didn't want to watch. I mean, it's just organic matter to them, but it used to be my mother." She sped up a strip of varnish to the top then back down another strip to bare wood. "Doesn't it weird you out?"

"After my best friend turned out to be fire? No, not really. Besides, dead bodies are cool. You know what Gordon told me? If you catch them at the right time, you can pose them and they'll stay that way."

"That didn’t help."

Alynne shrugged. "Sorry."

"So, how was Gordon?"

"I lead him on, I left him hanging. Same old, same old."

The workshop door opened. Unable to maintain a steady combustion, Carlene flared.

"We are ready now, yah?"

"You go ahead," Alynne told her. "I'll put out the broom."

*

The organic matter no longer looked anything like Beth Aswith. That helped. The seven wizards had taken it down to its component molecules and totally rebuilt it. It didn't look like she remembered Carlene Aswith as looking either – probably because she'd never looked at herself from a fire's point of view. The hair seemed a little dry and she had to remind herself that wasn't necessarily a good thing.

"We will use the spell that inserts the spark of life, which is you," the turbaned wizard told her. "When you become conscious of it picking you up, do not resist."

"I'm ready."

The words of the spell were eerily familiar. Seven voices with seven accents overlaid a memory of a single voice and a single pair of hands holding her cupped in power.

"I've enjoyed being your mother. Watching you grow and learn was the most fun I ever had."

"I've enjoyed being your daughter."

It was happening. She could feel it happening. Feel herself settling into the body. Arms. Legs. Head. Heart.

"You're not human, you know."

Doubt.

The chanting grew louder. A little frantic.

Not human.

She could smell something burning. A horrible, final smell.

Then cool fingers slipped into hers.

"You're not going anywhere, girlfriend. You never gave them two weeks notice at work, you have a dentist appointment next Tuesday, your winter coat's still at the dry cleaners, and you still owe me a Princess Leia Star Wars glass."

You couldn’t get much more human than that.

"Alynne?" Carlene opened her eyes. "Where'd all the smoke come from?"

"You burned your hair off. Looks like hell. But don't worry, we'll tell people you belong to a cult and it's a weird mourning ritual."

"We have done it, yah?"

Cautiously, not wanting to shake herself loose, she moved all the bits that were supposed to move. "You have done it. Yeah."

As Alynne helped her to sit up, the wizards cheered. By the time she was standing, the mutual admiration they'd built rebuilding her had begun to fade. By the time she'd walked carefully over to the chair and sat down, they'd begun fighting again.

The small explosion took them totally by surprise. Shocked into silence, they turned to face Carlene who blew out the match and tossed the rest of the firecrackers back on the shelf. "Thank you for what you've done. With your help, my mother has given birth to me twice. It's been a long night, you're probably all very tired. Go home and rest."

"That is all then?"

She looked down at her hands then up at seven identical expressions. "Unless you want to stay for breakfast."

They had to fight about which time zone left which wizard the most tired, but eventually they left – simultaneously as they'd come, unwilling to allow any one of them to have the last word.

When the workshop was quiet, Alynne sat down and picked up the Slinky. "Can I ask you a question? What happens when this new body grows old and dies? Do you become fire again?"

"I don’t know," Carlene admitted, running her fingers through the ragged remains of her hair. "But then, you don't know what happens to you when your body grows old and dies either. No one does."

"...I was so looking forward to seeing how the experiment came out."

The Slinky whispered from hand to hand. "I’m having myself frozen so I can come back to a better world."

"Better?"

"Well, George Lucas'll have the Star Wars movies done anyway."

Which reminded her. "You know, the wizards didn’t bring me back. You did."

Alynne looked up and grinned. "Yeah, I know, but let them have their moment."

"You've been great right from the beginning of this."

"Why not? Your whole problem was that in spite of being fire, you were still Carlene."

"Well, yeah but..."

"If you were still Carlene, then the only thing that had changed was your appearance."

"True, but..."

"You were still you and I was still me and I'd be pretty small if I dumped you because you looked different. If I was going to do that, I'd do it now. At least until your hair grows back in."

"I guess if you put it that way, it's elementary."

The Slinky stilled. "You’ve been waiting to say that all night, haven’t you?"

Carlene grinned. "Hey, I’m only human."

This story takes place in the same mythos as “Burning Bright.” I had so much fun with my cranky wizards, it seemed a shame not to use them again. Or some of them anyway. Because I'd left Toronto in 1982, the Toronto in this story didn't exist when I wrote it ten years later and now, well, now it's a little piece of Toronto preserved in amber. (You can trust that I'd have had something to say about the addition to the Royal Ontario Museum had it been completed when I was writing.) Oh, and Isabel's answer in her chemistry class... I got part marks for that on a grade 12 test. I suspect that by the time he got to my paper, the teacher was looking for something, anything that would make him laugh.

I almost seem to remember that I'd intended to write a couple more stories about Isabel and Godfry, but it just never happened. Or, more precisely, it hasn't happened yet...

When the Student is Ready

The first time Isabel saw him, he was rummaging in the garbage can out in front of The Second Cup at Bloor and Brunswick. He wore a filthy "I love New York" T-shirt, a pair of truly disgusting khaki dockers barely hanging from skinny hips, and what looked like brand new, high top black canvas sneakers of a kind that hadn't been made since the sixties – at least not according to her father who moaned about it every time he had to buy shoes. His dirty blond hair and full beard were streaked with grey, as well as real dirt, and both skinny arms were elbow deep in cardboard coffee cups and half eaten snack food.

She couldn't take her eyes off of him, which was just too weird. Having lived her entire life – almost seventeen years – in downtown Toronto, she'd seen street people before. Seen them, avoided them, given them her loose change if she was feeling flush and they weren't too smelly or too old. This guy was nothing special.

Thumbs hooked under her backpack straps, she took a step closer. Considering the heavy, after-school foot traffic, he had rather a large open area around him. Which turned out to be not at all surprising when the breeze shifted.

Did she know him? Was he like some old friend of her dad's who'd fallen on hard times? Breathing shallowly through her mouth, Isabel tried to recognize a familiar feature under all the dirt.

As if drawn by her regard, he rose up out of the garbage and turned. The small part of his face she could see wore an expression of extreme puzzlement.

"Half a Starbucks apricot square will last forty-six hours and seven minutes without going mouldy," he said. "A muffin..." Glancing into the garbage, he shook his head. Then he looked up again, locking blood-shot grey eyes on hers. "There isn't much time."

Isabel could actually feel the hair rise on the back of her neck. It was a totally gross feeling. Pulling a handful of change out of her pocket, she thrust it toward him. "Here, buy a fresh muffin."

The two dollar coin caught his attention. He plucked it off her palm, closed his right eye, and held it up to his left. "Twonie or not twonie. That is the question."

The coin disappeared.

She'd been watching the coin. Had almost seen it slide sideways into nothing. Had almost recognized the movement. She thought she heard something growl. A quick look around – no dogs. When she turned back to her streeter, he was in exactly the same position he'd been in when she'd turned away. "So, do you want the rest of this money or not?"

He shrugged and held out his hand.

Isabel dropped the change in his palm, careful not to touch anything, and hurried away. Maybe Dad’s right. Maybe I should start taking taxis home from school.

*

"Dad? You home?" She didn’t expect him to be home, not at four thirty on a Tuesday, not on a day that Mrs. Gerfinleo was in, but it never hurt to ask.

Shrugging out of backpack and blazer, she dropped them on the floor, kicked off her sensible black school shoes, picked up her backpack, and headed for her bedroom. By the time she got out of the shower, her blazer hung brushed and pressed on the door to the walk-in closet and her newly shined shoes were aligned neatly in their cubby.

Grinning, she threw on jeans and a T-shirt and made her way to the kitchen for her bi-weekly lecture on how clothing didn't pick itself up.

The kitchen was as empty as the rest of the condo.

"Mrs. G.?"

A noise on the terrace, the sound of furniture being moved, caught her attention.

Well, duh. Mrs. G. was out watering the plants.

"Mrs..." Her greeting trailed off, leaving her standing silently in the open doorway staring at the biggest crow she'd ever seen. Perched on the back of a rattan chair, head cocked, it stared intently at her out of a brilliant yellow eye. And it was staring at her not just in her general direction the way most birds did.

"What do you want, bird?"

In reply, it dropped the biggest streak of bird shit she'd ever seen down the back of the chair.

"Too gross! Go on, get out of here!" Flapping a hand at it, she added an emphatic, "Scram!"

Instead of flying away, it dropped down onto the terrace and hopped toward her.

"I don't think so, bird." Stepping back, she slammed the door in its face.

It stopped, glared up at her, ruffled its feathers into place, and said... well, it didn't say anything exactly, it cawed like crows did, but, for a moment, Isabel was certain – almost certain – it had called her a stuck-up bitch.

"Okay. Low blood sugar. Definitely time for a snack."

Wherever she'd been, Mrs. G. had to be back in the kitchen by now.

She wasn't. But this time, Isabel saw the note.

Bella: Mr. Gerfinleo called from the emergency so I have to leave early. There was an accident with the forklift. Don’t worry, he's okay if you don't count the broken leg. Your supper is in the refrigerator in the stone casserole. Ninety minutes at 350 degrees then grate some of the Parmesan on top. Tell your father, I'll call him later when I know.

Well, that explained why the condo seemed so empty. It was.

About to peer into the casserole, Isabel paused. If Mrs. G. had left early, who'd picked up her clothes?

Clothing didn't pick itself up.

*

She saw him the second time on her way to Gregg's Ice Cream. Seven o'clock, her dad still wasn't home and half a dozen questions kept chasing themselves around in her head. If anything could take the place of answers, it was sweet cream on a sugar cone with sprinkles.

Her streeter was standing outside the Royal Ontario Museum, inside the security fence, inside the garden for that matter, both hands pressed flat against a floor to ceiling window, staring in at the Asian temple. His wardrobe had grown by the addition of a mostly shiny black jacket with the logo for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s CATS embroidered across the back. Nobody but her seemed to have noticed him, but then he did have the whole poor-and-homeless cloak of invisibility thing going.

About to cross to the southwest side of Queen's Park – the museum's corner – Isabel stepped back up onto the curb and crossed to the north side of Bloor instead. When she then crossed west, the four lanes of Bloor Street were between them.

It didn't matter.

As she drew level with him, her streeter turned and looked directly at her.

"Time is not an illusion, no matter what they say. Spare some change for a cup of coffee, miss. We need to start soon." He didn't shout, he didn't bellow, he just made his declaration in a quiet conversational voice.

She shouldn't have been able to hear him.

Then a transport drove between them. Caught and stopped by the red light, it completely blocked her view. All she could see was the side of the trailer and a couple of hundred pairs of closed eyes advertising – actually she had no idea what they were advertising. When Isabel crouched down, a pair of sedans the next lane over blocked that view too. When she straightened, the painted eyes were open, the irises a deep, blood red. As the transport pulled away, she thought she saw them blink.

The lawn at the ROM was empty except for half a dozen pigeons milling about like they'd lost something.

"Extra sprinkles," she decided, picking up her pace.

*

The best ice cream in the city was of less comfort than usual. She still needed answers. The light was on in her father's den when she got home.

"Hey, Dad?"

He pushed his laptop away and turned to face her, waiting expectantly.

"Have you..."

He was a good dad, the best dad – even if he did have a tendency to date men who weren't ready for commitment – but Isabel knew with a cold hard certainty, that he couldn't help her now.

"...heard from Mrs. G?"

If he realized that wasn't the question she'd begun, he didn't let on. "As a matter of fact, I have. She won't be in until Monday; Mr. Gerfinleo is going to need her at home. Will you be all right?"

"Me?" Did the weirdness show on her face? "Why?"

His brows dipped. "Because I've still got to leave for New York tomorrow morning and I'll be gone until Friday afternoon."

Oh yeah. New York. "Right. I forgot."

"You'll be on your own." He sounded less than convinced that it was a good idea.

"For less than three whole days." Isabel rolled her eyes. "I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't have a boyfriend to bring over, and I'm almost seventeen. Even if I eat nothing but crap – which I won't – I'll survive and, as long as I avoid Mrs. Harris, no one's going to call The Children's Aid Society on you."

"I don’t know. Perhaps you should go stay with your Uncle Joe."

"Uncle Joe thinks I should be allowed to get my belly button pierced."

He winced. "On second thought, you'll be safer here."

Four long strides took her to where she could bend and kiss her father's cheek, patting him on the shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting manner. "Have a good trip. I’ll be fine."

*

She had no close friends amongst the girls at school, no one she could call and say, "Do you feel like something weird's about to happen?"

That left only one person. Isabel reached out for the phone. It slapped into her palm and she actually had her finger poised above the numbers before she managed to stop herself. No. Things would have to get a whole lot worse before she called her mother.

Which was when she realized that the phone had been across the room on the bed.

Her fingers tightened around the red plastic. That was not normal. Hearing crows talk was not normal. Normal people's clothes didn't hang themselves up. Normal people didn't have street people talk to them across four lanes of traffic.

"Normal people," she told her reflection, "would be way more freaked about this, but I'm not. Does that make me not normal people?"

Her reflection looked normal enough.

*

She saw him the third time through the window of Dr. Chou’s chemistry class. He was shuffling up and down on the sidewalk in front of the school. She was supposed to be studying ionization constants.

"Ms. Peterson?"

Isabel jerked her attention in off the street to find Dr. Chou and most of the class staring at her expectantly.

"Le Chatelier's principle, Ms. Peterson."

The blackboard rippled and she was staring at the back of Mrs. Bowen teaching Classical Literature next door. And then it wasn’t Mrs. Bowen. And then she realized it was about to turn around.

That would be bad.

Very bad.

Its eyes would be a deep blood red.

I’m so going to die.

The blackboard reappeared so quickly, the front of the classroom picked up a faint fog of chalk dust.

For a moment, she couldn't breathe, and then the moment passed and Dr. Chou was still waiting for an answer she didn't have. "Um, I'm guessing it's not the nice old man who was head of the school where Le Chatelier went as a boy?"

The class broke into appreciative giggles.

"Good guess. Loss of three points for being clever. Can anyone tell me the correct answer?"

Someone could. Isabel paid no attention to who. Her streeter was sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, shoulders slumped in apparent exhaustion.

He was still there, fifty-five minutes later when the final bell rang. Pushing past a small clump of fellow seniors, she hurried toward him.

"Hey, Peterson."

It was an Ashley. Or maybe a Britney. One of the highlights and high hems crowd, anyway. Experience having taught her that ignoring them did no good, she turned.

"I'm so glad to see you finally got yourself a boyfriend." A toss of long, blonde hair behind one slender shoulder. "What is that aftershave he’s wearing? Is it Eau de toilet?"

Isabel's lip curled. "Up yours."

Ashley – or maybe Britney – jerked, eyes wide. "You're such a total loser," she sneered, but the insult didn’t have the usual vicious energy behind it. Tugging at her kilt, she turned her attention back to her friends.

Isabel had to stand directly in front of him before he noticed her. "You did that. Stopped that... thing."

He nodded.

"You were waiting for it. How did you know it was going to be there?"

"It was drawn to your power."

"My power?"

He smiled then, showing incongruously white teeth. "The youngest is always the most powerful."

"The youngest?"

"Youngest wizard."

She wasn't even surprised by how little surprise she felt. "You keep saying there isn't time. Time for what?"

"To teach you before the test."

Uh huh. A test. "Is that what that... thing is? Was?"

"Spare some change?"

Isabel slapped her hands together an inch in front of his nose. "Hey! Let's maintain focus here!" He jerked back, his eyes clearing. "Is that... thing, the test?"

"No. It just wants your power."

"Great." A hundred new questions joined the earlier half dozen. She settled on the most mundane. "What's your name?"

His brow furrowed. "I have names."

"Good. Pick one."

"Leonardo."

"di Caprio or da Vinci?"

"What?"

"Pick another."

"Fred."

*

"There used to be one here but now there isn't and so I came. The others are all still arguing over which one of them it should be but there isn't time." Fred tapped his chest lightly with a grimy fist. "I know."

Under normal circumstances, Isabel wouldn't have believed a word he'd said, but normal circumstances had been a little skint of late. The elevator chimed. Breathing shallowly through her teeth – breathing normally while sharing an enclosed space with Fred was not a good idea – she held up a hand as the door began to open. "Wait here until I check the hall. I'm so not explaining you to anyone."

The coast was clear. She got him out of the elevator and moving fast; hopefully fast enough that no one – specifically Mrs. Harris – could trace the nearly visible scent trail to the right door. Her sigh of relief when it closed behind them was a mistake. Or at least the inhale part of it was.

By the time she stopped coughing, Fred had left the foyer and was standing in the middle of the living room.

Isabel hurried in beside him. "Look, my father is going to kill me if this place ends up smelling like the inside of a hot dumpster. You need a shower and some clean clothes."

"Clean." His tone suggested he was searching for a definition of the word. "Okay."

All at once, he was clean – hair, clothes, probably breath if she'd wanted to get that close. Which she didn't.

"How did you do that?"

"Godfry!"

"What?"

Ignoring her, Fred headed for the terrace door and tried to push it open. On the other side, a big crow hopped from foot to foot and shouted, "Pull, you idiot!" When he finally pulled the door open and went through, the crow fluttered up to the top of a rattan chair.

"Well?" it croaked. "Did you tell her?"

"He said he's here to teach me," Isabel answered before Fred had the chance. "That there'll be a test. He said I'm the youngest wizard and the nasty thing with red eyes is after my power which redefined the rather shaky definition of normal I'd been working with. He didn't tell me what he is, it is, or you are."

"Him?" The crow turned to glare at her. "He's one of the nine – same as you."

"Nine?"

"Nine wizards. There's always nine. Don't ask why, I don't know. When one finally pops – and one popped early last year – the power finds a new conduit. That's you. It's been gathering in you since Beth Aswith died, which is why you're taking this so well in case you're thinking it has anything to do with you as a person."

Isabel curled her lip.

The bird ignored her, swivelling his head to face Fred. "Him, he's an old conduit."

"I'm a piece of O-pipe."

"Sure you are." And back to Isabel. "My name's Godfry. I'm with him. The big thing with red eyes is a bad guy – sort of an anti-wizard. You've got no control right now so you're lit up like a Christmas tree. The bad guys want your power. Actually, they want everyone's power, but you’re the only one they can find."

"Great." She picked savagely at a thread on her blazer for a moment. The crow's explanation, although it covered the main points, had been a little light on detail. First things first. "So, if there's seven other wizards, how come I rate the dumpster diver?"

This time, Fred answered for himself. "No one else would come in time. A wizard with an apprentice gains power. They're arguing over who should get to teach you and so they'll argue and stop each other from coming to you until it's too late." He peered nervously around the terrace, hands wrapped in the bottom of his T-shirt. "I've seen it before."

"Haven't they seen it before? And if they have, why aren't they here?"

"They don't care about your place in the web of power, only their own."

"Wizards, as a rule, aren't very nice people," Godfry snorted. "You should fit right in."

"Yeah, you'd fit in a roasting pan so, if I were you, I'd be careful."

"Oh, I'm so scared." Wings flapping, he hopped along the back of the chair. "Help, help, cranky teenager!"

"Stop it!" Fred's voice rang out with surprising force. "We haven't time."

"Oh, like you care," Isabel snapped. "A wizard with an apprentice gains power, remember? You're in it for yourself like everyone else."

He frowned, confused. "What would I do with more power?"

She opened her mouth and closed it again. Even clean, he still had the frayed-at- the-edges look of the street. "Okay. Good poi...." Her eyes widened involuntarily – another physical sensation she could have happily done without – and she jabbed a finger toward the sky. "Look!"

Fred and Godfry turned just as the clouds drifted into new formations.

"I see a horsy," the crow mocked.

"There were eyes," Isabel insisted. "Blood red eyes in the clouds."

"It was the sunset through a couple of clear spots."

"It was not." Fred's hands were rolled so high in his T-shirt, Isabel could see the hollow curve under the edge of his ribs. "The first lesson is to trust what you actually see not what you think you should see."

"Or what I want should be there," Godfry muttered. "If you two want to see blood red eyes in the clouds, be my guest, I don't."

Unwinding a hand, Fred rested it lightly on the crow's back. "What you want doesn’t change anything. But what you want..." He turned to Isabel. "...does. You have to agree to become my apprentice. Your choice."

"Your what?"

"My student."

"I have to agree to learn to be a wizard from a skinny dumpster diver and a smart ass bird or I wait around for the teeth and claws to catch up with the eyes?"

"Yes."

"Great choice."

"Not really. But you might survive either way. Some people do."

Except for the nervous mannerisms, Fred looked and sounded like he knew what he was talking about. And she had to admit that nervous mannerisms weren’t unreasonable given giant red eyes. "Okay. Why don't you get something to eat while I get changed. On second thought..." She had a sudden vision of the two of them in the kitchen. "...wait here and I'll bring something out."

*

When Isabel returned to the terrace in street clothes, Fred had eaten a deli-pack of sliced roast beef, half a loaf of bread, and was just licking the last of the mustard off a tablespoon. "Don't put that back in the... Eww. Tell you what..." She pushed the jar toward him. "...why don’t you just keep the mustard."

Smiling, he shoved the spoon down until he could get the lid on, screwed it tight and dropped the jar over his left shoulder. It never hit the terrace.

"What happened to...?"

"Pocket universe," Godfry told her, hopping down onto the table and poking around in the deli wrapping. "Very handy."

"I'm sure." It would certainly solve the forty-pound backpack problem. "So what's next?"

Fred stood and wiped his hands on his pants, leaving bright yellow smears against the green. "Next we go to my workshop and I teach you how to control your power."

"Okay, where's your workshop?"

*

"This is your workshop?"

A short walk from Isabel's building had brought them to the alley between the Sutton Place Hotel and the insurance headquarters next to it. Given the calibre of tenants in both buildings it was a pretty clean alley, but still...

"The world is my workshop."

"Cliché," Godfry put in from the top of a dumpster, "but true."

"Okay." Eye roll over, she folded her arms. "So teach me."

Fred patted the air beside her shoulder. "Learn where your skin is."

"It's on my body."

"Can you feel it?" He headed for the dumpster.

Could she feel her skin? How stupid was that. Of course she could. She could feel her socks hug her ankles, the waistband of her jeans cutting in just a bit, how warm it was under her watch...

"From the inside." Fred's voice bounced about the dumpster and then floated up, eerily disconnected from his body. "Oh wow. It’s a good thing I kept the mustard."

*

"You can't feel your skin from the inside," Isabel snorted at last. They were walking along College Street, heading toward Spadina.

"I can't?"

She glanced over at Fred, but he was watching where he was putting his feet with single-minded intensity. "Okay, I can't."

"When you try, what do you feel?"

"I don't know." A pause while he crouched and picked something off the sidewalk – she didn't want to know what. "A sort of a sizzle."

"Good. You found the power." He straightened, putting the something in his pocket. "That's what I wanted you to find."

"Yeah? Then why didn’t you just tell me to look for the power?"

"Did you know what to look for?"

"No, but..."

"Now you do."

Isabel sighed. What a waste of time. "Is that lesson two?"

Fred started. "There was a lesson one?"

"Yeah: trust what you actually see, not what you think you should see." They'd reached the lights and, as they seemed to have been wandering without purpose, Isabel crossed north with the green.

"Good lesson." He stepped off the curb after her. "Wish I’d had a fish."

"Right." And as far as she was concerned, that was it for the night. Godfry, by far the more consistently articulate of the two, had long since disappeared. "Look, I gave it a shot but it's getting late and I promised my dad I'd be in bed by midnight."

"You agreed to be my apprentice."

"Fine." She rolled her eyes and picked up the pace back toward Bay Street. "I'll be your apprentice tomor..."

The shadows moved in the way shadows didn't, drawing closer, growling softly, tiny red lights flickering in pairs. They were all around her, cutting her off.

"Find the sizzle! Grasp it. Throw it at them!"

Fred sounded kilometres away although she knew he couldn’t have been more than a meter behind her. Propelled by the pounding of her heart, the sizzle raced around just under her skin. No way she could catch it. And what the hell did grasp mean anyway?

A louder growl. Isabel spun around to face it. Her elbow brushed shadow. Sparks flew. She wanted to scream but she couldn't find her voice. Wrapping her arms around her body, she tried to make herself as small as possible. Which seemed to contain the sizzle.

So she'd found it. But if this was grasping it, how did she throw it?

As a second shadow brushed icy terror against her.

The night exploded in light.

When she could see again, Isabel stared at the image of an elongated arm burned into the bricks of the building beside her, the talons nearly touching the shadow of her throat.

She peered through the white spots dancing through her vision. "Did I do that?"

"The youngest is the most powerful."

"So you said." There were other images burned beyond the closest one. "Cool. So, if I can do this, why do I need you?"

"Do you know how you did it?"

"Uh..." Icy terror. Light. "...no."

"Can you do it again?"

The sizzle had faded to a tingle – and in some places not even that. "Not right now."

"What if you had to? What if they attacked again?"

"More of them?" When he nodded, she moved a little closer to the streetlight. "Okay, okay, I need you. Still, can't I have a moment to enjoy my victory?"

"No." His voice dropped an octave and he held out his hand. "Teenager sets off explosion in street. Film at eleven."

"That's so retro, but I take your point." The wail of police sirens grew closer. His hand was still basically clean. She reluctantly put hers in it.

And they were standing outside her building.

Fighting the urge to puke, Isabel staggered back until her shoulder blades were pressed against the brick. Waiting for the world to stop rocking, she sucked in deep lungfuls of air.

"Downside to everything," Fred murmured philosophically. "Can you spare some change?"

Although Isabel offered him the use of the spare room, Fred spent the night on the terrace, wrapped in a disgusting sleeping bag he pulled from his pocket universe.

"I have to be where the sky people can contact me. And you have to sleep with your head at the foot of the bed."

"Why? Will it, like, scramble my power signature or something?"

"I have Liza Minnelli’s signature on my arm."

*

Safe in her room, Isabel checked her messages and called her father back at his hotel. Conference was going great, blah, blah, blah. New York funds seemed interested in buying in, yadda, yadda, yadda.

"Izzy, are you listening to me?"

"Sure, Dad. I'm just tired. I'll see you Friday. Love you. Bye." She hung up before he could answer and glared at her bed. Wondering why she was listening to someone who ate pizza crusts covered in someone else's spit, she yanked up the sheets and moved the pillows down against the foot-board.

The first time she woke, gasping for breath, she turned on every light in her bedroom before going back to sleep. The second time, she stuffed a pair of jeans along the crack under the door. The third time, she shoved her mattress off the box spring and onto the floor so they couldn’t come up at her from below.

At least I don’t have to worry about Dad.

Hands rolled in the sheet, she stared at the ceiling and counted backwards from a hundred in French.

*

"You look like crap."

"You look like you'd go with cranberry sauce." Stepping past the crow, Isabel swept a searching glare around the terrace. "Where's Fred?"

"He left about sunrise."

"Contacted by the sky people?"

"Not likely," Godfry snorted. "They're just a figment of old Fred's imagination – his reason for why he goes completely buggy if he sleeps inside."

"Great."

"Hey, be glad he's not wearing the tinfoil helmet anymore."

"I'm just glad he's gone." Feeling nothing but relief – the thought of getting Fred out of the building unseen had tied her stomach in knots – she headed for the terrace door. "Tell him I'll see him after school."

"He's expecting you to join him."

That stopped her cold. Turning, she frowned down at Godfry. "What now? Are you nuts. No way I'm cutting. My dad would kill me."

"And the shadows will what? Lecture you on responsibility?" He preened immaculate breast feathers. "Still, it's your choice, you can learn to be a wizard or you can put on that little fetish outfit and learn to be a productive member of society for as long as you manage to survive."

"Fine. I'll join Fred. But he'd better teach me the spell that makes lame excuses sound convincing."

*

Apparently, it was too much to ask that the elevator be empty on her way out.

"Mrs. Harris."

Wearing her default expression – disapproval with a touch of disdain – Mrs. Harris glared at Isabel's clothes. "You're not going to school today?"

Isabel glanced down at her jeans. "Casual Friday."

"It's Thursday."

"Okay, casual Thursday then."

"I heard men's voices on your terrace last night and this morning. I thought your father was in New York."

"He is. You probably heard one of my CDs."

"No." A thin lip curled. "I know what they sound like."

"Can't think what it might have been then."

"Can't you?"

The elevator door whispered open. "Have a nice day, Mrs. Harris." Isabel charged through and across the lobby.

Half a block away, Godfry dropped out of a tree and landed on her left shoulder. He weighed a ton and his claws hurt even through her jean jacket and he was still the most obnoxious creature she'd ever met, but it was so cool to be walking around with a crow on her shoulder Isabel didn’t care.

"Who's the old broad with the pickle up her butt watching us from the door?"

"Mrs. Harris. She's always watching. She's totally bent out of shape that my dad's gay."

"Yeah? I'm usually pretty cheerful myself."

*

They found Fred back at the Second Cup at Bloor and Brunswick. He rose up out of the garbage as they approached, holding two half eaten blueberry muffins. "Good morning, apprentice. Breakfast?"

"No, thanks." She flexed her shoulder as Godfry dove for one of the muffins. "I'll get my own. Then can we go somewhere less noticeable? My school’s just north of here."

They ended up sitting in the concrete doorway of the TransAc Club, half a block south on Brunswick, Fred assuring her that they'd be undisturbed for a while. A while lasted two and a half hours by Isabel's watch. Two and a half hours spent chasing the sizzle under her skin while Fred gave lectures to passing ants.

They moved on just before the lunch shift showed up, heading south, then east along Dundas. Fred walked slowly, hitting up almost everyone they passed for change. When they got to Dundas and Yonge, he dropped what he’d collected in the battered old box sitting in front of an equally battered old man playing the harmonica.

"I don’t need money," he explained. "And the world needs music."

"Even bad music?" Isabel winced. Behind them, the harmonica wailed painfully.

"Yes."

"Is that the third lesson?"

"Sure. Why not."

"Do you have any idea of what you’re doing?"

"Put your sizzle in your hands."

"Now?"

"The shadows don't ask so many questions."

It was hard to concentrate with the traffic and the people but, after a moment, she managed to herd the sizzle down her arms, past her wrists... "Okay."

"Put your palms together and pull them apart slowly."

Isabel rolled her eyes, but did as she was told. For a heartbeat, three pale lines of light connected her palms then they were gone.

Fred held up his hands. Even in sunlight, the multiple lines were a brilliant white. "This is control. This is what you need to be able to do before you can learn what to do with it. So, to answer your question..." The lines disappeared as he whirled to face a passing suit, grimy hand outstretched. "Spare some change, mister?"

*

Godfry caught up with them in the small park behind the Eaton Center. Isabel vetoed a garbage can lunch and bought the three of them takeout. After they finished eating, she lounged back, the crow on the grass by her head, while Fred talked loudly to one of the spindly trees.

"He's got special sauce all over himself."

"Saving it for later."

"Gross."

"Hey, you're seeing him at very nearly his best. He's really into this whole master/apprentice thing."

"Master," she snorted. "As if. Godfry, how..."

"Did one of the nine end up a loony who sleeps on subway grates and talks to trees? Well, the other wizards think he couldn’t cope with being so different but me, I think he couldn’t cope with not being able to change things."

"What do you mean?"

Godfy studied her with his left eye then his right. "When you get control of your power, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know; I haven't really had time to think about it." Plucking a few pieces of grass, she dropped them onto the wind. "Travel, I guess. Find a matching Queen Anne vase to replace that one of my grandmother's I broke."

"Fred wanted to make the world a better place, but you can't do that with power, you can only do it one person at a time. Even if you change the outside crap, easing droughts, ending wars that sort of stuff, you can't change the way people behave and that's where the problems really come from. After a while, the frustration just got to him."

"So he's too good to be a wizard?"

"Essentially."

"And I’m not?"

"Apparently."

"I'd be more upset about that but..." She waved at hand at the topic of the conversation who was methodically sliding lengths of folded newspaper down his pants.

*

They spent the afternoon down by Lake Ontario, freaking out a scattering of tourists and condo owners. Isabel kept expecting someone to call the cops but apparently these buildings had no Mrs. Harris. Lucky them.

Toward sunset, one of the waves rose higher than the others and half turned toward them, a translucent, but nearly human face momentarily under the crest.

"Water elemental," Fred told her when Isabel squeaked out an incoherent question. "Don't trust them – most of the time, they work with the under-toad. But good eyes on your part. You saw what was really there."

"Rule one."

He nodded. "If that's your toaster."

Another fast food meal and an evening spent wandering slowly through alleys and access roads back toward Bloor. By the time they reached her building, Isabel could hold a single string of light between her palms for almost fifteen seconds. It wasn't much, but for those fifteen seconds she knew what she was doing and she knew that was the feeling she had to capture and keep.

She'd have been happier about it had a previous attempt not arced up and plunged three city blocks into temporary darkness.

"No shadows tonight?" she asked as Fred dragged out his sleeping bag and unfolded it under the table.

"Now they know how much power they need to use to take yours so they're building it. Tricky for them. If they wait too long, you'll know what you're doing. They'll be back sooner than later." Hanging his CATS jacket neatly over the back of a chair, Fred smiled up at her. "But that's why I'm here."

Isabel was surprised to find that comforting. It was the only thing that had surprised her in days.

"One of the reasons I'm here," Fred amended thoughtfully. "Because you're my apprentice. That's the other reason. Not that I wouldn't protect you if you were. Or weren't."

"Good night, Fred."

"Okay."

*

There was no way the clock in her bedroom was right. Except that it was the same time as her watch. And the microwave. And the VCR. And her computer. One oh five. AM. An hour and five minutes too late to call her dad – who'd left three messages.

He didn't sound happy.

*

Until five in the afternoon, Friday was pretty much a carbon copy of Thursday. At five, Isabel managed two lines of light for twenty seconds and was so close to knowing what she was doing that not being able to do it was driving her crazy.

She wanted to yell and curse and throw things.

"Why are we hanging around here?" she demanded, leaping off the concrete retaining wall that separated the parking lot from the alley. "What is he doing?"

"What's it look like he's doing?"

"Sorting through a dumpster!"

Godfry spread his wings and methodically folded them again. "Good girl."

"He's not teaching me anything! I'm learning all by myself!"

"Hey, a few less exclamation marks and a little more remembering who taught you what you were supposed to learn in the first place."

"And has he taught me anything since? No." A snicker pulled her attention off the crow to two boys about her age crossing the parking lot. "What?"

"Weirdo," said one.

"Brain fried," snorted the other.

"Oh yeah, like you two are going to rule the world some day. You know, I don't need him to teach me how to be unpopular," she pointed out when the boys were gone. "I can do that on my own. I'm done for today. When he gets out of the dumpster..."

"It's time."

The crow and the wizard’s apprentice turned to see Fred holding an empty laser printer drum and staring north.

"Time for what?" Isabel asked, searching the gathering shadows for flecks of red.

"Chinese food. There's great garbage behind the noodle shop."

"Forget it," she sighed. "I’ll pay."

*

By the time they finished eating, it was dark. Godfry had devoured half a bowl of noodles and left while he could still see to fly. They were walking through the tiny park on Bellevue Avenue, arguing the merits of egg rolls over spring rolls when the shadows attacked.

"Fred!"

Darkness reached for him, wrapped around him. He screamed and Isabel echoed it although none of the shadows had gone for her.

"...they want everyone’s power but you’re the only one they can find."

And Fred was with her.

So they could find Fred.

She could barely see him inside the shifting darkness although she could clearly see a dozen or more glowing red eyes swirling around him. He was confused. He'd expected her to be attacked and Fred didn't change gears quickly. By the time he did, it would be too late.

She was his only chance.

And when they finished with him, they'd be after her.

Hands ten centimetres apart, Isabel fought to control her breathing.

Find the sizzle. Find the sweet spot. Find where it works.

Two strings of light stretched from palm to palm.

Oh, that’s a lot of help.

How did Fred do it? He never concentrated on anything this hard.

Duh.

Power snapped into place with an almost audible click. Half the shadows turned as a hundred strands of light formed between her palms.

Too late.

She smacked her hands together.

It was still nothing more than a crude release of power, but this time she was doing it on purpose. With a purpose.

"Fred!" Blinking away after images, she dropped to her knees by his side. "Are you okay?"

After a short struggle, he focused on her face. "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain."

Isabel grinned. Suddenly, her dad's appallingly cliché interest in musical theatre was actually useful. "Could you possibly mean, by Jove, I think she's got it?"

"Huzzah."

*

"We rule. We rock. At the risk of sounding like the end of every bad sports movie ever made, we are the champions and champions deserve ice cream. There's a pint of Cherry Garcia in the freezer." She flashed a smile at a still wobbly Fred and reached for the condo door. "Technically, it's dad's but he's not.... Dad!"

"Isabel."

Hurrying out of the living room behind her father were Mrs. Harris, a police officer, and two large men dressed like ambulance attendants. Isabel was suddenly very aware that behind her stood a skinny, grimy man who looked like he'd just been bounced across a park and who still had folded newspaper down his pants.

Anger and worry showed about equally on her dad's face. No, wait, anger seemed to be winning.

"I didn't want to believe what Mrs. Harris was telling me, Isabel, but when you weren't home last night and then I got the message from the school about you not being in class, and then you wander in... Do you even know what time it is?"

"Uh, ten?"

"Three."

She checked her watch. Three. AM. In the morning.

"Time flies when you’re having shadows."

"Thanks, Fred. You might have told me that!"

Fred shrugged. "Iceberg."

Which was either an enigmatic Titanic reference, or he was gone again.

"He's probably her dealer," Mrs. Harris snorted.

Isabel ignored her, stepping between Fred and her father. "Dad, I know this looks bad, but Fred's my..." Quick, a word for what Fred was that her father would understand. "...friend. Okay, I cut school and I let him sleep on the terrace, but he needs me."

"Needs you?"

"Yes! And he's teaching me so much."

Mrs. Harris pursed her lips. "I can't imagine what."

"Try compassion," Isabel snapped. "And I'm sure you can't imagine it!"

"Isabel..." Her dad sighed and began again. It looked as though worry had won the final round. "Izzy, your friend has run away from a facility in Scarborough. The police have been searching for him for weeks. They recognized him the moment Mrs. Harris gave them a description. These men are going to take him to the facility and see that he gets back on his medication."

"Dad, he's not crazy."

"All right, but look at him, he's skin and bones, if he stays on the street he'll die. I don't know why you've suddenly decided to adopt him – and believe me, we're going to talk about this – but he's a person, not a puppy or a kitten, and you can't know what's best for him." Grabbing hold of Isabel's shoulder, he moved them both to one side. Pressed up against him, she could feel the fear rolling off him like smoke.

Afraid for her? Or of something?

The ambulance attendants, advanced.

"Fred! Do something!"

He stared wide-eyed at the approaching attendants. "I can macramé a plant hanger."

"Not helpful!" She had to do something. But what? All she knew how to do was make a bright light which was great at chasing shadows away, but these were flesh and blood men. Big men. Big scary men. Even if she temporarily blinded them, Fred would probably just stand there blinking.

But what else could she do? What else had Fred taught her?

Trust what you actually see not what you think you see.

They'd already gone after Fred once.

What will you do if they come after you again?

No wonder the ambulance attendants were so terrifying. Their eyes were a deep, blood red. Her dad couldn't see it, but he could tell something was wrong.

As she pulled her hands apart creating a cat's cradle of light, the closer shadow turned to face her. She froze.

"They should take all these sorts of people off the streets and put them in institutions where they belong."

Thank you, Mrs. Harris. Shadows held no terror for her, she spent her life surrounded by shadows of her own making.

For the second time that night, Isabel slapped her palms together.

When she could see again, the shadows were gone and Fred was gone – was safe, she knew that for a certainty without knowing how she knew. Unfortunately, Mrs. Harris and the cop remained.

"Well, you have your daughter home safe and sound, Mr. Peterson. I'll leave you to handle it." From the look the constable shot her, he clearly thought rather too much had been made about a sixteen year old who stayed out late on a Friday night.

Her father looked like he had every intention of making even more about it. "I'm sorry to trouble you, officer."

"No. This isn't right." Mrs. Harris stared wide-eyed around the foyer. "Where are the others? There were other men here. A filthy one, and two strong men to carry him away."

"Uh, ma'am, there was only the three of us until the young lady came home."

"No. That's wrong!"

The constable exhaled once, through his nose, and moved behind Mrs. Harris. "Just the three of us, ma'am. It's late, I'll escort you safely home."

She could walk out the door or she could be pushed. She chose to walk.

Isabel turned to face her father. "So. How was your trip, Dad? Have a good time?"

"Apparently not as good as you did."

*

Isabel was out on the terrace at dawn, holding a three day old salmon steak.

With a poof of displaced air, a broad shouldered blond in a cable-knit sweater appeared by the table. Throwing the piece of fish at him seemed like a perfectly reasonable reaction.

He frowned and deflected it with a glance. As it hit the floor, he turned his bright blue gaze back to Isabel. "Congratulations, you am passing your test."

"Am passing?"

"Are passed?"

"Let me guess. English as a second... Are there going to be many more of you?" she asked as a small Asian woman and a tall, distinguished looking man in a turban appeared as well.

All three of them ignored her, turning instead on each other.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to inform her..."

"No, we agreed I would tell her that..."

"I are telling her, yah."

"Oh no, not you. Me."

Shouting simultaneously, they disappeared.

"Well, you can see how much help they'd have been to you," Godfry muttered, dropping out of the sky beside the salmon. "Is that for me?"

"Yes. Let me guess; three more of the nine?"

"Who else. Do you know what they call a group of wizards? An argument."

Made sense. She shifted her weight to one hip and waited until the crow finished eating. "They said I passed my test."

"Yep." He flew up to his regular perch on the chair. "Last night, when you didn't immediately try to save your own ass and saved Fred."

"The first time or the second time?"

"The second time. The first time you were thinking that once they finished with him, they'd come after you." Wings folded, he cocked his head up at her. "As Fred would say, the world doesn't need wizards that taste good, they need wizards with good taste. You have to be worthy of the power."

"So Fred wasn't teaching me how to pass the test?"

"Wasn't he?"

Try compassion.

Isabel sighed. "Where is Fred?"

"Having breakfast."

"At the Second Cup garbage bin?"

"Nah. Not on a Saturday. Saturdays it's the dumpster behind the Royal York. You get in much trouble with your old man?"

She shrugged and, greatly daring, stretched out one finger to stroke an ebony shoulder. "I've been grounded for a month with no TV, but Dad says he understands teenage rebellion – as if – and I can probably pay my scholastic debt with a thousand word essay on responsibility. It could have been worse."

"You could have been swallowed by shadow. Not a problem now," Godfry continued before Isabel could respond. "You got control so you're in no immediate danger. The rest of the lessons can wait for a month."

"The rest of the lessons?"

"Oh yeah. A wizard's apprenticeship lasts seven years."

"What?" Stepping back, she kicked the chair leg, sending Godfry flying. "I am not spending the next seven years looking into dumpsters!"

"Hey, you agreed; don't take it out on the bird! Besides, there's a lot more than dumpsters – there's garbage cans, landfill sites, soup kitchens, overpasses, winters in cardboard boxes, summers in storm drains, roadkill..."

Isabel slammed the terrace door, cutting off the crow's litany.

It was going to be a long seven years.

When you're asked to write a story for a "retelling fairy tales" anthology, you've got to move fast to get the cool stories. Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast were gone right out of the gate. This means, if you're me and you sometimes have a bit of a problem responding promptly to email (see, it's not just you, I'm that slow responding to everyone) you need to come up with treatment for the more, shall we say, second string stories.

One afternoon while playing Freecell (in the dark days before Spider Solitaire) and mentally flipping through the fairy tales that remained unclaimed, trying work out how I might modernize them, the words Throw me my axe! appeared outlined in fire on my monitor. Okay, maybe it was a bit less dramatic, but that line from Jack and the Beanstalk was the line this entire story was based on.

Warning: this story contains profanity, out-dated tech, and egregious abuse of the music industry. Readers below a certain age may have to Google Carson Daly.

Jack

Once upon a time, a young man named Jack lived with his band in a dilapidated third floor walk-up on what would have been the wrong side of the tracks had the city actually enclosed tracks. As it didn't, the boarded-up storefronts, uncollected trash, and debris-filled vacant lots were a fairly good indication of the local socio-economic condition.

Not good.

Jack and his band were determined to move up and out and so they practised day and night. Unfortunately, they were a thrash metal group who didn't so much play as assault their instruments in an era of breathy boy bands and vapid blondes. No one wanted to hear their music: not the producers who signed bands for the major record companies, not the DJs at the local radio station, not the guy who booked bands at the club on the corner, not even their neighbours…

*

"Would you shut up! It's three in the morning and you suck!"

"Come back to bed, babe. No way they hear you over the damned reverb anyhow."

"They're always fucking practising; you think they'd get it right occasionally!"

"Word."

*

Especially not their neighbours.

*

Jack slammed his way through the C#, jumped to the G, smashed through the B on 7, and shifted hard down two frets to the A, really leaning on the strings for all he was worth. They were in the space; his axe was screaming, Gustav's bass was rattling the windows two freaking rooms away, and Maitland was leaving bruises on his skins. They should've been making music, but something was wrong.

He stopped playing. After a couple of minutes, he stepped back and turned off Gustav's amp. The bass player kept going for a couple of bars then he frowned, stared down at his fret board, and finally turned toward Jack. Who pointed at Maitland.

Gustav pulled a ballpoint pen out of his dreads and threw it at the drummer's head.

"Fucking OW!" In the sudden silence, Maitland rubbed at the blue dot in the centre of his forehead with the end of a stick. "That hurt."

Jack ignored him. "I couldn't hear Angela."

All three turned to face the skinny blonde in the centre of the room. She shrugged bare shoulders, her butterfly tattoo rising and falling. "So?"

"If I can't hear you and I'm standing right next to you, how the hell can they hear you?" He nodded toward the "audience"; on this particular night made up of the usual imaginary crowd and a cockroach investigating the top of the toaster.

"Pretending I care. Look, you got two problems: First, your lyrics blow and second, you play too damned loud."

"Sing louder."

"This is as loud as I sing. Look at this." Angela held out a pale arm Jack could have circled with his thumb and baby finger. "I'm still vibrating. You guys have to play quieter – and when I say play, I mean that in the most general sense."

Maitland stopped scratching down the crack of his ass long enough to frown. "Was that a burn?"

"Yes, you idiot, it was a burn! I am so wasting my time here." Heavily kohled eyes narrowed. "Gustav, let's go." As she reached the door, she realised she was alone. "Gustav! I mean it! Me or the band."

*

"Cheer up man, she wasn't that good."

"Maybe not at the whole singing thing," Gustav allowed. "But she sure looked fine in all that leather underwear."

"Word." Maitland stroked a brush over a cymbal. "What do you call that red thing she had?"

"A corset, man."

"Guys!" Jack cut the reminiscing off cold. "We don't need a skinny fetishist, we need someone with pipes. It doesn't even have to be a chick."

"Dude!"

"For the band, Maitland, you neb. We got the sound, we just need a voice."

"And some food."

"What?"

Gustav stepped back so that the other two could see into the fridge. "The cupboard is bare, Jack."

"That's not a cupboard, man, that's…"

"Shut-up, Maitland." Jack stepped carefully through the web of wires spread out over the floor. "What about the packets of plum sauce?"

"Ate them."

"And those three olives?"

"Them too. Man, we are down to tap water and toaster leavings."

Jack glanced over at the cockroach and mentally stroked the toaster leavings off the list. "Tomorrow, we'll buy…" His voice trailed off as Gustav slowly shook his head. "We're broke?"

"Totally. And I am not scooping coins out of that fountain again; I almost got pneumonia last time."

"Well, then we can…"

"No."

"You didn't even hear…"

"I don't want to hear another dumb-ass idea, Jack. Face it, you got to sell the cow."

Jack turned to face the closet and his leather trench coat hanging black and supple over the top of the open door. "No."

"You have to."

"I can't." The coat made him feel tough and sexy and powerful and talented and tall.

Gustav draped a supporting arm across his shoulders. "It's all we've got left, man. You don't sell the cow, we don't eat."

*

The next day, Jack set out with the coat over his arm, heading for the pawn shop on 7th. There were pawn shops closer – some days it seemed like they were the only growth industry around – but the pawn shop on 7th was next to the closest store selling food. Besides, Jack wanted to spend as long as he could with the coat. The weather was cool and he could have put it on, but he was afraid that if he caught sight of his reflection, if he smelled that distinctive aroma of tanned cow hides, if he felt the leather flapping around his calves one more time, he'd never be able to part with it.

About to walk past the park – because as depressed as he was about pawning the coat, he wasn't suicidal and that's what it would take for a sane man to actually walk into that junkie/mugger-haven-with-trees – he heard the wail of a guitar rising up over the ever present roar of traffic.

Drawn by the sound, he stepped off the sidewalk.

Jack found the axe-man under the skeletal remains of a swing set; a barrel-chested dude with long grey hair and a short grey beard, he was just standing there, pulling the most amazing music out of an old Martin. It was an acoustic, a bluegrass guitar, but it sounded like Eddie Van Halen, and Joe Satriani and Chris Impellitteri all rolled up in one. Incredible sounds. Impossible sounds.

With the coat over his arm and his mouth open, Jack stood and listened. The music pounded through him, vibrating blood and bone.

After a final, amazing chord progression – chords Jack couldn't even identify the sausage-sized fingers moved so fast – the old man stopped playing, looked up and frowned. "What?"

"That was, like, wow. And loud. Like, really, really loud! Unboosted loud! I never heard a guitar played like that. I never knew anyone could play like that!"

The old man snorted. "You don't get out much, do you? What's your name, boy?"

"Jack. I play. Not like that; but you know. I have a band."

"Of course you do."

"I got a demo disc!" He pulled the tiny MP3 disc out of his back pocket. "We already pawned the player but I got a disc. I carry it everywhere because, like, you never know."

"You never know what?"

"What?"

The old man sighed. "Never mind."

"Man, if I could play like you…"

"You'd sound like a crap imitation." He let the guitar slide around on its strap until it hung upside down along his back, tangling with the long grey pony-tail. "Play like yourself," he growled, turning away.

"Don't go! I need to know how you do that! Please…"

The scuffed motorcycle boot, raised to step away, settled gently back onto the packed sand. "Ah, the magic word. You really want to know how I play like I play?"

"Yes!"

"It's these." The old man reached into the pocket of his faded jeans and pulled out three neon green picks.

Jack looked down at the plastic triangles and then back up at dark eyes. "Picks?"

"Magic picks."

"Are you shitting me?"

"I wouldn't think of it. These picks will let you pull the music in your soul out of your axe."

"I don't do soul. Or country or R&B. I do metal, man."

"And does anybody actually listen to you? I thought not," he continued, raising a hand to cut off Jack's sputtering rationalization. "Use these picks and I guarantee people will listen. You give me that coat you're carrying, and you can have all three of them."

"The coat?"

"Yes."

"That I'm carrying?"

"Yes."

"For three magic picks?"

"Yes."

"Totally a deal, dude!"

*

Jack ran back to the dilapidated third floor walk-up, past the boarded up storefronts and the uncollected trash with the magic picks clutched tightly in one hand. He couldn't wait to hear what the rest of the band would say.

*

"Are you fucking nuts, man?" Disbelief – and possibly hunger – made Gustav's voice more than a little shrill. "We sent you out to buy food and you came back with fucking guitar picks?"

"Magic guitar picks," Jack explained, holding out his hand, the three picks piled on his palm.

"Can we eat them?"

"No, but…"

"Then I don't care if they make you sound like Mike Fucking Nesbit. You traded the only thing we had that was worth anything for them and they're crap!" Gustav slapped Jack's hand aside.

Frustration added force to the slap.

The picks flew up, turned slowly through a beam of late afternoon sunlight, and disappeared out the open window.

Jack searched until long after dark, but the picks had disappeared into the debris that filled the vacant lot.

They didn't practise that night. They went to bed early listening to the rumblings of their empty stomachs and Maitland complaining about having to return to work for the finance department of the municipal government.

Jack usually woke up when the beam of sunlight spilling in through the curtainless window had moved far enough across the room to fry his face. On cloudy days, he slept in. On this particular day, after having rolled over and gone back to sleep twice, he finally sat up and peered across the room at the window. Either his internal clock was way, way off or the pollution levels over the city had gotten seriously out of hand.

He scrambled into the clothes piled on the floor beside his mattress, and, holding his shoes, padded barefoot across the room. If he turned on the lights he'd wake the guys and considering how pissed they already were about the whole food thing, he decided he'd just do a little checking first.

The window opened almost quietly.

The total lack of light beginning to seriously freak him out, he leaned through the opening and almost immediately cracked his head against another building – a building that definitely hadn't been there when he went to sleep.

A building about fifty stories tall and exactly the shape of the vacant lot, Jack realized, standing out on the sidewalk a few moments later. It looked like it had been made from sheets of gold-coloured glass and, gleaming in the sunlight, it seemed to promise that, inside, dreams could come true. Written in shiny black on the big front doors were the words, B. Stalk Productions.

He could see a security guard sitting at a desk in front of a pair of doors. One was the elevator, the other bore a sign saying EMERGENCY EXIT. On the wall between them were about a hundred gold records. At least Jack assumed they were records; he'd never actually seen one up close and personal. After scraping a bit of crusty plum sauce off his t-shirt with the edge of his thumb nail, he pushed open the door and shuffled across the polished marble floor.

"Dude?"

The guard looked up from his monitors, dark eyes locking on Jack's face. "Yes?"

Jack opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. "Do I, like, know you?"

Inside his short, grey beard, the guard's lip curled. "No."

"Are you sure because…"

"I'm sure. What do you want?"

"What do I want?"

"What. Do. You. Want?" the guard asked again, very slowly.

And Jack remembered why he'd come into the building. "What does B. Stalk Productions, like, produce?"

"Music, boy. Mr. Stalk is a giant in the music business. Sitting up there in his offices at the top of this tower, he decides what gets heard."

"I've never heard of him."

"Has he ever heard of you?"

"Not yet but…"

"Then I'll have to ask you to leave the property."

"Yeah but…"

"Now, boy, or I'll…"

Jack never found out just what the guard was about to do because at that very moment a stretch limo pulled up outside the building and four faceless minions in suits herded a girl out of the back and into the lobby. She wasn't the kind of girl he'd ever expected to see coming out of a car like that. She amply filled both jeans and tank, an electric pink mouth seemed curled up into a permanent sneer, and a tattoo on one rounded arm read, "BITE ME!"

Under a ragged-edged cap of glossy brown hair, she looked angry.

Jack loved that about her. He loved everything about her. He really loved the way she'd totally drawn the attention of the guard. Backing up slowly, he headed for the emergency exit and slipped through as his new love used some very, very bad language and was even more distracting.

What a voice! It sounded just like Jack had imagined it would. It sounded the way she looked, strong and edgy and different.

He hated to leave her, but this was his big chance.

He'd climb all the way up to B. Stalk if he had to and force him to listen to the demo.

He reached back into his pocket, touched the disc for luck, and started climbing.

By the sixth floor, his knees hurt.

By the tenth floor, he started singing to keep up his spirits.

By the twelfth floor, he stopped singing because all those bottles of beer falling off the wall were making him thirsty.

On the twenty-third floor, a skeleton wearing a white jumpsuit and rather a lot of tacky jewellery leaned against the door. Jack had seen freakier art on cases so no real big. "Dude, I guess you never did leave the building," he said thoughtfully as he passed.

He felt as if he'd been climbing for days when he finally staggered up the last flight of stairs and stood staring at the gold number 50 stencilled onto it. For a moment, he didn't realize what it meant then, his heart beating like a double drum kit, he very carefully pulled open the door.

He was standing at one end of a long hall. At the nearer end, a huge window let in the light. At the far end was a double door, the right half slightly open. To his immediate left was the elevator. Along the other side of the hall, were half a dozen closed doors. He could hear voices and, logically, they could only be coming from one place.

His shoes sinking deep into the plush beige carpet, he made his way toward the open door.

The cream coloured walls were covered in laminated posters of half a dozen interchangeable boy bands – where the word boy had been stretched to its limit and beyond – and three different blondes. The 'oh look at me I'm a bad girl but not really' poses were all slightly different so Jack assumed they were different blondes. He'd never considered himself overly imaginative, but he could've sworn the eyes on the posters followed him as he passed.

"Look, I don't know about this, Mr. Stalk."

It was the voice of the girl. She sounded like she was still angry although a hint of uncertainty had begun to soften her edged tone.

"But I do know, my dear. I've handled a hundred young women, worked them like clay, made them into what they are."

"I guess but…"

"You want to be a star don't you?"

"Yeah, but…"

"Trust me."

Trust him? Jack shuddered as he peered around the edge of the door. He'd trust that deep oily voice about as far as he'd trust Maitland to maintain a certain minimum standard of personal hygiene. Which was to say: not very.

The room behind the door was incredible. The desk, the leather sofa, the book cases, the poster of the current flavour of the month covering the wall behind the desk; they all looked like they'd been super-sized. The minions looked dwarfed by the furnishings. In the centre of the room, perched in a chair so overwhelming the thick, ridged rubber soles of her boots barely touched the floor was the love of Jack's life. The moment he saw her, all thoughts of having B. Stalk listen to his demo fled.

She was… blonde!

And somehow, she looked… thinner!

"Packaging, my dear, is everything."

Jack's gaze jerked over to the music mogul. He was kind of a little guy actually; short, and skinny, and going bald. The cigar clenched between his teeth was probably bigger than his…

"We'll work the tattoo into the design of something a little more marketable. Something like a butterfly or a unicorn. Won't be any trouble at all, will it boys?"

"No, sir, Mr. Stalk!"

Given the harmonies in their unison answer, Jack had a horrible suspicion he knew what happened to boy bands when maturity won out over marketing.

She chewed on her lower lip, no longer electric pink but softer, glossier, and said, "I… I… I need to take a piss."

"Tinkle."

"What?"

"From now on, you tinkle."

Jack shuddered.

Her fingers gripped the arms of the chair so tightly the leather squeaked a protest. "Whatever. I gotta go."

"First door on the left."

Jack flattened against the wall as she came out into the hall, remaining hidden safely behind the open door and exposed again as it closed. Fortunately, she didn't look back.

"The girl's got potential."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Stalk."

"As soon as we change the way she sings, and pierce that navel, we'll have ourselves another…"

As the bathroom door closed behind him it cut off the name of the blonde they were planning to copy. Jack was just as happy not knowing.

He'd never been in a girl's bathroom before. It was cleaner and it smelled better and instead of a condom dispenser there was a…

Eww.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing in here?"

Oh, yeah. That was the rage he loved! He ducked her swing, backed up against the sink, and raised both hands in surrender. "I'm here to rescue you!"

"Are you tripping?"

"No! This Stalk guy, he's trying to…"

"To make me a star, fuckwad."

"OW!" Hopping sideways, rubbing his shin, Jack tried to watch her fists and her feet simultaneously. It wasn't easy given that he was beginning to feel a little faint with hunger. "He's not trying to make you a star. He's trying to make you a pop star."

"That's a lie!"

"Don't take my word for it, look in the mirror."

Straightening cautiously, he watched her face as understanding dawned.

She reached out one trembling finger and touched her reflection. "Oh my god. I'm almost… cute."

Grabbing the hem of her tank, she hauled it up, bent forward and scrubbed the soft glossy colouring off her mouth. Just as Jack began to wonder what she was going to do next, she reached into the depths of her cleavage and pulled out a silver tube. In half a heartbeat, her lips were electric pink again.

"Man, that's better."

And it was, although Jack was too busy watching her put the lipstick away to say anything.

"Well don’t just stand there with your thumb up your ass, let's haul it!"

"Right." A raised hand held her back as he peered out into the hall. The coast was clear and the elevator was still at the top floor. "Come on!"

Holding his breath, Jack led the way. The door to B. Stalk's office was still open and something about the music mogul suggested his life would not be pleasant if they were caught. Fortunately, the carpet muffled two sets of footsteps as easily as one. Jack had begun to breathe normally again when, suddenly, the posters lining the walls cried out, "Master! Master!"

Jack froze. The girl froze. They looked at each other. They looked at the walls.

"Okay," Jack muttered. "Didn’t expect that."

"Master! Master! A dirty metal head is helping the new girl escape!"

From the far end of the hall came an enraged roar. "Fe, Fi, Foe, Justin! After them!"

"Yes, sir, Mr. Stalk!"

All at once, standing still seemed like a bad idea. "Run!"

The posters were shrieking, the minions were yelling, but they were at the elevator and Jack jabbed the button. The door whooshed open. He dove in, hit the close door button, grabbed his love by the arm, and dragged her inside.

"That's for bleaching my hair, dipshit!" she screamed back at the minion sinking slowly to his knees, both hands clutching his crotch.

Then the door closed and they were moving. It took a few floors for that final word to stop echoing within the stainless steel enclosure.

Mouth open Jack stared in admiration. "Man," he said when there was a chance of being heard, "have you got a set of pipes."

She spread her hands, the gesture somehow taking in not only the tower but her reason for being in it. "Well, duh."

"I'm uh, Jack. Jack Grimm."

Her eyes narrowed. "Stage name?"

"Yeah. But not the Jack part." He waited.

After a long moment, she sighed. "Lyra Gold. Not a stage name. Dumbass parents."

He nodded sympathetically. "Rough."

"No shit."

They watched the numbers fall on the digital display.

"So now what?" Lyra asked as they passed the halfway mark.

"Well, there's only the one elevator so the minions'll have to take the stairs."

"Yeah, but there's a security guard on the first floor; they'll just call down and he'll be waiting for us."

Jack had a strong suspicion that one elderly security guard would be no match for Lyra's boots, but he kept it to himself and pressed the button for the third floor. "I flop next door," he explained. "The building's three stories high, but the stories, they're not so high. Not so high as here, I mean. Because they're high enough for themselves. Anyway, that oughta put the window on the third floor hall right over the roof."

"What?"

"We're going to jump out the window to the roof of the building next door."

"Right."

The elevator chimed softly and the door opened to an empty hall; plainer than the hall on the fiftieth floor and poster free, but, otherwise, identical.

Jack listened at the stairwell door. He could hear the minions descending, moving fast. "Oh sure," he muttered, joining Lyra at the window. "You guys get to come down the stairs."

He could see his roof, his peeling tar paper, his fine patina of pigeon shit, only an easy four foot jump away.

"It doesn't open!"

"No problem." Taking a deep breath, Jack moved back a dozen paces and ran at the window as hard as he could. The noise he made on impact wasn't quite splat, but it was close.

"Move your skinny ass out of the way," Lyra snapped.

It seemed like a plan, so he did and then watched amazed as Lyra took a deep breath – he was definitely in love now – and sang. One note. One very high, sustained note.

The window shattered.

"You okay?" she asked as the glass fell to the roof below.

"Thrash metal band," he told her. "I got callouses on my ear drums an inch thick."

"Sweet." She gestured out the jagged opening. "Age before beauty."

"Pearls before swine."

"Together?"

Her hand was warm and dry.

"Together."

A moment later, they stood shoulder to shoulder on the roof and stared up at the tower. As impossible as it seemed, they could clearly hear the footsteps of the minions still pounding after them, prodded on by screams from the fiftieth floor.

"YOU BELONG TO ME, LYRA GOLD! WE HAVE A CONTRACT!"

"You signed a contract?"

"I was desperate!"

Jack raised both hands. "Say no more. Been there."

"I'LL GET YOU! I'LL GET YOU AND YOUR LITTLE BAND TOO!"

"I think he's confused," Lyra muttered as Jack ran for the door leading down into his building. "Hey, where you going?"

"I've got an idea."

The door was never locked, but then again the wood was so rotten there wouldn't have been much point. Jack ripped it open and stuck his head into the mouldering stairwell. "Gustav!"

Down below, the door to the apartment opened and Gustav peered out into the hall. "Dude?"

"Up here!"

"Dude!"

"My axe, man. Throw me my axe!" After a moment he added, "And an amp and an extension cord!"

*

The tower threw the first note back at him. Jack smiled. He was just warming up. By the third note, Gustav was plugged in and playing beside him. By the… well, after a while, Maitland had his set up and was pounding out a rhythm on his skins. Chording right up at the top of his fret board, Jack turned to Lyra and nodded.

"Dude!" Gustav bellowed into his ear. "She doesn't know the words!"

"Yeah, she does!"

"But…"

"Trust me!"

And Lyra sang. They weren't the words as written, but that didn't matter.

Two angry verses later, nothing had happened.

Jack threw everything he had at the lead in to the chorus. Knew the guys were doing the same. He watched Lyra draw in a deep breath – worth watching regardless.

Last verse.

The tower began to shimmer.

The gold colouring in the glass began to pick up an oil slick on a puddle kind of iridescence. It began at the edge of the broken window and worked its way out. It shimmered and moved faster, growing brighter, chasing itself from floor to floor until it finally caught itself and…

Jack had been on stage at the community centre once when they were testing the lights. This was a thousand times brighter. This wasn't community centre lighting or bar lighting – this was stadium lighting!

Although they couldn't see, they played on to the end of the song, Lyra's final note hanging in the air until it became the distant sound of a police siren over on Harris Street. Clutching his guitar, blinking away after images, Jack shuffled to the edge of the roof; pretty much exactly as far as his cord would let him go before he tipped over his amp.

He wasn't surprised to see that the tower was gone.

The grocery store with the bins of fresh fruit out front, that surprised him a bit.

As Lyra joined him, an old grey haired guy with a guitar hanging down his back stopped in front of the apples, picked up a granny smith, and tossed a coin to someone just out of Jack's line of sight.

"Thang you, thang you very much."

The old man didn't look up; he just shoved the apple in his pocket and walked on.

Except that Jack was ninety percent certain it wasn't an apple by the time it reached the pocket. He was ninety percent certain it had become a handful of bright green picks.

He was ten percent certain he'd suffered irreparable brain damage at some point over the last couple of days.

"Dude?"

He turned to face the band. Maitland was scratching his ass but Gustav seemed to have a few questions. One question, actually.

"What the hell just happened?"

Lyra slipped her hand into his and Jack smiled. "We just made music."

Continuing to make music, they all lived happily ever after.

"Dude! I said no red M&Ms! What kind of a dumbass stage manager are you? Man, this show's been a total crap fest since Carson Daly left!"

More or less.

This is another title I really like. I think it's funny, and subtle, and not really subtle at all. This story contains my favourite line ever about...um... German sandals and may, quite possibly, be the strangest thing I've ever written. The story may, not just the line.

The fair is based on our local county fair, although we've never had a fortune teller and the cow-in-the-dress doorstop was actually at the summer craft show. Cynthia's reaction to Ferris wheels? My reaction to Ferris wheels.

I'm not one hundred percent positive, but I'm pretty sure that this is my first story where the characters use a cell phone. Kids, ask your parents what a tape deck is.

Symbols are a Percussion Instrument

Her cell phone rang just as they were passing through the gates. As the imperious trill rose over the noise of the fair and people turned to look, David Franklin put one hand over his eyes and sighed. "Cyn, why didn't you leave it in the car?"

"Are you nuts? Do you know how much this thing cost me?"

"Then why not leave it at home?"

"Because I feel naked without it."

"Naked might do you good."

"Don't start," she warned him as they made their way out of the stream of pedestrian traffic to the relative quiet by the chain-link fence. "This'll only take a minute."

David watched her flick the phone open and muttered, "Beam me up, Scotty," under his breath.

"Augustine Textiles, Cynthia Augustine speaking."

Turning to watch a group of shrieking children race toward the merry-go-round, David grinned as their mother – Babysitter? Teacher? – yelled that Stuart was to keep hold of his little brother. The little brother in question was about four, wearing the remains of a candy apple, and swinging from the reins of a turquoise stallion. Stuart, his own Power Rangers t-shirt none too clean, solved the problem by simply sitting on the smaller child and ignoring all protests.

"Cute kids."

"Where?" Cynthia glanced toward the merry-go-round and frowned. "I wonder who does those banners. We could prob..." The phone rang again before she finished. "Augustine Textiles, Cynthia Augustine speaking."

Not even remotely surprised that she'd seen the banners and not the kids, David waited until she disconnected then held out his hand.

"Aha." Triumphant, she passed the cell phone over. "You complain until you suddenly need to make a call and.... what are you doing!?"

He stuffed the battery into one of the outside pockets on his black leather knapsack and handed back the rest. "This is our day off. And that means we don't work."

Her eyes narrowed. "This is a recession. If the company goes under, that means you don't work."

"You have so little faith in your business that you can't leave it for a few hours?"

"Faith has nothing to do with business." She looked down at the useless plastic in her hand then up at the man who was not only the company's entire design department but also her best friend. "All right. For you. Two hours, then you give me back my battery."

David checked his watch. "Three, and I'll drive home so you can talk."

"Deal."

*

The fair mixed traditional agriculture and current trends. Ten feet from the ring where yearling beef cattle stood placidly beside their young handlers, a sign proclaimed that for a small fee attendees could have their picture and comments added to the fair's web page.

Farmers in co-op baseball hats watched the circulating crowds of wide-eyed city tourists with amusement or disdain, depending on their natures. The tourists, in turn, considered the farmers part of the ambiance and, when they weren't taking pictures of them, ignored them.

"Ridiculous leash laws in this part of the country," Cynthia murmured as the cattle left the ring, each dragging a child dressed head to toe in white.

"I think it's wonderful these kids have a chance to be part of the whole farming experience."

"Oh yeah, great experience. Today a beloved pet wins a ribbon, tomorrow it's in the freezer, wrapped in brown paper and labelled hamburger."

David winced. "Do you have to?"

"I call 'em like I see 'em." She tucked her hand in his elbow and propelled him toward the open doors of the hockey arena. "Come on, this was your idea, let's go see the rest of it."

The arena had been equally divided between tables of produce brought in to be judged and commercial booths. With the fair only a two hour drive from Toronto, most vendors were pushing variations on the country chic theme.

Throwing himself into the experience, David examined every fruit, vegetable, and flower, comparing those that wore ribbons with those that didn't, asking questions of anyone who seemed like they might have an answer. By the time he reached five tomatoes on a plate, he'd charmed an honour guard of little old ladies.

Cynthia lost interest by two ripe cucumbers over nine inches, and followed blindly, wondering if she could get her phone back in time to call one of their eastern suppliers. Her wandering attention returned with a snap as David stopped in front of a commercial booth selling decorative door stops.

"David, put that down."

"Don't you like it?"

"No."

"I think it's cute."

"For chrissakes, David, it's a cow in a dress!"

He grinned impishly at her. "Drew wouldn't let me have it in the house, but I could always use it at the office."

"Over my dead body."

Tucking it back in with the rest of the sartorial herd, he pulled her back outside. "Come on, let's try the midway."

A few moments later, Cynthia stared up at the double Ferris wheel and then down at David. "I was kidding about that over my dead body thing."

"It's perfectly safe. Look, people are letting their kids ride."

"These people have kids to spare. I'm not getting on that death trap."

*

From the top of the Ferris wheel, it was possible to see not only the entire fairground but a good piece of the surrounding town as well.

"They've got a scrambler!" The basket rocked as David leaned forward and pointed. "It's been years since I've been on one!"

Cynthia tried to work out the tensile strength of the pair of steel pins that seemed to be all that were holding the basket to the ride. "I wonder how often they check for stress fractures," she muttered as they circled around again.

"Hey! There's a fortune teller!"

"David, if you don't stop rocking this thing, I'm going to do something violent."

"I think the sign says she's a card reader."

"Great, maybe we can find a fourth for bridge, now sit still!"

*

Under normal circumstances, Cynthia wouldn't have gone within a hundred feet of a fortune teller, but with a ride on the scrambler – something she clearly remembered as being nauseating and mildly painful – as the immediate alternative, having her cards read – whatever that meant in the real world – became the lesser of two evils.

"So, what do you get when you cross a travel agent with an ophthalmologist?" she asked as they approached the tent. Pointing at the sign, she answered her own question. "Let Madame Zora Help You See the World Through New Eyes. David, you know I don't deal well with this New Age, crystal wearing crap."

"Then you're in luck because tarot cards aren't new age. They're derived from the oldest book in the world; the Egyptian Book of Thoth by Hermes Trismegistus, councillor of Osiris, King of Egypt."

She turned to stare at him in amazement. "I don't believe you know all that stuff."

"I don't, it's in the small print on the sign. Nevertheless, I consider myself open to extreme possibilities."

"I get it." Cynthia's voice rose in exaggerated outrage. "This is an X-File." She began to turn. "I'm out of here."

David blocked the path. "Oh no you're not. You agreed to have your cards read and a promise is a promise."

"Don't," Cynthia snarled, "quote Disney at me."

The tent was army surplus. An unsuccessful attempt had been made to dress up the drab canvas by stringing lines of plastic pennants along the guy wires.

Her hands stuffed in the front pockets of her jeans, Cynthia glanced down at the crushed grass path leading under the flap then around at the fair. They stood in a pocket of quiet, the music from the midway seemed muffled and the crowds parted well in advance of the tent. "Now what? Do we wait to be seated?"

"You enter."

The speaker was non-apparent. The tent flap folded back as they watched.

"Here goes nothing," Cynthia murmured, adding to David's back as he hurried past her, "And I mean that literally, by the way."

Inside, plastic yard lights pushed into the ground between the patterned carpets and the billowing walls created alternating bands of light and shadow. It would have been a more successful effect had the burning incense been able to overcome the musty smell of canvas stored too long in a damp basement.

A rectangular table with three high backed chairs lined up behind it stood under the centre peak of the tent. The figure in the middle chair had a familiar, if not clichéd silhouette.

"Come closer, seekers."

As they stepped forward, a pair of hanging lights came on over the table, banishing shadows and throwing Madame Zora into hard-edged relief.

David made a small noise of appreciation.

Hundred watt floods, Cynthia thought as the fortune teller lifted a be-ringed hand and beckoned them closer still.

"Have you a question for Madame Zora?" Somewhere past forty, she looked exactly how a fortune teller should look, from the shawls to the jewellery to the heavily kohled eyes.

David gave her his best smile. "Only those questions that every seeker has," he said, matching her dramatics.

Madame Zora responded to the smile and nodded toward the chair to her right. "Then come, sit."

"Wait a minute." Cynthia grabbed David's arm as he started to move away. "I have a question. Do you actually believe that pieces of cardboard can tell the future?"

Dark eyes lifted and met hers. "No. That's not what they're for. The value of the tarot is to make people think, to weigh the pros and cons of a situation." Her voice picked up a new cadence. "The true tarot is symbolism. It speaks no other language and presents no other signs. A. E. Waite."

Cynthia's lip curled. "What you see is what you get. Yakko Warner."

"Symbols are the picture forms of hidden thought, the door leading to the hidden chambers of the mind."

"Give me a break; what hidden chambers?"

"If you want..." Madame Zora indicated the chair on her left. "...I'll let the cards answer your question when I'm finished with your friend."

"I don't believe in fortune telling."

"You don't have to. Your belief or disbelief makes as little difference to the cards as it would to the weather."

"My friend doesn't believe either."

Grabbing her arm, David hauled her around the corner of the table. "Just sit," he hissed. "You're embarrassing me."

As he pushed her into her chair and went to take his own, Cynthia locked the rest of her opinions behind her teeth. The whole old-as-new-spirituality, Mother Goddess, tofu, wheat germ, candle burning sort of thing she saw as a last refuge for those who couldn't cut it in the real world, but if her apparent compliance in this charade made David happy, then she supposed it wouldn't hurt her to play a...

Which was when she became aware of the denomination of the bill changing hands. "Twenty bucks?"

The money disappeared into a definitively real world cash box. "I have a sliding scale," Madame Zora explained, snapping the lid closed.

"Sliding from where? What makes you think he can afford twenty bucks to have his fortune told?"

"His two hundred and fifty dollar, leather backpack."

Behind the curve of Madame's broad back, David shot her a look that clearly said, Any other objections?

She glanced from him to the pack now on the floor behind his chair, sighed, and shook her head.

"First, we will remove your significator card." Madame Zora flipped the deck and deftly fanned it. "I would say, the Knight of Cups; a young man with light brown hair and hazel eyes, emotional, imaginative, and skilled in the arts. If you will shuffle the deck..."

Leaning to her right, as though she wanted a better view of the pattern being laid out on the table, Cynthia slowly stretched her arm behind Madame Zora's chair and hooked one finger through a leather loop. If she could just get her hands on her battery...

"You have a high proportion of cups showing, that indicates good news. Here, in the first position..."

The pack slid noiselessly over the short nap of the carpet. Surreptitiously patting each outside pocket, she finally felt a familiar lump.

"...and the happy conclusion of a task. The six of wands, in the fifth position symbolizes what will happen – victory will be achieved and success will be obtained through labour. These two cards obviously support each..."

It wasn't easy opening the buckle one handed, but Cynthia eventually worked the battery free. Dropping it into her lap, she returned the pack to its original position.

"...symbolizing your own hopes and ideals on the matter. It's interesting that this is your only pentacle..."

Under the cover of the table, the battery slid into her phone with gratifying ease. She sagged back against her chair, feeling the tension leave her shoulders.

When David's reading ended, Madame Zora pulled out a second deck of cards. "To allow the others to clear," she explained. "I never use the same deck twice in a row.

"Normally," she continued, fanning the cards, "the significator for a blonde woman with grey eyes would be the Queen of Wands but in this instance I think the Devil might be more suitable."

Cynthia frowned down at the card lying alone on the table. "I don't think I like that."

"It has nothing to do with the devil as you perceive him, nothing to do with the evil of the Christian religion. The card symbolizes the domination of matter over spirit. Apt enough, I think? Shuffle, please."

Amazed she was actually going through with it, actually giving implied approval to occult psychology, Cynthia shuffled and split the deck as instructed.

Madame Zora laid out cards with firm, no nonsense movements of her hands, the rings flashing in the light. "Oh my. Four of the Major Arcana. There are powerful outside forces at work here. Look at the pattern please and tell me what you see."

"Words," Cynthia muttered. "Words. Words. Words."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Polonius asked Hamlet what he was reading and Hamlet answered, Words." She waved a hand over the cards. "In this instance, however, pictures, might be more appropriate."

Cocking her head slightly, Madame Zora kept her gaze on the cards. "That's all that you see?" she asked, her tone so explicitly neutral it lifted David's brows. "Pictures?"

Cynthia studied the pattern for a moment before she answered. "There isn't anything else," she said at last. "Pretty pictures that don't symbolize anything but a way for you to make a living which, I assure you, I'm not against, but I believe in what I can see and..."

The phone cut her off.

"Cynthia!" David could've managed more outrage if he hadn't been so relieved to have the impending rant cut short.

"Augustine Textiles, Cynthia Augustine speaking. What's that? I'm sorry, could you hang on a moment until I get outside?" Scrabbling to her feet she headed for the tent flap. "I'm sorry, but I've got to take this call."

David closed his eyes in embarrassment. When he opened them again, Madame Zora was watching him, her expression unreadable.

"I'm so sorry," he began but she cut him off.

"No need. I am sorry for your friend." Her gesture bracketed the pattern. "I see transformation in these cards."

"By powerful outside forces?"

"By, because of, for; who can say. If they feel it necessary, certain things will go to extremes to attract attention."

"But you said they were just symbols."

"Symbols," said Madame Zora with ponderous emphasis, "are shortcuts to more complicated meanings."

*

"I can not believe you did that!"

Looking like the cat who swallowed the canary, Cynthia slipped her phone back in its pouch. "Did what?"

"Broke our agreement, went through my stuff, stole your battery back, and interrupted the reading!"

"We got the hotel job."

David choked as he attempted to change responses in mid word. Cheerfully thumping him on the back, Cynthia reassured a number of anxious bystanders that he was fine, just a little overcome with the afternoon's excitement. Several mothers of small children nodded in weary understanding.

"This is just like Madame Zora said," he gasped, grabbing Cynthia's arm. "Victory will be achieved and success will be obtained through labour."

"Co-incidence." She tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and half-dragged him toward the parking lot. "Come on, we've got a lot to do."

"I think you ought to go back and let her interpret your cards." He repeated his final conversation with the fortune teller. It had, as he'd expected, no effect.

"David, there's nothing to interpret."

"You've got to admit she did a pretty good reading on me."

Cynthia threw a grin toward her companion. "Considering she started with a knight instead of a queen."

*

Just outside the parking lot, in front of a small pond artistically pierced with jagged rock, two men, in a mix of medieval armour and hockey equipment, were beating on each other with rattan swords. On a bench to one side sat a young woman, blindfolded and holding a pair of swords aloft.

Separated from David and caught up in the watching crowd, Cynthia found herself beside the bench without really understanding how she got there. She staggered, stretched out a hand, and managed to stop herself at the last minute from grabbing one of the two swords.

"You may have a well-developed sense of balance, but you're definitely in need of direction."

"I beg your pardon."

"No need. I'm here to help." Lifting the blindfold with an extended thumb, the girl peered up at Cynthia with dark eyes. "Would you mind holding one of these for a moment?"

There didn't seem to be a polite way to refuse so Cynthia gingerly took the closer of the two swords. It was much heavier than she expected.

"Thanks." Reaching into a side pocket, the girl pulled out a familiar white rectangle. "My card. For later."

"For later," Cynthia repeated, habit extending her free hand. She'd barely returned the sword when the crowd surged past, caught her up again, and deposited her back by David's side. "Is there a reason you've got your mouth open?" she wondered.

"That girl!"

"What about her?" She shoved the business card in her back pocket without looking at it.

"Two swords! The pond! The rocks! The bench! The moon!"

Cynthia glanced up at the crescent moon barely visible in the afternoon sky and shrugged. "So?"

"The tarot!"

"A verb, David. Try a verb."

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "That's the second card in your tarot reading! The Two of Swords!"

"Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?"

"Yes!" He paused. His cheeks flushed as he released her. "Really ridiculous. I think, I think I got too much sun."

"I think you're right." She tucked her arm into the bend of his elbow. "Come on. Let's go home."

*

Augustine Textiles was in the lower, not quite basement level of an old red brick building on King Street West, a neighbourhood working toward trendy – by the time the higher rents arrived, Cynthia planned on being able to afford them. Over the years they'd seen a number of spectacular accidents from their vantage point a sidewalk's width from the street, but nothing like the accident the morning after the trip to the fair.

"I didn't know there was a circus in town," David declared, his ears ringing in the post-crash quiet.

"I don't think there is." Cynthia found it impossible not to tilt her head to try to bring the view into a normal perspective.

A tractor trailer, its sides open ironwork, had jackknifed making the turn off Spadina. When the far wheels hit the curb, it had flipped over onto its back.

"Maybe it's a publicity stunt for Beauty and the Beast."

In the trailer, a woman in a long white dress with flowers in her hair and around her waist held closed the mouth of a male lion. Both woman and lion were, at the moment, suspended upside down.

The moment ended. Neither appeared too badly hurt by the fall.

Using language totally at odds with her appearance, the woman untangled herself from her skirts and got, somewhat shakily, to her feet. The lion shook itself, squeezed between two twisted bars and took off down the street. Approaching sirens became quickly overlaid with startled screaming.

Fully aware that the most helpful thing she could do was to stay put, Cynthia yanked open the door and raced out onto street. "Are you all right?" She rocked to a halt when she saw that the woman, taking the lion's route out of the destroyed truck, was fine – which left her nothing to do but stand on the road and feel embarrassed.

The woman reached back through the hole to pick up a bronze figure eight then turned and smiled kindly at her. "Never fear passion," she said. "Now, if you'll excuse me." Pushing a crushed bloom up off her face, she strode purposefully toward the corner where half a dozen police officers had the lion more-or-less cornered. "Here, let me. Brute force will get you nowhere with him."

"Well?" David demanded when Cynthia came back inside.

"She's fine. And, although several members of Toronto's finest are going to need to have their trousers dry cleaned, the lion's fine. Let's get back to work."

"That's it?"

"There's nothing we can do out there and there's plenty we can do in here."

David stood a while longer, staring out the window, watching a pair of tow trucks try and pull the trailer away. All at once, he paled. "Cyn?"

"Um."

"What did she say to you?"

Deep in a new sample book, it took Cynthia a moment to realize what David was talking about. "Something about never fearing passion. Why?"

"That was the third card in your reading. Strength, reversed."

"Strength reversed?" Both brows lifted. "You're out of your mind."

"Oh yeah? How many times have you seen a woman and a lion upside down in the fashion district? Remember what Madame Zora said, certain things will go to extremes to attract attention."

"What things?"

"Well, we'd know if you'd finished the reading, wouldn't we!"

"David, you're getting hysterical."

"No, not yet." He crossed the room and leaned over her desk. "You haven't seen hysterical yet. The tarot is coming to life, forcing you to recognize it the only way it can. Do you remember what your last card was?"

"Of course I don't. And neither do you."

"Oh yes, I do. I may not remember the middle of the pattern, but I remember that last card. It was a Ten of Swords, Cynthia. And you know what that means!"

She rolled her eyes and sat back. "No, David, what does that mean?"

"It means that sooner or later you're going to be explaining a dead body with ten swords in it to the police."

"If you don't go back to your desk," she reminded him pointedly, "we're going to lose the best contract we've ever had and it's going to be your body."

"Cynthia, please. You know I'm right."

"And what am I, chopped liver?"

"Well, no, you're right too but..."

"Then please, get back to work." She watched him cross back to his desk and shook her head. His sudden obsession with a not terribly successful midway attraction was beginning to worry her.

Out on the street, the lion roared.

*

"David? Cynthia. Sorry I woke you, but I've got a problem."

"Problem. Right. It's two in the morning. It'll keep."

"David, don't hang up!" Pulling back her kitchen curtains, she took another look out the window. "What was the next card in that tarot reading?" The silence on the other end of the phone was so complete she figured he'd gone back to sleep. "David?"

He hadn't. "The next card?"

"Did it look like a dog and a wolf – although it's probably a coyote – bracketed by a pair of upright things – in this particular case the old bridge abutments – howling at a full moon with some real weird shadow patterns on it while a lobster crawls up out of the water?"

"Uh, hang on a minute."

She flinched as the howling began again. "Don't take too long." One of the Garibaldis in the apartment upstairs yelled for quiet and threw a boot out the window towards the river. The lobster turned toward the noise, but the howling continued.

"Cyn? The card's called The Moon. It stands for the influence just passed away. And Cyn, it's the card of the psychic."

Madame Zora. Damn. "How the hell do you know?"

"I bought a book on the way home. You'd better come over." Sleepy protests in the background were quickly hushed. "Just out of curiosity, what convinced you I was right?"

Sighing, she let the curtain drop. "David, I can rationalize upside down lions, but, trust me, there's no way a lobster could survive in the Humber."

*

David answered the door to the condo with a slim paperback in one hand and a finger over his lips. "Shhh. Drew's gone back to sleep. We can talk in the den." Ushering her in front of him, he closed the door and relaxed. "How was the trip over?"

Cynthia snorted. "Weird. I stopped at the bottom of the Casa Loma hill to untie a young woman standing blindfolded surrounded by eight swords. She thanked me, picked up her swords, and said she'd have done it herself except she was afraid of moving out of a situation of bondage." The leather couch creaked as she dropped onto one end of it. "They, whoever they are, are not very subtle."

"We knew that; they dropped a lion on its head to make a point." Sinking down onto the other end of the couch, David flipped through the book. "The Eight of Swords. Your fifth card. Something that may happen in the future."

"David, pay attention please. It already happened."

"It symbolizes what may happen to you."

Her lips pressed into a thin line. "If somebody tries that on me..."

David sighed. "Symbolizes. You may be bound by indecision."

"The only thing I can't decide is whether or not I should look up Madame Zora and slap her with a lawsuit."

"For what?"

It was Cynthia's turn to sigh. "Good point. So what comes next?"

"I don't remember."

"You're a lot of help." He looked so hurt she flushed and gripped his shoulder. "I'm sorry I'm being such a bitch. This has got me a little shaken."

One corner of his mouth hooked up. "Cyn, you're always a bitch, I've gotten used to it. Now, let's go over what we know. Madame Zora said it was a pattern of transformation and, counting the significator, you've seen the first five cards. You've got four to go and then the Ten of Swords – the Final Outcome."

"I wish you wouldn't say it like that," Cynthia muttered, sinking down into the cushions. "It makes me think that I might be the body under the swords – my reading, my Final Outcome."

"We're not even going to think that." But they both were. "Don't put your feet on the coffee table."

"Sorry."

"According to this book, the Ten of Swords symbolizes sudden misfortune..."

"Well, duh."

"...and in spiritual matters, the end of delusion."

She straightened. "I am not deluded. I'm practical. I've kept a small business afloat in a lingering recession and... business..." Reaching into her back pocket, she pulled out a creased card. "The girl with the swords said she was here to help and gave me this for later."

The card was blank except for a phone number; a 555 number, an exchange used only by long distance directory assistance and the screen writers' guild. After two rings, an answering machine clicked on and a familiar voice declared, "A changed concept of self automatically alters our future. All outer change takes place in consciousness. If you leave a message after the tone, you'll be wasting your time."

It wasn't so much a tone as the theme from Close Encounters.

"Well, I think the solution's obvious."

Cynthia stared at him in wide-eyed disbelief. "Obvious?"

"You've got to learn to see the symbolism before the reality kills you. You've got to get in touch with your spiritual side."

"With my what?"

"You'd better stay here tonight. We can get started in the morning."

*

She felt each of the ten swords as it pierced her body, nailing her to the floor. Closing her eyes against the pain, she muttered, "The stains are never going to come out of this carpet."

From far away, she heard a familiar voice intone, "Look beyond to the symbolism."

"Symbolism? David, this carpet was hand-tied in Morocco!"

When she opened her eyes, it was morning.

*

"What is this?"

"Granola."

Cynthia poked at the whole wheat, dried dates and who knew what else in the hand thrown pottery bowl. "I never realized roughage was spiritual."

Before David could offer reassurance, Drew yelled from the next room that they should look out the window. "Some idiot's gone bungee jumping off his balcony."

"He probably jumped rather than eat tree bark for breakfast," Cynthia muttered as she peered over David's shoulder at the building across the courtyard.

The jumper had anchored his cable on one of the trees that crowded the edge of the penthouse garden. As the bounce wore off, he swung by one leg, hands folded behind his back, free leg crossed back behind the other knee.

"He must've threaded fibre optics through his hair. Look at the way his head's glowing."

"Seems perfectly content though, doesn't he." As David moved out of the way, Cynthia pressed against the window and frowned. "You know, physics was never my strong suit, but shouldn't he have swung back and hit the building?" When she heard pages turning behind her, she sighed and closed her eyes. "Don't tell me..."

"The Hanged Man. Representing things that are before you; self-surrender to a higher wisdom."

"Higher wisdom?" Pivoting on one heel, she stared at David in astonishment. "So far they've created a major traffic hazard, turned a lion loose downtown, tossed a crustacean into a hostile environment, tied someone up in the middle of the night surrounded by illegal weapons, and jumped off a balcony! That doesn't sound like a higher wisdom to me!"

"The cards aren't the wisdom, they're pointing the way."

"Oh puh-leez."

"Just eat the cereal. We've got a lot to do."

*

David felt that bicycling to work would've been more spiritual, but they ended up taking Cynthia's car. Fortunately, it had a tape deck.

"What's that?"

"It's a tape called Distant Angels; new age instrumental music. According to the box, it's the music of transformation and it's supposed to break through your inner resistance leaving a state of relaxation and attunement."

As the sound of a single flute filled the car, Cynthia's scowl softened. "Very pretty. Very relaxing." She slumped behind the wheel only to jerk erect as a transport nearly ran them off the road. "But do you really think I should be listening to it during morning rush hour?"

There were no surprises waiting for them at the office.

"I'm just glad the Devil was out of the pack," David declared standing a safe distance away as Cynthia unlocked the door. "That would've made life interesting."

*

They ate lunch in a tiny park off Spadina. Except for a small disagreement over the burning of some incense – "And what exactly is oxygen deprivation supposed to symbolize?" – the morning had been an uneventful and unsuccessful attempt to help Cynthia see beyond the obvious.

"All right, look at this deep, rich red. What does this red symbolize to you?"

"It's a colour, David. And I think it's too dark for the hotel."

"Are you doing this on purpose?"

"Doing what?"

A number of other people were also out enjoying the sunshine. Mothers with small children, junior executives with oxford cloth sleeves rolled up, teenagers grouped defensively by the fountain, and the ubiquitous variety of buskers.

David pointed out that the buskers could symbolize artistic freedom, unwilling to be confined by a nine to five world.

"Unable to be confined, you mean." Cynthia winced as a young woman with metres of orange hair delivered an extraordinarily off-key performance of Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi. "I'm not throttling her. That must count for something."

"But why aren't you throttling her? Because her music touched you?"

"Because I don't want to face an assault charge."

David sighed and stood. "Close. But not quite."

Dropping empty juice bottles into the recycling barrels, they started back to the office.

Removing his high crowned hat, one of the buskers balanced carefully on his head and began preforming a complicated juggling act with two discs and a piece of hose tied into a figure eight.

As they passed, Cynthia's cell phone rang, the shrill twitter cutting through the ambient noise.

The busker jerked and one of the discs went flying into traffic.

Closest to the curb, and feeling a bit guilty, Cynthia ran out after it, half her attention on the phone – "Augustine Textiles, Cynthia Augustine speaking." – half on the disc.

David grabbed her shirt and yanked her back just as the Spadina bus roared by in a cloud of blue exhaust. When the smoke cleared, the disc lay in pieces. Checking carefully up the street before he bent forward, David picked up the largest shard. Silently, he held it out to the young busker who sighed and shook his head.

"Man, I was afraid that was going to happen. That's no use to me now, you can keep it if you want it."

"No thanks, I..." Then he took a good look at what he held. As the busker headed off, he waved the shard in Cynthia's face.

"...get back to you tomorrow. That right. Thanks for calling. David, that was a business call and... is that part of a broken pentacle?"

He nodded and pulled the slender book out of his back pocket. "Two of Pentacles. Reversed. Your seventh card representing your fears. Oh gee, big surprise – you're afraid you're having difficulty handling your problems."

"There's no need to be sarcastic."

Ignoring her, he went on. "And it seems like you got a double whammy because they also just reminded you that your fears can kill you."

"I think you're reading too much into it."

"The Ten of Swords. The Final Outcome."

She had a sudden memory of the way the carpet had felt pressed warm and sticky against her cheek. Dry cleaning was not going to be enough. "Okay, okay, you win. What now?"

"I don't know but I'll think of something. There's only two cards to go and they seem to be coming closer together."

"That's not very reassuring."

"I know." David glanced around and suddenly smiled. "I've got it. This is an easy one." Grabbing Cynthia's shoulders he turned her toward the waterfront. "What does the CN Tower symbolize to you?"

She squinted at the familiar landmark and shrugged. "Radio towers?"

"No, that's what it is. Try again."

"Revolving restaurants?"

"Cynthia!"

"I don't know!" Her voice had picked up a slightly desperate tone. "What?"

"It's the world's tallest, freestanding, phallic symbol."

"But they're not shaped anything like that."

David sighed and considered giving up the fight. "Maybe we're going about this the wrong way. Let's go back to work, I'll put on the Benedictine monks and while you try to step beyond reality, I'll try to think up a new angle."

"I think we've been beyond reality since we talked to Madame Zora," Cynthia muttered. The thought of falling swords made the skin between her shoulder blades itch.

*

"I haven't been inside a church for years."

"Nothing does symbolism better." David pushed open the heavy wooden door of St. Michael's Cathedral. "Come on."

"We can't just wander in."

"We're not just wandering. Now, come on."

It was cool and quiet inside the church. Aside from a few elderly women praying in the first couple of rows, they had the place to themselves. In a low voice, David began pointing out the various symbols of his faith.

"I know all this stuff, David. I haven't spent my life in a closet, if you'll pardon the expression."

"You know it here." He touched her forehead then tapped on her sternum. "But not here. You have to believe that some things stand for things that are bigger than they are."

"Would now be a good time to tell you why I stopped going to church?"

They were turning to leave when a figure leaned out of one of the alcoves and beckoned.

Cynthia frowned. "Okay, it was a long time ago and it was a United Church, but isn't that guy just a little overdressed?"

The alcove held a low dais, a throne, and two pillars. A pair of monks in robes embroidered with roses and lilies knelt before the throne. Between them, was a pair of crossed keys. Seated on the throne, was a priest.

"What's with the Carmen Miranda hat?"

"It's not a hat," David hissed looking up from the book. "It's a three tiered crown."

"Don't tell me..."

"It's the Hierophant. Your eighth card. The seeker's environment or the fears of your family and friends."

"If you don't mind, young man," the priest said snippily, "I can speak for myself."

"Sorry."

"I should think so." He cleared his throat. "Your family and friends, my dear, are afraid you're overly concerned with a need to conform. That you are bound too tightly to convention."

Cynthia's lip curled. "First, I'm not your dear. Second, you're wrong. Tell him he's wrong, David."

"Uh..."

"So, who says I have to be wild and crazy?" she snarled. She glared down at the monks. "Do you two have anything to add?"

"No," said the monk on the left.

"We're just here for effect," added the monk on the right.

Absolutely furious, Cynthia stomped out of the church – modifying her step when she heard the slap of her shoes echoing against the stone. When David caught up with her on the sidewalk outside, she whirled around to face him.

"Why me, that's what I want to know? Why put all this effort into changing me? Am I such a horrible person?"

"No. You're not. You're just..." He searched for a polite way to put it. "...a little narrowly focused."

"Is that such a bad thing? I'm not hurting anyone!"

His voice gentled. "Except maybe yourself."

The anger left her as suddenly as it had appeared. She clutched at David's arm. "We haven't much time, have we? One more card and then..."

"We'll beat it, Cyn, you'll see. But maybe you should stay home until you've made a break-through, that way no one can drop swords on you."

"No, but my building will collapse in an unexpected earthquake and I'll be found in the rubble wearing Mr. Garibaldi's collection of medieval weaponry."

"Mr. G. has a collection of swords?"

"Not that I know of now. Anyway, I can't be responsible for that, think of what an earthquake would do to the property values in my neighbourhood." When she caught his expression, she almost grinned. "Kidding." The grin slipped. "Mostly."

They came out onto Yonge Street in the midst of a crowd of street vendors. Forward progress meant carefully picking a path through merchandise stacked precariously on rickety tables and spread out on the sidewalk. Her mind replaying the dream of the swords, over and over, Cynthia moved blindly toward disaster.

Her foot struck something hard and cold. Which struck something else. Which struck something else. Metal rang against concrete.

When she looked down, she realized she'd kicked over three brass goblets, spilling their contents. The vendor, his skinny form wrapped head to toe in a black cloak, stared down at them in despair as other pedestrians stepped fastidiously over the spreading liquid.

"I'm so sorry."

"Accidents happen," he allowed mournfully.

"I'll pay you for what I spilled."

He sighed deeply. "No point. What's done, is done."

Done.

Done.

Done.

Cynthia suddenly needed to out-run the word echoing in her head, suddenly needed to get out of the crowd. David found her two blocks away, leaning up against a store window, staring at but not seeing the display.

"There were two cups still standing," he said.

"Doesn't matter. That was the ninth card."

"How do you know?"

"Oh come on, David. Cups. A guy in a full cloak making enigmatic statements – what else could it be? You might want to stand back; you'll never get blood stains out of that shirt, it's silk."

Flipping through the book, David ignored the suggestion. "Okay, if it was your ninth card, then it represents your hopes and fears."

"I think the fears part is pretty damned obvious!"

"But there were two cups still full! You can break through this Cyn if you just try!"

"I am trying, but face it, it's not working!" Her words had picked up a panicked cadence. "So, something wants to broaden my viewpoint. Suppose I don't want my viewpoint broadened?"

"I don't think you have a choice."

"There's always a choice, David. I can choose to stand here and become some sort of symbolic pincushion!" The look on his face stopped her cold. "All right. No, I can't. But only because it would upset you." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "We're almost out of time. What do we do?"

They were standing in front of a shoe store. David peered through the glass and, unexpectedly, he smiled. "Let's buy you some sandals."

"Sandals?" She blinked. "That's your solution?"

"When I was younger, I took riding lessons. When I started I didn't have the right clothes because, well, they were expensive and I couldn't see how they'd make a difference. When I finally broke down and bought a pair of breeches and some boots, my riding improved. What you're wearing can affect your state of mind. Sandals can be very spiritual. Christ wore sandals. Come on."

Shaking her head, but with no better idea, Cynthia followed him into the store.

The pattern of the carpet looked familiar.

Eyes locked on the loops and swirls, she heard nothing of what either the salesman or David said as they picked and fitted and boxed her cowboy boots. Moving numbly to the counter on the unfamiliar slabs of cork, she pulled out her wallet and muttered, "How much?" A moment later she repeated the question considerably louder.

"Cyn, they're made in Germany..."

"So what! I'm not taking them on the autobahn."

"Think of it as an investment in your state of mind."

She looked down at her toes, pale and naked, and past them to the carpet. "Oh well, I probably won't have to wear them for long." Handing over her gold card, she signed where indicated, picked up the piece of plastic...

...and froze, credit card clutched in one hand.

"Cyn?"

"This isn't money!"

"No, but..."

"But it symbolizes money! In a way, it symbolizes a standard of living I couldn't achieve on cash alone! Do you hear music?" Without waiting for an answer, she whirled around. "Those shoes with the three inch heels, they not only symbolize the patriarchy's effort to keep women helpless, but also women taking charge of and flaunting their own sexuality!"

David felt a little the way Henry Higgins must have when the rain finally fell on Spain.

"And red!" Grabbing his shoulders, she shook him back and forth. "Red symbolizes blood and blood symbolizes sacrifice and sacrifice symbolizes passion so red symbolizes passion!" Releasing him, she spun away, eyes gleaming.

The salesman leaned over the counter. "Is she all right?"

"She's having an epiphany." Trust Cynthia to have an epiphany with a credit card.

"These shoes symbolize a dream of playing like Michael Jordon!"

The salesman frowned. "Is it going to make a mess on the carpet?"

"I don't think so." David smiled so broadly his cheeks hurt. She'd done it, she'd managed to acknowledge a greater reality. There would be no tenth card. No swords. No body. It would be enough to know what the meaning was.

"Symbols, symbols tap into the collective unconscious! All of a sudden, poetry makes sense, although," she added throwing herself back into one of the chairs, "I still don't understand Shirley Maclaine." The chair, made for more sedate landings, tipped backwards. "Oh shit!"

Watching her hit the floor, head down and feet in the air, David had an epiphany of his own. As the chair landed solidly on top of her, he wondered if he should say anything. The Ten of Swords had been reversed. Realistically, there wasn't a lot of difference between being stabbed and being impaled but symbolically...

He checked the new meaning as the salesman – torn between laughter and fear of being sued – helped her up.

The Ten of Swords, reversed. In spiritual matters, the Seeker may now turn to higher powers for help.

He closed the book before Cynthia turned to face him. Higher powers. It was out of his hands. And thank God, ghod, gods, or whoever for that.

Rubbing one buttock, Cynthia limped over to the counter. "I think," she said, enthusiasm muted slightly, "I'll consider that a warning. The spiritual must be balanced with the practical."

Before David could agree, the cell phone rang.

"Augustine Textiles, Cynthia Augustine speaking."

Eyes locked on her face, David searched for an outward manifestation of the inner change. He couldn't see one and, as she frowned, his heart started to pound uncomfortably hard. Perhaps it wasn't over.

"That," Cynthia said as she tucked the phone back in the belt pouch, "was Madame Zora."

David started breathing again. "She wants to congratulate you on reaching enlightenment?"

"Not exactly. She wants her twenty bucks."

Every now and then, the appropriation of voice discussion reoccurs throughout the writing/reading community and we go through the whole males shouldn't write from a female point-of-view, heterosexuals shouldn't write from a homosexual point-of-view, Caucasians shouldn't write from a People of Colour (phrase used as shorthand for the many different non-Caucasian peoples of the world) point-of-view and I'm sure I'm missing a few.

I think people should write from whatever point-of-view is necessary to tell the story, but they should never write mindlessly. If you can't put yourself in your point-of-view character's place, feel what they're feeling and know why they're feeling it, then don't do it. If your young, straight Asian university student is thinking and feeling like an older, gay, Caucasian, part-time bookstore clerk, part-time writer, then you're doing it wrong.

I was living in Toronto's Chinatown when I wrote this and there were some nasty gang wars going on at the time. Not that gang wars are ever anything but nasty. A body was found in the park across from our apartment and a wounded young man who spoke no English – at least to us – collapsed in our stairwell but staggered off before the police arrived. The shooting outside the restaurant was, unfortunately, not stopped by two teenagers and a dragon.

Shing Li-ung

"Donna. Your grandmother has asked to see you."

Incipient panic thrust Donna Chen up out of the chair and nearly pushed her voice over the edge to shrill. "Me?" She waved an agitated arm towards the backyard where her three cousins were playing a subdued game of croquet. "What about them?"

Her Aunt Lily, her mother's younger sister, stepped back out of the family room and shook her head. "You're the oldest. And besides, she asked to see you."

Donna recognized the tone; her mother had one just like it. Ears burning, she stood and headed for the stairs. With her aunt marching close behind, she felt as though she were being escorted to her own execution. There's someone dying in my house. That just doesn't happen in the suburbs.

Just outside the master bedroom, she paused, resisting the pressure of a small hand between her shoulder-blades. "What if she dies while I'm with her?"

"Oh for heaven's sake, Donna, you're almost eighteen; you're not a child. And you'll be in a lot more trouble if she dies before you get there. Now go."

The bedroom had been her parents' until eight months ago when her grandmother had fallen, broken her hip and been unable to live alone any longer. She had been frail then. Now, with eight months of pain behind her and death so near, she looked ethereal, no longer real.

To Donna's surprise, the curtains were open and, instead of the gloom she'd been expecting, the afternoon sun filled the room with golden light. Father Xiangao, the priest from Our Lady of Sorrows, sat to the right of the bed, her mother to the left. She paused just inside the door, but her grandmother saw her and, murmuring something in Mandarin, beckoned her forward. Determined to make the best of a bad situation – given that she had no choice – Donna moved to the end of the bed and paused again, her knees pressed up against the mattress.

"Yes, grandmother?"

The bird-claw hand beckoned her closer still.

Eyes on the neutral landscape of the yellow blanket, its surface barely rippled by the wasted body beneath, Donna shuffled past her mother's knees and jerked to a stop when fingers of skin and bone clutched suddenly at her wrist. Heart in her throat, she somehow managed not to pull away.

"Chun Chun, woh yu ishi don-shi ne shu-ino."

Although her grandmother spoke fluent English, in the last few months she'd reverted solely to the language of her childhood. As Donna spoke no Mandarin, Father Xiangao translated.

"She wants to give you something. She brought it with her from Kweilin. It carries very powerful..." he paused and asked a question before continuing. "It carries very powerful protection."

Donna allowed her hand to be pulled forward and, curious in spite of herself, leaned down for a closer look. Although she didn't understand the words, she understood the tone. Her grandmother considered this to be very, very important.

Three inches long and about one high, a red and gold enamel dragon on cheap tin backing – the kind they sold for less than a dollar at most of the junkier Chinatown stores – lay on Donna's palm, still warm and slightly damp from her grandmother's hand. This was it? Donna turned it over. Meant to be worn as a brooch, the pin had been bent and straightened more than once and rust pitted the clasp that secured it.

"Shing Li-ung."

Startled, Donna glanced over at the priest. Maybe she was missing the point of this.

"That's its name," the priest said softly. "It means Shining Heart."

Donna could feel her mother's presence behind her and knew what was expected. "Thank you, Grandmother." It could have been a lot worse.

The grip the old woman had on her wrist relaxed a little and then surprisingly, convulsively tightened again. Her eyes opened very wide and she appeared to be staring at a patch of sunlight on the ceiling. Then thin lips curved up in a wondering smile and, just for that moment, Donna realized that this woman had once been eighteen too.

She breathed out the name of her husband, long dead, and never breathed in again.

Trying very hard not to freak, Donna pulled her hand out of the circle of slack fingers as Father Xiangao reached over and gently closed the old woman's eyes. The imprint of the death grip clung to her wrist. Frantic scrubbing against her jeans, did nothing to erase the feeling.

Then behind her, over the drone of the priest's prayers, she heard her mother crying. Puzzled, she turned. She had seen her mother cry before, but never like this. Understanding came slowly. The dragon dropped to the blanket, momentarily forgotten, as Donna drew the older woman's head down to her shoulder and held her tightly while she wept. Her own tears were not so much for her grandmother as for the sudden knowledge that someday she would be the daughter who grieved.

*

"So this is the family heirloom, eh?" Bradley grinned down at the dragon and then up at his sister. "Boy are you ever lucky that you're the oldest and it went to you. I mean, this must be worth, oh, seventy-nine cents."

"Very funny."

"Maybe you should rent a safety deposit box. Wouldn't want it to be stolen..." He rubbed a thumb over the enamel. "Hey, it looks kinda sad."

"What are you talking about?" Donna took the dragon pin back and frowned down at it. It did look sad; its eyes were half closed and its great golden moustaches appeared to be drooping around the down-turned corners of its mouth. Its whole posture spoke of melancholy. "Yeah, I suppose it does. Do you miss grandma, Shing Li-ung?"

"Shing Li-ung?" Bradley repeated.

"That's its name."

"Oh great. You've got a piece of junk jewelry with a name." He reached out one finger and stroked the red scaled curve of its tail. "So, grandma didn't mention she had a pair of ancient family chopsticks or anything for me to guard and revere did she?"

"No." Donna sighed. "Just one seventy-nine cent dragon."

"For you."

"I was there."

"Yeah, well, if you don't want old Shing Li-ung, I suppose I'll take it."

She stared at him in surprise. "You'll what?"

"I'll take it." He looked disinterested in his own words – the way only a young man almost seventeen could. "It'll look kinda cool on my jean jacket. Very ethnic. And besides, Chinese dragons are supposed to bring you luck."

"Grandma said it was for protection." And she died giving it to me. Just for an instant, Donna felt the clasp of dead fingers around her wrist. "I think I'll hang onto it." She scooped her canvas shoulder bag up off the floor and forced the pin through the thick fabric. "Besides, I'm the one who's starting university in six days; I'm the one who's going to need the luck."

"Suit yourself," Bradley shrugged, his expression unreadable, and slouched out of the family room.

*

"Shing Li-ung?"

Three inches had become thirty feet; thirty feet of shimmering scarlet and gold in constant flowing motion. Tooth and claw gleamed, strength and power showed in every curve, in every edge, in every point. Its eyes were deep and black and the light from a thousand stars shone in their depths. The air around it smelled strongly of ginger and when she drew it into her lungs, it burned just a little.

It was frightening, but she wasn't frightened – which made perfect sense at the time.

Then it bent its great head and asked her a question.

She spread her hands. "I don't speak Mandarin."

It frowned and asked again.

"If you don't speak English, how about French?" She felt it sigh, the warm wave of its breath rolling over her, sweeping her away until the dragon was no more than a red and gold speck in the distance.

And then she woke up.

The red and gold speck remained and for a moment the dream seemed more real than her bedroom. But only for a moment as normalcy fell quickly back into place. A narrow beam of light from a street-lamp at the curb spilled through a crack in the curtains and across her shoulder bag propped on the top of her dresser. It illuminated the pin, igniting the enamel into a cold fire.

Pretty but hardly mystical, Donna decided, and padded across the room to twitch the curtains closed. With one hand full of fabric, she paused, frowned, and took a closer look at the dragon. Shing Li-ung no longer looked sad.

It looked disgusted.

*

"Hey Bradley, have you seen my bag, I had it when I got home this afternoon but I haven't seen it... oh, there it is." She moved her brother's feet and scooped the bag up off the end of the couch. "What are you watching?"

"Television."

"Very informative." A quick glance at Shing Li-ung showed it still looked disgusted. Its expression hadn't changed in the last four weeks and Donna was beginning to believe she'd imagined the whole thing. Although, considering that it had just spent three hours pointed at prime time programming, it had reason for looking disgusted tonight. "This show any good?"

"It's crap."

"Then why are you watching it?"

"What else am I supposed to do?" Bradley jabbed at the remote. The new program didn't look significantly different; same dizzy blonde, same square-jawed hunk, same disgustingly cute kid.

Donna sighed and sat down on the arm of the couch. Always prickly, since Labour Day Bradley had been developing a noticeable attitude. "Is everything all right at school?"

"Why shouldn't it be?"

"I don't know, you just seem kind of, well, cranky." Not the right word but she couldn't think of a better one.

"Cranky?" He spat it back at her. "Little kids get cranky."

"Look, I just wondered..."

"Well, you can stop. You don't know shit anymore about what's going on with me."

She should have remembered. He'd been impossible when the year between them had left him behind in junior high. God only knew what he'd get into now. And now, he was old enough to get into things that could have serious consequences. She was the oldest. He was, to a certain extent, her responsibility.

"So," she tried again, "how's Craig?"

"How should I know?"

"But he's your best friend."

"Was. I have other friends now."

Great. "Bradley..."

"Kae Bing."

Donna blinked, brought to a full stop. Finally she managed a weak, "What?"

"Kae Bing. It's my name."

"But you hate that name, you never let anyone use it. You told Aunt Lily it sounded like a chicken puking."

"Maybe I changed my mind. Maybe I want to get in touch with my Chinese heritage."

"Bradley... Okay," she raised a hand in surrender, "Kae Bing, that makes as much sense as black guys in the seventies calling themselves Kunta Kinte."

"African-Canadian."

"What?"

"Nobody says black guys anymore. You're the oldest, I thought you would have known that. Everybody has a hyphen now. Oh, pardon me, everybody who isn't white has a hyphen now."

The laugh sounded forced, even to her. "Oh come on, we live in Don Mills, the definitive suburb; you can't get any whiter than that."

He didn't smile. "Looked in a mirror lately, Chun Chun? Well I hate to break this to you, but you aren't white. You're what's known as a visible ethnic minority. And what's really disgusting, you go out of your way to fit the stereotype." He began ticking points off on his fingers, the edge in his voice sharping with every point. "You're quiet, you're polite. I've never seen you lose your temper. You don't smoke, you don't drink, you probably don't even kiss with your mouth open. You're a dutiful daughter, a good student – 'specially in all those subjects us Asians are supposed to be good at like math and physics. You even play ping pong for fucksake."

Donna opened and closed her mouth a few times but all she managed to get out was, "What's wrong with playing ping pong?"

"Not a damn thing. It is the only sport we slants excel at after all." He threw the remote to the floor and flung himself up onto his feet. "Well, you can keep playing by their rules if you want to, Donna..." He weighted the name and threw it at her as he stomped out of the room. "...but I quit."

*

"But Mom, you should have heard him. He was really angry."

"Young men his age are always angry."

"Not like this." Donna paced the length of the kitchen trying to think of some way to make her mother understand. "He wanted me to call him Kae Bing."

"It is his name."

"But he hates it!"

"He's just looking for something to believe in. That's common enough."

"But he's hardly ever home anymore and when he is he spends all his time sulking in front of the television."

"Leave him be, Donna. It's harder for boys."

"What is?"

"Finding out who you are."

"I know who I am."

"You're a girl. And, you're the..."

"...oldest. Yeah, I know."

*

"But Dad, what do you know about these new friends of his?"

"Your brother is almost seventeen years old, Donna. He's capable of choosing his own friends."

She couldn't believe she'd heard correctly. "You wanted to know the family background of every person I ever spoke to."

"You're a girl. Boys need more freedom."

The habit of being a dutiful daughter closed her mouth on the reply she wanted to make, but only just.

"Was that all, honey? I really have to get this report done for tomorrow."

"That's all, Dad. Good night."

If they wouldn't listen, what could she do?

*

It moved like fire and air and water all at once and its beauty brought a lump to her throat. It lowered its head until she could see into the diamond strewn blackness of its eyes and it asked, "What is evil?"

Shing Li'ung seemed to have learned English in the last month. She hoped it hadn't picked up any bad habits from all the television it had been exposed to.

It didn't seem to mind having to wait for an answer.

"Evil is hurting someone else," she told it at last.

"So," golden brows drew down and light glinted off a thousand pointed teeth, "by your definition it is sometimes necessary to do evil."

She had a sudden vision of taking a baseball bat to the side of her brother's head. "To prevent a greater evil, yes."

It cocked its head. "The young live life so simply," it said thoughtfully.

"And the old complicate life with the past."

It laughed then and the sound vibrated through her body, shaking blood and bone and tissue. While not exactly an unpleasant feeling, it wasn't one she was in any hurry to repeat.

"You are worthy," it told her, twisted back on itself and disappeared.

"Well, whoop de do," she muttered, and fell deeper into sleep.

*

Donna had taken the special eight week night course at Victoria College over her parents' objection and would have thrown that small act of defiance in Bradley's face – except she never saw him anymore. She left early every morning for the long transit ride downtown and, as Bradley had no classes until ten, she was gone before he got up. He was never home in the evenings, having suddenly acquired more freedom than she'd ever been allowed.

She'd seen his new friends only once when they'd dropped him off late one Saturday – or early one Sunday – and the noise of their talking and laughing had woken her up. From her window, she'd seen the red glow of a trio of cigarettes and heard how "...they wouldn't be allowed to take over our town. They can just fucking get back on the boats and go back where they came from." She didn't care who "they" were; she wasn't impressed.

"What?" Bradley had demanded the next day when she'd approached him. "You think they're not good enough for me 'cause I don't have an accent? 'Cause they know what it's like to be Chinese? 'Cause they're living with their heritage not hiding and pretending?"

"No one except you cares that you're Chinese!"

"My point exactly," he sneered and flicked the dragon pin with a fingernail. "You think you're so smart..."

"No," she snapped, "but I think Dad's going to kick your butt if he finds out you're smoking. You know how he got about it after Uncle Karl."

Uncle Karl had been a two pack a day smoker and had died at fifty-one, both lungs eaten away by cancer.

The new friends never dropped him off at the house after that, but Donna was sure nothing else had changed. Maybe next year, when he'd pulled even with her again and was at university too, they'd be able to talk. Meanwhile, she could only hope he didn't get into anything he couldn't get out of.

She was thinking of transverse vectors, not her brother, when she came down the steps of Victoria College and realized that, except for her, the night was empty. What had happened to the other thirty-seven students in the class? She'd stayed to ask a couple of questions, but she hadn't stayed that long. Had she? The echo of a stereo drifted down from the student residence to the east but the paths were deserted and dark and the subway a long, lonely distance away.

I'm being ridiculous. She settled her bag more firmly on her shoulder and clamped it securely down with her elbow, the edge of enamelled tin cutting into her upper arm. The soles of her shoes made a soft squelching sound against the mat of fallen leaves that covered the pavement as she started towards Queen's Park Circle and the security of street-lights and traffic. Once I get out onto the street, everything will be...

Will be...

Between her and the street, a shadow moved. It could have been the trees, tossing in the wind.

One foot lifted to step forward, she paused, and turned and started moving quickly along the darker paths that cut between the university buildings. I'm being ridiculous, she told herself again but she couldn't make herself believe it.

"Hey, Chinadoll."

The voice came from behind her, from the way she had so suddenly decided not to go. Her legs moved faster; not running, not yet. The buildings around her were locked and dark. The only safety lay three hundred twisting meters away where the paths came out onto the blaze of light that was University Avenue. Three hundred meters.

She started to run.

A hand grabbed hold of her jacket and jerked back hard. She went down, arms flailing wildly in an effort to keep herself moving forward. Moving away. Moving to safety. Then a larger, heavier body landed on top of her.

"Hey, Chinadoll, I don't want to hurt you. I just want us to have some fun."

The hand he clapped over her mouth when she opened it to scream smelled of deodorant soap and the cuff button of his leather school jacket dug into her cheek. He was blonde. He was clean shaven. He was smiling. His breath smelled like peppermints and beer. He shifted his weight, grinding her head through the pad of dead leaves and into the concrete.

"Now, we can get something going here if you'll just stop..."

She didn't so much stop fighting, as stop moving. In fact, at that moment, she doubted she was capable of movement. Her eyes were open so wide, they hurt.

"Hey! What're you staring at?"

Red and gold it towered up behind his shoulder. Beautiful. Terrible. Impossible.

Real.

Blood splashed against her face as talons dug deep and lifted him skyward. He twisted against their grip for a second, staring down at her in disbelief. Then he screamed.

Donna screamed with him. And when he stopped, she went on screaming.

"ARE YOU HURT?"

The voice rang through her head like a gong, impossible to ignore. "I, I don't think so."

"THEN WHY DO YOU MAKE SUCH A NOISE?"

"I, uh, I..." She got slowly to her feet, head craned back, eyes still open painfully wide. It was like sitting too close to the screen in a movie theatre; too much to take in all at once. The smell of ginger made her want to sneeze. I'm not afraid, she realized. I was, but now I'm not. She took a step back, and then another, and then, in the red/gold light that came off the dragon, caught sight of the broken body crumpled across the path, one massive forefoot still resting negligently across its back. "Oh my God, you killed him!"

"YES."

Her exclamation had been purely instinctive. Shing Li-ung's placid confirmation transferred her growing sense of wonder into outrage. "You can't do that!"

It cocked its head to one side and regarded her with mild curiosity. "WHY NOT? I HAVE PROTECTED YOU AS I PROTECTED YOUR GRANDMOTHER."

"You just can't kill somebody like that!"

It looked down at the body. "YES, I CAN."

"Well," she threw her shoulders back, "if that's the kind of protection you offer, I don't want it."

Great golden brows drew in. "BUT I MUST PROTECT THE HOLDER OF THE TALISMAN."

"Do you have to kill people?"

"I MUST PROTECT YOU."

"But you don't have to kill people!"

The shrug rippled the full thirty foot length of Shing Li-ung's serpentine body. It didn't look convinced. "YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE TALISMAN."

"Then you must obey me?"

"NO. I MUST PROTECT YOU."

"I don't believe this," Donna muttered and brushed her hair back off her face. It came away damp and sticky. Her heart back in her throat, she held it out and in the dragon's light she saw it smeared with blood. "I don't believe this!" But this time she wailed the words as whatever cocooning the dragon's presence had offered peeled away.

An echoing wail came from behind the surrounding buildings, from the street.

The sound brought a new panic.

"The police! Someone called the police."

"YOU WERE MAKING A GREAT DEAL OF NOISE," Shing Li-ung observed.

"But what do I do? He's dead!"

"ARE YOU IN DANGER?"

Her laugh hung on the edge of hysteria. "I am if I stay here. I'll end up in the psycho wards. I didn't kill him, Your Honour, my grandmother's dragon did."

"IF YOU ARE IN DANGER, I MUST PROTECT YOU."

In the next instant, she stood on the front porch of her parent's house in Don Mills, safe in the suburbs, miles away from the savagely murdered body of a young man. And barely a month ago I was freaked by my grandmother dying peacefully in bed...

Her hands shook too violently for her to open the door so she leaned against the bell.

"Keep your pants on, jeez, I'm... Donna?"

"Mom? Dad?"

Bradley dragged her inside and managed to hang onto her as she sagged against him. "Mom's at Aunt Lily's and Dad's working late. Christ, Donna, you're covered in blood!"

"Not mine."

"Not yours?" His voice which hadn't cracked in years shifted an octave on the second word. He lowered her onto a chair and gripped her shoulders so tightly she squeaked in pain. "What happened to you!?"

"What happened to me?" Donna shrugged his hands away and dragged the canvas bag down onto her lap, turning the dragon pin into the light. The tiny golden claws were tipped with red. "What happened to me?" she repeated, just barely holding on to coherency. "Oh, nothing much happened to me."

*

"...and then I was home."

Bradley sighed, a long exhalation that released all the interruptions he'd wanted to make but hadn't throughout her story. She wouldn't let him touch the dragon so he sat and stared at it as she turned it over and over between fingers puckered by almost thirty minutes in the shower.

She looked up at the sound and waited for him to speak, wondering what he was thinking. Would he think she'd gone crazy? Had she? But he didn't speak and she couldn't read his expression. The silence lengthened until she broke under the weight of it. "Well?"

"I need a smoke."

"No, you don't!" The response was automatic older sister and it snapped her past some of what she supposed had to be shock. She sighed in turn and felt the knot in her stomach begin to ease with the wavering breath. "Bradley, please..."

He spread his hands. "I want to believe you," he said simply.

And he did. Donna recognized his expression now. Hope. A desperate hope. She thought she'd done all the crying she could in the shower. She was wrong.

"Jeez, Donna, don't. I mean, you're all right, right? Like that guy didn't hurt you and you're okay. You said, Shing Li-ung came in time. I mean, jeez, please Donna, stop crying."

Because it was upsetting him, she tried. It took a few minutes. "Why don't you believe me?" she asked when she finally regained control.

He shrugged, watching her nervously in case she should break down again. "Well, I mean... a dragon?"

She rubbed her nose on the fuzzy purple sleeve of her old bathrobe. "You're the one who's always going on about Chinese heritage. Dragons are a part of that."

"Yes..." He turned that over, accepted it.

"And you know I never lie. Not even when it would keep me out of trouble. Even when it would keep us out of trouble. You always said it was one of my most annoying habits. If I never lied before, why now? And why about something so... so extreme."

"Why indeed?" His sudden smile illuminated the room. "Donna, this is awesome. A dragon, a real dragon."

"No, Bradley..."

"Kae Bing. And what do you mean, no?"

"It isn't awesome, at least not like you mean. That boy is dead."

"So?"

"Dead!" she repeated. "And Shing Li-ung killed him."

"He deserved to die."

"It's not that simple," she began but she saw suddenly for Bradley, for Kae Bing, it was that simple. "Look, you can't just go around saying that some people deserve to die."

"Can't I?" He jerked to his feet, hands balled into fists. "Well, maybe Saint Donna can't, but I can. Get some sleep and forget about that round-eye punk, he got what he deserved." Half out of the room, he paused and looked back. "Oh, and I wouldn't tell Mom or Dad about this. They wouldn't understand."

Then, to Donna's surprise, he bowed to the bit of enamelled tin she still held in her hand.

*

The boy's name had been Alan Ford and all three city papers had a full report of his death. The tabloid even had colour pictures. Not one of the papers mentioned a thirty foot long, scarlet and gold Chinese dragon although all of them mentioned multiple knife wounds.

To her parents' relief, Donna dropped out of the night school course and unless she had a crowd of friends around her, she stayed off the paths in the daytime as well. But even crowds couldn't stop her reaction to blond hair and leather university jackets.

Shing Li'ung stayed at home on her dresser, watching its own reflection in the mirror. Donna had no intention of being responsible for releasing the dragon again.

*

"I MUST PROTECT YOU."

"No!"

"WHY DO YOU FEAR ME?"

"Because you burn too brightly."

"I MUST PROTECT YOU."

"Get out of my dreams!"

*

"Mr. Chen?"

"Yes, I'm David Chen. What is it Officer?"

"Are you the father of Bradley Chen?"

Donna came out of the family room, one finger holding her place in a physics text, heart beating so loudly she was certain the two police constables at the front door must be able to hear it.

"I'm Bradley's father, yes."

"Your son has been injured, Mr. Chen."

"Injured? Bradley? How?"

Standing just behind her father's shoulder, Donna saw the look they exchanged. How much do we tell him?

"There was a gang fight in the Dragon Mall, on Spadina."

"And Bradley got caught in it?"

No, Dad...

"No, Mr. Chen. Your son was part of a Chinese gang attempting to force a Vietnamese gang off their turf."

"That's impossible!" She could feel the indignation coming off her father in waves. "My son would never get involved in something like that."

"There's no doubt about his involvement, Mr. Chen."

"Well, you're wrong!"

No, Dad...

"We're sorry, Mr. Chen, but..."

"You said he's injured, where is he?"

"He's been taken to Wellesley Hospital."

"Well, I'll go to him. I'll talk to him. You'll see. He wasn't involved in this. You're wrong."

Again, Donna saw the silent exchange between the two constables.

"Dad, I'm going with you." She knew without looking that the dragon pin would be missing from her dresser.

*

Bradley had remained quiet and unresponsive throughout their father's questioning. He had admitted being part of the gang, his lower lip thrust out in what looked to Donna like a defiant pout, but he had refused to co-operate any further. Finally, the police took their father aside for a private discussion and Donna was left alone with her brother.

He'd had a hundred and thirty-seven stitches, mostly in his right arm and side. She thought the bandages and the tubes made him look ridiculously young and she couldn't think of what to say.

Bradley finally broke the silence.

"It's in the drawer."

She pulled the pin out of the jumble of personal effects – the contents of his pockets, his watch, an earring... when had he gotten his ear pierced? – and brought it back to the bed.

"You really sucked me in." His voice had the rough rasp of unshed tears behind it.

"What?"

"I believed you. Believed your stupid story about the dragon. There isn't any dragon. There never was."

Donna closed her fingers so tightly around Shing Li-ung the edges cut into her palm. Anger she could have dealt with, but not this black despair.

"Oh, stop crying. I've learned my lesson."

"Good." Donna drew in a long shuddering breath and swiped at her cheeks with her empty hand. "So you'll come home and stop seeing these people and stop this gang stuff. Bradley, I..."

"Kae Bing!" He spat the name at her. Now, the anger showed. "Shall I tell you what I've learned. I've learned that if we're going to make a place for our people in this country, and hold it, we're going to have to do it one drop of blood at a time." He couldn't move his right arm but his left came up off the bed and his fist punched the air. "If they use knives, we'll use knives. If they use guns, we'll use guns."

"You sound like a bad remake of West Side Story." She couldn't believe she was hearing this. "You haven't learned anything."

"I learned the lesson your dragon taught me; we can't count on outside help. We have to do this ourselves." He turned his head on the pillow. "Now get that piece of junk jewellery out of my room. I'm tired."

"Bradley... I mean, Kae Bing, I want to help..."

The glimmer of silver between his lids was her only answer. She watched one lone tear roll onto his pillow then, slipping the pin in her bag, she left the room. She didn't know what else to do.

*

"Why didn't you protect him?"

"I WAS NOT GIVEN TO HIM."

"But you were with him! And he only acted so foolishly because he thought you'd protect him."

Shing Li'ung looked somewhat taken aback. "YOU DO NOT KNOW THAT."

"I do know that. You inspired his recklessness."

"I DID NOT."

"You did."

"DID NOT."

"Did. And now because you didn't show up, he's convinced that the gang answer is the right answer."

"THE YOUNG CAN CONVINCE THEMSELVES OF ANYTHING."

"Well, you should have protected him against that too!"

"THERE IS NO PROTECTION AGAINST YOUTH SAVE TIME. AND BESIDES, I WAS NOT GIVEN TO HIM. I MUST PROTECT THE ONE I HAVE BEEN GIVEN TO." It snorted and the smell of ginger became almost overpowering. "IF THAT ONE IS WORTHY."

"Oh that's it. You didn't find my brother worthy so you let him almost die?"

"IT DID NOT COME TO THAT. I MUST FIRST BE GIVEN." Obviously considering that to be the final word on the matter, it twisted back on itself and disappeared.

"Come back here! This is my dream and I'll tell you when you can leave! Shing Li-ung! Shing Li-ung!"

Her anger almost woke her but she fought her way deeper into sleep, searching for the dragon, chasing a gleam of scarlet and gold.

*

Winter broke before Bradley left the hospital and Donna suspected the weather, not his injuries or the terms of his probation, kept him home. He spent long hours on the telephone, talking, she was sure, with his friends from downtown, keeping the anger alive. It didn't help that most of the kids at school considered him some kind of hero.

Donna tried to understand what he was angry about, but it seemed directed at being Chinese – not because he didn't want to be, but because he did. Her own anger she reserved for her family, who seemed to think that by ignoring the problem, it'd go away.

She buried Shing Li-ung in her underwear drawer.

In March, when the snow stopped and the air began to warm, the patterns of the previous autumn reappeared.

*

"Say, Donna, isn't that your brother?"

If it was, he'd skipped his afternoon classes again. "Where?"

"On the corner, with those other two guys. I didn't know he smoked."

"He doesn't."

"He is."

The other two guys were all angles and edges with slicked back hair and muscles pulled tight over bone. Inside their expensive clothes and heavy jewelry, they moved with the boneless grace of alley cats anticipating a fight. What bothered Donna the most was not how different Bradley looked, but how much the same.

"I better go over and talk to him."

"He doesn't look like he wants to be bothered."

"Tough." But by the time she got across the street, they'd already begun to move and she had to hurry to catch up.

"...be there tonight."

"I'll be there." Bradley tossed his cigarette in the gutter. "Jade Garden Night Club Restaurant. One-thirty in the am."

"Why don't you just tell the world?" hissed the taller of his companions.

Bradley's laugh scraped at the hair on the back of Donna's neck. "We'll have the guns," he pointed out. "Who's going to stop us?"

That's my cue, Donna thought, feet suddenly rooted to the sidewalk as the trio pulled ahead and turned the corner onto Beverly without ever seeing her. Jade Garden Night Club Restaurant. One-thirty am. We'll have the guns.

I could tell the police; if nothing else, Bradley's breaking probation. Except that he was her brother and, as much as it was the sensible, right thing to do, she couldn't do it.

I could tell Mom and Dad, and they'd say boys will be boys and insist he's given up all that gang nonsense, that he swears he's given it up. " It would never occur to them that someone who gets into knife fights in shopping malls could be lying."

"What?"

"Nothing..." She flushed and started walking, ignoring the worried looks shot her way by the two elderly women who'd heard her talking to herself. Their parents expected both her and Bradley to fit neatly into the lives they'd devised for them. That she did made it even harder on Bradley who didn't. The incident last fall had shaken their belief in the system only for a moment.

So. It looks like it's up to me. She fought with a sudden irrational desire to rip open her jacket and yell, "This is a job for, Shing Li-ung!"

If the dragon deigned to make an appearance. It had already refused to rescue her brother once.

*

And what are you going to do if Shing Li-ung doesn't show? Donna asked herself later that night, emotions trembling on the edge of hysteria. Stick the bad guys with the rusty pin and hope they get tetanus? She'd told her parents she had to go back downtown to use the library. It was the first time she'd been out after dark on her own since...

A tall young man across the subway gave her a speculative look. Donna jerked her head away and stared fixedly at her reflection. Don't try anything, buddy. I've got a dragon in my pocket.

She stayed at the library until it closed at eleven and then closed down the coffee shop across the street at twelve. The Jade Garden Night Club Restaurant was on Baldwin between Beverly and McCall, right in the heart of Chinatown. The library – and the coffee shop – was only five blocks north – five short blocks – so she arrived just before twelve thirty, the dragon clutched in a sweaty hand, heart leaping into her throat at any and every noise.

The restaurant was locked although she could see people moving around inside, lifting chairs onto tables, sweeping the floor.

Am I too late? Has it happened?

Moving slowly and carefully, trying to see everything at once, she backed to the edge of the sidewalk. The health food store across the road had large empty plywood bins out front, a perfect hiding place if she wanted to watch and wait for Bradley then... then... then what? She still didn't know.

This is ridiculous. I should have told someone. I don't know what I'm doing here.

But she went and hid in the bin anyway, crawling through the open back, trying to ignore the rotting bits of vegetable on the pavement. She was the oldest. Bradley was her responsibility. Just for an instant, she envied him his ability, or at least his attempt, to break free of the conditioning they'd faced all their lives. But if I break free, little brother, where does that leave you?

The car pulled up at twelve fifty, when only one light remained on in the restaurant and most of the staff had left. It cruised by not two feet from where Donna knelt, turned into the alley beside the store, and cut the engine.

No.

It hadn't happened.

This was it.

The silence thickened until it lay over the street like a fog, enclosing it, isolating it. The steady traffic on Beverly, only two short blocks to the west, sounded muffled and distant. She wouldn't have heard the car doors or the approaching footsteps had she not been listening so desperately for them.

"He's still inside. That's his car down the street."

They were leaning on the outside of her bin. Donna peered through the crack where moisture had warped the boards apart. Her brother looked like a stranger, all angles and edges.

"Remember, full automatic. Don't worry about accuracy. We've got to do them and get out of here."

"Them?" She could see the curve of a black tube cradled in Bradley's arms. It took her a moment to realize it was part of a gun. She'd never seen a gun before. "What do you mean them? I thought we were after Bui? We take out the leader of the most powerful Vietnamese gang and the gang falls apart. I mean, that was the plan."

"Hey, Kae Bing, chill out. Bui owns this place and the guy who manages it for him is in gang business up to his balls. He launders the gambling money, stores the dope, pimps for the whores. We do him too."

"Besides..." The second of Bradley's companions took a long pull on his cigarette. "...they'll come out together. It's all or nothing."

Nothing, Donna prayed. Please God, nothing. Her brother's jacket brushed up against the bin. She could slip the dragon pin through the space between the boards and drop it into his pocket. Give him the dragon. There was nothing she could do about the two men in the restaurant, but at least Bradley would be safe.

"What's taking them so long?"

"You scared, Kae Bing?"

"Fuck you."

He was scared. She could hear it in the bravado. Holding Shing Li-ung by the very end of its tail, Donna pushed the other end at the crack. There was just barely enough room – if only there'd be enough time. Then the clasp caught on a sliver of wood and jerked the dragon out of her grip. It twisted back on itself, hit her shoulder, her knee, and rang against the pavement under the bin.

"Hey, what was that?"

She froze, too frightened even to blink.

"What was what?"

"I heard something under here." Bradley slapped his palm down and the wood over Donna's head boomed.

"Probably a rat. Or a cat, or something."

"Well, I'm going to look."

"No time. Here they come."

It suddenly didn't matter if they heard her. She pressed her face up to the boards as the door to the restaurant opened and three people came out onto the step.

"Hey wait!" She saw Bradley's arm go out, stopping the surge forward. "There's a waitress with them."

"So?" They shook free of his restraint. "Come on. We've got to do them before they reach the bottom of the stairs."

"You can't shoot her!"

"Wanna bet?"

Donna, eye tight against the hole, saw her brother break into a run towards the three figures on the steps and knew without a doubt what he was going to do. Desperately, she scraped the pavement with her fingers, searching for the dragon.

He'd gone four steps when she found it.

Six when she threw herself out of the bin.

Seven and the guns came up.

Eight, he grabbed the terrified woman by the arm.

Nine, he threw her out of the way.

On ten, they opened fire.

"No!" Donna's scream got lost in other screams, in the spitting roar of the pair of submachine guns, in lead impacting with flesh. She didn't feel the pavement rip through her jeans and into both her knees as she flung herself down by Bradley's side. Two crimson rosettes blossomed and spread across his chest and a line of them stitched colour down his leg.

But he was breathing. And conscious.

"Donna?"

"Shut up!" She snatched his hand up off of the ground, forced the bent fingers straight, and pressed Shing Li-ung into his palm. "Here, this is yours now, I'm giving it to you."

He blinked. Tried to focus on his hand. Couldn't do it. "Wha...?"

"Fucking stupid, Kae Bing."

And the world came back.

"You just signed your death warrant, you know." The quiet conversational tone was infinitely more terrifying than an attempt to terrify would have been. "You and your girlfriend."

"My... sis... ter."

"Rough luck for your folks," said one, shaking his head.

"Say good-bye," said the other.

The guns came up. Donna saw fingers tighten on the triggers and afterwards, although she knew it was impossible, she swore she saw the first bullets emerge.

Then the street between them became filled with thirty feet of scarlet and gold dragon.

"Ho... ly... fuck."

Shing Li-ung bent its massive head down until its golden moustaches brushed the pavement and just for an instant Donna saw her brother reflected in the starlit depths of its eyes. "YOU RISKED YOUR OWN LIFE FOR ANOTHER," it observed. "YOU ARE WORTHY."

"Awe... some."

The dragon smiled. "YES."

Then it turned and faced the gunmen.

Donna closed her eyes. The wail of a police siren snapped them open again. She should have realized. Fifty-two division was barely four blocks away. They must have heard the shots.

"Shing Li-ung! Look out..."

Then she was looking through red and gold after-images at a police car and an empty street. Two submachine guns lay by the opposite curb and a rain of bullets dropped harmlessly to the pavement between. An Asian police constable stood half out of the car, staring wide-eyed at the space Shing Li'ung had filled, murmuring Tien Lung over and over.

"Jesus H. Christ!" His partner obviously saw only the bodies and the blood.

The next little while became a kaleidoscope of flashing lights, loud voices, and the lingering scent of ginger. Gently, but firmly, the ambulance attendants moved Donna away from her brother and she found herself standing beside the young woman whose life he'd saved.

Cold fingers clutched at her arm. "The dragon can't let him die."

"It doesn't work like that."

"Then tell me his name, I'll pray to the Buddha for him."

Donna closed her hand around the enamelled pin that had slid to the pavement when her brother had lost consciousness. The curved loop of Shing Li-ung's tail cut into her palm. It took a moment for her to find her voice. "His name," she said, swallowing tears, "is Kae Bing."

*

The graveyard was still and quiet, the only sound a cicada high in one of the surrounding trees. Donna laid Shing Li-ung down on top of the tombstone and dug a stick of incense out of her purse, her hand a little unsteady as she bent and pushed one end into the grass.

She stepped to one side as Kae Bing knelt and pulled out a disposable lighter.

"Not very traditional," he muttered, "but it'll have to do."

Donna slipped a hand under his elbow to steady him as he stood. Over a month in hospital had left him weak and pale, tiring easily still in pain, but alive. His trial was scheduled for October 6th, over thirteen weeks away, but everyone concerned seemed to think his dramatic change of heart combined with a willingness to co-operate would keep him out of prison.

No one mentioned the dragon.

The bodies of two gunmen still hadn't been found.

"Are you sure this is going to work?"

"Look..." Donna sighed and pushed her hair back off her face. "...we agreed that Shing Li-ung is too much for one person to handle."

Kae Bing patted the warm marble of the tombstone, brows drawn down. "Grandma managed."

"Grandma knew who she was. She had centuries of history behind her. What do we have? We're not white, we're not Chinese..."

"But we have a dragon." Shaking off the melancholy, her brother grinned. "Let's get on with it."

They each gripped one corner of the dragon pin between thumb and forefinger and held it over the rising column of blue-grey smoke.

"If this doesn't work, we're going to feel like idiots," Kae Bing pointed out, nervously licking his lips.

"If this doesn't work," Donna reminded him, squinting through the smoke, "we've got something much bigger to worry about."

"Yeah. About thirty feet bigger." His brows dipped down again. "I wonder where it came from."

"Maybe, it came from where we're sending it."

He blinked and shook his head. "Deep Donna. Very deep. So let's do it on three..."

Their unison sound a little ragged and, over her brother's deeper, measured tones, Donna could hear her voice shaking.

"We give Shing Li-ung, Shining Heart, to the spirit of Chinese-Canadians so that spirit might be protected."

They'd argued for weeks about the wording.

The colours of the pin began to move; to throb to the beating of a pair of hearts; to swirl about in a pattern too complicated to understand.

Then all they held was memory as the smoke from the incense rose over their heads and disappeared.

Kae Bing swallowed audibly. "Holy shit. It worked."

"Yeah." Donna stared down at her fingertips then slowly raised them to brush at the tears trickling down her cheeks. She didn't know why she was crying. It wasn't as though they'd actually given the dragon away.

"Uh, Donna? We forgot, I mean, how are we going to know if it considers them... us... worthy?"

*

"Mommy! Look at the kite! Look at the dragon kite."

A number of people at the Annual Chinese Heritage Festival squinted skyward, heads turned by the piping cry of the child. High overhead, far above the other kites, a scarlet and gold celestial dragon gleamed iridescent in the sunlight and danced with the wind. It swept over the crowd, then rose on a hundred breaths exhaled in wonder.

Donna, her fingers white around the frame of the kite she carried, felt as though her ribs were suddenly too small to contain her heart. Faces all around her seemed lit from within. Even her parents, pulled protesting out of the suburbs by the determination of both their children, watched the dragon with a new awareness shining from their eyes. Kae Bing lifted one hand to the sky in salute.

She bit her lip, afraid she might cry out. So, Shing Li-ung, she gave the thought to the wind. Does this mean we're worthy?

From deep within, and from high above, and from all the people around came the answer.

"DID YOU EVER DOUBT IT?"

Not surprisingly, this story was for an anthology called Elf Fantastic. There were a lot of fantastic anthologies going around for a while; so many my agent once suggested there needed to be a Fantastic Fantastic, an anthology about fantasy household cleansers. Unfortunately, that never ended up going anywhere. Can't understand why...

With the deadline for Elf Fantastic breathing down my neck and no story idea presenting itself, I spent a lot of time watching the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. In that particular Olympics – for the young and the non-sports minded – the big story was about NBA players being allowed to compete for the first time and how that would change the game. At the same time, there was a Sprite commercial in heavy rotation about how basketball players were "...tall, really tall." Hmm, I thought, elves are tall.  Then I wrote this story in an afternoon in the white hot heat of inspiration. Which, I assure you, is not how I usually write.

A few of the things reported in this story actually happened, but you'll have to decide which things for yourself. Character names not taken from Shakespeare are the names of actors who were his contemporaries.

“A Midsummer Night's Dream Team” may be my favorite short story title ever. I sincerely doubt I'll ever come up with one as perfect on so many levels. I love this title more than pie! Heck, I love this title more than Dean Winchester.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Team

Long years ago, when lesser were the shadow veils

That hang 'tween this world

And the courts of proud Oberon,

Who rules the spirits with fair Titania by his side,

Men oft times saw the elven folk.

Saw them in the waters,

And riding beasts of bone or horned head,

Saw them duel each other and more than saw;

Battles there were in those days, great battles.

Blood did spill red and hot upon the ground

As immortal warriors challenged mortals of renown.

But Gentles, times do change,

Though slow within the Faerie court,

And battles now must be a different sort.

*

"One hundred and ninety-seven countries, ten thousand, seven hundred athletes; we've been at this for two hours and we're only at Belize!" Sam Gilburne squinted through the viewfinder on her camera, saw that the entrance to the stadium was still perfectly framed and leaned back. "We're going to be here for-fucking-ever." The camera went live as the director cut to her wide shot, but the red light blinked off again almost immediately when they went in for a close up on one of a multitude of mobile units. "Mobile. Yeah, right. If you're a steroid carrying member of the weight lifting team." Fixed positions might be boring – all right, fixed positions were inevitably boring – but boredom never produced a hernia.

She checked her shot again, made a miniscule adjustment in focus just for something to do, and wiped at the sweat dribbling down her neck. Years of practise blocked out the steady chatter in her headphones; when they wanted her, she'd hear them.

A number of the European countries were using computer controlled units in their fixed positions, but the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, while as fascinated by high tech as anyone in the industry, recognized two very important things. The first; even the best computer couldn't respond to the unexpected the way a trained operator could. And the second; since, this time, they had lots of room on the trucks, people were cheaper.

Although she swore to deny it later if anyone asked, Sam found herself caught up in the excitement as the Canadian team entered.

"Camera one, when they all get down into the bowl of the stadium, I want you to give me a long, sweeping shot. Start at the flag and move back. I want to see happy faces."

"I thought three was doing the happy faces."

"Just give me the shot, Sam."

As the last of the Canadian team stepped off the ramp, Sam unlocked her camera.

"Just keep it moving. Ready one..."

By the time she got to the end of the team, she'd grown heartily sick of all that smiling. There were those around the CBC, those who'd worked with her for almost twenty years, who believed Sam herself never smiled. That wasn't entirely true, although it was highly possible that they'd never seen her actually do it.

When she finally managed to re-frame her establishing shot, the Ethiopian team had almost reached the bottom of the ramp. Behind them, heat shimmered up off the concrete.

Shimmered in the gap between Ethiopia and Fiji.

"Camera one, what are you doing?"

"There's something wrong with my focus."

"There's nothing wrong with your focus, lock it and leave it."

Sam locked the camera in place and squinted around it toward the stadium entrance. Ethiopia. One of the irritatingly frequent empty spaces. Fiji.

She took another look through the viewfinder.

The heat shimmer maintained a careful distance behind the Ethiopian team. Within it, under a gossamer flag, shapes with flowing edges took form for a heartbeat then faded, replaced by others, who were replaced by others in their turn. Some bordered on the grotesque. Some on the beautiful. But they were all tall.

Real tall.

*

"Swimming?" Sam glared up at the assignment board. "Why swimming?"

One of the technical directors handed her a cardboard cup of coffee. "Why not swimming?"

"Chlorine makes me itch."

"You're not going to be in the pool, Sam." He nodded at the board. "You're up by the booth."

"Great. Announcers make me itch."

*

"Camera one, what are you doing?"

Sam frowned and flipped her microphone back around in front of her mouth. "I'm establishing the venue. What does it look like I'm doing?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't have asked. I want the pool framed, one. You've got way too much deck at the bottom of the shot. There's only eight lanes."

In the ninth lane, naked women, with flowing hair the colour of a sun-lit sea, swam lazy circles and waited.

Many of the men, irrespective of country, swam a personal best that day. Personally, Sam was amazed that none of them drowned.

*

"Horse Park?" When she got an affirmative, Sam climbed onto the bus and collapsed into the first empty seat. Because daily temperatures were expected to climb into and then out of the thirties, Equestrian events started at seven AM. In order to have everything ready in time, crews were pulled out of bed at five. Sam didn't do so well at five. "What the hell is a three day event," she muttered darkly.

Her seat mate stared at her in astonishment. "You don't know horses?"

"Not biblically, no. I'm just filling in for Burbage; he's down with heat exhaustion. Don't look so worried, I can fake it if I have to."

She didn't have to fake it; she had to remember not to follow the horned horses, the skeletal horses, or the horses who left flaming hoof prints on the course.

"Do you hear dogs baying?" one of the Irish sound techs asked, fiddling with the bass gain.

"I don't think they're dogs," Sam said.

*

"So, how'd your day at fencing go, Sam?"

Sam shook her head as she swallowed a mouthful of beer. "Can't say as I'm surprised we only had one camera there. It's either so complicated it's beyond me or it's just plain old fucking dull."

One of the gaffers laughed. "Got that in one."

"What do you think it needs to jazz it up, Sam?"

"How about two guys, six-and-a-half, seven feet tall, with hair down to their butts, wearing thigh-high boots, skin-tight pants, no shirts, and one hell of a lot of jewelry, hacking at each other with great bloody swords until one of them falls to his knees and begs for mercy."

The din in the bar dropped by about two decibels as everyone in earshot fell into a thoughtful silence.

"I'd watch that," a video editor muttered at last.

Sam finished her beer. "Damn right."

*

On the second last day of the games, the crowd around the assignment board seemed more animated than usual. As Sam approached, one of the younger cameramen exploded out of the group and grabbed her arm. "We've got the two CBC spots at the basketball finals, Sam! You and me! Gold medal round! Do you know what that means?"

"It's almost over?"

"It's the US against Yugoslavia! It's the game to see! You'll be able to tell everyone back home you were there!" He paused, actually focused on her, and released her arm. "Okay, maybe not."

"You're John Lowin, right?"

"The very lucky John Lowin, that's me. I don't believe I'm going to be shooting this game!"

Sam studied his face for a moment, wondered how much of these Olympics he'd been aware of, and had no chance to ask as the rest of the team descended.

Assignments were non-negotiable. Those were the rules. In spite of the rules, Sam could've retired on what she was offered for her spot. Another time, other games, she might've been tempted.

"You've been at this a long time, haven't you?" John asked as they started their equipment check.

"Long enough," Sam agreed.

"I bet you've seen pretty much everything."

"I used to think so."

*

Tucked into the bottom third of an enormous stadium packed with over 35,000 screaming fans, the game turned out to be unexpectedly exciting basketball. The Yugoslavian team stubbornly refused to fold and stayed to within two points until the US centre finally kicked it into high gear in the last thirteen minutes.

Not all the sweat dripping off the US team had to do with exertion. Losing would be an embarrassment none of them would ever live down. In the end, they managed to fulfill expectations – if not as easily as they'd all believed they would.

"Camera one, what are you doing?"

Sam zoomed back until she had the whole court in focus. "Waiting."

"For what?"

"Something's going to happen." All the hair on the back of her neck was standing on end. The static electricity was so high she wouldn't have been surprised to see lightning jump from rafter to rafter, run down the bleachers, off the backboard, and hit nothing but net.

"It's already happened, one. Get in close and let's get some shots of those idiots sniffing the sho..."

Then another team appeared at center court.

Their bodies were too perfectly in proportion, their movements too sensuous, their faces too eerily similar for them to be human. And, if all that wasn't proof enough, beneath meters of multicoloured hair clubbed back with gold and silver bands, their ears came to graceful and prominent points.

The audience, the players, the officials, who had all one short moment before been hooting and hollering and just generally carrying on, stared in silence. Even Sam, who'd expected an appearance of some kind, found herself at a loss for words.

"What are you guys, Vulcans?" one of the US players demanded at last.

"This isn't some freakin' Star Trek episode," the man beside him added.

And pandemonium broke loose as people discovered they couldn't leave their seats.

"I find it absolutely appalling how no one seems to get a classical education anymore."

Sam, not at all surprised that her headphones were dead, turned to see a curly haired young man dressed all in brown – shorts, t-shirt, running shoes – perched on the light standard beside her.

He grinned and leapt down. "Robin Goodfellow. And you must be Sam, no one calls you Samantha, Gilburne. How've you been enjoying the games?"

"They've been... interesting."

"Haven't they just."

"My gentle Puck! Come hither!"

Sighing, he turned to go. "Our Faerie captain calls and when fell Oberon doth summon, I must move my butt." He tossed a grin back over his shoulder. "I'll be back."

Oberon wore a gold circlet around silver hair and a golden "C" on the shoulder of his leaf green jersey. His voice carried. "This fool pretends to understand me not." A long, pale finger poked a trembling games official in the chest. "Explain, good Puck, the terms on which we play."

Sam couldn't hear the explanation, but it involved a great deal of arm waving, consulting of clipboards, and ended with the young man in brown turning the official to face a glowering Oberon.

The crack of thunder shut everyone up again. Hysterics screeched to a halt all over the stadium. As the official was carried off the court, Puck turned to face the US bench. "My lord challenges those proven best in the world to play for the gold. What say you?"

Arms folded and eyes narrowed to disapproving slits, the coach shook his head. "I say that you can all just go back where you came from. My boys don't have to prove anything."

Puck favoured him with an extraordinarily rude gesture. "Who asked you?" All at once, the stadium lights seemed to shine brighter over and around the twelve members of the US team. "I was talking to them."

The team milled about for a moment as a single unit then spit out a spokesman.

"He's challenging us?"

Oberon answered for himself. "I am."

"Then we say, let's play ball!"

"They might as well play," Puck said a moment later, back by Sam's side. "He wasn't going to let anyone leave until he got his game. Me, I blame television."

"For what?" The two men – well, two males, Sam amended – stood eye to eye at centre court.

"The shorter attention span of children, the sudden popularity of orange bathing suits, the inexplicable interest in Snack Masters..."

Oberon won the jump off.

"You watch our television?"

"Sure. Everything but Fox scries in beautifully."

"What about the CBC?"

Puck shrugged. "It comes in, but no one watches it. All this started when His Majesty discovered the symbolic warfare channel."

One of the elves took a three point shot. It hit the rim, rolled, and dropped through.

3 - 0, Faerie.

"Discovered the what?"

"Oh, sorry. Sports. This, specifically..." He waved a hand at the action on the court. "...I blame myself for. His Majesty asked if I thought he should take up the game. I said, why not. You're tall. You're arrogant. The rest, as they say, is mythology."

3 - 4, USA.

Oberon went down with an elbow in the throat and made both foul shots.

5 - 4, Faerie.

Thirty-one seconds later, it happened again.

7 - 6, Faerie.

"That's a man who likes to live dangerously," Puck observed with glee. "Oberon is not going to take kindly to a third foul."

Twelve seconds later, a terrified rooster raced under the USA bench.

After that, the game settled down. Sam, who'd never much cared for basketball and had not been thrilled at the prospect of having to watch a second competition, found herself enjoying the show. The elves made no sound as they ran, their feet only barely touched the floor, and more than one US player lost the ball when he turned suddenly and came face to face with an unexpected feral grin.

Sam had a strong suspicion that no one on the court was named Mustard Seed.

38 - 35, Faerie at half time.

Early in the second half, an elf took a rebound and immediately stepped to the other end of the court. During the time-out, the officials huddled by the scorekeeper and after a moment declared seven league boots to be illegal. The US made both their shots.

38 - 37, Faerie.

Finally realizing that the opposition wasn't going to give them this game either, the US team started to play basketball the way only they could, matching Faerie's ruthless calm with a near telepathic sense of precision teamwork.

65 - 68, USA with three minutes to go.

"Up and down! Up and down!" Puck screamed balancing on the back of two chairs. "You've got to chase them up and down! This is no time to play defensively!"

He wasn't the only one rooting for the elves, Sam noticed. The Yugoslavian team and their fans seemed solidly on Oberon's side – considering how close they'd come only to lose to a stacked deck, she couldn't blame them.

Impossibly graceful, eyes glittering with an emerald light, Oberon swept past the US defence and took a shot from just outside the line.

Tie game.

Twelve seconds to play.

"What happens if he loses?" Sam wondered.

Puck shrugged. "Ass-heads all around, I'm afraid. He doesn't like losing."

The US got the ball on the turnover. At the elven net, a guard with raven hair and ice blue eyes blocked the shot.

Five seconds. Four.

A green-haired elf took the pass at centre court, ducked under the long, sweaty arm of a US player, and on a single bounce got the ball back to Oberon.

Three. Two.

He leapt. Higher. Higher. His arm rose over his head, the ball held balanced on fingertips, and, at the apex of his flight...

...slam dunk.

The buzzer sounded.

70 - 68, Faerie.

Astonished to find herself on her feet, stamping and cheering, Sam fell silent as Oberon walked slowly toward the exhausted US team. By the time the elven lord stood an arm's length away, his court behind him, an eerie quiet had settled over the entire stadium.

For a heartbeat, great branching antlers rose above a golden crown and robes, in colours almost painful to mortal eyes, swept the floor.

"Good game," he said.

And they were gone.

"Someone want to tell me why I'm under this bench?"

Frowning, Sam watched and listened and realized...

"They remember nothing; not the challenge nor how the challenge ended," Puck told her.

"I do."

"Someone must. What point our being here if no one makes a story of it?"

"Why me?"

"Why not you? You had the eyes to see." He held out his hand. "I must be off. Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast and my lord will want his Puck to share the revels."

Half expecting a joy-buzzer, Sam was relieved to note that his firm grip contained nothing more than callouses.

Stepping back, Puck spread his arms and grinned. "Time to party!"

"Camera one? You sleeping up there, Sam? I told you to get me the reactions to that shoe!"

She swung the camera around and panned the strangely subdued crowds. "What shoe?" The shoe had been tossed back for the Faerie game and now covered the foot it belonged on. While the control room argued over just where the alleged shoe should be, Sam turned back to Puck, saying, as she turned, "Still, it's a pity you won't get your medals."

"What was that, one?"

Robin Goodfellow had disappeared.

"Nothing."

Later that evening, as they played the anthem they'd had cued up and ready before the final game began, Sam peered through her camera at the athletes on the podium.

And she smiled.

*

On the morrow, many voices were in rage and wonder raised

As the twelve who met the challenge

Of proud Oberon and his court

Did find a leaf against their breasts

Instead of that which they believed they'd won.

Silently, were medals struck again

And those who witnessed never told

How sunlight acts on Faerie gold.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Table of Contents

February Thaw

Burning Bright

When the Student is Ready

Jack

Symbols are a Percussion Instrument

Shing Li-ung

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Team