I suppose it was because he always read my manuscripts before I sent them off. We had the same interests in the odd and the curious—it was what had drawn us together long before Jilly became his student, before he retired from the university. Everybody still thought of him as the Professor; it was hard not to.
He was a tiny wizened man, with a shock of frizzy white hair and glasses, who delighted in long conversations conducted over tea or, if the hour was appropriate, a good Irish whiskey. At least once every couple of weeks the two of us would sit in his cozy study, he reading one of my stories while I read his latest article before it was sent off to some journal or other. When the third visit went by in which I didn’t have a manuscript in hand, he finally broached the subject.
“You seem happy these days, Christy.”
“I am.”
He’d smiled. “So is it true what they say—an artist must suffer to produce good work?”
I hadn’t quite caught on yet to what he was about.
“Neither of us believes that,” I said.
“Then you must be in love.”
“I…”
I didn’t know what to say. An awful sinking feeling had settled in my stomach at his words. Lord knew, he was right, but for some reason, just as I knew I shouldn’t follow Tally when she left me after our midnight trysts, I had this superstitious dread that if the world discovered our secret, she would no longer be a part of my life.
“There’s nothing wrong with being in love,” he said, mistaking my hesitation for embarrassment.
“It’s not that,” I began, knowing I had nowhere to go except a lie and I couldn’t lie to the Professor.
“Never fear,” he said. “You’re allowed your privacy—and welcome to it, I might add. At my age, any relating of your escapades would simply make me jealous. But I worry about your writing.”
“I haven’t stopped,” I told him. And then I had it. “I’ve been thinking of writing a novel.”
That wasn’t a lie. I was always thinking of writing a novel; I just doubted that I ever would. My creative process could easily work within the parameters of short fiction, even a connected series of stories, such as The Red Crow had turned out to be, but a novel was too massive an undertaking for me to understand, much less attempt. I had to have the whole of it in my head and to do so with anything much longer than a short novella was far too daunting a process for me to begin. I had discovered, to my disappointment because I did actually want to make the attempt, that the longer a piece of mine was, the less…substance it came to have. It was as though the sheer volume of a novel’s wordage would somehow dissipate the strengths my work had to date.
My friends who did write novels told me I was just being a chickenshit; but then they had trouble with short fiction and avoided it like the plague. It was my firm belief that one should stick with what worked, though maybe that was just a way of rationalizing a failure.
“What sort of a novel?” the Professor asked, intrigued since he knew my feelings on the subject.
I gave what I hoped was a casual shrug.
“That’s what I’m still trying to decide,” I said, and then turned the conversation to other concerns.
But I was nervous leaving the Professor’s house, as though the little I had said was enough to turn the key in the door that led into the hidden room I shouldn’t enter. I sensed a weakening of the dam that kept the mystery of our trysts deep and safe. I feared for the floodgate opening and the rush of reality that would tear my ghostly lover away from me.
But as I’ve already said, she wasn’t a ghost. No, something far stranger hid behind her facade of pixie face and tousled hair.
* * *
I’ve wondered before, and still do, how much of what happens to us we bring upon ourselves. Did my odd superstition concerning Tally drive her away, or was she already leaving before I ever said as much as I did to the Professor? Or was it mere coincidence that she said goodbye that same night?
I think of the carryall she’d had on her shoulder the first time we met and have wondered since if she wasn’t already on her way then. Perhaps I had only interrupted a journey already begun.
“You know, don’t you?” she said when I saw her that night.
Did syncronicity reach so far that we would part that night in that same courtyard by the river where we had first met?
“You know I have to go,” she added when I said nothing.
I nodded. I did. What I didn’t know was—
“Why?” I asked.
Her features seemed harder again—like they had been that first night. The softness that had grown as our relationship had was more memory than fact, her features seemed to be cut to the bone once more. Only her eyes still held a touch of warmth, as did her smile. A tough veneer masked the rest of her.
“It’s because of how the city is used,” she said. “It’s because of hatred and spite and bigotry; it’s because of homelessness and drugs and crime; it’s because the green quiet places are so few while the dark terrors multiply; it’s because what’s old and comfortable and rounded must make way for what’s new and sharp and brittle; it’s because a mean spirit grips its streets and that meanness cuts inside me like a knife.
“It’s changing me, Christy, and I don’t want you to see what I will become. You wouldn’t recognize me and I wouldn’t want you to.
“That’s why I have to go.”
When she said go, I knew she meant she was leaving me, not the city.
“But—“
“You’ve helped me keep it all at bay, truly you have, but it’s not enough. Neither of us have enough strength to hold that mean spirit at bay forever. What we have, was stolen from the darkness. But it won’t let us steal any more.”
I started to speak, but she just laid her fingers across my lips. I saw that her sleeping bag was stuffed under the bench. She pulled it out and unrolled it on the cobblestones. I thought of the dark windows of the townhouses looking into the courtyard. There could be a hundred gazes watching as she gently pulled me down onto the sleeping bag, but I didn’t care.
* * *
I tried to stay awake. I lay beside her, propped up on an elbow and stroked her shoulder, her hair. I marveled at the softness of her skin, the silkiness of her hair. In repose, the harsh lines were gone from her face again. I wished that there was some way I could just keep all her unhappiness at bay, that I could stay awake and protect her forever, but sleep snuck up on me all the same and took me away.
Just as I went under, I thought I heard her say, “You’ll know other lovers.”
But not like her. Never like her.
* * *
When I woke the next morning, I was alone on the sleeping bag, except for Ben who lay purring on the bag where she had lain.
It was early, too early for anyone to be awake in any of the houses, but I wouldn’t have cared. I stood naked in the frosty air and slowly got dressed. Ben protested when I shooed him off the sleeping bag and rolled it up.
The walk home, with the sleeping bag rolled up under my arm, was never so long.
* * *
No, Tally wasn’t a ghost, though she haunts the city’s streets at night—just as she haunts my mind.
I know her now. She’s like a rosebush grown old, gone wild; untrimmed, neglected for years, the thorns become sharper, more bitter; her foliage spreading, grown out of control, reaching high and wide, while the center chokes and dies. The blossoms that remain are just small now, hidden in the wild growth, memories of what they once were.
I know her now. She’s the spirit that connects the notes of a tune—the silences in between the sounds; the resonance that lies under the lines I put down on a page. Not a ghost, but a spirit all the same: the city’s heart and soul.
I don’t wonder about her origin. I don’t wonder whether she was here first, and the city grew around her, or if the city created her. She just is.
Tallulah. Tally. A reckoning of accounts.
I think o
f the old traveling hawkers who called at private houses in the old days and sold their wares on the tally system—part payment on account, the other part due when they called again. Tallymen.
The payments owed her were long overdue, but we no longer have the necessary coin to settle our accounts with her. So she changes, just as we change. I can remember a time when the city was a safer place, how when I was young we never locked our doors and we knew every neighbour on our block. Kids growing up today wouldn’t even know what I’m talking about; the people my own age have forgotten. The old folks remember, but who listens to them? Most of us wish that they didn’t exist; that they’d just take care of themselves so that we can get on with our own lives.
Not all change is for the good.
I still go out on my rambles most every night. I hope for a secret tryst, but all I do is write stories again. As the new work fills my notebooks, I’ve come to realize that the characters in my stories were so real because I really did want to get close to people, I really did want to know them. It was just easier to do it on paper, one step removed.
I’m trying to change that now.
I look for her on my rambles. She’s all around me, of course, in every brick of every building, in every whisper of wind as it scurries down an empty street. She’s a cab’s lights at 3:00 A.M., a siren near dawn, a shuffling bag lady pushing a squeaky grocery cart, a dark-eyed cat sitting on a shadowed stoop.
She’s all around me, but I can’t find her. I’m sure I’d recognize her—
I don’t want you to see what I will become.
—but I can’t be sure. The city can be so many things. It’s a place where the familiar can become strange with just the blink of an eye. And if I saw her—
You wouldn’t recognize me and I wouldn’t want you to.
—what would I do? If she could, she’d come to me, but that mean spirit still grips the streets. I see it in people’s faces; I feel it in the coldness that’s settled in their hearts. I don’t think I would recognize her; I don’t think I’d want to. I have the gris-gris of her memory in my mind; I have an old sleeping bag rolled up in a corner of my hall closet; I’m here if she needs me.
* * *
I have this fantasy that it’s still not too late; that we can still drive that mean spirit away and keep it at bay. The city would be a better place to live if we could and I think we owe it to her. I’m doing my part. I write about her—
They’re about me. They’re your stories, I can taste your presence in every word, but each of them’s a piece of me, too.
—about her strange wonder and her magic and all. I write about how she changed me, how she taught me that getting close can hurt, but not getting close is an even lonelier hurt. I don’t preach; I just tell the stories.
But I wish the ache would go away. Not the memories, not the gris-gris that keeps her real inside me, but the hurt. I could live without that hurt.
Sometimes I wish I’d never met her.
Maybe one day I’ll believe that lie, but I hope not.
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About the Author
Charles de Lint is a full-time writer and musician who makes his home in Ottawa, Canada. This author of more than seventy adult, young adult, and children’s books has won the World Fantasy, Aurora, Sunburst, and White Pine awards, among others. Modern Library's Top 100 Books of the 20th Century poll, voted on by readers, put eight of de Lint's books among the top 100. De Lint is also a poet, artist, songwriter, performer and folklorist, and he writes a monthly book-review column for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. For more information, visit his website at www.charlesdelint.com.
You can also connect with him at:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8185168.Charles_de_Lint
http://cdelint.tumblr.com/
Acknowledgments & Copyright notices
Acknowledgments
Creative endeavours require inspiration and nurturing, and these stories are no exception. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank a few people who were important to the existence of this collection:
First and foremost, my wife MaryAnn, not only for her indefatigable work as first reader and editor, but also for her part in the genesis of many of the individual stories;
Terri Windling, for her ongoing support, both professionally and personally, especially with this cycle of stories, and for providing me with the collection’s title, which was also the title of her 1992 one-woman art show at the Book Arts Gallery in Tucson, Arizona;
Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith of Axolotl Press/Pulphouse Publishing, who were always asking for more stories and provided the first home for many of these;
And for all the other editors who gave me the opportunity to take a holiday from longer works to explore Newford’s streets: Bruce Barber, Ellen Datlow, Gardner Dozois, Robert T. Garcia, Ed Gorman, Martin H. Greenberg, Cara Inks, Paul F. Olson, Jan and George O’Nale, Byron Preiss, and David B. Silva.
* * *
Copyright notices
“Uncle Dobbin’s Parrot Fair,” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Nov ‘87
“Stone Drum,” Triskell Press chapbook, 1989
“Timeskip,” Post Mortem: New Tales of Ghastly Horror, ed. Paul F. Olson & David B. Silva, St. Martin’s, 1989
“Freewheeling,” Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine Issue 6, ed. Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Pulphouse, 1990
“That Explains Poland,” Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine Issue 2, ed. Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Pulphouse, 1988
“Romano Drom,” Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine Issue 5, ed. Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Pulphouse, 1989
“The Sacred Fire,” Stalkers, ed. Ed Gorman & Martin H. Greenberg, Arlington Heights, IL: Dark Harvest, 1989
“Winter Was Hard,” Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine Issue 10, ed. Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Pulphouse, 1991
“Pity the Monsters,” The Ultimate Frankenstein, ed. Byron Preiss, David Kellor, Megan Miller & John Gregory Betancourt, Dell, 1991
“Ghosts of Wind and Shadow,” Triskell Press chapbook, 1990
“The Conjure Man,” After the King, ed. Martin H. Greenberg, Tor, 1992
“Small Deaths,” original to the collection
“The Moon Is Drowning While I Sleep,” Snow White, Blood Red, ed. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, AvoNova, 1993
“In the House of My Enemy,” original to the collection
“But for the Grace Go I,” Chilled to the Bone, ed. Robert T. Garcia, Mayfair Games, 1991
“Bridges,” The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Oct/Nov ‘92
“Our Lady of the Harbour,” Axolotl Press: Eugene, OR, 1991
“Paperjack,” Cheap Street: New Castle, VA, 1991
“Tallulah,” Dead End: City Limits, ed. Paul F. Olson & David B. Silva, St. Martin’s, 1991
Other Books by Charles de Lint
Discover other titles by Charles de Lint at your favourite retailer.
THE WIND IN HIS HEART (novel; Triskell Press, 2017)
SOMEWHERE IN MY MIND THERE IS A PAINTING BOX (novella; Triskell Press, 2016)
RIDING SHOTGUN (novella; Triskell Press, 2015)
THE WISHING WELL (novella; Triskell Press, 2015)
NEWFORD STORIES: CROW GIRLS (collection; Triskell Press, 2015)
TIMESKIP (short story; Triskell Press, 2015)
PAPERJACK (novella; Triskell Press, 2015)
WHERE DESERT SPIRITS CROWD THE NIGHT (novella; Triskell Press, 2015)
OUT OF THIS WORLD (young adult novel, Penguin Canada, 2014; Triskell Press, 2014)
JODI AND THE WITCH OF BODBURY (young
adult novel; Triskell Press, 2014)
SEVEN WILD SISTERS new edition (middle grade novel; Little Brown, 2014)
OVER MY HEAD (young adult novel, Penguin Canada, 2013; Triskell Press, 2013)
THE CATS OF TANGLEWOOD FOREST (middle grade novel; Little Brown, 2013)
UNDER MY SKIN (young adult novel, Penguin Canada, 2012; Triskell Press, 2012)
EYES LIKE LEAVES (early work, 1980 novel, Tachyon Publications, 2012)
THE VERY BEST OF CHARLES DE LINT (collection; Tachyon Publications, 2010); Triskell Press, 2014)
THE PAINTED BOY (young adult novel, Viking, 2010)
MUSE AND REVERIE (collection, Tor, 2009)
THE MYSTERY OF GRACE (novel, Tor, March 2009)
WOODS & WATERS WILD (collection, Subterranean Press, 2008)
WHAT THE MOUSE FOUND (children's collection, Subterranean Press, 2008)
DINGO (young adult novella, Viking, 2008)
PROMISES TO KEEP (novel, Subterranean Press, 2007)
LITTLE (GRRL) LOST (young adult novel, Viking, 2007)
TRISKELL TALES: 2 (collection, Subterranean Press, 2006)
WIDDERSHINS (novel, Tor, 2006)
THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN (collection, Subterranean Press, 2005)
QUICKSILVER & SHADOW (collection, Subterranean Press, 2005)
THE BLUE GIRL (young adult novel, Viking, 2004)
MEDICINE ROAD (novel, Subterranean Press, 2003)
SPIRITS IN THE WIRES (novel, Tor, 2003)
A HANDFUL OF COPPERS (collection, Subterranean Press, 2003)
TAPPING THE DREAM TREE ("Newford" collection, Tor, 2002)
WAIFS AND STRAYS (young adult collection, Viking, 2002)
SEVEN WILD SISTERS (novel, Subterranean Press, 2002)
THE ONION GIRL (novel, Tor, 2001)
THE ROAD TO LISDOONVARNA (mystery novel, Subterranean Press, 2001)