Before he can write the rest, the old man puts a toothpick in his mouth—a toothpick!—and walks away from him. Just walks to the window on the other side of the fireplace.
Moroz becomes one with the snow from which he is made and appears in front of the other window.
he writes, but even as he dots the question mark, the old wizard disappears. Moroz senses something behind him, re-forms himself facing backward. The American boy-host he inhabited dies a little more every time he abuses the body like this, but his work here is nearly done.
It is not the old wizard that he sees.
Now he sees a little stop-motion figure popular in the Soviet Union.
A fuzzy little figure with large ears, supposedly an undocumented tropical forest creature fond of oranges.
How many times had he watched children’s television through the window and seen this little thing?
What was its name?
“Cheburashka!” it says in a childish voice, in Russian, eating an orange. “You made it very, very cold,” it says sadly, lowering its head. “But can you really freeze me to death?”
Moroz grins, and the stand of trees behind Cheburashka grows icicles. A squirrel tries to run from its knothole den and cracks as it freezes solid, falls from its branch.
“Very sad,” Cheburashka says. “But that was just a squirrel. You should try harder if you want to be my friend. Do you?” It offers Moroz its stop-motion orange.
Something about this strikes Moroz as familiar, but he never knows which memories are his and which are the street-boy’s.
Moroz breathes in.
Breathes out hard.
Frost, snow, and ice shavings blow from his mouth.
The trees get so cold they grow brittle.
Branches fall.
Animals crack and die.
“I guess we can’t be friends,” the little creature says sadly, dropping its orange. Now it produces a pipe, lights it with a finger. “This belongs to a crocodile. Gena. He is my friend, even if you are not.”
Moroz can’t freeze the beast.
But perhaps he can rend it.
First he must stop making the blizzard.
Cheburashka draws on his pipe, which glows an animated glow.
Moroz tries to shut his mouth and stop blowing frost but finds that he can’t.
His mouth is stuck open.
The little creature is drawing snow out of him!
As Cheburashka breathes in, the essence of Moroz begins to jet out.
He vomits snow, so much snow that he blankets the side yard.
Still the creature smokes, tittering just a little, quite cheerful.
Streetlights flicker on Willow Fork Road.
The snow falls and falls.
Moroz shudders, almost empty.
No longer blue.
His hair black again.
Mostly boy now, but enough of Moroz remains to hear.
Cheburashka points the stem of its pipe at him, cocking an eyebrow.
Its voice is different now.
It is Stalin’s voice.
“You and I are alike in that we both respect our boundaries. You can’t harm the wizard. I can’t harm the witch. But nobody said a thing about you.”
Moroz recognizes it now.
They have met before.
Moroz says its true name.
Cheburashka draws one more puff from the pipe.
Exhales.
The pipe glows bright and hot in the moppet’s mouth.
The shadow of a thrashing squid on the snow behind him.
Moroz is no more.
116
The caveman wakes up under his overpass.
He had a dream about a woman.
She gave him twenty dollars.
(Lying under the brick he uses to smash cans)
She took away his tinnitus.
(It’s still gone)
And then?
Blurry.
But at the end, the Heat Miser character from the Christmas special carried him like a bride.
Carried him from some hellish North Pole, where the elves had button eyes and bloody mouths.
But he’s in Syracuse now.
At the end of summer.
A warm night.
It’s ten minutes ago.
He knows that somehow.
The Heat Miser gets to play with time.
Because he’s the Heat Miser.
It’s ten minutes ago, but no different than any other time, as far as he can tell.
He’s still a caveman.
Cars and trucks rush above him as they always have, as they always will.
Bled-out urban sky above the overpass.
He is sick of the city.
He wishes he were somewhere where he could watch the stars.
He sees one, though.
A falling star, quite bright.
He wishes on it.
My name is Victor.
117
Michael Rudnick collects himself at the window.
Nausea hit him seconds after he tugged the meteor down.
No time for this.
Get your shit together, Rudnick.
Hears the fight downstairs, feels the building rock as the Russian grenade blows the front door in.
He needs to get downstairs, even though the meteor strike took everything out of him.
It was a big spell, maybe too big.
He’s out of gas, doesn’t feel capable of levitating a grain of sand.
Rifle fire cracks loudly just downstairs.
Andrew.
He’s alone.
More concussions downstairs, a sound like Gabriel’s trumpet blaring.
Quite suddenly his head feels like it has a horseshoe in it.
He moves through the snowy attic, makes his way to the ladder.
The first step is all right, but then he can’t make his right arm or leg work so well, and he half slides, half falls down to the hardwood hall floor.
Hears something coming from the master bedroom.
The bathtub?
He looks at the door handle, but it looks blurry.
Manages to stand, but it’s hard.
An old-fashioned telephone rings in Andrew’s bedroom; he hears the sound of a door bursting open below.
I have to get in there.
Half of his body just isn’t taking orders.
And his head.
Christ, his head.
The telephone rings again.
Someone smashes the phone.
Below, another trumpet-scream that shakes the house.
An iron candleholder in the shape of a woman’s open hand falls from the wall, leaving a hole bisecting a savage crack in the plaster.
My head!
The myth of Athena’s birth occurs to him, and he thinks himself well capable of pushing an armored woman out of his temple.
Shooting.
Andrew!
Michael Rudnick stands up just in time to see the bedroom door handle turn.
The door opens on a woman in military gear.
Athena?
No.
Baba’s daughter.
She pulls a belt like a dead snake from around her neck.
She is as surprised as he is, braces herself to receive or cast a spell.
Michael Rudnick is a warlock to be reckoned with, and she knows it.
Not everyone can crank a blistering-fast meteor out of the sky and smash a tank with it.
And nobody can do it without paying a price.
Michael tries to say the word to make the sconce fly up and brain her, but when he speaks a garbled sound comes out.
They both understand at once.
Stroke.
I’ve had a stroke.