The Gift of Magic

by Sharon Lee

  Damn right, he didn't have to tell her his.

  "Cross here," is what he said, and took them across Archer Avenue, to Milliken.

  "Trolley stops on Grand," Sylvia objected.

  "Stops on Milliken first, and it's quieter there. You want the music to concentrate on you, right?"

  She nodded, jerkily. "Right."

  The town council had planted fewer street lights on Milliken, it being a secondary way. There was plenty of spill off of Archers Avenue, though, and a lamp post right next to the trolley stop, its light furry in the sea-damp air.

  Andy settled into the corner of the little wooden bench, and slipped the guitar out of its case. He could feel the music buzzing in his fingers; buzzing in his head. It came on like that, sometimes, 'specially if he hadn't played in a while. After a night of moving music through him. . .it worried him a little, just while he was getting the case out of the way and settling his fingers along the strings. It worried him, that the music was so eager, almost like it. . .had a plan.

  It ought to worry him, that the music had a plan, but once he had his fingers on the frets, nothing worried him at all.

  "Sit on down," he murmured. "We got a couple minutes."

  "I don't want to sit down!" she snapped, and he might've snapped back, but there wasn't any sense to it—it was the dope making her twitchy and mad.

  "Suit yourself."

  His fingers were already moving, teasing out a melody—Simple Gifts, it was. Good music, that one; gentle.

  Powerful.

  What it felt like, playing the music—the kind and style of music he played. . .It felt like. . .it felt like he went all still at the dead center of him while light filled him up, flowing out through his fingers to wash away the pain and sadness around him.

  That was why he'd stopped playing, after Nessa married her prince and took herself off to the Land of the Flowers. He'd told her that he was happy, so long as she was happy—but that'd been a lie.

  The truth was, it felt like his heart'd been torn out, and there was no still place inside him for the light to fill up. He'd gone back to his land, threw himself into its care and keeping, not thinking; only serving.

  Until the night he found himself standing on the corner of Milliken and Archer, hat on the ground by his feet, his fingers bleeding from the strings—playing.

  Playing.

  That had hurt—the music melting the scar tissue; growing him a new heart. It had hurt for a long time, but he learned. He learned to let the music—what the music was and everything that it did—fill him up and flow away. It was his gift—his gift to give away.

  It was rare that he played just for one person. The full power of the music focused on a single heart and soul—not many could bear that. When he'd been young, and learning his gift, he'd broken a man's heart, playing just to him. His fault; he hadn't known the limits of a human heart, then. Still didn't, though he had a far shrewder notion.

  He learned to play for big groups; he'd learned to give the music away to the street, to a meadow, to the sea—and to those strong enough to bear it.

  This girl now, this Sylvia—she was only human, wyrd-sighted though she seemed. Whole and healthy, she wasn't strong enough to bear the full brunt of the music; sick with the dope like she was, and dying—the best thing the music could do, to fix her, like she wanted, was to kill her outright, and stop her from hurting any more.

  His fingers moved along the frets without him paying any particular mind, and it was Shenandoah this time, easing into the space that had been warmed by Simple Gifts. Andy looked up, wanting to see how she was bearing it—but what he saw was the music, swirling 'round and through her, lighting her up like she was a candle.

  A funny kind of candle, with the flame guttering, and a space of blackness before there was light again, burning brilliant and brave.

  He watched, his fingers moving up and down the strings; he watched the music coil around the brilliant base of the candle and. . .tighten. The light moved up, slow, like the dark patch was almost too heavy to budge.

  The music tightened again. He found his fingers insistent, and it was some Spanish thing now, that he'd learned from that sailor, long winters ago. Flamenco, thrumming hard and insistent, exerting pressure, until, the white base of the candle flowed upward into the darkness, and the crowning flame flared bright blue-white.

  The bottom half of the candle—that was dark, now, and Andy's fingers slowed, sliding out of insistence into a gentle murmur; not music, really; more like whistling to yourself when you'd just done something that scared you bad.

  The music flowed away, the image of the candle faded, and it was just the girl, Sylvia, standing there and staring at him, her face a little pale now, and her eyes soft with tears.

  "You fixed me," she whispered. "I felt—"

  "You felt," he said, his voice a harsh counterpoint to the murmur of the music. "You felt half your life taken off the back end, and applied to the front. You won't die this week, missy, but you won't live out the length you was given."

  Her mouth tightened, the lipstick long gone, and then she nodded, once, firmly enough that the brave red flower on her hat jerked with it.

  "But I was going to die this week, wasn't I?"

  "Can't say that, missy, but you were in a bad way."

  "Then I'll take that shorter span," she said firmly, and stiffened her thin shoulders.

  "What're you gonna do, then?"

  "Like I said. Go to Portland; find Sarah. Figure out what to do with what I've got left."

  A bell sounded, around a crackle of electricity.

  Sylvia looked over her shoulder.

  "The trolley's here," she said, but instead of moving toward the curb, she stepped up to the bench, leaned down and kissed his cheek.

  "Thank you," she said. "I mean that."

  She turned, then, took a step, turned back to look at him, a wry grin on her pale face.

  "I don't have car fare."

  He snorted lightly, and came to his feet, one hand still fondling the strings while he dug into his pocket and pulled out his evening's earnings.

  "Here."

  "That's too much!"

  "Taxi ride to Sarah, once you're in Portland," he said. "Something to eat, maybe." He pushed the money at her. "I'll get more, tomorrow."

  She laughed. "You talked me into it."

  The trolley arrived with a clang of the bell, the door clattered open.

  "Milliken Street!" the conductor yelled. "All aboard for Portland, Congress Street Car Barn!"

  A fella came down the stairs, none-too-steady on his feet, tipped his hat in Sylvia's general direction—"Miss."—and charted an uncertain route down Milliken, taking the corner wide at Imperial, and heading up the hill, toward the boarding houses.

  Sylvia mounted one step, and stopped to look over her shoulder at him.

  "Come with me," she said.

  He shook his head, both hands on the strings, and the music moving softly out into the night.

  "Got everything I need, right here."

  "Lucky you," she said.

  "Hey!"

  Andy turned, fearing the worst—and here it came, the fella she'd been with at The Conch, hatless and running.

  "Sylvia! Hey! Hold that trolley!"

  She froze; she half-turned. . .

  "Jake?"

  Andy brought his hand across the strings in a slash, waking discord.

  "Go!" he shouted, and used what she'd freely given him against her.

  "Sylvia! Get on the trolley!"

  Her body stiffened. Wooden, but obedient to his command, she mounted the steps. The doors clashed shut behind her. Electricity crackled; sparks danced along the wire.

  "Hey!"

  The fella—Jake—slammed to a stop by the bench, breathing hard, and shaking his fist at the trolley's backside.

  "Evenin', Jake," Andy said, quiet and firm.

  The man turned toward him, eyes widening.

  "You—What'd you do wi
th my girl?"

  "Gave her some help. She asked me."

  "Yeah? Well, you're gonna be sorry you did that. How about I break that guitar over your head?"

  "No," Andy said, and heard the music coming out of the guitar, thick and dark and heavy.

  He tried to stop, but the music had him as much as it had Jake, and the music was angry.

  "You better leave," he told Jake, and tried to change it; to play something else. He thought the notes of Simple Gifts; but his fingers continued to call forth darkness and doom. The strings were icy against his skin, and he saw the music flow into the man and through him.

  Saw the candle—saw, Andy thought, the man's soul—dull and tarnished thing that it was, with its flame guttering orange.

  His fingers were pitiless; they played on, and the dark music swept out in an eddy so poisonously perfect that Andy felt the tears prick his eyes.

  There was no filling here; no squeezing, neither. Just a breeze, that was all, cold, and soft, and sudden.

  The candle flame flickered, guttered. . .and licked back up, just a glow now. . .

  Andy drew a breath; he drew deep, on all the power he had in him.

  He lifted his hand away from the strings.

  The music stopped.

  The man's guttering soul flickered in the passing of the cold breeze; Jake swayed—then straightened as the flame steadied and flared..

  "You. . ." he snarled again, taking a step forward.

  Andy slashed his hand across the strings, making them scream.

  "Run!" he shouted. "Jake, you better run away—and forget you knew Sylvia!"

  He felt that last bit take, just before Jake jumped like he'd been poked with a hot wire. A harsh gasp, near enough to a scream, got loose from him, and his slick-soled shoes scraped the sidewalk as he sprang into a run, up Milliken, back toward the lights of Archers Avenue.

  Andy watched until Jake was just one more silhouette among the many up on the Avenue. Then, he walked over to the bench and put his guitar away in its case.

  He stood for a little while, then, shivering; the breeze off the ocean having gone from chilly to cold.

  "Shows what comes of dealing with folks from Away," he said, to nobody in particular.

  He sighed, and slung the case over his shoulder, looking toward home.

  Midnight, he thought. The Big Band would be finishing up its last set real soon, and the jam session'd be warming up. He wanted voices around him, and music, that was what.

  Tonight now, he thought, moving slow toward Archer Avenue. Tonight, he'd learn to play the Blues.

  The night don't seem so lonely

  "And that was Yellow Submarine by the fab four, also known as—THE BEATLES!" The DJ's voice evaporated into a cloud of static, and came back, a little watery now:

  ". . .listening to WKOX-FM, one-oh-five-point-seven, Framingham, Mass. All rock, all the—"

  More static, fizzing loud.

  "Jesus Christ!" Ben swore. "Find another station, willya, Mossie?"

  Moss leaned forward, fiddling with the dial, picking up a lot of static, and a thin line of what might've been "Crystal Blue Persuasion," though it was hard to tell in the rush of road noise coming in the open windows.

  He upped the volume just in time for the thread of song to dissolve into a loud honk of noise.

  "Christ!" Ben swore again, his hand flashing out.

  Moss ducked—not that Ben had hit him, yet—and the music clicked off.

  "Goddamn dead zone," Ben said. "You wait'll we get to Portland. Got a stereo set up, all the records you can listen to: Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Doors—all the good stuff. You'll like it just fine."

  Moss had heard this before—Ben had picked him up a couple miles south of the Mass Pike, so they'd been together almost a day. The story was that Ben shared a house in Portland, Maine, on India Street. The plan—Ben's plan—was for Moss to come home with him, and "help out" for crash space and food.

  It was a nice plan, Moss thought—for Ben. He didn't particularly have anything against Ben, mind. The man'd been more than fair with him: fed him a couple burgers, with fries, made sure he had a new, cold Coke every time they stopped for gas, offered to share his cigarettes and his reefers, too; and had only wanted one blow-job, which he'd asked for, nice and polite. His momma would've liked Ben.

  Well, and Momma never did have no sense in men; which was the reason Moss was sixteen, and hitchin', and givin' blow-jobs to such folk as might pick him up. Momma'd taught him it was wrong to be beholden, so he made sure him and his rides were caught up even by the time he left 'em.

  . . .though that was lookin' like it might be a problem, with Ben, here. Moss had no intention of letting himself be took into a strange house in a strange city and set to work givin' blow-jobs—or worse—to them he owed nothing to—or maybe Ben had the idea he'd like to deliver reefers, which he wouldn't much care for, neither.

  Trouble was, they were getting close to Portland—he'd seen a sign 'bout ten miles back that said 38 miles, which meant he was going to have to give Ben the slip at the next gas stop.

  He glanced over at the dash. Gauge was showing under a quarter, and the way this old Lincoln drank down the gas, no way they were making even twenty-five more miles without a top-off.

  "Be home for dinner," Ben said, maybe thinking he was looking at the odometer. "We'll stop and pick up some groceries—beer, Coke, whatever you like—'fore we get there. Sound good to you, Mossie?"

  "Sure," he said, and smiled, because Ben would want him to smile and be excited about comin' inside to a regular house where there was a shower, and regular meals an' all. A place where he could be useful and maybe earn some money and not have to put up with Momma's new boyfriend whaling on him, and calling him a freak and a weakling, and yelling at him to die, already.

  His momma—give her credit—she hadn't liked seein' her boyfriend smacking her sickly son around, so she'd done what she could, since she wasn't going to be givin' the boyfriend up no time soon, not with a new baby on the way. She'd given Moss his own daddy's backpack, from when he'd been in the Army, and she'd told him to pack up his clothes and any other little thing that was his. Then, she'd given him nineteen dollars, which was all the grocery money, drove him out to the edge of the city, so the cops wouldn't give him no hassle, opened the door and told him to go.

  He gave her back a ten, because he knew she'd want to think well of herself, and remember that she hadn't sent him out empty-handed. The boyfriend, though, he'd still expect to eat, and there wasn't no sense her getting the man mad when she'd just done him a good turn.

  She took the money quick enough that he knew she'd been counting on him giving some back. He picked up his pack from between his feet, and got out of the car.

  "Moshe," she said, just as he was shutting the door.

  "Ma'am?"

  "You remember now—don't you walk too hard, or too far. You mind your heart. Promise me."

  "I promise, Momma," he said, giving her a smile to show he didn't mind it; and closed the door nice and soft.

  By the time he'd gotten to the end of the parking lot, she was gone.

  "We'll pull over for gas just up the road," Ben said, breaking into his thoughts. "Get us some Cokes and chips to last the rest of the way."

  Moss looked out the window, saw a long main street like a lot he'd seen in New England—hardware store, five and dime, diner. . .and 'way up the end of the block, on the right, a white, red and blue Esso sign.

  "Where are we?" he asked, 'cause of course the hardware store was somebody's name, which wasn't no help, and the diner was The Golden Rooster, with a big sign in the front window that said, "Something to Crow About!"

  "Saco," Ben said. "That bridge we just come across was the Saco River. Town just the other side was Biddeford."

  "And next is Portland?"

  "Nah. Still gotta do the rest of Saco, then Scarborough, then over the bridge into the city. Twenty miles, maybe. Home for dinner, just like I said." />
  This was definitely the place for him to get off.

  Moss smiled. "Sounds great," he said.

  Ben pulled up to the pumps, and cut the engine. Moss opened his door.

  "Gotta hit the head," he said. He closed the door briskly and walked to the office.

  "Key?" he said to the guy behind the counter.

  "Over there on the hook," the guy said, jerking his head to the left without bothering to look around.

  Moss snagged the one labeled "M" and was out the door, ducking past Ben as he came in, and scooting around the side of the building.

  But he didn't go to the men's room. He tucked the key on its piece of wood in the back pocket of his jeans, and looked around the corner at the car.

  There was only one guy on, and he'd put the pump on automatic while he got under the hood to check the oil.

  Good, thought Moss. It was time to leave Ben and get on alone. He couldn't risk the house on India Street, not by a long damn, he couldn't. Sure, he was on the street, and he didn't have an address, but he'd talked to the other kids he'd met on his way out from KC. Some of 'em—a lot of 'em—they'd made mistakes, and they were willing to share what they'd done wrong, or seen done wrong, what and who to look out for. . .

  He didn't quite have Ben figured, but that didn't matter. The only kind of person who picked up a hitcher, treated him good, and promised him a nice room in his own home—was the kind of person no hitcher wanted to know. Might be Ben was on good behavior until they got to that house, which might not even be his. Some places, after they had a kid for a while, they sent him out to get more kids. . .

  Well.

  Wasn't here nor there, really. He had a plan—he had a duty—and he was gonna see it done. He'd promised.

  Moss slipped around the back of the car, opened the back door, ducked inside and grabbed the strap of his backpack.

  Easing the door closed, he looked to the front, but the gas-guy was still fiddling around with the engine. He stood on tiptoes to look over the roof of the Lincoln; saw Ben in the window, talking with the office man, but shifting a little like Ben did when he was nervous. Might be he was starting to wonder how long Moss was gonna take.