IGMS Issue 7 Page 8

  Instead, a vase of yellow roses materialized in the middle of the table. There were twelve of them, and they exuded a subtle but insistent scent. Amanda laughed in delight, and then made a great show of leaning forward, closing her eyes, and inhaling deeply. Henry's attention was caught by Tiffany and her fellow baristas, who stood slack-jawed behind the serving counter, staring in their direction.

  But his gaze went right back to Amanda when she opened her eyes and smiled at him. "As I was saying," she said. "Wonders never cease."

  Tuesday, Henry took the START bus to Seaton Square again, accompanied once more by Amanda. This time they ate hot fudge sundaes at a local sweet shop and argued about who should run for mayor. He skipped Wednesday so he could have lunch with Kelly, and Thursday, so he could putter in the yard on an unexpectedly warm day. But on Friday he called for another pickup, and Amanda was on the bus when it arrived.

  "When's that foot going to be healed?" he asked as he helped her down the steps at Seaton Square. "Is it getting better?"

  She grimaced, less from pain than irritation, he thought. "Better, but slowly," she said. "Can't wait till I can drive again. I'll take you on a road trip. Maybe we'll go all the way downtown someday."

  It was too cool to walk around for long, so soon they were back in Starbucks, nibbling on biscotti, which Henry didn't like, and drinking latte, which he did. "Good thing my pension check arrived today," he said as he fetched their second lattes. "Man could go broke drinking this stuff."

  Amanda took her first sip as she took every first sip, her eyes closed in a sensual swoon. "Oh, but that's good stuff." She took another swallow, then asked, "Any new manifestations at your house since I've seen you last?"

  He nodded. "Couple of books. An electric bill. A glass of wine, half-full. A razor, covered with shaving cream. That must have been an interesting morning, I thought. Man's half through shaving his face and he sets the razor down for a second -- and it's gone. Where'd it go? Did he knock if off the sink? He goes out into the bedroom and asks his wife, 'Did you take my razor?'"

  "Why would I take your stupid razor?" Amanda chimed in. "You're always blaming me when you lose anything."

  Henry grinned. "And he goes back to the bathroom, and there it is, just where he left it. He's probably still confused, two days later."

  "Anything else?"

  "Well, there was a spider in the kitchen yesterday. I squashed it with a paper towel, but when I threw the paper towel away, it was clean. So, I don't know, did the smashed body teleport back to somebody else's house? That would be pretty weird, I think."

  "Who killed this bug and didn't wipe it off the wall?" Amanda said, once more slipping into the part of the annoyed woman of the house. "Honestly, don't you kids know how to keep anything clean?"

  "Exactly."

  "What do you think --" she started to say, and then stopped with a gasp, staring down at the table. A woman's ring was lying right next to her coffee cup. It was white gold or silver, and its ornate filigree setting held a diamond that looked to be half a carat or more. "Henry," she breathed.

  "Somebody's going to be missing that awfully fast," he said.

  She snatched it up. "It's mine. Henry, it's my mother's wedding ring. I lost it more than ten years ago. Henry, where did you find it?"

  He was both pleased and troubled, because of course he had had no knowledge of the ring's existence and no way to direct the magic to fetch it. "Don't ask me," he said. "I don't have a clue. Look, Amanda, this stuff never stays around for long. Don't get too attached to it."

  "I know, I know," she said. She slipped the ring onto her right hand and began rummaging in her purse with her left hand. All the while she kept staring at the diamond, turning her fingers this way and that. "But just to see it again -- after all these years -- oh, I can't tell you how happy this makes me."

  She pulled a cell phone out of her bag, flipped it open one-handed, and held it in front of her as if it were a magnifying glass. "Is that a camera phone?" Henry inquired.

  She nodded. "I'm taking a picture of my hand with the ring on it. I didn't even have that much when I lost it." There was a tiny flare of light, and then Amanda looked up with a smile. She used his name for the fourth time in about thirty seconds. He thought she must like saying it. "Henry, thank you so much. Even just for this glimpse."

  He was a little uncomfortable, but he also felt a certain satisfaction at the thought that he had been able to give Amanda such a gift. "Anything to oblige a lady."

  She put the phone away and kept studying her hand. "I wanted to use it as my wedding band, but Carter had already bought me a diamond, and I couldn't tell him I didn't like it. I wore my mother's ring on my right hand for years. After I got divorced, for a few years I was too depressed to wear any rings. They just felt wrong on my hands. But then when I finally got over that stupid feeling, this ring was missing. I looked for it everywhere. I even called Carter and accused him of stealing it. Of course he denied it." She shrugged. "Not one of our more civilized conversations."

  "Maybe he did steal it," Henry said. "And the magic has stolen it from him. At least for a while."

  She wriggled her fingers again. "But it's mine for a moment."

  In fact, the ring stayed on Amanda's hand for the rest of the day. They left Starbucks about half an hour later, the ring still in place, and it didn't vanish as they meandered through a gift shop or waited for the START bus to arrive. She was still admiring it during the whole ride home.

  "I wonder what the statute of limitations is," Amanda said. "You know, 'If it doesn't disappear within twenty-four hours, it has now solidly made its place in a new reality.' I wonder when I can be sure it's mine to keep."

  "I don't know if it works that way," Henry said. He shrugged. "Even life doesn't work that way. You can never count on keeping anything, or anyone, one heartbeat past the present moment."

  Amanda sighed, and then, as the bus jolted to a halt in front of Henry's house, she smiled. "A lesson we've all had to learn over and over again," she said. "But thanks for teaching it to me again in such a pretty way."

  She waved as he climbed down the steps, waved again as he glanced back from the front door. Once inside the house, he didn't know what to do with himself, and for the rest of the afternoon he proved too restless to settle. So he worked out in the garden for a while, despite the chill, then spent some time cleaning out boxes in the basement. Right before it got dark, he walked down to the library to check out a couple new books, but after he got home, he didn't feel like sitting still and reading them.

  The START bus didn't run on weekends, so he wouldn't have a chance to see Amanda again until Monday. He could call her, he supposed, and ask if the ring had disappeared yet, but he didn't know her number. He wondered how long it would stay on her hand before the magic reclaimed it. Or maybe this was the end result of magic; maybe the universe had transported her ring somewhere else for ten long years and only today remembered to return it. He would have to ask Mark if such a thing were possible.

  He was sitting over dinner that night, trying to get interested in one of the library books, when a photograph appeared next to his glass of water. He picked it up and studied it for a long time. It was the last picture he'd ever taken of Ellen, two weeks before she had the aneurysm that killed her without warning. She was heading out the door, maybe to meet one of their daughters at the mall, and she was dressed in a bright red sweater. She had paused at the door to wave as she left, and he had snapped the shot to use up the last of a roll of film. Naturally, she was smiling. She looked healthy, she looked cheerful, she looked like she would live for another twenty years.

  He had always hated this picture, because it was so obvious that she was saying goodbye. I'm on my way now. You can't come with me. But don't worry about me -- I'm happy. I'm always happy. He had placed the picture in the bottom of a bag of Ellen's clothes that he donated to some charity, because he couldn't bear to throw it away and he couldn't bear to keep it.


  He wondered where it had been all these years, waiting for the right moment to come back to him.

  Goodbye, Henry. I'm on my way now. Be happy.

  He was pretty sure he finally understood what the universe was trying to tell him. A poem, indeed, sprawling and messy though it was. He laid down the photo and went searching for the phone book.

  The Braiding

  by Pat Esden

  Artwork by Emily Tolson

  * * *

  "Maestro Oplontis, this is your glassblower?" The magus' voice sang with unexpected virility.

  Iseau glanced up from her burn-scarred fingers. Magus Sharad was no older than she. Not only was he young, but he wore a leather doublet and had an exquisite sword hanging at his side. He looked more like one of the Doge's guard than the eastern magus he claimed to be.

  Iseau's grandfather took her hand and placed it in Sharad's. "This is Iseau, my granddaughter, the finest master glassblower in the Venetian Republic. May her art braid with your magic to bring honor to both of our families."

  Sharad's hand warmed hers and his gray eyes lit on every portion of her body.

  She glared back, and as she did so she noticed the hint of a blue scarf around his neck. The same color as the ceremonial tunic she'd been given to wear for this endeavor.

  A prickle ran up her spine. Did this silk bear some significance? By putting on this tunic was she somehow bonded to him? That was not the agreement. They were to travel to Venice and create a beating heart for the Doge's dying daughter -- nothing more.

  Sharad's lips parted in a grin. "I was told of your skill, but not your beauty."

  "I have been told very little about you." She jerked her hand from his.

  Her grandfather swept between them. "Iseau has prepared examples of her work." He fluttered his fingers and two boys appeared bearing an open coffer lined with deep purple glass twinkling amid its folds.

  Sharad and a crowd of onlookers pressed in around the coffer.

  Iseau moved to join them, but her grandfather's fingers clamped her wrist and held her back.

  His voice was low. "What do you mean by pulling your hand away from Sharad like that? Are you intent on embarrassing the family the way your parents did?"

  It always came back to this -- her parents failed attempt at braiding. Her father, once a master glassblower, blinded; her alchemist mother left insane. Did what she risked mean nothing? She lowered her eyes. "Don't worry, I'll honor you."

  Sharad faced the crowd and said in a loud voice, "The Doge did not lie when he said the house of Oplontis could provide me with glass as clear and pure as my magic requires, and the finest glassblower to shape it. Frankly, I did not expect to have those needs so thoroughly fulfilled."

  He took Iseau's hand. "With Maestra Oplontis's talents the possibility of saving the Doge's daughter is real." He surveyed the crowd, his eyes narrowing on the village priest. "And if the church says what we do is unholy then I say: Would a benevolent God let a child die rather than use magic? Is that not a worse sin?"

  Murmurs rippled through the crowd.

  Iseau bit her lip. If Sharad was intent on speaking against the church, then perhaps it wasn't just honor and patronage her family needed from the Doge -- perhaps what they needed was his protection against the Pope's men.

  Sharad addressed Iseau's grandfather. "In the near future I will make time to linger here in Carpus, but right now I must make haste." He turned to Iseau. "The physician-magus to the Doge sent his manservant with a message. It's not good -- the Doge's daughter is near death."

  He snagged Iseau's arm and led her away from her grandfather and the crowd, across the piazza and toward the quay where his galley rose and fell beside a bevy of smaller ships.

  What she wouldn't give to travel foreign lands like Sharad did. It didn't seem right. If she and Sharad succeeded, the Doge would grant her any favor she asked, except the one she most wanted. As long as the secrets of glassblowing were the foundation of the Republic's wealth, she would never be allowed to travel beyond its boundaries. It was an unbreakable law enforced by the blade of the Doge's assassin.

  Sharad's hand tightened on Iseau's arm. A fierce trembling rushed through her body.

  She sucked in her breath. She'd felt this way before. It was as if her blood quivered and her heart could rage no faster. Her mother would have babbled that such a stirring was the shudder of magic, risen from the wellspring of her ancestors in Tintagel. But this wasn't magic -- it was nerves.

  He leaned close to her. "You seem tense. Don't you wish to be the first to succeed at braiding glass blowing and magic?"

  Iseau stopped walking. "Any reluctance you sense is because I lack knowledge. The scrolls you sent for me to study were simplified -- incomplete. How is the braiding accomplished? Have you braided with any other art? Before we board the galley, I'd like answers to these questions."

  Sharad's gray eyes darkened like the ocean at twilight. "We magi have secrets, just as you glassblowers do."

  Without seeming to care if anyone noticed, he grabbed her shoulder with one hand, and fondled the clear glass beads she wore. "These beads shimmer like rain in moonlight. Tell me the secret. How do you clarify glass when no other house can?"

  Iseau wrenched herself from his grip.

  Sharad had made his point: Every art has its secrets.

  "Fair enough," she said. "For now."

  His tongue wet his lips. "I will tell you the most vital part of the braiding. Concentration. You must focus totally on the glassblowing and not on what I am doing -- that is the key." Sharad took a long breath. "When we're aboard ship, I will explain more." He glanced at his galley, to a gentleman who paced the deck, a man with the dress and bearing of a Venetian guild master.

  "Is that the physician-magus's man?" she asked.

  "Yes, his name is Alberto. He'll be traveling with us. And I need to speak with him before we depart." Sharad bowed to her. "My manservant will get you settled."

  He called to an elderly man in Persian robes who stood scratching his hindside. "Baladji, see to Maestra Oplontis." Then Sharad strode away, toward the gangplank.

  Thinking there was no reason for her to be relegated to a manservant's care, Iseau started after Sharad.

  Baladji snagged her by her sleeve.

  Iseau glared at him. But in the brief second Baladji held her back, Sharad had disappeared.

  Baladji shifted his weight from leg to leg. "There is no need to run off. I can help you."

  He gestured for her to follow him and chattered as he led the way along the dock. He spoke rapidly, but fell silent as his eyes followed a passing seagull.

  The gull glided down onto the water. Baladji squinted at it, and then screeched like the bird. It seemed peculiar that Sharad would keep such an addlebrained manservant.

  Iseau's apprentice, Petro, strode up from behind them with her toolbox balanced on his shoulder. "Is everything in order?" she asked Petro.

  He nodded. The look in his eyes reassured her that the box contained not only her tools but also the ingredient she needed for clarifying the glass.

  She turned back toward Baladji. He still stared at the bird. "Should my apprentice board with the sailors and go into the hold?" she suggested.

  Baladji nodded his head. "That'll be good, yes," he said, grabbing a passing sailor and asking him to help Petro board. Then he led her across the gangplank and onto the galley's forward deck.

  Once on board, Baladji motioned to a woven mat and some cushions set against the rail. "I'll fix tea. The others will join you in a moment."

  She smiled at Baladji. "No need to serve tea on my account."

  "Sharad insists." Baladji bowed, and then vanished into the hold.

  Iseau choose a cushion and sat. All around her, the ship was alive with commotion: sailors throwing off lines, the galley master shouting to the oarsmen, the sails unfurling as the ship eased away from shore.

  Iseau struggled to find a comfortable position. Surely below deck there we
re quarters that would afford more comfort and privacy.

  A shiver jangled up her spine. Was it possible that Sharad wanted her ill at ease? She adjusted the tunic so it didn't bind her legs. He'd get no pleasure from her discomfort. She drew in a deep breath and looked for Sharad. He stood on the rear deck with Alberto and the galley's captain. Perhaps through their gestures she could understand what they were talking about.

  Sharad reached inside his doublet and drew out something the size of a finger that glinted silver as the sunlight hit it.

  The captain shook his head.

  As if he wished he were somewhere else, the physician-magus's man, Alberto, looked away.

  Sharad stepped closer to the captain . . .

  Iseau's view was blocked by Baladji, coming up from the hold.

  Baladji set down a kettle, squatted, and began to prepare tea. Finally he sat, and Iseau could see Sharad again.

  Sharad had one hand on the captain's back, his other pointed at the ship's sail. As if in response, the sail billowed and the galley began to cut against the tide.

  Iseau's shoulders tensed. Could it be that Sharad's powers were strong enough to change breeze to wind? It seemed unlikely. But the captain, who moments ago looked uncertain, now looked astonished.

  Though she had not noticed him coming across the deck, Alberto was in front of her. Now that he was close, she recognized him. She had seen him at the Doge's functions, standing by himself, pursing his lips, looking uncomfortable.

  Alberto crouched and placed a covered crock on the deck. "Sharad wanted me to tell you he'll join us in a minute," he said, removing the lid from the crock.