Take the keys and lock her up, Rasputin added.
The day grew chillier around them, until a pigeon came to settle on Wizards knee. He stroked its feathers absently and then sighed for all of them. Kids games, he mused. Kids songs.
Jump rope songs theyll still be singing a hundred years from now, Cassie said. But its better it comes out there than to have it sealed up and forgotten. Because when folks try to do that, the thing they seal up just finds a new shape, and bulges out uglier than ever.
What do you do with those jump rope songs, anyway?
Rasputin demanded, his voice signaling that hed like the talk to take a new direction.
Cassie just smiled enigmatically for a moment, but men relented. Theres power in them. I can tap that magic, I can guide it. Think of this. All across the country, little girls play jump rope. Sometimes little boys, too. Everywhere me chanting of children, and sometimes the rhymes are nationally known.
A whole country of children, jumping and chanting the same words. Theres a power to be tapped there, a magic not to be ignored. The best ones, of course, are the simple, safe-making ones.
Like?
Didnt you ever play jump rope? Like Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, touch me ground.
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, go upstairs. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say your prayers. Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say good-night.
Good night!
The last words she shouted as gleefully as any child ever did. Both men jumped, then smiled abashedly at one another.
The simple words were full, not of awe-inspiring power, but of glowing energy. When Cassie chanted them, her voice made them a song to childhood and innocence, suggesting the womans magic she wielded so well. Wizard and Rasputin exchanged glances, nodding at the sudden freencss in the sky and the fresh calm that settled over them. They settled back onto the bench-
Something bads come to Seattle, Cassie announced suddenly.
Rasputin and Wizard stiffened again. Rasputins feet began to keep time with his hand, to dance away me threat that hovered. Wizard sat very still, looking apprehensive and feeling strangely guilty-
What you want to be saying things like that for? the black wizard abruptly complained. Nice enough day, we all come together for some talk, like we hardly ever do, I bring you a new jump rope song, and then you go Boogie-boo! at us.
Why get us all spooked up when we just got comfortable?
Oh, bullshit! Cassie disarmed him effortlessly. You knew it when you came. That jump rope song scared the shit out of you. You knew it didnt mean anything good when kids in the city start singing stuff like that. So you brought it to me to hear me say how bad it was. Well, its bad.
Just one little jump rope song!
Omens and portents, my dear Rasputin. I have seen (be warnings written in the graffiti on the overpasses and carved on the bodies of the young punters. There are signs in me entrails of toe gutted fish on the docks, and ill favors waft over the city.
Just a strong wind from Tacoma. Rasputin tried to joke, but it fell flat. The small crowd of pigeons that had come to cluster at Wizards feet rose suddenly, to wheel away in alarm.
Startled at nothing.
What kind of trouble, Cassie? Wizard asked.
You tell me, she challenged quietly.
Ho, boy! Rasputin breathed out- Think Im gonna dance me off to somewheres else. Give a holler when the shit settles, Cassie. Ill tell the Space Needle you said hi!
She nodded her good-byes as Wizard sat silent and stricken.
Rasputin stroked off across the cobbled square, his gently swaying hips and shoulders turning his walk into a motion as graceful as the flight of a sea bird. He vanished slowly among the parked cars and moving pedestrians. Wizard was left sitting beside Cassie. Her body made him uneasy. It had taken him a long time to accept that every time he saw Cassie she would be a different person. Today she seemed too young and vibrantly feminine, radiating a femaleness that had nothing to do with weakness or docility. He wished she had come as the bag lady, or the retired nurse, or me straggly-haired escapee from the rest home. Those persons were easier for him to deal with.
Looking at her today was like staring into me sun. Yet anyone else passing by their bench might have tagged them as a very nondescript couple. He suddenly wished desperately to be somewhere else, to be someone else. But he was Wizard, and he was sitting beside Cassie, and he felt like a small and scruffy kid in spite of his magic. Or maybe because of it.
Your den is the storms eye, she said without preamble.
Whatever it is, its coming for you. You want to tell me about it, so I can at least warn the rest of us?
Wizard shook his head, trying to breathe. I cant. Not because I wont, but because I dont know what youre talking about. I mean, I dont know anything about it. Not exactly.
Anyone with any magic at all can tell that theres something hanging over the city. But I dont know what it is, and
Its coming for you. Cassies voice brooked no denial.
There was a chill in it that was not the absence of feelings, but the hard edge of emotions kept in check. Whatever it is, its yours. If it has a balancing point, only you will be able to reach it. The sooner you stop it, the better for us all. But you cant stop it until you give it a name. Do you know what Im saying?
I know youre scaring the hell out of me.
Good. Then you do understand. Be on your toes. Keep your rules.
I do. You know I do. He added the last reproachfully.
Yes. As I keep mine. I suppose I know that best of all.
There was regret in her words. It stung him.
Cassie. Im not holding out on you. If I knew anything, wouldnt I tell you?
She leaned back on the bench, not speaking. Silence fell between them. Thin Seattle sunshine, a mixture of yellow and gray, cautiously touched the uneven paving stones. A sea bird flew overhead, too high to be seen against the suns glare, but its mournful cries penetrated the city sounds to echo in Wizards soul. A terrible foreboding built within him, forcing words out.
There was something, once. Like a hunger, an appetite.
Something like that. I dont remember.
It didnt have a name?
It was gray, he admitted uneasily.
So it was. Cassie sighed heavily. So youve told me.
Listen, Wizard. If you needed help, youd come to me, wouldnt you?
Who else would I go to? But youve got something backward, Cassie. I heard about the gray thing from you.
You did? well, if you say so, it must have been so. Just remember. Wizard. If you need help, Im your friend. Just let it out that you need me, and Ill come to you. And it doesnt have to be danger. If you just want some company, thats fine, too. If you just want to see me
If I need a friend. I know that, Cassie.
She lifted a slender hand that hovered uncertainly for a moment before falling to gently pat the bench between them.
Listen, she said suddenly. You want a story? Ive got a story for you if you want it.
Sure, he lied, covering his reluctance. He never liked. what Cassies stories did for him.
Cassie settled in. She took a breath, and after a moment began, Once there was a war, where a guerrilla force was fighting an army from across the seas that was struggling to keep a government in power.
If you mean Viet Nam, say Viet Nam, he said with a bravado he didnt feel.
I didnt say Viet Nam, so shut your mourn and listen!
When Cassie was interrupted, she was as fierce as a banty on eggs. There was an old man in a village. He had an old rifle, and whenever the foreign soldiers came near, he would fire a few shots in the air. This was because the guerrilla forces expected him to snipe at the foreign soldiers. He could not bring himself to do that. So he would fire a few wild rounds at nothing in particular, and the guerrillas would hear the shots and be satisfied he was doing his part. The foreign soldiers understood. Sometimes theyd even let off a burst or two, to make things sound lively. And the old mans family slept safely at night.
But into this there came a very young foreign soldier who didnt understand the rules of the game. So when he saw the old man fire the old rifle, be took him seriously. He killed him.
Wizards mouth was dry. Cassie had stopped talking as suddenly as the jolt of a rear-ended vehicle. He sat silently, waiting for more, but she said nothing. After a moment she bent her head to dig through her purse, and offered him a Lifesaver.
The moral? he asked, taking one. His voice cracked slightly.
There isnt one. She spoke to the roll of candy she wag peeling. Except that the next week, the guy sniping at them from that hamlet wasnt shooting into the air. -
Another electric jolt from those incredible eyes. He withstood their voltage, gripping the edge of the bench to keep his hands from shaking. She rose and walked away, leaving as silently as she had come. He tried to watch her go, but the sunlight was making his eyes water, and it seemed that she just melted into the passing foot-traffic.
Cassie, he sighed softly, feeling empty. And wondered why.
WIZARD CAME AWAKE. His blanket, tucked so carefully under the edge of thin gray-and-white striped mattress, had pulled free. A large damp tomcat had insinuated itself between the flap of the blanket and the small of his back, to curl in contented sleep. Novembers chill damp of night infiltrated his unheated room; the cold air condensed on his unprotected back. But neither the cat nor the cold had awakened him. Behind his closed eyelids, his mind had clicked into instant awareness.
Something was out there.
His fingers tightened on the fraying edge of the blanket, his knuckles white. Without opening his eyes, he turned his concentration in, to hold his bream to the steady cadence of sleep and keep his strung muscles from a betraying twitch. No one, nothing, could have known that he was now awake. Even Mack Thomas, curled serenely against him, was unaware of his watchfulness. Reassured that his personal perimeter was IRJU intact. Wizard cautiously deployed his senses.
A subtle wnmgness pervaded his room. To his nostrils carae the familiar mustiness of me dank walls, the city cat stink like damp wool, and beyond that me cheesy odor of pigcoo droppings. A light rain had fallen on Seattle since he had drowsed off. It had cleaned the metropolitan air and cooled it, the falling drops pressing down the fumes of the cars and buses and rinsing the oily gutters. Beneath the streetlamps, the drops would sparkle on the green glass sides of discarded wine bottles. He could find the sparkle breaking into a thousand night sequins beneath a bench in Pioneer Square. But all of this was absolutely and totally as it should be. The very tightness of it stiffened his spine with dread. Whatever it was, it was very clever.