by Sam Starbuck
"Oh, no, I just...sometimes feel weird asking for money for them. I see all their flaws, you know?"
"Worried people will want their money back?" I asked. "Lucas, the Friendly are good judges of quality. If they'd take your masks in payment, you have nothing to worry about from Low Ferry. Pick me out some good ones and I'll sell them for you."
He nodded. Carmen emerged with our food and set it down, plates steaming a little.
"Enjoy," she said, winked at Lucas, and walked away before she got the full, glorious view of his ears turning bright pink.
"Are you tutoring today?" I asked, around a mouthful of food.
"Yep," he replied. "English today, shouldn't be too hard."
"What are they studying?"
He smiled -- small but honest, full of pleasure. "Term projects. They're doing a report on fairy tales. The boy's idea."
"That should be interesting. I have a copy of Hans Christian Andersen back at the shop," I added. He chuckled.
"They're more interested in the Brothers Grimm," he said. "I think the boy's looking forward to finally getting to shock his teachers a little. Cinderella's sisters dancing themselves to death in hot iron boots, that sort of thing."
"Brutal little kiddies. I approve," I answered, and took another bite of food. "Right up your alley, anyway, huh? The truth behind the pleasantries?"
He gave me an odd look, full of regret and an odd kind of resolution. "Suppose so."
Once we'd finished and he'd quietly insisted on paying, I left him at the front of the cafe.
"I'll come by this evening before I leave for The Pines, drop off some masks," he said. "Will you be around?"
"Where would I go?" I asked with a grin.
That evening I left the lights on in the shop and carefully did not hang the Closed sign, though I gave discouraging looks to my few evening patrons. It was well past dark and I was beginning to think Lucas had forgotten – or had decided to stand me up, which given his shyness wouldn't have been unexpected – when Nameless appeared. He pawed politely, not at easily-scratched green paint on the door itself but on the weathered wooden frame. I opened the door and he snorted, shaking snow off his feet as he walked in.
"Hiya, Nameless," I said, shutting the door behind him. "Staying the night?"
He turned to face me and whined, backing towards the fire as if inviting me along. I went to pick up a book and he barked; chastised, I glanced down at him, then crouched and rubbed his fur just below his ears.
"What's up?" I asked, looking for any signs he'd been hurt. He pulled out of my grasp and backed away again, then began to scratch at his muzzle as if he had something caught in his nose. I reached out to help, but he growled at me and I began to worry.
He managed to get his front paw behind his ear, right at the line where the black marking on his face ended, and it seemed to catch. It was a few more seconds before I realized, in a dreamlike way, that the black fur was coming off – and by then it was not black fur anymore at all. It was smooth black suede, laced to an ear made of black leather and part of a forehead that looked like thick, doubled-over white linen.
I don't recall actually seeing the change. So much happened at once. I recall seeing the fur, and then seeing that it was not fur at all, but after that I remember only the soft noise the mask made as it fell and the look in Lucas's eyes as he stared up at me, sitting on my bookshop floor, wearing the gray coat he'd bought from the Friendly and a battered pair of black pants.
The world began to tip precariously. It seemed to have an erratic pulse of its own that caught me up – thud-ump, thud-ump-ump-ump, thud-thud-ump...
"Christopher, your heart," he said, eyes widening. I must have looked terrible, because he scrambled up off the rug and took me by the shoulders. I couldn't breathe. "Are you all right?"
I looked at him, mute and panicking. I wasn't sure what I was thinking or how to say it and my pulse was too fast –
Lucas put a hand on my chest and pressed, his other hand holding onto my arm. I stumbled back but he held me up, and then there was a sharp pain, like a muscle spasm or a cramp.
The black tunnel that had been forming in my vision cleared and my heartbeat evened out, much more suddenly than it ever had before. I could feel it under Lucas's palm, strong and solid, and I felt sure he could feel it too.
There was a long silence between us.
"I did this thing," Lucas said slowly, head bent over the hand still resting on my chest. "The greatest thing. Out of a book, with my own hands, I did it."
I drew a quick breath, my lungs still expecting to aid a failing body, then had to let it out again. I cautiously took a few more. Lucas removed his hand, gave me a searching look, and then bent to pick up the mask still lying on the floor nearby.
"I thought I'd better just show you," he said apologetically. "I didn't think about your heart."
"That's all right," I heard myself say, distantly. "I think it's fine."
"Are you okay?" he asked. I stared at the mask, mind utterly blank. "Christopher?"
"I'm...I need to sit down," I said, still staring. He was blocking the most direct way to the chairs near the fireplace, and I was in no condition to come up with detours, so I stood there until he moved aside, then made my way to the nearest seat. I sat down in it, leaning forward, elbows on my knees. My eyes came to rest about a foot above the fireplace, near Dottore.
Strangely, I had no urge to question what he'd done. Tricks were beneath Lucas, and even a skeptic knows – maybe they know best – that life is too short to ignore what we see with our own eyes. It never occurred to me that Lucas had not actually done what I had just seen him do. The ice-prints I could rationalize away; there was no rational excuse for this.
He sat in the chair across the hearth from me and regarded me carefully. "Are you sure you're all right, Christopher?"
"Yes," I answered. And then I stopped talking until I thought of something new to say.
"How long? Since New Year's?" I asked. He nodded. I nodded. The world began to settle a little more with every word I actually spoke. "Magic, huh?"
"Something like," he said ruefully. "I don't know what to call it, exactly."
"Can I see the mask?"
He offered and I took it, turning it so that the ears were right-side-up and the muzzle faced me. It was a friendly face, actually: black and gray and white, made of scraps stitched tightly together, molded into the shape of a dog's head, the finished product of the mess of scraps I'd seen on Christmas Eve. On a man it would fit high on the forehead and extend down over nose and upper lip, leaving the chin free to speak – actually it would have looked a little silly, I think.
There was no head-strap to hold it on with, which struck me as strange until I understood what it meant. He had made the mask with remarkable faith, gambling on the fact that it would never need to be secured. Because it would never be worn – not as any ordinary mask would.
"Have you told anyone else?" I asked. "Has anyone else...tried it?"
"God, no," he said, looking horrified. "I don't think it would even work on another person. The mask doesn't have any real power, it's – "
" – the actor. I remember."
He looked embarrassed and unhappy. "I felt like I was lying to you," he said.
"Only to me?"
"Well, the dogs all know, of course – I don't act right. You saw. They don't like me. People don't really think about it. I feel guilty about taking their food, sometimes. I suppose that's lying, so it's not just you. But it felt worse, because you matter more."
"Why?"
Lucas rubbed his forehead, then spread his hands. "You liked me anyway. Most of the others think I'm strange. Some of them think I really am a witch."
I leaned back, fingers tapping on my knees. "I wouldn't tell anyone else, if I were you. It wouldn't exactly help that opinion."
"I don't plan to."
I leaned forward and put my face in my hands, breathing deeply.
"Christopher �
� "
"I'm all right, Lucas," I said. "My head just hurts a little. I don't know what to ask next."
"You don't...really have to ask anything, if you don't want," he said hesitantly. "We don't even need to talk about it again. I just wanted you to know, so that you'd....know. Like I did before. It's just important to me."
"I'm not important, though. I'm just a shopkeeper."
"You're my friend. Everyone likes you, but you picked me. You didn't push me out, anyway."
"Nobody in town pushed you out, Lucas. Charles made you Fire Man. That's an honor."
"But they don't talk to me."
"You don't talk to them."
"I know that!" he said, frustrated. "I don't know how."
"All right." I shook my head. I didn't have the energy to have a fight. The mask was heavier in my hands than I thought it would be. Beautiful, weighty – a real thing, that Lucas had made, that held some part of him.
"You knew what it would be," I said, looking down again at the sharp, pointed ears, the haphazard pattern of blacks and grays and whites. "You always knew it would be a dog."
When I looked up, his eyes were fixed on mine. He nodded slowly.
"Everyone loves a dog," he said.
I wasn't sure I understood, then, but there was only so much I could absorb in one night. That he had succeeded in what I thought was madness, that he had somehow stopped my own heart's attempts to kill me, that he sat in front of me afraid I was angry with him – these things I was managing, but not much more. His bare toes tapped anxiously on the floor.
"You're barefoot," I said.
"Yes," he answered. "It doesn't work with shoes on."
I tried not to laugh hysterically. "It doesn't work with shoes on? What kind of ridiculous logic is that?"
"I don't ask. I don't question. I'm not like you, Christopher. I want to think there's wonder in the world. It's just hard for me to find."
"I'm fully capable of appreciating beauty," I said.
"It's not quite the same thing," he replied, and there was an almost bitter twist to his lips. "It doesn't matter."
"The ice," I said. "You walked on the snow."
"It's all tied up together. The winter and the weather and this. I don't pretend to understand it, really."
"You did it twice," I said, hardly listening. "Once after the blizzard – and then again when you were – "
"Nameless," he supplied. "Nice name, by the way."
"You've been working on this for months."
"I said I was. You wouldn't believe me. I'd already done...some things," he said, suddenly looking guilty. "When I blew out the circuit-breakers, I told you that. And when the thaw came through so you could go to Chicago. And um. I mean, I didn't mean to do it. But the storm, sort of."
I stared. "You can't seriously be taking credit for a blizzard, Lucas."
"You saw the news reports after. Nobody knew it was coming. Nobody expected it. I was so angry with you." He twisted his fingers together. "Can I have my mask back?"
I held it up and he rose, taking it quickly and sinking back into the chair, hands spread possessively across it. I watched for a while as his fingers smoothed and re-smoothed the grain of a soft, fuzzy piece of gray flannel set over one eye.
"So what now?" I asked.
"What now what?"
"What now? What do you do now? What do we do?"
He chewed on his lower lip. "I don't know. It wasn't what I thought it would be. I don't even know what I thought it would be. I thought it would fix me, somehow. But it didn't."
He looked close to tears, and still so afraid. With his shield against the world clenched in his hands and his body pulled in as much as he could.
"Maybe you should stay tonight," I heard myself say.
"In town?"
"No, here. Stay here, with me, Lucas."
He glanced up, and suddenly his eyes were luminous -- not animal or afraid, almost triumphant, certainly relieved. As a man his eyes were dark, but just for a second I suddenly saw Nameless's bright ice-blue superimposed over them.
Good dog.
"Just, if you're going to – " I gestured at the mask. "Wait until I'm upstairs?"
"Of course," he agreed. I stood, rubbing the back of my head. "Goodnight, Christopher."
"Goodnight," I answered automatically. I was halfway up the stairs, in a daze, before his voice stopped me.
"Christopher?"
I ducked down to look at him. "Yes?"
"I'd like..." he stopped himself. "I can sleep on the hearth if you want."
Of course. I closed my eyes.
"Come up when you want to," I said. "I guess the foot of the bed's more comfortable than the hearth."
His smile was wide and pleased. "Thanks."
I nodded at him and continued up the stairs, hardly bothering to strip off my socks and belt before I crawled into bed still mostly-clothed. After a minute I heard claws clicking on the hearthstones, then on the stairs. The bedsprings creaked as he leapt onto the blankets. There was a contented canine sigh.
"I hope you don't have fleas," I mumbled, but the shock of revelation had exhausted me and the slow, regular beat of my heart pulled me down into sleep much faster than I expected.
Nameless -- Lucas -- no, Nameless -- was still there in the morning, though not on my bed. He was sitting patiently in the shop when I came downstairs, ears pricked forward to listen for my descent.
Without thinking, I rubbed the soft bristling short hair on his head and scratched behind his ears. I would never have touched Lucas so personally without asking permission first, but this was Nameless and he was not afraid to ask or receive, as Lucas had often seemed. There was no diffidence, no awkward shyness in his direct blue gaze.
I brought breakfast back from the cafe for both of us, feeding him by hand just as I would have a week ago, a day ago. He accepted the food from my fingers with a canine smile and a wagging tail. As well as I knew that it was Lucas looking out from behind his eyes, I couldn't find it in myself to treat him differently than I would treat any other dog. Sometimes, now, I think that we treat human beings much less charitably than pets.
He left after breakfast. I watched him trot across the snow and saw the tell-tale refraction of sunlight on the smooth hard ice that formed under his paw-pads, preventing him from sinking too deeply in the powder.
And...nothing changed.
Nor, in the end, do I see why it really should have. Lucas came around more frequently, true, but he had to – now that the snow was melting it was easier for him to come in to town, and the little cluster of chairs and tables in my shop was a natural place for him and his trio of children to do their tutoring. Nameless was often in town as well, still begging food from the cafe, still keeping guard on my porch and surveying the people passing like a king. He was petted and loved, brushed, fed, often hugged and once, somewhat disastrously, hitched to a sled. The result was a handful of small children tipped feet-up in the snow with Nameless barking madly and leaping about nearby, good-naturedly attempting to shake the makeshift harness from his shoulders.
