I dialed.  I waited through the ringing.  I acknowledged that I liked the ringing rather than having to listen to someone’s choice of tinny music through a tinny speaker.  I know it’s getting better, but somehow the recorded ringer music always just seemed abrupt and distorted.  And yes, I liked the scritchy noise of vinyl.  It gave music another layer of sound. Which isn’t to say I don’t have just about everything I like on mp3, just that I appreciate the different layers, like a parfait, or an ogre.

She picked up.

“Hi, Rohana. Don’t hang up.”

“Really?” she asked.  “Why would I bother answering it just to hang up on you?  I have caller ID. I could have let it go to voicemail.”

“I guess you would have been making a point.”

“Speaking of which,” she trailed off.

“Um, yeah. My point.  Do you know… wow, this sounds kind of crazy.  Except I’m not.”

“Professional opinion precluded.”

“You’re a professional? That’s what I’m looking for.”

“Well, not that type, I have to admit.”  Rohana paused.  “You need a shrink?”

“I want to waggle my eyebrows at that and say that `that’s what she said,’ but I just don’t like the term. I mean I need to  expand my horizons, not make them smaller.”

“I thought men feared commitment.”

I chuckled. “I don’t think I’m that far gone.”

“It’s the weird stuff, isn’t it?  Getting to you?” she asked. There was kind of a thing in her voice, like an angle to the question.

“Well, I’m looking for someone who isn’t shy about the weird, for sure.  Someone clued in, you know?”

“A witch?” she asked, and if there was doubt in her voice I couldn’t fault her.

“If that’s the way it has to go…” I trailed off.

“Yeah.”  She sighed.  “You owe me for this.”

“I’ll owe you, yes.”  It had magical consequences, but if I trusted her this far, I was going to have to continue.

“I know people.  Healers do their frickin’ best not to get involved in wars, but someone always drags us in,” she sighed again.

“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m neutral. I’m Switzerland.  I just close doors and run and hide when there looks to be fighting. I’m no hero.”

“Huh,” she grunted.  “You.  Not a hero.  Aren’t you a gamer?”

“Um, yeah. So I know that magic items are worse than live grenades.  To run away from dragons and liches and to kill all the orcs, if we’re name-calling.”

“Gamers have the biggest hero complexes. White knights, have to go rescue people, have to go see through the evil plans.”

“That’s not me,” I denied, immediately.

“Really? If Maggie called you for help, what would you do?” she asked.  I thought I remembered someone else asking me this question.  Why would the answer change?

“I’m wounded, really, I am.”  I sighed.  “I’d think about it.  I’d think more about hanging up.  Or not answering the phone at all.” I shook my head.  “I wouldn’t do it.”

“But it’d eat you up inside, wouldn’t it?”

“She doesn’t deserve it from me.”  Time heals all wounds, they say.  Even the ones that leave scars.  I could be the Fisher King, or I could heal, I guess.

“Good.  Keep telling yourself that.  Alright, I’ll text you an address and a name when I get the okay.”

“The okay?” I was pretty much sure she just meant in contact with the mysterious stranger, but I figured I’d ask.  More information certainly couldn’t hurt.

“She’s a bit of a recluse, this one. Hermit up on the mountain kind of schtick,” Rohana chuckled a bit. “You’ll get along great.”

“Thanks, I think.”

She just chuckled again and hung up.  I sighed.

Lunch was pretty forgettable.  The spriggan sibs were consulting over a map of what, at a glance, looked like Middle Earth.  They had a lot of ways to keep themselves busy and unattached to the real world. It could be a lot worse; they could be into politics.

I played some match-3 games while eating, just to fill the time.  Zach had been a bad influence on me, bringing out just the slightest bit of a competitive edge where the gamification was concerned; sometimes getting more points than him was the whole exercise.  I preferred the match-3 games with multiple conditions, I decided, rather than simply a counter for reward.

My phone beeped its “text message” chime, and I pulled it out of my pocket in a hurry.  A name and an address.  Senga.  The name was not familiar, but the address was fairly close.  Walking close if it was nice out, at least.

I pulled aside the blind in the front window and looked out.  Like many a day, the reply was hazy and I should try again. I was no good with weather; there were too many variables, too many wishes in the mix.  But it was nice enough to keep the windows open, so I figured it would be a good walk.

“Who’s my babysitter for my next adventure?” I asked the muttering fey.

Nen looked up. “Self-denigration is a sign of concern over the imbalance of power,” he said. “It’s an asymmetrical form of humour.”

“Have you been reading the psychology books again?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he grinned.  “That said, remember the principle that the parent is often grounded along with the child, and maybe you will see that it isn’t that out of whack.”

“‘Whack’ being one of those official psychological terms, I suppose?”

“Along with ‘whoo-hoo’ and the vertical circling of a finger by the head,” he agreed.

“Good to know.  I just doubt that I can shout, ‘You have no power over me,’ and you flutter away like a deck of cards.  Or are dealt away.  Huh – that sounds a bit more gangster than I meant.  Shuffled away,” I decided.

“If you have not yet guessed the provenance of our task, I am still bound not to reveal it,” he sighed.  “Rayya will be remaining to protect the things here, and I shall travel with you.”

“Yay,” I said with all the enthusiasm I felt. I got up, slipped on some shoes, and grabbed my jacket.  It was looking weathered, and kind of the worse for it.  Of course, salt water on suede was probably a metaphor somewhere.

Nen brushed back his hair, and smoothed out his skirt. Or whatever.  I thought about asking him to change, but realized he probably didn’t have much to say about my wardrobe, either.  Maybe I’d ask him to do his hiding-away-in-plain-sight thing when we got there.

He seemed content to follow as I walked down the steps and down the street.  My neighbor Bea was working on her lawn, doing whatever kind of esoteric pieces kept it green and lush. She waved a distracted hand at me, and I nodded as I passed.  She gave a dirty glance at Nen, but I expected it. However she saw him, at least she hadn’t called social services on me. It was probably the plaid.

Colorado gets a ridiculous amount of sunshine, and despite the haze, today was no exception.  I was warm in just half a block, but not confident enough to take off the jacket.  A burst of wind could cut to the bone.  Nen didn’t keep up a conversation, so I just enjoyed the quiet.  A car passed.  A whirlwind of crows rose up from the park nearby, their cawing suggesting some kind of dispute being taken to parliament.  A sparrow flashed in front of me, and one of the neighborhood cats watched us with its orange-green eyes.  The sidewalk curved for wheelchair access, the red cobbles a momentary break in the monotony of grey concrete.  I looked both ways before crossing.  Safety first and all.

Nen made a “hsst,” noise, and I felt a gentle tug on my sleeve.  “‘Ware,” he said.

“Or you’ll go all Paul Bunyan?” I asked, looking around.  Nen and Rayya very rarely touched me or anybody else, and that shocked me for a moment.  He didn’t respond to the comment, though.  It was the plaid.

I didn’t see anything suspicious.  A truck parked on the road.  A mailbox.  A couple of light poles.  Well-kept fencing.  An ad for a cell phone company that allows free calls to Mexico.  I guess the crushed convenience store cup might have been a monster in disguise. I was still suspicious of leftover rubber tread on the road, after all.  And I avoided prairie dogs as if they might have the plague.

“If our path takes us to the right, let me have the place on your left,” he said.

“Um, sure,” I said.  “Mind telling me what to watch out for?  Will I need to duck, or roll to the side, or what?”

“Can you not sense it?” he asked.

“Uh, human, remember?”

He growled.  “An unnecessary distinction.  You are not … inert,” he decided.

“Nope, I’m also not a quiescent confection.”  I was pretty sure I knew what he meant, but I wanted to yank his chain a bit anyway.

“You are not unaware of the energy flows,” he said, sounding frustrated.

“No, but I usually have to concentrate to find them.  If they’re obvious, I’m in the wrong place and should be backing off quickly.”

“So you answer your own question,” he said.

“Ah, the old exercise for the student.”  I rolled my eyes.  I stopped next to the truck and half-closed my eyes, trying to open myself up to the currents of power.   There was something… something I would describe as big, but it was more that it was not there, a null space somewhere up ahead.  Odd.

“Does our quest take that route?” he asked.

“Um, yeah.”  I had a feeling that it took us right to it.  I released my attention on the flows and went back to paying attention to the sun on my back and the world more mundane.  “‘Fraid so.”

He glanced up at me, as if he were going to ask something more, but then shrugged and took the left hand side.  His stride grew slightly to match mine.

I made my way gingerly across a major street, and then between cars packed in for parking on both sides of the road.  The houses here were nicer than just a few blocks away, more personality, less clone-stamp.  A mailbox decorated with birds, the hinge to hold it shut cleverly painted a hooked beak.  A lattice where roses lazily climbed.  A dozen porches, most with one or two chairs.  A lone newspaper sadly abandoned in its plastic sheathe.

The house showed tan brick and dark red painted wood.  A line of bindweed wrapped near the fence.  Everything had strong lines and a bit of a boxy nature to it.  I checked the address.  “This is it,” I said.

“I cannae go in there,” Nen said, concerned.

“What, bad mojo?” I asked.

“Nae, I cannae enter.”

I looked around.  He’d gone all Scottish on me again.  No horseshoes.  No sprays of “fae-be-gone” that I could see or smell.  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

He gestured.  “If’n ye go in there, ye are on yer own,” he said.  “Of course, ye should be perfectly safe.”  He didn’t sound convincing.

“I don’t understand.  Why can’t you go in?” I tried reaching out again… and was blocked by the most powerful door I had ever felt.  Someone really, really, didn’t want anything inside.

All there was obviously was a white metal gate, with a handle and a latch, up a couple of stone stairs.  Nothing like the level of shielding I could feel.  I listened to the comforting thrum of a door in harmony with its surroundings.  I liked this place.

“I will await ye here,” he said.

“Okie-dokie,” I said.  I opened up the gate and let myself in, closing it behind me.  Once inside the shields, I felt even better.  Familiar.  Kind of like Zach’s work.  I figured it out, quickly.  Whatever else this Senga was, she was a Closer.