Rite of Passage

I’d like to say I don’t hide, but that has always been a lie. Learning to hide is important: sometimes I think it is the only lesson that matters. If you are seen, learn to be unseen. If you can’t hide, find ways to disguise yourself. It is always easier for some than others. There is a skill to hiding, a knack some master. You could walk past the most powerful magician in the world and never know it. That one wanders far: you have probably met him at least once.

I find some places to live. Places holding unhappy memories or tempered ghosts. The kind of place that are rented rarely simply because no one stays in them. I do what I can for them, and sometimes it is enough and I move on. Oh, I do other things: being the magician of a place means there is much one must do. I am not forced into it. Nothing like that. But I am part of the city, and the city is part of me.

There are problems magic can never solve. Every magician knows that, or they do not last long at all. The magic is a gift more than a talent, a thank-you from the universe. To be bound to a place is closer to a marriage, though not at all like it. Magic is about the places where need and desire meet, you understand? Being bound to a place is not like that at all. There are obligations without duties. Times when one fixes things simply because there is no one else to do it.

I’m heading out to buy dinner: something cheap for the small microwave in the apartment I’m in, so it doesn’t feel lonely. I’m debating time, because I always use the number 9 on my microwave since it is the loneliest number. This is how magicians are, at least some of us. It’s why I don’t notice him until he is almost on top of me.

Tall, thin, eyes bright with desperation, a jacket reeking of stale cigarette smoke two sizes too large. One sleeve hangs empty. The other hand finds my chest, pushes me into the wall.

I have wards. Protections. Power I could draw upon from the city. A thousand vehicles hurling by outside would force him away. But need and desire work both ways.

“Can I help you?”

“Magician,” he hisses. There is no hesitancy in his words. His body shakes with the force of the truth. “You work magic.”

“I am a magician, yes,” I offer.

“Fix me,” he demands.

Sometimes, the ones who find me just want to know. To be certain there is more to the world than they know. To be able to carry that truth with them like a flower the world cannot blow away. Sometimes they want help, too, but too many have eyes riddled with expectations.

I slip away from his grip easily. I feel his anger, certain I would not if he had two arms. Unaware it would not make a difference. I enter my apartment again.

The man follows like something cages. Pauses. The apartment is small and dingy. I’ve done what I can with paint, and spoken to the sadness in this place, but it has not all gone. There is a small laptop, because there is more to the world than the city. The table with the microwave. A sink. A futon I salvaged from a dumpster. Some clothing neatly folded beside the bed. The clothing just shows up every few days, no matter where I’ve been. There are always those who insist on paying you back, even if they never need to.

“I need my arm. I need it back. You can do magic,” he says, his anger rallying him.

I sigh. “I am a magician, yes.” I could tell him what it is really for: that there are holes in the world, and a magician patches them. But he would not understand. He has seen small things I have done, come across repairs to walls, or changed graffiti, or the lost I’ve reunited. Enough to drive him onward. Enough to make him seek me past reason. Hope is always there past reason, burning in his eyes.

“I am afraid you misunderstand, Raoul.” He starts. It always surprises them, when a magician knows their name. “This,” and I hold out a hand, and starlight spills onto the ceiling.

He makes a noise, and there is hunger in it more than wonder.

“This is magic. It is a river, you understand? There are magicians who never understand this, but it is true. Magic is a poem more than prose, and it answers need and meets desire. But what we desire is not the same as what magic does. Not the same as what the world does. I have never met a fish that did not wish to be a bird, and that is the nature of the world.”

“I don’t understand; I want my arm back,” he snarls, but there is less anger. He doesn’t notice some of the stars are brighter, as the anger had to be released somewhere.

“All magic is change, friend. For a wall to become a window. For a duck to become a man. That is what magic can do, what magic is. Oh, one can fix some things, restore other things. But that is not what things desire. All things desire to change, and change looks onto to the future. Magic cannot restore what was lost anymore than I could feed the poor with it, or bring the dead back to life.

“Change is not movement that goes backwards, not for magic,” I finish softly. It is a lesson that took me years to learn, and one I will never master.

“But –. I need –.” He flatters.

“I know.” I head to my futon, reach under it. Return with money. “You could get a prosthetic.”

Raoul stares at the money wordlessly.

“It is from a bank; there is an arrangement with magicians. I do not spurn the arrangement, though I give away far more than I use.”

He takes it slowly. “Magician –.”

“Everything has a cost,” I say, and let him feel how this small apartment is the better for what has happened here. I set the key to it on the counter, get my laptop, and leave.

Raoul doesn’t move. He tries to speak, but nothing emerges.

I offer a faint smile as I leave, enough to let him know I heard.

We only meet once again, that he knows of. I make certain to nod to him as he enters work, and he turns back to stare in shock, leaving bread to scatter and birds to dive as he runs across the road.

“That’s one way to lose other limbs,” I say dryly.

“You – I – I work here now,” and he waves his hand to the soup kitchen. “Government grant, and I – I gave the money away. I found someone who needed legs.”

“There was never an obligation,” I say as gently as I know how.

“I know.” And I think he does, better than some do. He steps back. “I’m still in that apartment.”

I nod. “Good. It needed someone who understood.”

And someone calls for him across the road, an annoyed demand. He turns, and I slip away from his gaze. Not hidden.

Never hidden.

Merely waiting to be found.