DIANE DUANE - A Wizard Alone

 Let s get out of here,  Kit said.  Darryl  You know the way back 

 In my sleep,  he said, and grinned.

Kit held out a hand.  Welcome to the Art, brother,  he said.

Darryl took the hand, then pulled Kit close and hugged him hard. He let go, turned to Nita. He hugged her, too.

 Later,  she said.  Go home.

Darryl vanished with the ease of someone who s been doing it for years.

Kit and Nita looked at each other. Your place or mine   Nita said.

 My folks are going to yell at me,  Kit said,  so let s do mine first.

Nita smiled a small wry smile.  You just want me to help you take the heat.

Mind reader, Kit said.Come on .

They vanished, too.

Some distance away, in a special-ed classroom inBaldwin , the afternoon routine was proceeding as usual when one of the teachers saw something unusual happen.

Darryl McAllister looked at him, looked at him straight on.

The teacher went over to the boy, and got down beside him where he had been sitting on the floor and rocking.  Hey there, Darryl,  he said.  What s up 

 I don t think,  Darryl said, in a voice that cracked and creaked with not having been used for words for a long time,  I don t think I need to be here anymore.

The teacher s mouth dropped open.

 Can I go home now   Darryl said, and smiled.

Liberations

The explanations to parents,Seniors , and others, as usual, took nearly as long as the events themselves had done, so it was several days before Nita and Kit found time to go off and relax. The chosen spot was a favorite one, by the edge of a crater close to a well-known site in MareTranquillitatis . They were leaning back against the very top of the upper crater wall, looking down over at the rising half-Earth, whilePonch lay on his back in themoondust , snoring, with his feet in the air.

A fourth figure suddenly stepped into the vacuum nearby, looking around him.

 Wow,  Darryl said. He wandered over to where Nita and Kit sat, bouncing a little as first-timers tended to do, because of the lighter gravity.

 Are we allowed to be up here   Darryl said, looking about half a mile away, toward where the feet and base of Apollo11  s lunarlander sat.

 As long as we don t mess it up,  Kit said.  This is a heritage area.

Hearing that, Darryl burst outlaughing, looking in mischievous admiration at the rough sculptures Kit had been doing on this site for some years.  Thisis what you do in a heritage area 

 I ll clean it up before they build the hotel here,  Kit said.  After that, I guess I ll have to amuse myself carving rocks on Mars into faces.

Darryl snickered.

 How are your folks doing   Nita said.

 Youkidding  They re in shock,  Darryl said. He sat down on the rock beside Kit.

 I wouldn t have thought they d let you out of their sight right now,  Kit said.

 They haven t,  Darryl said.  I m home in bed.

 Oh,  Nita said, and laughed.  Wow, that two-for-one deal really does come in handy, doesn t it 

She d already had a word with Kit about the genuine source of Darryl s ability to be in two places at once. They d agreed that there was no need to be too cagey about mentioning Darryl s ability to co-locate, as long as they stayed away from discussing the reasons for it. If Darryl just thought it was a personaltalent, that was fine.

 I looked at the transit spells,  Darryl said.  But except for the air, they looked like a waste of energy. We re not supposed to waste. And besides, why go to all that trouble when I can just do this 

For a moment he was standing behind a large boulder some feet away, while also sitting on the rock beside Kit. Kit shook his head in admiration.

 It s a slick trick,  Kit said.  I ll do it my way for the time being, though. Seriously  are your parents coping 

 They re coping great.  Darryl s eyes shone. It was plain to Nita that this was an understatement.  My mom and dad are   He broke off, shook his head.

 It s all new,  Darryl said after a moment.  They hardly dare to believe it. And I can t really tell them why theycan believe it, not yet. Eventually I will. But right nowwizardry d be one shock too many. They d probably think I was coming down with some kind of nuts to replace the autism.

 Give them some time,  Kit said.  Neither of us came right out to our parents, either. I think you re probably right, though. Too much strange at once isn t a good thing for them. There s going to be enough of that later, once you start getting into your serious work, whatever that turns out to be. For now, just enjoy how happy they are, and take it easy.

 Well,happy s good, but the  take it easy  part s not going to last,  Darryl said, and grinned.  I heard my mom thinking that if I was really going to be better now, she was going to start giving mechores .

Nita and Kit groaned in unison.

 She was kind of nervous about it,  Darryl said.  I think I get a few weeks of being lazy before they really start expecting me to be normal.

 Take advantage of it,  Kit said.  Once they start, they never let up.

Darryl nodded, looked over at the Earth.  So now we get to take care of that,  he said.

 That s the job,  Nita said.

 I d better get on with it then,  Darryl said.  You guys come here often 

 Often enough,  Kit said.

 I mightbe needing some advice as I work into this job,  Darryl said.

 For you, we re available any time,  Nita said.

Kit grinned.  We re in the book.

Darryl nodded and waved. A second later he was gone.

 Nice kid,  Kit said after a moment.

 No argument there,  Nita said.  Come on, your mom said dinner was at six.

Kit was looking over at the Earth.  It really is the best job, isn t it   he said.

Nita nodded.  None better. And the company s good, too.

 The best,  Kit said.  Welcome back.

Nita smiled.  Comeon ,  she said.  I want some of that chicken you re always raving about.

Kit stood up and dusted floury pumice dust off him.  Yeah, well, if you think you re going to get a bigger portion than I am, think again!C mon,Ponch .

Ponchrolled over and bounced to his feet in a cloud of silvery dust. Kit and Nita vanished.

Ponchstoodthere, looking thoughtfully at the half-Earth for some moments  then wagged his tail.

Chicken!he said silently, leaped up, and vanished.

The next morning Nita walked to school quietly by herself, noticing a lot of things that had passed her by recently: the snow, the slush (of which there was a great deal), the icicles hanging down, glittering, from the eaves of people s houses; the color of the sky, the sound of people s voices as they said good-bye to each other on their way to work.If it wasn t for what s been going on this past week or so , she thought,how much of this would I have noticed   She had been locked up in her grief as surely as Darryl had been locked up in theotherworlds of his own making. It had taken a major blow to jar her loose, and Darryl had gone through something similar.

But he was free now.And as for me

Nita mused as she turned the corner, thinking of Carl s mention of the concept that right across the fields of existence  all is done for each.  As far as she could tell, that meant that every good thing that happened to everybody had some effect on all the rest of everybody, from here to the edges of the universe. It was like that saying about the chaos-theory butterfly in the rainforest, which, just by waving its little wings, contributes to the hurricane half a hemisphere away  if not actually causing the hurricane. But more specifically, the  all done for each  principle seemed to mean that the Powers That Be had designed the world so that everything that happened in it every victory, every sacrifice, from the largest to the smallest was pointed specifically at every separate living thing. At first Nita had found this almost impossible to imagine. Now she found herself wondering if what she d just beenthrough, besides being about Darryl s liberation, had been about helping her find her way out of her own pain as well.

Nita shrugged as she walked in through the gates that led into the parking lot. There was plenty of time to get into the highly theoretical stuff later. For now, she had work to catch up on  and some other business to finish.

She went down to the temporary office where she usually found Mr.Millman . There he was,sitting behind the desk and reading a magazine while eating the last couple of bites of a bagel with cream cheese.

He glanced up as Nita came in.  Morning,  he said.

Nita sat down, put her book bag on the floor, reached into her jacket, and came out with the cards.

 Before you start in with those,  Mr.Millman said,  one thing. We left on a slightlyjangly note the other day 

 Did we   Nita said, refusing for the moment to smile at him, refusing to let him off the hook.

 I think we did, especially since you cut half your classes shortly thereafter.

Nita shrugged.Millman s eyebrows went up as he took note of the gesture.  I just wanted you to know something,  he said.  Whatever the secret is about what s going on in your life right now I want you to know that there s no need for you to tell me, ever, and I have no intention of pressing you.

Nita looked at him with surprise, because this wasn t what she d been thinking. She also looked at him with amused suspicion.  What is this, some kind of reverse psychology 

Mr.Millman looked at her in shock, and then laughed.  What  Like you re a three-year-old or some-thing, and you ll do the opposite of what I suggest  Spare me. This is supposed to have been counseling, not brain surgery. I was merely saying that my intent was just to counsel you not to dig around in your skull for juicy tidbits, like something out of a horror movie about bad Far Eastern food.

Nita snickered.  Okay,  she said.  I thought you were going to say something about my anger.

 Anything that needs to be said,  said Mr.Millman ,  I m sure you ll take care of it.

Nita slipped the cards out of their pack and started to shuffle them. It was surprising how easy the false shuffles were when you were really paying attention to them.  Name a card,  she said.

 Five of diamonds,  he said.

Nita nodded, put the deck down on the desk, and cut it twice, to the right, to make three piles.  Turn one card over,  she said.

Millmanreached out and turned over the top card of the leftmost deck. The top card was the five of diamonds.

 Not bad at all, Millman said.  Do I get to pick another one 

Nita gave him a look.  I wouldn t push your luck if I were you,  she said.

He grinned a little and sat back.

 You look a whole lot better,  he said.

 I feel a whole lot better,  Nita said.  And I think I don t need to be here anymore.

 What, school  Millman said, raising his eyebrows.

 Not school here.Herehere ,  Nita said.

 Oh, you re cured then   he said.

Nita cracked up. Why not   she said.And then said,  Cured of what 

 You would be the one to tell me that, Millman said.

Nita was quiet for a moment.  If you mean, am I over my mom dying  Don t be silly,  she finally said.  She ll always be part of me. It s going to hurt for a long time that she s not still in my house. But nothing can take her out of my life. Am I over wanting to just sit and suffer and let life go by  I think so.

 Then I would say,  Mr.Millman said,  that my work here is done.Insofar as any of it wasmy work.

He reached out and turned over the top card on the middle pack. It was the ace of spades.  Aha,  he said.

 What 

 Highly symbolic.

 Of what 

 Well, that would be a long story. That little leaf-shaped thing, the  spade    Mr.Millman picked up the card, looked closely at it.  The history of the word is tangled. But it goes back at least as far as the Greekspatha . That was a sword, once upon a time. Of the four suits, that s the one that has most to do with power: air, the sound the sword makes in the air, the spoken word; the weapons held by the Power that faces down the Power That Fell 

He picked up the ace and the three cut packs, shuffling them together again.

Nita looked at him.

 So,  Mr.Millman said, putting the deck down on the desk and doing a credible riffle  much too credible, now that Nita thought of it, for a man who claimed that he couldn t get the cards to stay up his sleeve.  Any last questions before we finish up here 

She looked at him, thought for a moment, and found a question it would never before have occurred to her to ask him. The answer would have been in her manual, but she wasn t going to consult that right now. Considering the question, Nita first made sure that she had the wizardry she wanted ready in the back of her head. If you were going to remove someone s memory, the less time you spent dithering over it, the better.

 Are you on errantry   Nita said.

He raised his eyebrows again in that expression she d learned could mean almost anything but surprise.

 No,  Mr.Millman said.  But I know some people who are.

Nita sat there, astonished, trying not to exhibit it.Millman sat there and kept shuffling.

 You don t have to be a wizard to know one, Millman said,  once you know what you re looking for. And when you re willing tosee what you re looking at. Not many people are, but that s humans for you.  He fanned out the cards for her.  Pick a card, any card.

Nita picked one, turned it over. It was the joker.

Mr.Millman grinned, folded the hand up, tapped the cards back into order, and pushed the deck back toward Nita, meanwhile glancing at the door.  You know where to find me if you need me,  he said.  And I ve had a word with your sister s counselor: She ll be introducing me toDairine later in the week. Meanwhile, go well.

Nita got up and took back her pack of cards, grinning, too. She headed for the door.

There she paused as something occurred to her.   Supposedto havebeen counseling    she said.

Mr.Millman shrugged.

Nita shook her head again.  Daistibo,  she said, and left.

That night Nita had a dream. In the dream she stood at the edge of darkness, looking in. Out there in the dark was a spotlight, wobbling around and around, shining on something, while somewhere off in the near distance, a single drum held adrumroll .

What the spotlight was following was a clown act. The clown had purple hair, and a little derby hat, and baggy patched pants, and it was riding around and around in circles on a ridiculously small bicycle, the circles ever decreasing. Around and around and around went the clown, in jerky, wobbling movements. It had a painted black tear running down its face. The red-painted mouth was turned down. But the face under the white greasepaint mask was as immobile as a marble statue s, expressionless, plastered in place. Only the eyes were alive.They shouted, Ican t get off!I can t get off !