February Thaw

by Tanya Huff

  Did she know him? Was he like some old friend of her dad's who'd fallen on hard times? Breathing shallowly through her mouth, Isabel tried to recognize a familiar feature under all the dirt.

  As if drawn by her regard, he rose up out of the garbage and turned. The small part of his face she could see wore an expression of extreme puzzlement.

  "Half a Starbucks apricot square will last forty-six hours and seven minutes without going mouldy," he said. "A muffin..." Glancing into the garbage, he shook his head. Then he looked up again, locking blood-shot grey eyes on hers. "There isn't much time."

  Isabel could actually feel the hair rise on the back of her neck. It was a totally gross feeling. Pulling a handful of change out of her pocket, she thrust it toward him. "Here, buy a fresh muffin."

  The two dollar coin caught his attention. He plucked it off her palm, closed his right eye, and held it up to his left. "Twonie or not twonie. That is the question."

  The coin disappeared.

  She'd been watching the coin. Had almost seen it slide sideways into nothing. Had almost recognized the movement. She thought she heard something growl. A quick look around – no dogs. When she turned back to her streeter, he was in exactly the same position he'd been in when she'd turned away. "So, do you want the rest of this money or not?"

  He shrugged and held out his hand.

  Isabel dropped the change in his palm, careful not to touch anything, and hurried away. Maybe Dad’s right. Maybe I should start taking taxis home from school.

  *

  "Dad? You home?" She didn’t expect him to be home, not at four thirty on a Tuesday, not on a day that Mrs. Gerfinleo was in, but it never hurt to ask.

  Shrugging out of backpack and blazer, she dropped them on the floor, kicked off her sensible black school shoes, picked up her backpack, and headed for her bedroom. By the time she got out of the shower, her blazer hung brushed and pressed on the door to the walk-in closet and her newly shined shoes were aligned neatly in their cubby.

  Grinning, she threw on jeans and a T-shirt and made her way to the kitchen for her bi-weekly lecture on how clothing didn't pick itself up.

  The kitchen was as empty as the rest of the condo.

  "Mrs. G.?"

  A noise on the terrace, the sound of furniture being moved, caught her attention.

  Well, duh. Mrs. G. was out watering the plants.

  "Mrs..." Her greeting trailed off, leaving her standing silently in the open doorway staring at the biggest crow she'd ever seen. Perched on the back of a rattan chair, head cocked, it stared intently at her out of a brilliant yellow eye. And it was staring at her not just in her general direction the way most birds did.

  "What do you want, bird?"

  In reply, it dropped the biggest streak of bird shit she'd ever seen down the back of the chair.

  "Too gross! Go on, get out of here!" Flapping a hand at it, she added an emphatic, "Scram!"

  Instead of flying away, it dropped down onto the terrace and hopped toward her.

  "I don't think so, bird." Stepping back, she slammed the door in its face.

  It stopped, glared up at her, ruffled its feathers into place, and said... well, it didn't say anything exactly, it cawed like crows did, but, for a moment, Isabel was certain – almost certain – it had called her a stuck-up bitch.

  "Okay. Low blood sugar. Definitely time for a snack."

  Wherever she'd been, Mrs. G. had to be back in the kitchen by now.

  She wasn't. But this time, Isabel saw the note.

  Bella: Mr. Gerfinleo called from the emergency so I have to leave early. There was an accident with the forklift. Don’t worry, he's okay if you don't count the broken leg. Your supper is in the refrigerator in the stone casserole. Ninety minutes at 350 degrees then grate some of the Parmesan on top. Tell your father, I'll call him later when I know.

  Well, that explained why the condo seemed so empty. It was.

  About to peer into the casserole, Isabel paused. If Mrs. G. had left early, who'd picked up her clothes?

  Clothing didn't pick itself up.

  *

  She saw him the second time on her way to Gregg's Ice Cream. Seven o'clock, her dad still wasn't home and half a dozen questions kept chasing themselves around in her head. If anything could take the place of answers, it was sweet cream on a sugar cone with sprinkles.

  Her streeter was standing outside the Royal Ontario Museum, inside the security fence, inside the garden for that matter, both hands pressed flat against a floor to ceiling window, staring in at the Asian temple. His wardrobe had grown by the addition of a mostly shiny black jacket with the logo for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s CATS embroidered across the back. Nobody but her seemed to have noticed him, but then he did have the whole poor-and-homeless cloak of invisibility thing going.

  About to cross to the southwest side of Queen's Park – the museum's corner – Isabel stepped back up onto the curb and crossed to the north side of Bloor instead. When she then crossed west, the four lanes of Bloor Street were between them.

  It didn't matter.

  As she drew level with him, her streeter turned and looked directly at her.

  "Time is not an illusion, no matter what they say. Spare some change for a cup of coffee, miss. We need to start soon." He didn't shout, he didn't bellow, he just made his declaration in a quiet conversational voice.

  She shouldn't have been able to hear him.

  Then a transport drove between them. Caught and stopped by the red light, it completely blocked her view. All she could see was the side of the trailer and a couple of hundred pairs of closed eyes advertising – actually she had no idea what they were advertising. When Isabel crouched down, a pair of sedans the next lane over blocked that view too. When she straightened, the painted eyes were open, the irises a deep, blood red. As the transport pulled away, she thought she saw them blink.

  The lawn at the ROM was empty except for half a dozen pigeons milling about like they'd lost something.

  "Extra sprinkles," she decided, picking up her pace.

  *

  The best ice cream in the city was of less comfort than usual. She still needed answers. The light was on in her father's den when she got home.

  "Hey, Dad?"

  He pushed his laptop away and turned to face her, waiting expectantly.

  "Have you..."

  He was a good dad, the best dad – even if he did have a tendency to date men who weren't ready for commitment – but Isabel knew with a cold hard certainty, that he couldn't help her now.

  "...heard from Mrs. G?"

  If he realized that wasn't the question she'd begun, he didn't let on. "As a matter of fact, I have. She won't be in until Monday; Mr. Gerfinleo is going to need her at home. Will you be all right?"

  "Me?" Did the weirdness show on her face? "Why?"

  His brows dipped. "Because I've still got to leave for New York tomorrow morning and I'll be gone until Friday afternoon."

  Oh yeah. New York. "Right. I forgot."

  "You'll be on your own." He sounded less than convinced that it was a good idea.

  "For less than three whole days." Isabel rolled her eyes. "I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't have a boyfriend to bring over, and I'm almost seventeen. Even if I eat nothing but crap – which I won't – I'll survive and, as long as I avoid Mrs. Harris, no one's going to call The Children's Aid Society on you."

  "I don’t know. Perhaps you should go stay with your Uncle Joe."

  "Uncle Joe thinks I should be allowed to get my belly button pierced."

  He winced. "On second thought, you'll be safer here."

  Four long strides took her to where she could bend and kiss her father's cheek, patting him on the shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting manner. "Have a good trip. I’ll be fine."

  *

  She had no close friends amongst the girls at school, no one she could call and say, "Do you feel like something weird's about to happen?"

  That left only one person. Is

abel reached out for the phone. It slapped into her palm and she actually had her finger poised above the numbers before she managed to stop herself. No. Things would have to get a whole lot worse before she called her mother.

  Which was when she realized that the phone had been across the room on the bed.

  Her fingers tightened around the red plastic. That was not normal. Hearing crows talk was not normal. Normal people's clothes didn't hang themselves up. Normal people didn't have street people talk to them across four lanes of traffic.

  "Normal people," she told her reflection, "would be way more freaked about this, but I'm not. Does that make me not normal people?"

  Her reflection looked normal enough.

  *

  She saw him the third time through the window of Dr. Chou’s chemistry class. He was shuffling up and down on the sidewalk in front of the school. She was supposed to be studying ionization constants.

  "Ms. Peterson?"

  Isabel jerked her attention in off the street to find Dr. Chou and most of the class staring at her expectantly.

  "Le Chatelier's principle, Ms. Peterson."

  The blackboard rippled and she was staring at the back of Mrs. Bowen teaching Classical Literature next door. And then it wasn’t Mrs. Bowen. And then she realized it was about to turn around.

  That would be bad.

  Very bad.

  Its eyes would be a deep blood red.

  I’m so going to die.

  The blackboard reappeared so quickly, the front of the classroom picked up a faint fog of chalk dust.

  For a moment, she couldn't breathe, and then the moment passed and Dr. Chou was still waiting for an answer she didn't have. "Um, I'm guessing it's not the nice old man who was head of the school where Le Chatelier went as a boy?"

  The class broke into appreciative giggles.

  "Good guess. Loss of three points for being clever. Can anyone tell me the correct answer?"

  Someone could. Isabel paid no attention to who. Her streeter was sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, shoulders slumped in apparent exhaustion.

  He was still there, fifty-five minutes later when the final bell rang. Pushing past a small clump of fellow seniors, she hurried toward him.

  "Hey, Peterson."

  It was an Ashley. Or maybe a Britney. One of the highlights and high hems crowd, anyway. Experience having taught her that ignoring them did no good, she turned.

  "I'm so glad to see you finally got yourself a boyfriend." A toss of long, blonde hair behind one slender shoulder. "What is that aftershave he’s wearing? Is it Eau de toilet?"

  Isabel's lip curled. "Up yours."

  Ashley – or maybe Britney – jerked, eyes wide. "You're such a total loser," she sneered, but the insult didn’t have the usual vicious energy behind it. Tugging at her kilt, she turned her attention back to her friends.

  Isabel had to stand directly in front of him before he noticed her. "You did that. Stopped that... thing."

  He nodded.

  "You were waiting for it. How did you know it was going to be there?"

  "It was drawn to your power."

  "My power?"

  He smiled then, showing incongruously white teeth. "The youngest is always the most powerful."

  "The youngest?"

  "Youngest wizard."

  She wasn't even surprised by how little surprise she felt. "You keep saying there isn't time. Time for what?"

  "To teach you before the test."

  Uh huh. A test. "Is that what that... thing is? Was?"

  "Spare some change?"

  Isabel slapped her hands together an inch in front of his nose. "Hey! Let's maintain focus here!" He jerked back, his eyes clearing. "Is that... thing, the test?"

  "No. It just wants your power."

  "Great." A hundred new questions joined the earlier half dozen. She settled on the most mundane. "What's your name?"

  His brow furrowed. "I have names."

  "Good. Pick one."

  "Leonardo."

  "di Caprio or da Vinci?"

  "What?"

  "Pick another."

  "Fred."

  *

  "There used to be one here but now there isn't and so I came. The others are all still arguing over which one of them it should be but there isn't time." Fred tapped his chest lightly with a grimy fist. "I know."

  Under normal circumstances, Isabel wouldn't have believed a word he'd said, but normal circumstances had been a little skint of late. The elevator chimed. Breathing shallowly through her teeth – breathing normally while sharing an enclosed space with Fred was not a good idea – she held up a hand as the door began to open. "Wait here until I check the hall. I'm so not explaining you to anyone."

  The coast was clear. She got him out of the elevator and moving fast; hopefully fast enough that no one – specifically Mrs. Harris – could trace the nearly visible scent trail to the right door. Her sigh of relief when it closed behind them was a mistake. Or at least the inhale part of it was.

  By the time she stopped coughing, Fred had left the foyer and was standing in the middle of the living room.

  Isabel hurried in beside him. "Look, my father is going to kill me if this place ends up smelling like the inside of a hot dumpster. You need a shower and some clean clothes."

  "Clean." His tone suggested he was searching for a definition of the word. "Okay."

  All at once, he was clean – hair, clothes, probably breath if she'd wanted to get that close. Which she didn't.

  "How did you do that?"

  "Godfry!"

  "What?"

  Ignoring her, Fred headed for the terrace door and tried to push it open. On the other side, a big crow hopped from foot to foot and shouted, "Pull, you idiot!" When he finally pulled the door open and went through, the crow fluttered up to the top of a rattan chair.

  "Well?" it croaked. "Did you tell her?"

  "He said he's here to teach me," Isabel answered before Fred had the chance. "That there'll be a test. He said I'm the youngest wizard and the nasty thing with red eyes is after my power which redefined the rather shaky definition of normal I'd been working with. He didn't tell me what he is, it is, or you are."

  "Him?" The crow turned to glare at her. "He's one of the nine – same as you."

  "Nine?"

  "Nine wizards. There's always nine. Don't ask why, I don't know. When one finally pops – and one popped early last year – the power finds a new conduit. That's you. It's been gathering in you since Beth Aswith died, which is why you're taking this so well in case you're thinking it has anything to do with you as a person."

  Isabel curled her lip.

  The bird ignored her, swivelling his head to face Fred. "Him, he's an old conduit."

  "I'm a piece of O-pipe."

  "Sure you are." And back to Isabel. "My name's Godfry. I'm with him. The big thing with red eyes is a bad guy – sort of an anti-wizard. You've got no control right now so you're lit up like a Christmas tree. The bad guys want your power. Actually, they want everyone's power, but you’re the only one they can find."

  "Great." She picked savagely at a thread on her blazer for a moment. The crow's explanation, although it covered the main points, had been a little light on detail. First things first. "So, if there's seven other wizards, how come I rate the dumpster diver?"

  This time, Fred answered for himself. "No one else would come in time. A wizard with an apprentice gains power. They're arguing over who should get to teach you and so they'll argue and stop each other from coming to you until it's too late." He peered nervously around the terrace, hands wrapped in the bottom of his T-shirt. "I've seen it before."

  "Haven't they seen it before? And if they have, why aren't they here?"

  "They don't care about your place in the web of power, only their own."

  "Wizards, as a rule, aren't very nice people," Godfry snorted. "You should fit right in."

  "Yeah, you'd fit in a roasting pan so, if I were you, I'd be careful."