“Leave me alone!” he cried out, and as swiftly as the storm had come, it dispersed. He watched them scatter up to black tree limbs and desolation filled his soul.
Ashamed, he fled them, scurrying across the square to the Grand Central Arcade and the gas fireplace. He rattled facts in his head to hold his despair at bay. It dated from 1889, this ivy clad building, and it had been the Squire Latimer Building.
It boasted access to the old underground shopping. He squeezed his lips shut to keep from muttering to himself, but his wayward mind clutched at the distraction, hooking his identity to the city. He was losing his grip on both.
The sudden warmth of the mall made his nose start to drip.
He hurried to the men’s room for tissue. He plucked a handful of stiff leaves from the dispenser and scoured his nose with them. He stared blearily into the mirror. He looked like hell.
Like he had died and someone had reheated the body in a microwave. He smiled mirthlessly at himself, a death’s head grin. As he stuffed extra tissues into his pocket, his hand encountered coins. He fished them out and looked at (hem. A quarter, a dime, and a nickel. Forty cents. Worth virtually nothing in terms of food. Coffee was up to fifty cents a cup, and the ten-cent donut was a fragment of the past. But the coins were something to clutch as he strolled through the mall stores, seeking some sort of sustenance.
He made three circuits of the shops. He ventured up me stairs that had once led him to Cassie and safety. They stopped at street level and looked at him blankly. He pushed gently at the bare wall, feeling weak, tired, and sick. It turned him away and he returned to the underground stores.
He found a blacksmith working his forge and selling coathooks. He found greeting cards with cats on them, and crystals for sale, and jewelry, flowers, and an art gallery and rare books.
He found nothing edible for forty cents. And he felt no warmer.
The chill that swept through him in waves seemed to come from his bones, flowing from the chill ashes of his magic. It was an exhausting, shivering cold that wearied him into an icy sweat. He stumbled back up me stairs to the street level of the arcade and the gas fireplace. He had no trouble finding a seat near the flames; the shoppers were thinning as the stores began to close for the night.
Numbly he sat, trying to absorb warmth. His eyes fixed on a woman tending a vendor’s cart. It was a red popcorn stand, selling salted or caramel popcorn. The woman was scooping up her cooling wares with a shiny metal scoop and packing the popcorn into big plastic bags- Wizard stared at the placard on her cart until the words burned into his senses. Popcorn, eighty cents. Carmel Corn, sixty cents. Small, forty cents. The misspelling of caramel vexed him unreasonably. He wanted to demand that they change (he sign immediately. Then the final line hit him. Forty cents. Salt beckoned him.
The woman looked up at him in a bored but guarded way as she went on shoveling popcorn. “Can I help you?” she asked in a voice that indicated she didn’t want to.
“Popcorn.” Wizard was amazed at his croak. He tried to clear his throat and coughed instead as he brought the change out of his pocket and proffered it to her.
“It’s cold, you know. I’m just cleaning out the machine.”
“That’s okay. It’ll be fine.”
“I already counted out for the night.”
He tried to reply, but a chill hit him. He pulled his jacket closed across his chest. Her eyes narrowed, then relaxed into a guarded pity. Poor junkie. She snapped open a small bag and packed popcorn into it. She pushed it into his hand and dropped his coins in the till without counting them
Wizard took the bag awkwardly. She had stuffed it over full and. as he put his fingers in, a few kernels leaped out onto me floor. A man who had walked up beside him glared down at the popcorn on the floor as he commented loudly. “Arcade stores are getting ready to close now.” Wizard nodded without looking at him and headed toward the tall doors.
Outside, a gust of wind carried off the top layer of popcorn.
The darkening skies had banished the pigeons. No one would salvage the flurry white puffs until they were sodden and gray beneath the dawn. He was just as glad there were no birds to greet him. There wasn’t enough here for a tenth of his flock.
He stuffed a few kernels into his own mouth and immediately lost his appetite for more. A fit of shivering rattled him. He twisted the top of the bag to seal it and stuffed it into his pocket-
“So here you are,” she said.
He turned, needing Cassie. She smiled up at him and the depth of his misfortune engulfed him- He could only stare at her. Her face was turned up to his and raindrops misted her lashes. He realized belatedly that it was raining. Drops were darkening her blond hair. She was giving him a strange look, half-smile, half-frown.
“Don’t look so blank, honey. Lynda, remember? i told you to meet me here this morning, for breakfast. But I was late and I guess you gave up on me. So I felt just awful. But I figured, well, maybe he’ll be around there when I get off work tonight. So I came by here, and sure enough, (here you are coming out of the arcade.”
Her chatter went too fast for him. By the time he absorbed the meaning of one sentence, she was two sentences away. He groped to reply. “I wasn’t here this morning.” The words dragged past the rawness of his throat. Lynda didn’t appear to hear them. At the sound of his croak, her eyes went wide. She pressed her cold hand to his forehead and then me side of his neck.
“You’re burning up! Let’s get you out of this rain. Hey—
I know just the place; it’s a great little place, lots of really healthy food, you know, fiber and’vitamins and stuff that’s good for you. Come on, now.“
Her arm was through his and her hand gripped his jacket right above his elbow. She hurried him along with short quick steps that put his long legs off stride. She appeared not to notice as she chattered on about a customer who had left her tip in me bottom of his water glass, and another who had wanted her to go out with turn after work. “He smelted just awful, like mildewed cheese, you know what I mean.”
Her words pattered and splashed against him like the rain, drowning his thoughts. The streets were shiny, their wet pavement reflecting the streetlights. She hurried him across south Main and into the Union Trust Annex and down some stairs.
She paused for bream on me stairs and he murmured, “Back into underground Seattle.” Lynda frowned up at his non sequitur. He felt a tiny triumph. “Notice me rough brick work of me building fronts down here. These all used to be ground floors, and now they’re basements. Did I ever tell you the story of me fire of 1889? A carpenter’s apprentice let a pot of hot glue boil over. I teamed all about it at the Klondike Gold Rush Memorial National Park. Just down the street.”
“You don’t make any sense,” she told him earnestly. “Come on.”
She tugged at him and he followed her into City Picnics,
She didn’t pause to order at the counter, but took him straight to a table and parked him on a bench with her shopping bag and raincoat. Then she left him. He looked around dully. The-. tables were inlaid with genuine artificial wood. He didn’t like it, but had to admit it was well done. He put his hand against the honest brick of me wall, feeling its integrity.