Moments and Futures

Moments and Futures

It is the nature of gods to serve the places where they were created. The god bussing tables at the bar comes over as I enter, her face pale and drawn. I don’t ask how the god knows I’m a magician – gods have their own ways of knowing, and it’s not often my concern.

“Wandering magician. We have a back room. I put her in there.” She hands me a key.

“Thank you.”

The god nods, hurries over to other tables. Helping the owners, doing what she can to keep the business she serves and is served by alive. Most gods are good people. The others god-eaters deal with. I walk into the back room and no one tries to stop me: I’m good at not being noticed, but also looking like I belong. Nothing of magic to that; some knacks one simply becomes.

Charlie is sitting at a long wooden table, on her second bottle of scotch. There is a distance to her gaze, a purpose to each grim gulp of unfettered alcohol. She isn’t just a god-eater; she can eat most forms of energy if she has to. And the god inside her burns with its own fury, though for once it seems strangely muted. She stares at me flatly, pours another glass with a steady hand. Pours me one as well.

“You know it’s not safe if we drink,” I say mildly as I sit across from her.

“Ask me if I care.” Her voice isn’t flat, something kin to fury in it but one isn’t a magician if one cannot recognize the faces fear hides itself behind.

“Charlie.”

“Don’t use that tone on me. That’s the one I use on Jay.”

“Then explain.”

She pulls out her phone, shows me a post Jay made. Jay is eleven, from far Outside the universe and capable of using bindings in ways that nothing else can even begin to attempt. I read the post. Twice.

“Pretend I have no idea what that means. Since I don’t.”

That doesn’t even win a smile. “Jay had a post eaten by Tumblr. He asked who ate it. Someone claimed they did, and Jay went – very Jay, and was hurt. Because Jay. And threatened them. With me.” Charlie gulps back half a glass, pours more. “I am a god-eater. I can do small things. Impressive, but nothing compared to a magician. Nothing next to what you can do, not even on the best day I ever have. You know this.”

I nod.

“I know this. Jay doesn’t. Jay doesn’t.” Her voice cracks a little. “You’ve torn holes in the damned universe, terrified armies of Outsiders, forced the fae to listen to you and I – I am the one Jay thinks is scary!”

“Well, yes. Remember when you first [http://fakesurprise.tumblr.com/post/60601663471/buffets]met him?” I ask gently. “You scared Jay, Charlie, because you can eat things, and the god inside you is scary, and Jay has never forgotten that. I am Honcho: I’m bound to him. Part of him, as he is part of me. He can’t be scared of me, not really, not even when he should be. It hurts too much for him to be scared of me, so he won’t let himself be scared.

“But buried within the moment of your first meeting is terror he’s never forgot. You were scary, so you are scary. And I doubt you can do anything to change Jay’s belief that Charlie is scary, and that you can fix every problem he feels the need to sic someone scary on.”

“There are people who are terrified of me for no good reason.”

“Well, jaysome reasons. Which are always good.” Charlie reluctantly returns my smile. I gently take the bottle from her. “Everyone is complicated, Charlie. Even Jay, as much as he tries to hide it from himself. He doesn’t understand that making other people scared of you hurts you. I’m not sure he can understand that. But Jay will outlive us both, and tell stories about you for centuries I imagine. I don’t even want to think of what that would result in.”

“I’ll be a fairy tale to terrify children for thousands of years.”

“Probably. But think on it: you’ll be remembered long after I’m forgotten. Maybe even long past when earth is a distant memory. It won’t be you – it can never be you – but you’ll have the strangest legacy of any human who ever lived, all because you scared a ten year old boy from Outside the universe into hiding under a bed.”

Charlie lets out a soft laugh. “Put like that, I guess I can bear it. It’s just –.”

“I know.” I reach over and squeeze her hand gently. “And some day Jay will as well. He’ll know how much this could have hurt you, to be so feared when you aren’t scary next to him. But if you don’t let him see that, then the time when Jay is no longer buried in that moment, when he understands that Charlie was never scary: well, it might not hurt quite so much after all.”

“Heh.” Charlie stands. “All right. I’ll try.”

“Good.” I stand as well, following her outside. The god bussing tables looks far less worried, which is at least a relief.

I think about all I can do, and all that I am, and that I spoke only truth in that Charlie will be remembered long after I am forgotten. And I bury that moment deeply, so that Jay never senses it. I can do that much for him, no matter what it costs me.

Jay is outside the bar, sulking that they won’t let him inside even if eleven is ‘really old for a Jay’. Charlie tells him she dealt with the Tumblr problem, and he gives her a huge grin and then announces that he found a new adventure. The sheepish-looking dinosaurs in Halloween costumes behind him cause me to pause.

“Jay. You’re having dinosaurs dress up as the Flinstones?”

“Yup!”

“I dealt with Tumblr; this one is yours,” Charlie says with a wicked grin.

I take a deep breath, let it out, and begin to explain to Jay that the dinosaurs might be better off back in their own time.

Which is when things get even stranger.