“Ohayō gozaimas’!” shouted the TV and the DVD player together.
“Oh,” Nita said. “Hi, cousins. Nice to meet you.”
“Dōzo yoroshiku!”
“Uh, yeah.” To Carmela she said, “Don’t you find that a little unusual?”
“I’m used to it now. Kit says he thinks we’re having some kind of wizardry leakage in the house,” Carmela said, very matter-of-fact. “Mama can hear Ponch. And Pop and I can hear the TV when it shouts at the DVD. Mostly it’s friendly shouting now, since Kit fixed the remote.” Carmela plunked herself back down on the sofa, stretching out her legs.
“Fixed it,” Nita said, still having some trouble with this concept.
“Oh, it was way worse before, believe me! He said he was going to ask Tom what was going on. Meanwhile, in case you’re wondering, Kit’s in his room. Mama and Pop are out shopping, and they did not take Kit with them because they are annoyed with him.” She lowered her voice. “But also because he slept real late, and he looks like hell. Mama thinks he’s coming down with something.”
“Thanks for telling me,” Nita said. “Uh, have you been having any trouble with—?” She glanced in the general direction of the TV and DVD while turning enough to conceal the look.
“Trouble? Not at all. Weird stuff turns up sometimes, but all the regular TV’s there, the cable and all. I don’t care how many aliens I see, as long as I’ve got my MTV and the shopping channels.”
Nita grinned. This was Dairine’s attitude as well, though it was the music channels that interested her more than the shopping. “Half the time, with some of those videos, you can’t tell what planet they’re from anyway,” Nita said.
Carmela snickered. “Later,” Nita said, and went back to Kit’s room.
He was lying on the bed, his manual open and facedown on his chest, looking up at the ceiling. Ponch was lying next to him on the bed, his head on Kit’s chest. Ponch’s eyes shifted to Nita as she came into view, but he didn’t move or say anything.
Nita paused in the door and knocked on the door frame. “Hey,” she said.
Kit glanced over at her. It was the least-interested glance that Nita could remember seeing from him in some time. Why doesn’t he just come out and say that he wishes I wasn’t here? Nita thought, shocked. But it occurred to her then that she’d been distant enough with him lately. Maybe he was giving her a taste of her own medicine. That wouldn’t normally he his style, either. But if he’s really feeling sick, maybe he’s just saying what’s on his mind, stuff he’d keep to himself otherwise.
Nita felt briefly guilty, then put the feeling aside. “You look kind of out of it,” she said.
“Yeah,” Kit said. “I feel that way, too. I didn’t sleep real well after I got in last night.”
“Late?” Nita went to sit in the chair by his desk.
“Yeah.”
She waited a moment to let him tell her what he’d been doing, but he just turned his head away and looked up at the ceiling again. He wasn’t going to tell her. “You have any luck with Darryl?” she said.
“Not really.”
Nita started feeling around for something sarcastic and angry to say to Kit, and then she stopped herself. He didn’t push me when I didn’t want to talk, she thought. I’m not going to push him now.
But there’s still something that needs saying. “Kit,” she said, “about Darryl … I’m getting the feeling that you going after him the way you are isn’t doing you any good.”
“Uh-huh.”
Nita pursed her lips. That was the same “uh-huh” that she used on Dairine, as code for the message, “I am not listening to you. Bug off.”
He doesn’t mean to be rude. He just doesn’t want to tell me what’s on his mind, or hear what’s on mine.
Did I sound like this? He should have hit me on the head with something until I paid attention.
Nita let out a breath. “Okay,” she said, “forget about it for now. But I have a message for you. You need to go see Carl.”
That finally made Kit look at her again. “How come?”
“Tom’s out of town,” Nita said. “Some Advisory or Senior thing. Carl’s handling his interventions for the next day or so. You owed Tom a debrief on what’s up with Darryl, and Carl wants to know where it is. Just between you and me, I think he’s steamed. So if I were you, I’d get over there and take your medicine.”
“I’ve taken enough medicine for one weekend,” Kit muttered.
“After you got in late?”
“Yeah. My pop didn’t say much, but my mama did.”
“Tore a few strips off you, huh?”
“It wasn’t my fault, Neets,” Kit said. “The timing got blown, that’s all.” He sighed. “But it doesn’t really matter.”
Nita looked at Kit with concern. That was a theme she’d been singing too much herself lately, and Nita wasn’t going to be indifferent to it when someone else started in on it.
“They didn’t ground you or anything?”
“No. Anyway, they would have done that how, exactly?” Kit said.
Nita had to smile, despite her worrying. It was extremely difficult to ground a wizard without the wizard’s consent. Still, you had to live with your parents … and rubbing their noses in the fact that they couldn’t control you no matter how much they wanted to wasn’t a great way to make that life an easy one.
Kit sighed. “Neets, I’m sorry, I’m just…” He trailed off. It wasn’t that he was too tired to pursue the thought. It was just that he didn’t care.
“Okay,” Nita said, and got up. At least he talked to me a little. It’s possible he really is coming down with something … Well, we’ll see. “Look, call me when you feel better, okay? There’s stuff we have to discuss about Darryl.”
“Sure.”
“But go see Carl first.”
Kit turned his attention to the ceiling again.
Nita gave him one last look as she turned away. As she did, Ponch glanced up at her. His eyes had been all for Kit until now, but the look Ponch gave her had even more concern in it than Nita was feeling.
Nita met the gaze, glanced fractionally at the door, and went out.
That could have turned into an argument, Nita thought, if he had enough energy to bother. But he didn’t. She passed through the living room; there Carmela was curled up on the sofa watching the TV, where models in frilly things pounded up and down a catwalk. Nita paused briefly, eyed the things the models were almost wearing.
“Not for me,” Carmela said, not taking her eyes off the screen. “Drafty. How is he?”
“He looks tired,” Nita said. “Anyway, tell your mama and pop I said hi.”
“Sure, will do.”
Nita got her coat and headed out the back door. She didn’t shut it right away, because after about half a minute, Ponch came trotting out of the dining room and headed outside, past Nita.
She closed the door, brushed some stray snow off the back steps, and sat down. Ponch sat down next to her.
“Ponch,” Nita said in the Speech. “What’s with the boss?”
He’s sad, Ponch said. But there’s more to it than that.
Ponch looked down the driveway toward the street. I’m sad, too, he said. And I’m afraid. Something’s happening to him, and I don’t know how to stop it.
Somewhere down the street, a dog began to howl in a high little voice, like something out of a cartoon.
“It’s about Darryl, isn’t it?”
We were there again this morning.
“Again? I thought you went last night.”
We did. I took him there. But the second time we went, he started to go by himself. I had to follow him. Ponch licked his nose nervously. It wasn’t easy. He wasn’t going the way I go.
“Was he dreaming?”
Yes.
“Lucid dreaming, though? The guided kind?”
No. He was worried. His dream took him there without him wanting to he there, at first. Then he couldn’t get out
. They were getting alike…
Nita pondered this. Her own nonlucid dreaming had brought her to Darryl, or Darryl to her, and those dreams hadn’t been good, either. But this experience, at least as Ponch described it, sounded slightly different. I bet their minds are starting to get locked together because of all the time Kit’s spending in there, Nita thought. This is not good…
And reality doesn’t feel the same way to Darryl as it does to Kit, Ponch said. The boss is starting to feel it the way Darryl does, and he doesn’t know how to do it right.
Nita shook her head. “Ponch, I don’t think you should take him back in there for a while. At least not until he’s feeling better. And when you go, I want to go with him.”
I want you to do that, too.
Nita lifted her head, listening, realizing that the howling of dogs down the street had increased. Three or four more dogs had joined the first one. “What’s the matter with the dogs?” Nita said. “Is someone using one of those silent whistles or something?”
No. I think it’s because I’m afraid, Ponch said. I think they hear me being that way, and they’re upset for me.
“But that’s not all, is it,” Nita said, looking thoughtfully at Ponch. “Something else is happening to you besides just being afraid for the boss. Isn’t it?”
There was a long pause. I don’t know, Ponch said. I don’t know what it means. I don’t have the words. But I’m frightened for me, too. He licked his nose again.
The howling down the street got louder, and Nita suddenly found herself thinking that it wouldn’t be smart right now to press the question any further. She put an arm around Ponch and roughed his fur up a little. “We’re both nervous about a lot of things, big guy,” she said. “I’ll be glad when the boss is better. But listen. Kit needs to go see Carl right away. He’s not in the mood to listen to me right now. But he needs to go, anyway. Will you nag him? Get him to go over there?”
I will.
“That’s my boy.” She rubbed Ponch behind the ears and pulled the door open for him. He went back into the house.
Nita shut the door and headed home. She was almost halfway there before, as she went over the conversation with Ponch in her mind, she realized that at least once Ponch had answered a thought in her mind—not something she’d actually said out loud.
Nita shook her head, sighed, and walked in the direction of the neighborhood deli, to see if they had any bananas.
Chapter 8: Entrapments
Kit and Carl were sitting together in Tom and Carl’s dining room, later that afternoon.
“Kit,” Carl said, “it’s all very interesting what you’ve told me. It throws a lot of light on Darryl’s problem. I’m going to look into this myself, as far as possible. In the meantime”—he frowned—”I want to know why it took you so long to get in here and tell Tom or me about this. We’ve been working together on power-sensitive issues long enough that you know better than to let a situation of this kind go for so long without a debrief.”
“I’ve had the manual on record-and-report,” Kit said.
Carl shook his head. “Not good enough,” he said. “The manual, powerful as it is, is context-poor when reporting on experiences like this. Especially considering that what you’ve been doing with Ponch is unique as far as I can tell. For maximum effectiveness in assessing Darryl’s status, I need to know how things looked and felt to you after the fact, as well as during it. So you’d better start getting serious about this, Kit. It’s not like you to let things slide.”
“Okay,” Kit said.
Carl looked at him with an expression that suggested he was expecting to hear something else. At last he said, “Which brings me to the next thing on the list. The Powers certainly don’t expect you to work on a project so hard that you neglect your own well-being. Neither do I. You look terrible; you’ve been spending too much time chasing around outside of your home space, and it’s affecting you. I appreciate your efforts, believe me … but I want you to take a couple of days off.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Carl said.
Now it was Kit’s turn to frown. Possibly Carl read the expression as rebelliousness. “Kit,” he said, “as a Senior, it’s not beyond my abilities to put a freeze on your wizardly exertions for the next day or three. I would prefer not to have to do that: it’s undignified for both of us, and it also sends a signal to the Powers that there might be a problem with the way you’re using the Art. I would much prefer to hear you tell me that you won’t do any further exploration of Darryl’s inner worlds until Tom and I have had some time to work out what seems to be the best way to proceed. This may sound cruel to you, but he’s been holding his own for the past three months, at least; I would guess he’ll hang on for a day or two more. You, on the other hand, need to leave his problem with me for consideration over the next couple of days.”
Kit let out a long breath. “So,” Carl said, “do I have your word?”
“Mmf,” Kit said.
Carl gave him an exasperated look. “Even among nonwizards,” Carl said, “it’s considered impolite to grunt.”
“I promise,” Kit said.
“Good,” Carl said. “Thanks.” He relaxed a little. “Kit, go home. Get some rest. It’s not that you did a bad job; it’s just that you got a little too wrapped up in this one. Take two days and get your objectivity back. Then you and Tom and I will sit down and work out what to do next.” And he saw Kit out the sliding doors into the backyard.
Kit used his transport wizardry to get home, then walked slowly down the driveway to the side door, with Ponch trotting along behind him. He was feeling rather bruised. But to a certain extent, bizarrely, part of him felt grateful. Carl’s very understated annoyance had shaken Kit a little way out of the feeling that had been creeping up on him that nothing particularly mattered. However, that was the only good thing about it. Kit felt very much as if he were in disgrace.
You look sad, Ponch said.
“I don’t know,” Kit said. “I think I’m just tired.” Even as he said it, though, Kit wondered how true this was. Ever since he woke up from his jungle dream, he had been moving through a world that seemed oddly dulled around the edges. The daylight seemed to be reaching him through some kind of filter; sound seemed distant, and he didn’t even seem able to feel his clothes properly—they seemed to bother his skin where they rested on it. The feeling was like what he got sometimes when he was coming down with a cold. Maybe Mama was right…
He went in the back door, took off his coat and hung it up, while Ponch trotted over to his dog food bowl and started to chow down on dry food. Kit’s mama, in the kitchen in her nurse’s pinks, looked up at him from the business of making a sandwich. “How are you feeling, sweetie?”
“Maybe a little better,” Kit said, thinking that possibly this was true. “Getting out in the air was nice. Where’s Pop?”
“He’s lying down reading a book, waiting for the basketball game.”
“Okay.”
His mama gave Kit a glance as he went and flopped down on the dining room sofa. At first Kit thought she was going to bring up once more the subject of the discussion she and Kit’s pop had had with him earlier. “I meant to thank you, by the way,” his mama said as she opened a drawer to get a plastic bag to put her sandwich in. “It’s been so much quieter.”
His mama’s voice had a strange grating quality to it, which Kit couldn’t remember having heard before. Is she coming down with a cold, too? Kit thought. It wouldn’t be great if we all got sick at once. “Sorry?”
“The little dog down the street.”
Kit was bemused. “Tinkerbell, you mean? I haven’t talked to him.”
“You haven’t?”
“Sorry, Mama, I’ve been busy.”
“Well, he got quiet again. Relatively quiet, anyway. There was some howling earlier, but it didn’t last long.”
“That’s good,” Kit said. He stretched, but far from making him feel more comfortable, it made him
feel less so; he felt very out of sorts, as if his skin didn’t fit him, as if his bones weren’t fastened together correctly. “Mama, I think I might go lie down again for a while.”
That got her attention. She finished wrapping her sandwich and came over to feel his forehead. “Do you feel hot, sweetie?” she said.
Kit shook his head. If anything, he felt chilly, though not to the point of shivers—he felt a strange kind of still numbness that left him unwilling to talk about what was bothering him. Indeed, talking about anything seemed more trouble than it was worth. When his mother took her hand away, Kit got up and went to his room. There, as he lay down on his bed, he reached out for his manual and started paging through it to find a diagnostic to run on himself. I won’t be any good to anybody if I just lie around feeling like this. But, shortly, Kit was lying on his back again, gazing at the ceiling, the manual lying open, pages down, on the bed beside him. He didn’t even hear Ponch come in and circle around once to lie on the braided rug by the bed, looking up at him with troubled eyes. And after a while Kit turned over on his side again and just stared at the wall….
***
The next afternoon Nita was sitting at her desk, cutting a deck of cards. She’d reached the point where what she really wanted to cut them with was a meat cleaver, but that would simply have meant that she’d have to get another deck of cards from somewhere.
Nita cut the cards again. There’s an art to this, she thought. The only problem is, it isn’t my Art. And no matter how I do this, when I think of why I’m learning it in the first place, it feels like cheating.
She was working on her false shuffle. From what she’d been able to find out on the Web, many of the simplest card tricks depended on shuffling the cards in such a way as to make the card you wanted come up in the right place. This, in turn, involved protecting some of the cards with one of your hands while you shuffled. So far, Nita had gotten to the point where she could protect about a third of the deck, keeping the cards stacked there from being shuffled out of order. In about three hundred years, she thought, I’ll be ready to let some other human being see me do a trick. Why did I ever mention magic to Mr. Millman?