A Steadfast Home

Harold had the gun, but he’s not here. It had only been four months. Four since the entire world fell apart but remained. I had gone almost six hours without thinking about him. Almost seven, when the stranger walks right into the house.

 (It’s the house. Not our house. I have to keep telling myself that.)

I hadn’t thought about how I’d given the gun up with everything else that was him, trying to make a new life. Hadn’t thought I’d need one. Had never learned how to use one. If anyone intruded into our home, Harold would be there. He shot the washing machine once, thinking the spin cycle was a prowler. We laughed about it for years. 

The young man looking at me just blinks. He looks ordinary. That’s the first word that comes to mind, but that’s what they say on the TV about all the serial killers. How ordinary they look. How normal they are. Harold is gone. I should – he doesn’t have a gun. Not even a knife that I can see. I should want this. 

I don’t. 

“Get out of my home!”

He blinks, steps back to the door. “Ah. Emilia Dupont?” 

I don’t keep anything heavy in the living room, but I raised four boys and one girl. I give him the glare, the one David said was magic because it could silence an entire room. “I said get out!”

“I am sorry.” He doesn’t move, but somehow I know he is sorry. Know it the same way I knew Harold died, or that Ruth and Peter broke up. Sometimes you just know this, because the universe is never kind. “I am, but I am afraid I must speak with you.”

“Who are you?”

He opens his mouth, closes it a moment later. His eyes widen, like Adam when I caught him at the cookie jar. “The wandering magician of this era,” he says softly. “No door can bar me, and none can be used to force me to leave a place. I wander where I need to. Right now that need drew me here.”

“What?”

He lets out a breath. It reminds me of me somehow. Old, tired, worn. “Cities are protected by magicians. And some towns as well. Sometimes they are large enough, or central to other towns. Rupert’s Creek is. The magician for it died two months ago trying to seal a hole into another place. Magicians die like other people do, but sometimes if we’re very foolish or very powerful we forget that. The town needed another magician. That need, that desire. Your loss and feeling lost. You became a magician, Emilia. And being one without knowing it is more dangerous than I like to think about.”

“You –.”

He doesn’t move, but he’s somehow more a moment later. Like the horse we had on the old farm, Blue. Blue was in charge of the other six horses, even one who had been in charge of a herd of a hundred, and never did anything. Almost never acted, but everyone deferred. It was like Blue acting. One moment he’s a stranger, the next a force I have no words for.

He smiles, and the sense of presence is gone. The smile is small, crooked and sad. “I hope that didn’t hurt you.”

“I have buried one husband, two nephews, one niece, eight friends and one son,” I snap. “You are nothing next to that.”

I mean it to wound. I’m sure I do, but he just looks relieved. “Good. I wouldn’t want to be. The magic picked you, and not knowing it – not using it –.” He trails off. His eyes are a silence that waits for answers, gentle and uncompromising. 

“The problems at city hall. The sightings in the park.” I don’t get the paper - that was Harold’s thing, not mine, but one hears stories. Especially if one is old and people talk freely as if you were already dead, or at least not relevant. 

He nods. “Events. Seepings. I have friends fixing the problems. Well, one friend fixing the problem and another making sure that the fixes don’t get creative.” He smiles at something, and the smile takes years from his face. 

“You have old eyes.” I have no idea why I say that, even if it is the truth. 

“I know. Most of the time I can hide them.”

“Is hiding pain what a magician is about?”

He laughs. Soft, surprised. “Not always. It’s not what we’re for, at least. Your home was your castle, but it was more your husband who was the home. As you were for him, even if you never had to say it. This was your steadfast, and you were steadfast to each other. That seeped out from you, with the magic. Held together many things that might have fallen apart.” 

“And if I fall, someone else does this?”

“If the magic can find someone, yes. If not, the town gets by as best it can. There are a few people with talents here. Some entities from Outside the universe. Some not from Outside. They might be enough, without a magician, but the magic would rather have an ace in the deck.”

“I always beat Harold when we played cards.”

“I doubt that’s why you were chosen,” he says gently. 

“Do you know why?”

For the first time, the wandering magician looks away from me. “I have some idea.” He looks back. “Places speak to me, and people as well. I have some idea of what Harold meant to you, and you to him. How close you were to doing things you know you should not do.” 

I step forward, but can’t find words in turn. Not against what I see on his face. “I’m seventy two.”

“I know. The magic doesn’t care about that.” That he doesn’t either goes without saying. “All it cares is that this place is protected.”

“You’re not going to tell me it’s an honour to be chosen?”

“No burden is an honour, no matter how we lie to ourselves. But that doesn’t stop them from being important, and from being necessary.”

“The Bible says that we shouldn’t kill ourselves.” I speak softly, somehow knowing the magician can hear me. “I always wondered why, if Heaven was so perfect, why we lengthened our stays here? Why prolong your time here, when you could be in Eternity? Why risk more time for sins and Hell, when Heaven was just right there? If I let myself die, I wouldn’t be with Harold. I know that much. It is all that kept me here, and it was so selfish a thing.”

“Emilia. Not selfish, no. There comes a time when grief has to be put away, when it becomes an indulgence, but it was not that time. Nothing like it at all. You’re not being punished. Not now, not then.” 

“Are there ghosts? Is Harold a ghost? Will I see him? I can be this, be steadfast in this, if I know –.” I don’t realize I’m shouting until I stop. My hands are shaking. I reduce it to two fingers. Somehow. 

“Magicians tend not to deal with ghosts. Magic answers need and desire, is the place where wishing is stronger than being. Ghosts have different desires, different needs.” 

“But I could see him? I would know, if he was a ghost? And join him? Please, if this is real, tell me.” My voice is small even in my ears. I hadn’t realized how weak I was until right now. I want Harold. I want proof. I want to be whole again, solid, steadfast in more than memory. 

“You would not. Magicians do not become ghosts when they die. If he is one ….” And the magician pulls out a cell phone. Does that, like he’s a part of the word I know, dials a number from memory. “Charlie? I need a ghost found by the name of Harold Dupont. And send Jay inside.” 

I open my mouth, wanting to ask questions, needing to know, but the front door opens and a boy of eleven bounces in. Actually bounces, from foot to foot, and throws a grin into the home like a weapon made of joy. For a moment, I forget the hurt. For a moment, all the loss just isn’t under the force of the boy. 

“What – what –.” I get nothing else out. 

“Jay.” The magician says nothing, but the force of the grin fades a little. “Sorry. He loves making friends, and fixing bindings.”

“Honcho?” The boy turns to the magician, and I think Jay’s eyes must be wide because his tone is shocked. 

“Do it,” the magician says. 

And the boy turns toward me. Holds out a hand. Just one, and there is something I can’t see in his hand. Something too big, too small, too impossible and it’s gone a moment later as Jay vanishes. 

“Magicians don’t become ghosts when we pass on,” the wandering magician says. “You would not meet Harold. I don’t know what happens after magicians truly pass on, or what becomes of ghosts when they do. I could not guarantee you would meet him, so I did the only thing I could.”

“You took the magic from me.”

“You will become a ghost, and meet Harold in the Grey Lands.” The words are facts. Solid. Irrevocable. Spoken to the universe as much as me. 

I shudder. “I don’t think I’d ever want that kind of power.”

“I know. It would have made you a good magician. Probably a better one than I.” He turns to the door. 

“Wait.”

The wandering magician stops. Looks back at me without expression.

“What will it do to you, that you did this?”

“I don’t know.” But he does. I know he does, and I have nothing in me to see that with. 

“Thank you.”

He smiles, and the smile only human. “I am glad I could help.”

He walks outside, closes the door behind him. 

I do the only thing I can. I head back up stairs. A steadfast. Our home was that. I can make it that again. For the grandchildren, the great grandchildren. I can keep our home hole, remind them of Harold. Make sure no one forgets him when I am gone. I can do this, because I will meet him again.

I cry. Later. For the magician with eyes I never want to see again. For some inkling of the price he will pay for helping me. But it’s a good cry. The kind that lets go. The kind that seeks the ocean as rivers do. There will be more tears, and many more losses, but this one, this time – this is enough for it. 

I close my eyes, and I sleep. 

And dream of Harold.