Gypsies

by Robert Charles Wilson

  3

  Michael stood his ground.

  He wanted to run. No, more than that. It was not just wanting to run. It was an urge so profound it went beyond fear, it was a screaming need to run… and yet he knew without thinking that, if he tried it, his legs would fail, the muscles would knot and bind.

  He-looked at the Gray Man and felt the keening of his own terror, a high note pitched beyond human hearing but which radiated through his body.

  Nevertheless he stood his ground.

  Because his mother was here, Laura was here… and because there was nowhere to run. He had exhausted the possibilities. Some final entanglement of binding magic had led him to this place and this was where the battle would be fought … if it amounted to a “battle” at all.

  Michael, lucid in the maelstrom of his own fear, registered the absolute certainty in Walker’s eyes.

  He remembered the little girl on the beach, discarded into chaos like a rag.

  Thinking, as Walker took another step closer, But I’m not that little girl—I’m more powerful than that.

  Hadn’t he proved it already? Hadn’t he escaped the prison magics of the Novus Ordo?

  But this was different.

  The Gray Man was a killer, a destroyer: that was his nature. Michael didn’t have those skills.

  Now Walker took another step forward, fierce engine of death. Everything was in tableau: Karen struggling to stand up, Laura with her spine pressed up against the cold brick wall of the alley. The yellow streetlights flickered and hissed; the moon was bright and utterly still.

  Michael remembered what he’d told Willis that time: I could drop you down through the floor… I could do that. But could he? Could he do that to the Gray Man, to Walker? No… not likely… but he squared himself and summoned a feeble trickle of the power, thinking, But I must.

  It was a gesture. It amounted to nothing. The Gray Man smiled.

  4

  One more magic, Walker thought. One more trick.

  There was a trick the mages had taught him, a trick he had never needed to use. Which, perhaps, he did not need even now; except that the boy was still in some ways an unknown quantity, a vehicle of unexpected strengths. So: magic.

  Walker smiled and rearranged his own face.

  It was less a physical change than a matter of suggestion, a spellbinding. The change was subtle but distinct, and he registered the effect in Michael’s eyes, the shock and sudden terror.

  Wearing his new face, the Gray Man moved closer. His smile was broad and authentic. He felt on the brink of completeness. Soon he would recover the lost thing. Soon he would be whole.

  He regarded Michael with something like love.

  “I came for you,” he said.

  5

  Michael witnessed the transformation without understanding it. He was overloaded on all circuits and he could only register this figure, which had been the Gray Man… but which was now his father, was Gavin White, was Michael’s own father holding out his arms and repeating those words—“I came for you”—

  I came for you.

  Yes. Please, God. Take me home.

  Daddy, I’m tired. But it wasn’t Daddy.

  It was a phantom, a monster. It was the Gray Man.

  The Gray Man lunged out a hand and Michael felt the mask slipping, saw Walker like old paint through the chipped patina of this image. He raised his own band to defend himself—or at least ward off this creature—but the shock of recognition had been profound; the power had drained out of him; he was empty as a cup.

  Walker came to embrace him, and the cup filled up with fear.

  6

  Karen, watching, thought, You will not have him.

  It was only that, a thought, barely articulate. But it rang in her mind. Everything was in slow motion now, a terrible ballet—Laura crouched to one side with an expression of helpless horror, Michael dazed and motionless, the Gray Man advancing by inches and millimeters, a slow trajectory, like some deadly thing falling out of the sky. And Karen, alone now in the sterile light of a streetlamp, thought to herself, You are the oldest. You have a responsibility here.

  Daddy had been right about that. In that one thing, he was absolutely correct. It was her job; it was the job she had taken on herself. It was the job she had assumed in that crowded Christmastime department store a thousand years ago. And it was her weakness, too; it was the way they had seduced her. She thought about Baby, the doll this deadly man had given her. Your firstborn son. It was the weakness they had used to trap her, dangling images of Michael down the dim fortress corridors of the Novus Ordo. But maybe it was not only a weakness.

  Maybe it was a kind of strength.

  She looked at the Gray Man. He was moving toward Michael and Michael had raised a hand, but something passed between the two of them and Michael opened his eyes wide in shock. She could not see the mask Walker had adopted; it was a private and particular magic. But she sensed the change in Michael, his sudden weakness. She saw it in Walker’s wide, eager smile.

  She thought, You will not have him.

  Maybe she said it out loud, because Walker did a curious half-turn; his trajectory slowed; he was still moving toward Michael but he was looking at Karen now.

  And it was a strange look there in his eyes, she thought; not the dull-witted deadliness she had expected but something spontaneous; something older and deeper. A mingling of surprise and curiosity, an appraisal: What do you have for me?

  As if she were bearing a gift.

  Michael shook his head, as if some brief spell had been broken. Without thinking, Karen took two quick steps forward and reached to embrace Walker—to slow him down, at least.

  You don’t believe I can do this. Oh, but I can.

  It was an instinct too sure and swift for words. She simply reached for Walker the way Walker had reached for Michael… reached out and took hold of him in a way she could not define.

  But it was a real embrace, too. She could smell him. He smelled cold, like this alley. It was an alley smell, vacant and dark, like oil slicks and old masonry and abandoned buildings on deep winter nights. She had the sudden, curious sensation that he was entirely hollow—that if she squeezed hard enough he would crumble in her hands.

  She saw Michael step away until his shirt collar brushed the wall. He shook his head, dazed.

  And Karen felt the Gray Man tremble… summoning his energy now, redirecting it.

  She closed her eyes.

  She was aware at once of what Michael called the doors and angles of the world … an unfolding of possibility that was here and not-here, both, and how she might move in it. And she felt the chaotic places, too, the uncreated worlds and the dead, entropic ones.

  Walker closed his own arms around her. It was a true embrace now, a mutual embrace.

  She heard Michael’s voice, faintly:

  “Mom?” he said.

  She understood what Walker meant to do… and what she must do to Walker.

  She pulled back until only their hands were touching, a hot electricity running between them. Walker began a smile. She felt the withering force of his contempt.

  And thought, I know those places too.

  She said, “You will not have him.”

  His hesitation was momentary.

  She looked deep into his empty gray eyes.

  A gentle push, she thought, and this opening… a hole in the world directly behind him, and the rush and hiss of churning chaos.

  She felt the coldness of it, colder even than this winter alley.

  She thrust forward and into him with all her weight. He tumbled backward… and the vision of him was as sharply etched as a dream: of the Gray Man, of Walker—her broken uncle—falling away out of time altogether; and of the final expression on his face… not astonishment or fear but something Karen perceived, in this weightless moment, as gratitude … as if she had given him a gift, or returned to him some stolen and immensely valuable possession.

  She blinked and
gasped, falling after him.

  Oh, the coldness! Chaos and wild entropy and a random dead nothingness: this was the hole she had opened for him, and she could not stop herself tumbling after—

  But there were hands on her, warm hands suddenly pulling her back… and the door winked closed… and then there was merely this alley, this particular winter night, this ashen moon, and Michael and Laura weeping with her.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  1

  Cardinal Palestrina boarded the Spanish diesel ship Estrella Vespertina, bound for Genoa with a cargo of jute and raw cotton and a handful of commercial passengers, on a fading late-winter day. The sky was cold and overcast, but he stood at the stern of the huge ironclad vessel and watched the harbor of Philadelphia draw away, wondering what consequences the events he had seen might imply.

  For himself, nothing untoward. He had done his job as faithfully as it needed to be done, and in the end events had gone beyond him. Having proven his utility to the Curia, he might be allowed to carry on with his scholarly work. Assuming, Cardinal Palestrina thought, the war allows us such luxuries.

  Ah, the war. But the news at the moment was not all bad. The Persian fleet had been turned back at the Balearics; the Turkish beachhead was isolated at Sardinia. European airpower would hold the day—for now.

  So perhaps the loss of Neumann’s secret weapon was not as tragic as it seemed. The shaky alliance between Rome and the Novus Ordo would hardly be strengthened by this miscarriage… but it was a temporary alliance in any case, doomed by its internal contradictions. Cardinal Palestrina doubted that the fate of Europe had been sealed.

  As for what truly had been lost—

  Well, that could only be speculation.

  Night had fallen before they were out of sight of the New World. The purser approached Palestrina and instructed him, in mincing English, to go below—“It will only get colder, Your Eminence!” But Palestrina shook his head. “I’ll be down shortly. Don’t worry. I won’t let myself die up here. I understand how awkward that would be.”

  And the purser smiled nervously and moved away.

  There were the ship lights and the distant lights of land, the continent like some far-off world, the way Neumann’s Other Worlds must have seemed, Palestrina thought, twinkling lights across an unimaginable gulf… and the thought made him sad, suffused him with an unwelcome melancholy. He allowed himself to wonder what might have been the outcome if this Plenum Project had not been solely aimed at creating a weapon; what wonders or terrors they might have found in that infinity, those Many Mansions. And he thought again of the land he had dreamed about, a world where Man had never fallen from grace, where it was warm, where the Garden grew, and there was innocence, and no one like Neumann, no serpent with his sweet poisonous fruit, and no death. We might have found it, Palestrina thought, touched it, walked in it— God help us, if only for a moment—

  But the Estrella Vespertina sailed relentlessly eastward, and the distant lights sank below the horizon, and Cardinal Palestrina squeezed his eyes shut and went belowdecks, where the jute merchants sat drinking retsina and playing cards across a wooden table, and looked up at him unhappily, as if his sobriety would ruin their game, as if he reminded them of old sins.

  2

  Laura said, “What if I told you I was going away?”

  Emmett, who had almost fallen asleep, turned up on his elbow and blinked. Behind him, moonlight streamed through a veil of bamboo blinds; the ocean rushed and sighed.

  He tucked the sheet around her shoulders to protect her from the night. “I would remind you that you just got back.”

  Laura summoned her courage. “I meant going away permanently.”

  Emmett looked at her a long time and then shrugged.

  It had been a good reunion and the lovemaking had been good, and she was reminded how much she had missed this man. But these were important questions, questions she had never allowed herself to ask: as if they had signed a contract, we will not mention these things.

  His eyes, in the darkness, were very large.

  She said, “What if I asked you to go with me?”

  “I would ask you where.”

  “Nowhere you know. Someplace strange. But not a bad place. You’d get along there, I think.” “This is mysterious,” Emmett said. “But I mean it,” Laura said. Emmett pondered this. “Sounds like you do.” “It’s hard to explain.” “Witchcraft,” Emmett said. “Something like that.” “Really?” “Really.”

  “I would have to trust you on this.” “Yes. It’s too much to explain.” “I don’t know,” he said. “Well, I understand,” Laura said. “It’s tough.” Emmett said, “I need time to think about it.” She closed her eyes and said, “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “Seriously?” “Seriously.”

  “Hell of a thing to ask somebody.” “I know.”

  “What would you say if I asked you something like that?”

  But she had thought about this a long time. “I would say yes.”

  He seemed surprised.

  He said, “I have business here.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not the kind of thing a person can just do. Pick up and leave like that.” “I see,” Laura said.

  “Hey, you know how it is.” “Yeah. I guess.” She turned away.

  And in the morning he helped her with her two big bags, all the things in the world she wanted to keep, and carried them downstairs for her, to the car, the little Durant parked in the gravel. It was a cool morning and the air was full of salt and iodine. Emmett didn’t talk much and Laura didn’t press it. She didn’t know what to say either.

  She opened the trunk and Emmett lifted her luggage inside. He slammed down the lid.

  Laura opened the door and slid behind the wheel. Emmett closed the door for her. She rolled down the window and looked up at him.

  “Lousy day for traveling,” he said. “Looks like rain.”

  “Maybe not where I’m going.” “Somewhere sunny?”

  “I think so,” she said, sad but not wanting him to see it. “It’s definitely possible.”

  “Well,” Emmett said, “what the hell. I’m not especially fond of the rain myself.”

  She turned her face up. He was smiling. “Room for some guitars in there?”

  3

  Karen phoned Toronto from a hotel room in Santa Monica.

  She was surprised at Gavin’s voice. He sounded weary and uncertain. Older, maybe. Maybe things weren’t going too well in the apartment by the lake.

  He said, “I guess it’s too much to hope you’ve come to your senses.”

  “Not the way you mean—no, I haven’t.”

  “If you come home, you know, Karen, it’ll look much better in any kind of custody argument. You’re only hurting yourself by running away.”

  She said, “It won’t be a problem for long.”

  “Jesus,” Gavin said, “I wish I could figure you out.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible anymore.”

  “So why bother calling? To gloat?”

  She was hurt. Brief but bitter—it was a taste of the way things had been. “Maybe just to hear your voice. Maybe to say goodbye.”

  “Don’t be so damn sure you’ve heard the last of me. I’m quite capable of hiring detectives. Maybe I already have.”

  “I don’t think it matters.”

  “Is Michael with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re taking this risk—you’re destroying his future.”

  But she didn’t believe that anymore. He had lost the power to intimidate her. There was something familiar in the way he spoke, something in his voice she recognized; and she realized suddenly that it was Daddy, that it was Willis Fauve’s voice echoing through Gavin. But it was vitiated, powerless… she had left all those voices behind.

  She said, “Do you believe in the wheel?”

  “Do I believe—what?”

  “Things change,” she said, “but
do they get better? Is that a possibility? Can a wheel roll uphill?” Gavin said, “You are crazy.” “Well, maybe.”

  “I can have you subpoenaed. You should be aware of that. You’re letting yourself in for a world of trouble. You—”

  But this was history.

  She looked up and saw Michael watching her.

  4

  Michael knew it was his father on the phone.

  Karen looked at him across the room, hesitated a second, then offered the receiver to him. “You want to talk?”

  He thought about it.

  Home, he thought.

  The apartment by the lake.

  Two different places.

  Michael shook his head. “Tell him—”

  “What?”

  “Tell him thanks but I’m okay. Tell him I’m looking out for myself. Tell him…” Long beat, and then Michael smiled a little. “Tell him maybe I’ll come see him someday.”

  Karen nodded solemnly. “Anything else?”

  “Tell him goodbye.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The little Durant ran on gasoline, and that wasn’t a common fuel here, but they drove as far as they could down a broad highway marked Camino del Mar, and when the tank ran dry they peddled the car to a scrap-metal dealer for a handful of Commonwealth money —enough to get by on for a while. The city down the road, the scrap dealer said, was Ciudad San Francisco, and there was work there… you could get by in English if you didn’t know Nahuatl or Spanish. Michael said that sounded good but that ultimately they would probably be heading East.

  “To each his own.” The scrap dealer opened the hood of the Durant and gazed inside with patient puzzlement. “Personally, I hate snow.”

  Michael and Emmett played funny, clumsy guitar duets at the back of the northbound bus. Karen listened a while, to the music and then to the rumble of tires on pavement.