Very Best of Charles de Lint, The (58 page)

It was funny, she thought. If you saw Anna and her together, Anna always came off as the more subdued. She usually wore her brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, had glasses instead of contacts, and never used makeup at work, whereas Ruby had the funky hair and her tattoo, and the only time she made herself up was when she was working at the diner. Or if she had a date.

But of the two of them, Anna was the freer spirit, ready for anything. This year alone she’d already gone whitewater rafting in the Kickahas, had her first parachute jump, and had applied to teach English in Thailand.

Ruby was happy just to be at home playing her guitar.

Anna looked up as she approached.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, yourself.”

Ruby unscrewed the lid of a sugar dispenser and started to fill it.

“Do you ever ask guys out on a date?” she said.

Anna laughed. “Of course. How else would I get to go with a guy I
want
to go out with?” Then she cocked her head and grinned. “Why? Are you going to ask Joey out?”

“I don’t think so. He’s old enough to be my grandfather.”

Anna nodded. “And he’s nice like a grandfather.”

“That, too.”

“Then who do you—wait, never mind. I already know. It’s that Kyle guy.”

“I think he’s cute.”

“You and I’m sure every other girl he meets.”

“But I don’t think he knows it.”

“Or it’s a good act,” Anna said.

“So, you don’t think I should ask him out?”

Anna laughed. “Are you kidding? Go for it. What’s the worst he can do?”

“Say no?”

“See, that’s where we’re different,” Anna said. “You like to hold on to possibilities, while I just like to go out and grab life by the ass.” Like a good comedian, she held the beat for a moment before adding, “Or some cute guy’s.”

She grinned and played a rim-shot on the tabletop with her hands.

“Maybe I’ll surprise you,” Ruby said.

“I totally hope you do,” Anna told her.

* * *

Kyle Foster worked at Freewheeling, the bicycle repair shop down the street, and ate lunch at the diner every day. He always made a point to sit in Ruby’s section, and had for the better part of six weeks, which was when he began working at the shop and first started coming in. He was soft-spoken and invariably polite—which Ruby hoped only meant that he was shy, not disinterested.

When he arrived at around quarter to one, she and Anna were standing behind the counter, waiting on orders. Anna gave her a nudge, but Ruby had already seen him come in.

“You are
so
going to rock his world,” Anna told her.

Ruby nodded—more to indicate she’d heard than that she agreed. She got a glass of ice water, plucked a menu from the holder on the side of the counter, and walked over to his table.

She wished that she’d never said anything to Anna, because now she felt trapped into having to do it.

“Hey, Kyle,” she said as she set the water and menu on the table in front of him.

Okay, that was good. Inane. Innocuous. But at least she hadn’t choked yet.

He smiled up at her. “Busy morning?” he asked, then he dropped his gaze.

“No more than usual.”

He put his hand on the closed menu and slid it across the tabletop in her direction.

“I know what I want,” he said. “A grilled cheese and tomato sandwich and a side salad.”

“Coming right up,” she told him, but then she continued to stand at his table.

“Is…um…is everything okay?” he asked.

Ruby took a breath, then blurted, “Do you want to go out for dinner or something sometime?”

“I…”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to, or you have a girlfriend—what am I saying? Of course you must have a girlfriend.”

Oh, god. She was babbling.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said.

“Oh.”

“And I’d like that.”

“You would? I mean, good. That’s good.”

“How about tonight?” he asked.

“Tonight would be great.” She picked up the menu. “I…you don’t think it was weird of me…to…you know?”

He shook his head. “I’ve been trying to get my own nerve up for weeks.”

“You were?”

He nodded. “But I was sure
you
had a boyfriend.”

She smiled. “I don’t. I’ll go put your order in.”

She was sure she floated back to the counter.

“Girl,” Anna said, “with that silly grin on your face I don’t even have to ask how it went.”

“He wanted to ask me out. But he was too shy.”

“Do you want me to come along—just to make sure you two remember you’re on a date and actually talk to each other?”

Ruby stuck out her tongue and went over to the kitchen window to place Kyle’s order.

* * *

Joey thought he’d have a nap before Ruby came over. He tuned up his guitar so that it would be ready and leaned it against the side of the couch. Then he stretched out and put a hand over his eyes. He never had trouble either falling asleep, or waking when he wanted to, and it was no different this afternoon.

* * *

Old Man Crow had him a thought and so, when he crossed over to the otherworld this time, he flew on black wings. He didn’t go to the pine woods, but stayed in the city, right here in the otherworld where night had already fallen. Time didn’t always quite match up between one world to another.

He perched on a lamppost and watched the night people go about their business. Cab drivers and clubbers, dealers and police patrols, people walking their dogs and the homeless setting up their cardboard shelters along McKennitt Street.

But then, between one moment and the next, suddenly there were no more people and everything went silent. Still, still. Deep still. This wasn’t the quiet of late night, because it didn’t matter how late it got, the city never slept. There was always a hum in the air—electricity in the wires, a footstep, just the sound of people breathing.

Tonight, there was nothing. There were still cars on the streets, but they were empty now, their doors ajar—just like the spirit bear had shown him last night. He’d been watching carefully, but he never saw the people abandon them.

Then finally, he heard a sound. There came a soft pad of paws on the pavement, and looking up, he saw her, walking in between the stopped cars. The spirit bear, wearing her fur skin now and walking on all fours.

He’d wondered if she would come, and if she did, what shape she’d wear to meet an old crow in his black feathers.

He fluttered down from the lamppost and landed on one of the parked cars, talons gripping the open door frame. The spirit bear stopped beside him.

“Look,” she said and pointed upward with her snout.

Old Man Crow looked up and saw what she meant. The tops of the buildings weren’t there anymore. Ten, fifteen stories up, they just kind of faded away.

“You need to stop it,” she told him.

“Stop what? What’s going on here?”

“Everything’s going away. The people, the city.”

“No disrespect,” he said, “but since when do you care what the five-fingered beings do?”

“I don’t. But you do.”

“What’s causing it?” he asked.

“Something up there,” she said, her snout pointing up again. “And something in you.”

“In me?”

“Go look.”

She pointed a third time, up into the dark night sky that was swallowing the buildings.

Something wasn’t right here—Old Man Crow knew that. He could feel it all the way down to the marrow of his old bones. And maybe the spirit bear wasn’t so far off the mark, because what he felt in his bones was the same dark that enveloped the sky.

So he stretched those black wings of his and lifted from the car door. Up he flew, one story, three stories, and then he was in the darkness. It didn’t matter which way he looked, up, down, either side. It was all dark.

His chest felt tight, and then something happened to his left wing. It went all numb and he couldn’t make it work anymore. He started falling. He tried to break the fall with his right wing, but all that did was put him in a spiral, going around and around, down and down….

* * *

Joey awoke to a light so bright it blinded him, so he closed his eyes again.

“Joey?” a familiar voice asked.

He couldn’t quite place it. The voice was out of context. He was out of context in whatever this place was.

Place.

He realized he was lying on something soft. It felt like a bed.

“Joey?”

He opened his eyes again, squinting so that the bright light wouldn’t hurt them. Ruby’s face filled his vision, then he couldn’t see again, but that was because she’d bent over him to give him a hug.

“Thank god you’re back,” she said.

“Back…”

But then he remembered. Crossing over. The spirit bear. The darkness that had just swallowed him….

“What…happened?” he asked.

Ruby sat up and he could see where he was. In a hospital room. One of four beds. Ruby was on a chair beside his.

“I came by your apartment for my lesson,” she said, “and found you just lying there, sprawled out on the floor in the middle of your living room, so I called 9-1-1.”

“I was flying….”

“Yeah, well, and then I guess you must have fallen down. I told them at the nurse’s station that I’m your granddaughter so that they’d let me sit with you.”

“We are kin.”

Ruby smiled. And he knew what she was thinking. Right, the old black man and the little punky white girl.

“How do you figure that?” she asked.

He lifted his arm and touched the sleeve that covered her tattoo.

“Magpie and crow. We’re both corbae—I’ve told you that before.”

She smiled again. “You’ve told me a lot of things, Joey.”

“But you never believed any of them.”

He could see that now and he felt like a fool. He’d thought they had a connection. That she could see their kinship. Why else would she have so much time for an old man? Why else would she want to learn the old songs? Now he realized she’d just been feeling sorry for him. It was charity, not kinship.

The only thing he had left to hold on to was that her love of the music had been real. You couldn’t hide a thing like that.

“I like your stories,” she said.

“They’re not just stories.”

“I know they’re not—for you. But it’s not the same for me.”

“Did you ever wonder why I keep telling them to you?” he asked.

“Because you like to.”

He shook his head. “I’m trying to wake the cousin blood that’s sleeping deep inside you. It still remembers, even if you don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why’d you get that magpie tattoo?”

She looked surprised.

“Humour me,” he said.

“I guess I just wanted to.”

“But why a magpie?”

“I don’t know. I’ve always liked them.” She gave him a small smile, almost as though she was apologizing. “I feel connected to them. Like in that song you taught me.”

She sang softly:

Magpie, magpie in a piney tree

singing, true love, won’t you come to me

long black tail and snow white breast

she’s the one I love the best

Joey nodded. He sighed and closed his eyes.

“Well, I did what I could,” he said.

“Joey.”

He kept his eyes closed. It happened, he thought. Sometimes it just didn’t take. Sometimes the old blood just wanted to stay hidden. It was nobody’s fault.

“Don’t be like that.” He felt her hand on his arm. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just so glad you’re going to be all right.”

He looked at her again.

“The doctor said he doesn’t think it was a stroke, but he’s still waiting for some tests to come back.”

“Tests?”

“You were unconscious for
ages
, Joey.”

He nodded. The darkness had taken him away. He remembered that. His wing had gone numb and he’d gone spiraling down and down.

“He thinks you might have just fainted—though at your age that’s serious enough, because they don’t know
why
you did.”

“Cousins don’t get sick—not the way the five-fingered beings do.”

She gave him a puzzled look, then nodded.

“Right,” she said. “Except
something
happened to you. So they’re keeping you for observation.”

“There’s nothing to observe. Just an old man with too many stories and not enough sense.”

“Oh, Joey. I didn’t mean to—”

“Let’s just talk about something else. Did you ask that boy out?”

That was the perfect thing to distract her.

“He said yes!” she told him. “We’re going to—oh, God.” She looked at her watch. “I’m supposed to meet him when he gets off work.”

“Then go.”

“No, I can’t just leave you.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m in a hospital. They know how to look after people here. You should go and then, if I’m still here tomorrow, you can tell me all about it.”

She didn’t leave readily, but he finally convinced her. She leaned over and kissed his brow before she stood up.

“You’re sure,” she began again.

He gave her a bright smile. “I’m sure. Go, go. I need to get some rest anyway. I’ve had too much excitement today as it is.”

“I’ll come by when my shift’s done tomorrow. I’ll probably be able to take you back home.”

He nodded. “Bring me a coffee when you come, would you? I can just imagine what they’ll have here.”

“I will.”

He closed his eyes when she left.

* * *

So Old Man Crow crossed over again, black wings cutting the air between the worlds. This time he didn’t wait for the spirit bear to find him, but went looking for her by that hidden lake, high in the mountains, fed by a glacier. Spirit Lake.

He flew above the pine woods, heading north through the dreamlands, up and up into the mountains. He left the tree line behind as the air grew thin and he had to work hard to keep aloft up there because there weren’t many winds to ride. But there wasn’t that darkness, either, the enveloping black that had swallowed him in the city, so he counted himself lucky.

Finally, he sailed through a pass and came down into that long green valley where Spirit Lake dreams like a jewel in a wild bower of tamarack and pine. He let his wings rest as he glided down to it in a long spiral that let him see all parts of the shore. He settled on the branch of a dead pine tree overlooking the north part of the lake.