I rolled my eyes and tried not to huff.<\/p>\n
Peredur just grinned his grin-of-many-teeth.\u00a0 “Indeed,” he said.\u00a0 He looked down at my plate.\u00a0 “Are you ready for your vaunted dessert?”<\/p>\n
I sighed. “I want it, but frankly, I’m too tired to eat it,” I admitted.<\/p>\n
“Then I shall show compensation, and we shall take you home to your sweet, sweet sleep.\u00a0 Your caretakers shall be pleased.”\u00a0 He sat up.<\/p>\n
Our chef (his nametag said “Tumnus,” and I’m not actually sure if “chef” is the right term) leaned back and took off his hat. “Shift’s over, place is closing, and I wanted to talk to you without Mr. Mojo for a minute.”<\/p>\n
“Mr. Mojo?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Oh, he comes around occasionally. Lit up like he thinks he’s the center of the world, when obviously,” he put a hand through his purple-blue hair, “he’s wrong. I know where the center is, because I’m it.”<\/p>\n
He winked at me and I laughed.\u00a0 He had exceptionally nice eyebrows, I noticed.\u00a0 It wasn’t something I thought of regularly, but my eyebrows were kind of plain.\u00a0 I mean, no one would ever really notice my eyebrows unless they were right in their face or something.<\/p>\n
I realized after a moment that I was staring, but he didn’t seem to mind. I rocketed back to reality, wasting a glance at Peredur, who was exchanging blood rubies for our meal or something, if not flirting with the hostess.\u00a0 I shivered, involuntarily.\u00a0 “We only have a minute.”\u00a0 Saying those words made me feel like we had some kind of furtive secret, a moment for humans against the Dragons.<\/p>\n
Tumnus nodded. “Did you drive?”<\/p>\n
Huh.\u00a0 I shrugged.\u00a0 “No.”\u00a0 It was close enough to walk on a nice night.\u00a0 I expected Peredur was going to violate reality again no matter how I felt about it.<\/p>\n
“Do you live close?”<\/p>\n
“Are you some kind of weird axe murderer?” I asked.\u00a0 I’d seen what he could do with a knife.<\/p>\n
He grinned. “Maybe.\u00a0 I’ve never murdered any weird axes.”<\/p>\n
“Not even axes of evil?”<\/p>\n
“Not even. But you never can tell. Hey, tell Mojo I’ll drive you home if you don’t mind me making a stop first.”<\/p>\n
I was tired, so tired, but curious. “Sure. What’s the stop?”<\/p>\n
“Have to drop off dinner to one of my boyfriends, Disco Daveed.\u00a0 I’ll be right back.”\u00a0 He disappeared into the kitchen, while Peredur returned.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got a ride home, tall, dark, and scaly.”<\/p>\n
I could see his eyes smoulder for a moment, and then he made a decision. He nodded. “I shall inform your jailors,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They were ‘caretakers’ a moment ago.”<\/p>\n
“Were they?” he asked.\u00a0 He blew a ring of smoke that only I could see, and it disappeared into a fizzle of light. “Your choice, Wizard-friend.”<\/p>\n
“Now you’re reminding me of that for a reason.”<\/p>\n
“Are all my endearments so pointed?” he asked.\u00a0 He just smiled and turned away, leaving the restaurant.\u00a0 He lingered for a moment, then disappeared.<\/p>\n
Tumnus came out of the back with a big brown sack tucked under his arm.\u00a0 “You ditched your chaperone? Good job. I’ve got a good big plastic bag for your head.”<\/p>\n
I probably looked more nervous than I actually felt. Something about Tumnus just didn’t feel scary, I guess. I outweighed him and was taller, but while he could probably julienne my liver in seconds, he just wasn’t sending unfriendly signals.\u00a0 Besides, he made me curious about something. I couldn’t explain it more than that.<\/p>\n
“Oh good. I’m not using it, you see.\u00a0 And we don’t have that red cloak or tridents to do the whole giant scorpion thing.”<\/p>\n
“That’s pushing it, Medusa.\u00a0 No, seriously, your head will do me well in my studies.”<\/p>\n
“You’re a brain surgeon?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Forensic biologist. Or I will be. This gig,” he referred to the building we exited, as I followed him, “pays well against the old student loans.”<\/p>\n
“That’s not…” I thought about it. “Not the strangest combination I’ve ever heard, I guess.”<\/p>\n
“Really?” he asked, skeptically. “What’s stranger?”<\/p>\n
“I’ll get back to you. How about Russian poet and sorcerer?”<\/p>\n
He shook his head. He drove a banged up green Ford Taurus. That same green one you see everywhere.\u00a0 “Here,” he said, passing me the bag. I set it on my lap as I pulled the belt around me.\u00a0 “Russian, poet, and sorcerer.\u00a0 I think that’s too redundant.\u00a0 Try again.”<\/p>\n
“I’m thinking,” I complained. “What did you want to talk about?”<\/p>\n
He pulled out of the parking lot, quiet for a moment. That actually chilled me a little, until he gave me that amazing smile again. “Well, first off, what is Mr. Mojo anyway?”<\/p>\n
“His secret to tell,” I said, playing it a little cagey.<\/p>\n
“Wizards,” he scoffed. “Only way you ever get a straight answer out of them is when you least need it.”<\/p>\n
“You’ve noticed that too?” I asked, amused.<\/p>\n
“Don’t give away any secrets now,” he grinned a very wry grin.<\/p>\n
“I don’t have any,” I said, yawning.<\/p>\n
He laughed. “Everyone has secrets. It’s just that they rarely have any good ones.”<\/p>\n
It really was a quick trip. He bounded up the stairs to an apartment building, and I saw a quick glimpse of probably one of the skinniest men I’ve ever seen in my life not in a late night foreign aid commercial.\u00a0 He was dressed sharply, black and pinstripes, with a fedora.\u00a0 He gave Tumnus a quick kiss of greeting, grabbing the bag of food like he was starving.\u00a0 I tried to not be uncomfortable, and so I turned away.<\/p>\n
A moment later, I fell asleep.<\/p>\n
I dreamt.<\/p>\n
“You see,” said the Seven King, “you think of the world as a bubble.”\u00a0 She was at her most lovely – nude, dark, and squirming around.\u00a0 On her hand she held a bubble. “Touch it, and it pops.”\u00a0 She used a well-manicured nail to pop it.\u00a0 “The world is stronger than that,” she said.\u00a0 The bubble reappeared, and floated out from her hands.<\/p>\n
“It’s like water,” the Questor’s wife said, capturing the bubble as the Seven King melted away.\u00a0 She was reading something on a laptop in the dark, with the Questor asleep besides her.\u00a0 “It’s too much like the sea, in fact.\u00a0 You can bleed in it,” and blood red swirled around the bubble, “but it only becomes more water.\u00a0 There are darknesses within and without,” and the bubble turned black, “and magic, it makes ripples.”<\/p>\n
She tossed the bubble into the darkness. Matana reached down and grabbed it.\u00a0 The blood drained onto her hands, and the darkness swirled around the sphere, mixed in with bits of light, as if having taken some from the laptop’s screen.\u00a0 “Make too many ripples, little fish, and you attract attention.”\u00a0 The swirls moved faster, spinning and spinning, as she raised a bloody finger to her lips, touching it with her tongue.\u00a0 She closed her eyes, and the globe rolled from her fingers, down and down until Peredur stopped it with his foot.<\/p>\n
“The sea contains many secrets,” Peredur said.\u00a0 “But there is not only water in our universe.\u00a0 There is also fire.”\u00a0 He picked up the bubble, and then fire came from his mouth in a loud roar, surrounding, almost as if polishing the sphere, and I woke with a start.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t want to disturb you,” Tumnus said. “But I didn’t know where we were going.”<\/p>\n
“Tumnus? That was the faun? Narnia, right?” I asked, groggily, but it had been on my mind.<\/p>\n
“It’s actually Autumnus,” he said, “and that’s a bit of a nickname, too.”\u00a0 He grinned.<\/p>\n
“Huh,” I grunted.\u00a0 “Your disco dude get his dinner?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.\u00a0 I could swear I had seen something on the inside of the car when I looked away.\u00a0 One of those perception things, like an afterimage.\u00a0 I looked around for a moment, and saw that there were marks, some kind of runic sigils in the car.\u00a0 I didn’t recognize them immediately, but they were deliberate and I didn’t remember seeing them in any Ford manuals.<\/p>\n
“Yep.”\u00a0 He turned on the car.\u00a0 “Where are we headed?”<\/p>\n
I gave directions, and then fell back into silence.\u00a0 Tumnus backed out carefully, and then took the left.\u00a0 After a moment, his hand strayed near the radio, then hesitated.\u00a0 “What are you thinking about?” he asked.<\/p>\n
“Did I look pensive?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Well, that, or you’re falling back asleep.”<\/p>\n
“I was thinking about magic, I guess.” I shrugged.<\/p>\n
“So, question number two. You aren’t exactly a wizard. What’s your talent?” he asked.<\/p>\n
“You first,” I suggested.<\/p>\n
“Long line of witches and wizards, actually. Family tradition kind of stuff, and enough new age amalgam to be interesting. I’m a real wild card. Oldest sister is a wizard-protector type, another’s a healer, that sort of thing. Dad was a wizard. I can spot it, do a few tricks, gets kind of metaphysical from there.” He shrugged.<\/p>\n
“I close doors,” I said.\u00a0 “I guess I do my best to keep things out, but some of them seem to feel there’s an open invitation.”<\/p>\n
“Ghosts, demons, that sort of thing?\u00a0 You’re like magic salt and pentagrams?” He chuckled.<\/p>\n
“I’ve used salt,” I said, “but the traditional value in salt is specious. It’s like copper – both are present in the coin of blood. Salt isn’t the sacrifice it used to be, but I don’t think stuffing paper money into the cracks of a window is going to ward off anything.\u00a0 Really, blood is compulsory.\u00a0 It’s all blood.”<\/p>\n
“Good thing I’m not squeamish,” he grinned again.\u00a0 He had a nice smile.<\/p>\n
“Well, truthfully, I’ve never used blood.\u00a0 Tonight, if it still is tonight? Okay, last night, then, I used echoes to hold a door closed. Tied it into someone else’s magic.\u00a0 I use sound, a lot.”<\/p>\n
“Magical song?\u00a0 Musical theatre?” he asked, teasingly.<\/p>\n
“Well, I can carry a tune if it’s got handles, I suppose.\u00a0 Can’t stand autotune, though.\u00a0 I’ll change the station if I hear something with it.”<\/p>\n
He grunted, as if considering.\u00a0 “What won’t get the hint and stay in its place?”<\/p>\n
“Well, I think that some ghosts belong here. They’re tied to the place, or are attracted to the energy.\u00a0 Like theatres, for example.\u00a0 Almost every theatre is haunted.”<\/p>\n
“I don’t think most high school auditoriums have dead folk involved,” he said, skeptically.<\/p>\n
“It isn’t about death. It’s about, well, like lwa,” I said. “Thespians who call on the repetition of a role, becoming someone else, bringing that spirit, such as it is, in, and transforming.\u00a0 I’m not saying they’re all god-touched, or that archetypes are roaming free in their bodies, but there’s definitely a magic to it, a rider of sorts.\u00a0 It attracts the weird.\u00a0 Improvisation is much safer.”<\/p>\n
“And often funnier,” he added.\u00a0 “I can see what you’re saying.\u00a0 But why would theatre ghosts like to knock things down and misplace props and such?”<\/p>\n
“Entropy,” I said, firmly.\u00a0 “There’s only so much influence on the world, and those are the easiest things to interrupt or interact with, I guess.\u00a0 The lost items, the sudden gust of wind, that sort of thing.”<\/p>\n
He nodded. “Pretty smart.\u00a0 Not to mention the mental state of all the teenage drama types.\u00a0 Half-extroverted, half-emo.” He laughed.<\/p>\n
“Hey, poetry and spells are the same in a lot of places.\u00a0 Every word written is a spell in some way, I suppose.”<\/p>\n
“Wow, there’s some crazy magic in YouTube commenters,” he countered.\u00a0 He had a delicate chin, and he was really smooth-shaven.<\/p>\n
“It’s a scary thought, but what if the repetition is like prayer? What if people really suck because of thousands of written words underlining the fact, magically influencing them to suck?”<\/p>\n
“In that case, I should be able to lose belly fat with this one amazing trick,” Tumnus teased.<\/p>\n
“That cookie recipe’s okay, but not like grandma’s,” I deflected. “And I doubt the anti-virus that checked this message is really that self-aware.\u00a0 But there’s still a point,” I entreated, “in that how angry, how much will there is even in those utterly vapid messages might be akin to spellcasting.\u00a0 Anyway, it’s a theory,” I ended.<\/p>\n
He pulled into the parking space next to my house.\u00a0 “Okay,” he said.\u00a0 “Third question.”\u00a0 He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes.<\/p>\n
I kissed him.\u00a0 I hadn’t meant to. I didn’t even know what I was doing.\u00a0 I placed a hand on his chest, as he kissed me back.<\/p>\n
“Wait,” I said, feeling something.\u00a0 “You’re a girl.”<\/p>\n
He pulled back and slapped me across the face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you’re too tired for dessert is not the time to be making decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-09-opener"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1488"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1510,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions\/1510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}