February Thaw

by Tanya Huff

  *

  When Isabel returned to the terrace in street clothes, Fred had eaten a deli-pack of sliced roast beef, half a loaf of bread, and was just licking the last of the mustard off a tablespoon. "Don't put that back in the... Eww. Tell you what..." She pushed the jar toward him. "...why don’t you just keep the mustard."

  Smiling, he shoved the spoon down until he could get the lid on, screwed it tight and dropped the jar over his left shoulder. It never hit the terrace.

  "What happened to...?"

  "Pocket universe," Godfry told her, hopping down onto the table and poking around in the deli wrapping. "Very handy."

  "I'm sure." It would certainly solve the forty-pound backpack problem. "So what's next?"

  Fred stood and wiped his hands on his pants, leaving bright yellow smears against the green. "Next we go to my workshop and I teach you how to control your power."

  "Okay, where's your workshop?"

  *

  "This is your workshop?"

  A short walk from Isabel's building had brought them to the alley between the Sutton Place Hotel and the insurance headquarters next to it. Given the calibre of tenants in both buildings it was a pretty clean alley, but still...

  "The world is my workshop."

  "Cliché," Godfry put in from the top of a dumpster, "but true."

  "Okay." Eye roll over, she folded her arms. "So teach me."

  Fred patted the air beside her shoulder. "Learn where your skin is."

  "It's on my body."

  "Can you feel it?" He headed for the dumpster.

  Could she feel her skin? How stupid was that. Of course she could. She could feel her socks hug her ankles, the waistband of her jeans cutting in just a bit, how warm it was under her watch...

  "From the inside." Fred's voice bounced about the dumpster and then floated up, eerily disconnected from his body. "Oh wow. It’s a good thing I kept the mustard."

  *

  "You can't feel your skin from the inside," Isabel snorted at last. They were walking along College Street, heading toward Spadina.

  "I can't?"

  She glanced over at Fred, but he was watching where he was putting his feet with single-minded intensity. "Okay, I can't."

  "When you try, what do you feel?"

  "I don't know." A pause while he crouched and picked something off the sidewalk – she didn't want to know what. "A sort of a sizzle."

  "Good. You found the power." He straightened, putting the something in his pocket. "That's what I wanted you to find."

  "Yeah? Then why didn’t you just tell me to look for the power?"

  "Did you know what to look for?"

  "No, but..."

  "Now you do."

  Isabel sighed. What a waste of time. "Is that lesson two?"

  Fred started. "There was a lesson one?"

  "Yeah: trust what you actually see, not what you think you should see." They'd reached the lights and, as they seemed to have been wandering without purpose, Isabel crossed north with the green.

  "Good lesson." He stepped off the curb after her. "Wish I’d had a fish."

  "Right." And as far as she was concerned, that was it for the night. Godfry, by far the more consistently articulate of the two, had long since disappeared. "Look, I gave it a shot but it's getting late and I promised my dad I'd be in bed by midnight."

  "You agreed to be my apprentice."

  "Fine." She rolled her eyes and picked up the pace back toward Bay Street. "I'll be your apprentice tomor..."

  The shadows moved in the way shadows didn't, drawing closer, growling softly, tiny red lights flickering in pairs. They were all around her, cutting her off.

  "Find the sizzle! Grasp it. Throw it at them!"

  Fred sounded kilometres away although she knew he couldn’t have been more than a meter behind her. Propelled by the pounding of her heart, the sizzle raced around just under her skin. No way she could catch it. And what the hell did grasp mean anyway?

  A louder growl. Isabel spun around to face it. Her elbow brushed shadow. Sparks flew. She wanted to scream but she couldn't find her voice. Wrapping her arms around her body, she tried to make herself as small as possible. Which seemed to contain the sizzle.

  So she'd found it. But if this was grasping it, how did she throw it?

  As a second shadow brushed icy terror against her.

  The night exploded in light.

  When she could see again, Isabel stared at the image of an elongated arm burned into the bricks of the building beside her, the talons nearly touching the shadow of her throat.

  She peered through the white spots dancing through her vision. "Did I do that?"

  "The youngest is the most powerful."

  "So you said." There were other images burned beyond the closest one. "Cool. So, if I can do this, why do I need you?"

  "Do you know how you did it?"

  "Uh..." Icy terror. Light. "...no."

  "Can you do it again?"

  The sizzle had faded to a tingle – and in some places not even that. "Not right now."

  "What if you had to? What if they attacked again?"

  "More of them?" When he nodded, she moved a little closer to the streetlight. "Okay, okay, I need you. Still, can't I have a moment to enjoy my victory?"

  "No." His voice dropped an octave and he held out his hand. "Teenager sets off explosion in street. Film at eleven."

  "That's so retro, but I take your point." The wail of police sirens grew closer. His hand was still basically clean. She reluctantly put hers in it.

  And they were standing outside her building.

  Fighting the urge to puke, Isabel staggered back until her shoulder blades were pressed against the brick. Waiting for the world to stop rocking, she sucked in deep lungfuls of air.

  "Downside to everything," Fred murmured philosophically. "Can you spare some change?"

  Although Isabel offered him the use of the spare room, Fred spent the night on the terrace, wrapped in a disgusting sleeping bag he pulled from his pocket universe.

  "I have to be where the sky people can contact me. And you have to sleep with your head at the foot of the bed."

  "Why? Will it, like, scramble my power signature or something?"

  "I have Liza Minnelli’s signature on my arm."

  *

  Safe in her room, Isabel checked her messages and called her father back at his hotel. Conference was going great, blah, blah, blah. New York funds seemed interested in buying in, yadda, yadda, yadda.

  "Izzy, are you listening to me?"

  "Sure, Dad. I'm just tired. I'll see you Friday. Love you. Bye." She hung up before he could answer and glared at her bed. Wondering why she was listening to someone who ate pizza crusts covered in someone else's spit, she yanked up the sheets and moved the pillows down against the foot-board.

  The first time she woke, gasping for breath, she turned on every light in her bedroom before going back to sleep. The second time, she stuffed a pair of jeans along the crack under the door. The third time, she shoved her mattress off the box spring and onto the floor so they couldn’t come up at her from below.

  At least I don’t have to worry about Dad.

  Hands rolled in the sheet, she stared at the ceiling and counted backwards from a hundred in French.

  *

  "You look like crap."

  "You look like you'd go with cranberry sauce." Stepping past the crow, Isabel swept a searching glare around the terrace. "Where's Fred?"

  "He left about sunrise."

  "Contacted by the sky people?"

  "Not likely," Godfry snorted. "They're just a figment of old Fred's imagination – his reason for why he goes completely buggy if he sleeps inside."

  "Great."

  "Hey, be glad he's not wearing the tinfoil helmet anymore."

  "I'm just glad he's gone." Feeling nothing but relief – the thought of getting Fred out of the building unseen had tied her stomach in knots – she headed for the terrace door. "Tell him I

'll see him after school."

  "He's expecting you to join him."

  That stopped her cold. Turning, she frowned down at Godfry. "What now? Are you nuts. No way I'm cutting. My dad would kill me."

  "And the shadows will what? Lecture you on responsibility?" He preened immaculate breast feathers. "Still, it's your choice, you can learn to be a wizard or you can put on that little fetish outfit and learn to be a productive member of society for as long as you manage to survive."

  "Fine. I'll join Fred. But he'd better teach me the spell that makes lame excuses sound convincing."

  *

  Apparently, it was too much to ask that the elevator be empty on her way out.

  "Mrs. Harris."

  Wearing her default expression – disapproval with a touch of disdain – Mrs. Harris glared at Isabel's clothes. "You're not going to school today?"

  Isabel glanced down at her jeans. "Casual Friday."

  "It's Thursday."

  "Okay, casual Thursday then."

  "I heard men's voices on your terrace last night and this morning. I thought your father was in New York."

  "He is. You probably heard one of my CDs."

  "No." A thin lip curled. "I know what they sound like."

  "Can't think what it might have been then."

  "Can't you?"

  The elevator door whispered open. "Have a nice day, Mrs. Harris." Isabel charged through and across the lobby.

  Half a block away, Godfry dropped out of a tree and landed on her left shoulder. He weighed a ton and his claws hurt even through her jean jacket and he was still the most obnoxious creature she'd ever met, but it was so cool to be walking around with a crow on her shoulder Isabel didn’t care.

  "Who's the old broad with the pickle up her butt watching us from the door?"

  "Mrs. Harris. She's always watching. She's totally bent out of shape that my dad's gay."

  "Yeah? I'm usually pretty cheerful myself."

  *

  They found Fred back at the Second Cup at Bloor and Brunswick. He rose up out of the garbage as they approached, holding two half eaten blueberry muffins. "Good morning, apprentice. Breakfast?"

  "No, thanks." She flexed her shoulder as Godfry dove for one of the muffins. "I'll get my own. Then can we go somewhere less noticeable? My school’s just north of here."

  They ended up sitting in the concrete doorway of the TransAc Club, half a block south on Brunswick, Fred assuring her that they'd be undisturbed for a while. A while lasted two and a half hours by Isabel's watch. Two and a half hours spent chasing the sizzle under her skin while Fred gave lectures to passing ants.

  They moved on just before the lunch shift showed up, heading south, then east along Dundas. Fred walked slowly, hitting up almost everyone they passed for change. When they got to Dundas and Yonge, he dropped what he’d collected in the battered old box sitting in front of an equally battered old man playing the harmonica.

  "I don’t need money," he explained. "And the world needs music."

  "Even bad music?" Isabel winced. Behind them, the harmonica wailed painfully.

  "Yes."

  "Is that the third lesson?"

  "Sure. Why not."

  "Do you have any idea of what you’re doing?"

  "Put your sizzle in your hands."

  "Now?"

  "The shadows don't ask so many questions."

  It was hard to concentrate with the traffic and the people but, after a moment, she managed to herd the sizzle down her arms, past her wrists... "Okay."

  "Put your palms together and pull them apart slowly."

  Isabel rolled her eyes, but did as she was told. For a heartbeat, three pale lines of light connected her palms then they were gone.

  Fred held up his hands. Even in sunlight, the multiple lines were a brilliant white. "This is control. This is what you need to be able to do before you can learn what to do with it. So, to answer your question..." The lines disappeared as he whirled to face a passing suit, grimy hand outstretched. "Spare some change, mister?"

  *

  Godfry caught up with them in the small park behind the Eaton Center. Isabel vetoed a garbage can lunch and bought the three of them takeout. After they finished eating, she lounged back, the crow on the grass by her head, while Fred talked loudly to one of the spindly trees.

  "He's got special sauce all over himself."

  "Saving it for later."

  "Gross."

  "Hey, you're seeing him at very nearly his best. He's really into this whole master/apprentice thing."

  "Master," she snorted. "As if. Godfry, how..."

  "Did one of the nine end up a loony who sleeps on subway grates and talks to trees? Well, the other wizards think he couldn’t cope with being so different but me, I think he couldn’t cope with not being able to change things."

  "What do you mean?"

  Godfy studied her with his left eye then his right. "When you get control of your power, what are you going to do?"

  "I don't know; I haven't really had time to think about it." Plucking a few pieces of grass, she dropped them onto the wind. "Travel, I guess. Find a matching Queen Anne vase to replace that one of my grandmother's I broke."

  "Fred wanted to make the world a better place, but you can't do that with power, you can only do it one person at a time. Even if you change the outside crap, easing droughts, ending wars that sort of stuff, you can't change the way people behave and that's where the problems really come from. After a while, the frustration just got to him."

  "So he's too good to be a wizard?"

  "Essentially."

  "And I’m not?"

  "Apparently."

  "I'd be more upset about that but..." She waved at hand at the topic of the conversation who was methodically sliding lengths of folded newspaper down his pants.

  *

  They spent the afternoon down by Lake Ontario, freaking out a scattering of tourists and condo owners. Isabel kept expecting someone to call the cops but apparently these buildings had no Mrs. Harris. Lucky them.

  Toward sunset, one of the waves rose higher than the others and half turned toward them, a translucent, but nearly human face momentarily under the crest.

  "Water elemental," Fred told her when Isabel squeaked out an incoherent question. "Don't trust them – most of the time, they work with the under-toad. But good eyes on your part. You saw what was really there."

  "Rule one."

  He nodded. "If that's your toaster."

  Another fast food meal and an evening spent wandering slowly through alleys and access roads back toward Bloor. By the time they reached her building, Isabel could hold a single string of light between her palms for almost fifteen seconds. It wasn't much, but for those fifteen seconds she knew what she was doing and she knew that was the feeling she had to capture and keep.

  She'd have been happier about it had a previous attempt not arced up and plunged three city blocks into temporary darkness.

  "No shadows tonight?" she asked as Fred dragged out his sleeping bag and unfolded it under the table.

  "Now they know how much power they need to use to take yours so they're building it. Tricky for them. If they wait too long, you'll know what you're doing. They'll be back sooner than later." Hanging his CATS jacket neatly over the back of a chair, Fred smiled up at her. "But that's why I'm here."

  Isabel was surprised to find that comforting. It was the only thing that had surprised her in days.

  "One of the reasons I'm here," Fred amended thoughtfully. "Because you're my apprentice. That's the other reason. Not that I wouldn't protect you if you were. Or weren't."

  "Good night, Fred."

  "Okay."

  *

  There was no way the clock in her bedroom was right. Except that it was the same time as her watch. And the microwave. And the VCR. And her computer. One oh five. AM. An hour and five minutes too late to call her dad – who'd left three messages.

  He didn't sound happy.

  *

  Until five in the afternoon, Friday was pretty much a carbon copy of Thursday. At five, Isabel managed two lines of light for twenty seconds and was so close to knowing what she was doing that not being able to do it was driving her crazy.

  She wanted to yell and curse and throw things.

  "Why are we hanging around here?" she demanded, leaping off the concrete retaining wall that separated the parking lot from the alley. "What is he doing?"

  "What's it look like he's doing?"

  "Sorting through a dumpster!"

  Godfry spread his wings and methodically folded them again. "Good girl."

  "He's not teaching me anything! I'm learning all by myself!"

  "Hey, a few less exclamation marks and a little more remembering who taught you what you were supposed to learn in the first place."

  "And has he taught me anything since? No." A snicker pulled her attention off the crow to two boys about her age crossing the parking lot. "What?"

  "Weirdo," said one.

  "Brain fried," snorted the other.

  "Oh yeah, like you two are going to rule the world some day. You know, I don't need him to teach me how to be unpopular," she pointed out when the boys were gone. "I can do that on my own. I'm done for today. When he gets out of the dumpster..."

  "It's time."

  The crow and the wizard’s apprentice turned to see Fred holding an empty laser printer drum and staring north.

  "Time for what?" Isabel asked, searching the gathering shadows for flecks of red.

  "Chinese food. There's great garbage behind the noodle shop."

  "Forget it," she sighed. "I’ll pay."

  *

  By the time they finished eating, it was dark. Godfry had devoured half a bowl of noodles and left while he could still see to fly. They were walking through the tiny park on Bellevue Avenue, arguing the merits of egg rolls over spring rolls when the shadows attacked.

  "Fred!"

  Darkness reached for him, wrapped around him. He screamed and Isabel echoed it although none of the shadows had gone for her.

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