Memory and Dream n-5

by Charles de Lint

  VIII

  It took Cosette the longest time to find out where he lived. Isabelle was easy. She always knew where Isabelle was. All she had to do was close her eyes and she’d know, but that was because Isabelle was the one to bring her over from the before. It would have been more surprising for Cosette not to know where Isabelle was. But it took her longer to track down Alan and then, when she finally did climb up the fire escape attached to the side of his house and peer in his kitchen window, it was only to find that some other woman she didn’t know at all had gotten there before her.

  Wasn’t it just the way, she thought grumpily, sitting down on the fire-escape steps. Somebody else always got there first. And it wasn’t as though that woman with Alan didn’t already have so much. She could sleep and dream on the wings of the red crow, just as everybody else in the world could—everybody except for her and those brought over from the before.

  Rising to her feet, she pushed her face close to the glass and offered the pair of them a glower, but neither Alan nor the woman bothered to look her way. She started to lift a hand to tap on the pane, but then let her arm fall back down to her side again. Sighing, she returned to her seat on the fire escape.

  And she’d so been looking forward to seeing him blush again. She’d never known that grown men could blush so easily. There was so much she didn’t know; so much she might never know. What did it feel like to dream? What was it like when the red crow beat its wings inside your chest and you didn’t have to wonder about being real, you just were? What a luxury to take such a miracle for granted.

  She looked down at her new shoes, but all the pleasure from getting them and her sweater was draining away.

  It wasn’t fair. It had never been fair and it never would be.

  Her gaze traveled up into the sky where the moon hung drowsing among the stars, high above the neon lights and streetlamps and all the other sparkling, stuttering lights that made the city glow.

  “Red crow, red crow,” she whispered. “Fly inside me.”

  She cocked her head to one side and listened, but the only wings out tonight were those of bats catching the last few bugs of the season. She doubted that they had any more interest in her than stupid old Alan did. And she knew why. It was because she wasn’t

  “Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it,” she chanted, her voice a husky whisper, hands clasped around her knees as she rocked back and forth on the fire-escape steps.

  “Don’t say what?” a voice asked from below.

  Cosette stopped rocking to frown at the dark-haired young man she could see standing below her.

  The shadow of the fire escape made a strange pattern across his features.

  “What are you doing here?” she wanted to know.

  He shrugged. “I could say I was just passing by and happened to see you sitting there.”

  “Did you?”

  “Or I could say I followed you here.”

  “Why would you want to follow me?”

  “I didn’t say I was.”

  Cosette laughed. She rose to her feet and ghosted her way down the fire escape, her new shoes silent on the metal steps. She paused when she could sit with her head at the same level as his.

  “But you’re here all the same,” she said.

  “What were you doing?”

  Cosette shrugged. She glanced back up to where light spilled from the kitchen window out onto the landing of the fire escape. Inside, Alan’s girlfriend was probably laughing while Alan told her about the strange visitor he’d had on the island this morning. Maybe they were taking their clothes off and touching each other. Maybe Alan was lying with his head upon his girlfriend’s breast, listening to the red crow beat its wings inside her.

  “Somebody gave me new shoes and a sweater today,” she said. “For no reason at all. Just for being me. I think the woman liked me.”

  “Maybe. But she probably wanted something from you.”

  “Do you think so?”

  He nodded. “They always want something from us. If not today, then tomorrow. It’s just the way they are. Everything they do relates to commerce.”

  “What do you want from me?” Cosette asked.

  “To see you again. To remind myself that I’m not alone.”

  “What makes you think you’re not?”

  He looked away from her, down the street. A cab went down its long empty length, but the light of its headbeams never reached far enough across the darkened lawn to touch them.

  “That was unkind,” he said when he finally turned back to her.

  Cosette gave him another shrug. “You make me nervous when you start answering questions. The things you say make me feel bad. You always make Paddyjack cry.”

  “I only tell the truth.”

  Cosette cupped her chin with the palm of her hand, propped her elbow on her knee and studied him for a long moment.

  “Rosalind says truth is like a ghost,” she said. “Nobody sees it quite the same.”

  He met her gaze, but said nothing.

  “And the reason you’re alone,” Cosette added, “is because you want it that way.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “It’s what you told Paddyjack and he told me.”

  “Paddyjack’s like a big puppy. He was always following me around until I had to tell him I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want him to get hurt and that could easily happen to him in the places I go.”

  “But you hardly ever come by to say hello.”

  “I’m here now.”

  Cosette smiled. “But not because of me. You want to know about Isabelle. You want to know why she’s come back to the city. You know it’s not to visit, but you don’t know why, do you?”

  “I’ll admit that I’m curious.”

  “You see?” Cosette said, the disappointment plain in her voice. “You’re the one who wants something. You’re the one who makes everything into an object of commerce.”

  “I never said I was perfect.”

  “But you always pretended to be so happy.”

  “I didn’t always pretend. I was happy once—but that was a long time ago.”

  “Here’s a riddle for you,” Cosette said. “If love is such sweet sorrow, then why is it that people pursue it the way that they do?”

  Before he could reply she closed her eyes and called up the painting of The Wild Girl that hung in the Newford Children’s Foundation. A moment later she was standing in front of it, her new shoes scuffing the carpet.

  “It’s because usually we don’t know any better,” the dark-haired young man said to the empty fire escape where she’d been sitting. “And even when we do, we can’t stop ourselves.”

  IX

  What was that?” Alan said, turning toward the kitchen window. “What was what?”

  “I thought I heard something out there.”

  He rose from his chair and looked out the window, but between the darkness outside and the glare from the kitchen window, he couldn’t see anything beyond the fire escape.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Marisa said.

  “I suppose it was just a cat or something.”

  But he sounded doubtful and stayed by the window, gaze fixed on something that Marisa realized only he could see. There was something terribly for-lorn about the way he was standing. She wanted to get up and go over to comfort him, but she remained at the table, hands on her lap, fingers entwined.

  “Some nights,” he said, “I feel as though there are ghosts out there—not just of people who have died, but of the people we used to be. The people we might have been.” He turned to look at her. “Do you ever think about things like that?”

  “I guess so. Not that they’re ghosts or anything, but I think about the past and the choices I made.

  And what might have happened if I’d chosen differently.”

  Alan returned to sit at the table. He toyed with his empty mug. “Is marrying George something you wouldn’t have done if you were given the ch
oice?”

  Marisa shook her head. “If I hadn’t married George, I’d never have moved to Newford and met you.”

  She watched him as she spoke, expecting to see him flinch, or withdraw behind his shell again.

  Instead he reached across the table and took her hand. She knew he wasn’t promising her anything by the gesture. They were comforting each other, that was all, and for now it was enough.

  X

  Isabelle awoke to find Rubens kneading the pillow by her head his face pressed up close to hers, whiskers tickling her cheek. She turned slightly to see that Jilly was still asleep on the other side of the Murphy bed, before she pulled a hand out from under the comforter to give him a pat. The motor deep in his chest immediately started up.

  “I know, I know,” she whispered to him. “You want to go out, but you can’t.”

  When she didn’t get up, he butted his head up against the side of her face. “We’re not at home anymore,” she explained patiently, as though he could understand.

  After a while, he trod daintily down to the end of the bed and lay down. She had to get up, just so she could get away from the reproachful look on his face. Once she was washed and dressed, she decided to forgo having breakfast here. She and Jilly had stayed up later than planned last night, just talking, catching up on gossip and each other’s news, so she was going to let Jilly sleep in.

  She’d spent a restless night herself, just hovering on the wrong edge of sleep all night. City nerves, she’d told herself as she lay there, not wanting to move around too much for fear of waking Jilly. She just wasn’t used to all the ambient noise. It wasn’t the real reason, and she knew it, but she refused to let her mind dwell on what was really keeping her awake: Kathy and the book. The fact that Jilly had seen John Sweetgrass when he was supposed to be dead.

  After shaking some dry cat food into Rubens’s bowl, she wrote a short note and left it propped up on Jilly’s easel:

  Good morning, sleepyhead,

  I decided to get an early start on some errands. I hope you don’t mind my leaving Rubens. I’ll be back around noon to pick him up.

  Rubens ran up hopefully to her as she opened the front door, but had to settle for the quick hug she gave him before she slipped out into the hall. She waited a moment to see if he’d cry.

  Good boy, she thought when he didn’t. You just let Jilly get some sleep.

  Trailing a hand along the wall, she made her way down the steep stairs from July’s studio and out onto the street. There she stood on the pavement, checking her pocket for the key that she already knew was there, before she caught the southbound subway that would take her downtown to the bus terminal.

  The key proved to be useless. It fit into the slot, but it wouldn’t turn. She tried it a half-dozen times, compared the number on the locker with the one on the key. The numbers matched, but the key wouldn’t work. Logically, it was what she should have expected. It made no sense that what Kathy had left for her in the locker would still be waiting for her after all this time. But still she was disappointed that, even from beyond the grave, Kathy hadn’t been able to work one last bit of magic. Isabelle had never known anyone who could manipulate luck better than Kathy had been able to. It was a gift that had only deserted her at the end.

  Eventually Isabelle went looking for the security office, which she found tucked away in a short corridor on the far side of the public rest rooms. There were two uniformed men inside. The one who was her own age was slouched in a chair, reading a book. He looked up at her when she came in, giving her a glimpse of a pair of startlingly dark eyes before he returned his attention to his book. The older man stood at the counter, his admirable straight-backed posture at odds with the paunch that stretched over his belt.

  “You have to understand, miss,” the older man said when she explained her problem to him. “We clear those lockers out every three months. Whatever we find is stored for awhile longer and then we dispose of it.”

  Isabelle’s heart sank. She had no idea what Kathy had left for her in that locker. While it might have been of no intrinsic value by most people’s standards, it had still been important enough for Kathy to send Isabelle the key. The idea of it having been thrown away was unthinkable.

  “Can you tell me where you would send it?”

  “We treat it as abandoned. Anything that can be sold ends up in places like the Goodwill where the money can help out. The rest gets thrown away.”

  “Yes, but—”

  Behind the older security guard she could see his younger companion regarding her over the top of his book, a curious expression in those dark eyes of his. He ran a hand through his short brown hair and dropped his gaze when she looked back at him.

  “It’s been five years, miss,” the older guard said.

  “I know.”

  “And you can’t even tell me what it was that your friend was storing for you.

  “I understand,” Isabelle said. “It’s just ...”

  Just what? she thought. There was nothing the man could do for her.

  She could feel tears welling up in her eyes and turned away so that the man wouldn’t see them.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’d love to help you.”

  Isabelle nodded. “Thank you. I I ...”

  She gave him a helpless shrug and was starting to leave when the younger security guard put down his book and called her back. He opened the drawer of his desk and rummaged around in it for a moment. When he met her at the counter, he was holding a photograph that he laid down in front of her.

  There were three people in the picture: Kathy, Alan and herself. They were sitting on the grass in Fitzhenry Park, a summer’s day, the sky a glorious blue behind them, the three of them so young. Isabelle couldn’t really remember ever having been so young, but she could remember that afternoon, Alan using the timer on his camera, setting it on one of the benches so that all three of them could be in the picture.

  “That’s you, isn’t it?” the guard asked, pointing to her younger self. Isabelle nodded. “Where ...

  where did you get this?”

  “It was in your friend’s locker.”

  Isabelle gave the older guard a confused look, but he was obviously as much in the dark as she was.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “I was a big fan of Katharine Mully’s writing,” the younger guard said. “I recognized her when she came in. I wanted to get her to autograph one of her books for me, but I didn’t have any of them with me. So I slipped a note into the locker, asking her to stop by the security desk the next time she came in.

  But then she ... well, died.”

  “Mark,” the older guard said. “If you’re telling me you went into that locker, I’m going to—”

  “No way. I waited the ninety days. But then I stashed what was in the locker. I figured someone was going to come for it someday. It was like one of her stories,” he added, looking to Isabelle for support.

  “You know the way she talked about everything being a part of a pattern and how it all comes together someday? Like in the story ‘Kismet,’ when the two pen pals finally meet, even though one of them’s been dead for twenty years.”

  “Kismet,” Isabelle repeated.

  He nodded. “Fate. That’s what this is, my hanging on to that stuff and you finally showing up here five years later to collect it. Kismet.”

  “You mean, you’ve got what she left for me?” Isabelle said.

  Mark nodded. “It’s in my own locker. Hang on a sec and I’ll get it for you.” When he left the office, the older guard turned to Isabelle. “I want to assure you,” he said, “that what Mark did is completely against company policy.”

  “You won’t hear me complaining,” Isabelle told him.

  She realized that the younger guard would have gone through this mysterious legacy that Kathy had left her, but she was so relieved to actually be getting whatever it was that she couldn’t muster up any anger against him.

&nb
sp; “He’s not going to get into trouble, is he?”

  “Well, strictly speaking, he should have turned in whatever he found in that locker. Our policy is quite clear on that.”

  “But then I wouldn’t be getting it now.”

  “Yes, well ...”

  The conversation didn’t go any further because the other guard returned at that moment, carrying a plastic shopping bag. From it he took two flat parcels, each wrapped in brown paper and taped closed.

  Neither appeared to have been opened.

  “This is all there was in the locker,” Mark said. “These two packages and the photograph lying on top of them.”

  Isabelle ran a finger along the seam of one of the pieces of tape, unable to believe that he’d kept them as long as he had without ever looking inside. “You didn’t open them?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t bring myself to. It’s like she entrusted me to take care of them.” He shrugged. “I know that sounds stupid, but you have to understand. I was going through a really rough time when I first started reading her work. I never got the chance to meet her, but those stories pulled me through. It’s like she was my friend, and you don’t pry into your friends’ private concerns; you wait for them to share them or not.”

  Isabelle moved her hand across the surface of one of the parcels. She could tell what they were, simply from their shapes. One was a book. The other, the parcel that lay against her palm, was a painting. She could feel the give of the canvas under the weight of her hand.

  “You’re really amazing,” she told the younger guard. “I think you’ve just restored my faith in the basic goodness of humanity.”

  “See?” Mark said. “It really is fate. That’s what Mully’s stories did for me.”

  Isabelle turned to the older guard. “So it’s okay if I take these with me?” He hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “Oh hell. Why not. Just don’t tell anybody how you got them.”

  “Thanks—both of you.” Isabelle replaced the parcels in the plastic bag. “Don’t forget this,” Mark said, handing her the photograph.

  Isabelle looked at it. Her memories didn’t need keepsakes to jump-start them.