the bicycle that everybody calls the Conjure Man— and he got me to take an acorn from the big old tree that used to grow behind the library at Butler U. He had me nurture it over the winter, then plant it in Fitzhenry Park near the statue of the poet, Joshua Stanhold.
The version he tells is that he's this immortal who diminishes as the years go by, which is why he's only our height now. He was supposed to leave our world when its magic went away, but he got left behind. The tree that came down behind the library was a Tree of Tales, a repository of stories without which wonder is diminished in our world. The one I grew from an acorn and planted in the Silenus Gardens is supposed to be its replacement.
My version... I don't really know what my version is. There was something strange about the whole affair, I'll grant you that. And that little sapling I planted— it's already the size of a ten-year-old oak. Jilly told me she was talking to a botanist who was quite amazed at its appearance there. Seems that kind of oak isn't native to North America, and he was surprised to find it growing in the middle of the park that way.
'The only other one I've ever seen in the city,' he told Jilly, 'used to grow behind the Smithers Library, but they cut it down.'
I haven't seen John— that's the Conjure Man's real name, John Windle. I haven't seen him for a while now. I like to think that he's finally made it home to wherever home is. Behind the curtain, I suppose. But I still go out to the tree and tell it stories— all kinds of stories. Happy ones, sad ones. Gossip. News. Just whatever comes to mind.
I'm not even sure why; I just do.
4
I'm not as brave— or maybe as foolish— as Jilly is. She doesn't seem to know the meaning of fear. She'll go anywhere, at any time of the day or night, and she never seems to get hurt. Like what happened earlier tonight. If I'd been on my own, or just with. Sophie, when that car pulled up, who knows how it would have ended up? Not pleasant, that's for sure.
So I'm not nearly so bold— except when I'm on my bike. It's sort of like a talisman for me. It's nothing special, just an old ten-speed, but it gets me around. Sometimes I think I should become, one of those messengers that wheel through the traffic on their mountain bikes, whistle between their lips, ready to let out a shrill blast if anybody gets in their way.
You think you're immortal, covering ground faster than anyone can walk, you're not all locked up inside some motorized box that's spewing noxious fumes into the air. You feel as natural as a bird, or a deer, racing through your concrete forest. Maybe that's where John got that feeling from; riding through town on his bike, free as the wind, when all the other street people are just sort of shuffling along, gaze to the ground.
I started a poem about it once, but I couldn't get the words to fit the vision. That's been happening to me all too often this summer. Oh, who'm I kidding? Wordless pretty well sums me up these days, I look at the work I've had published, and I can't even imagine what it was like to write those verses, little say believe that it was me who did it.
Feeling sorry for myself is the one thing I have gotten good at lately. It's not a feeling I like. I hate the way it leaves me with this overpowering sense of being ineffectual. Worthless.
When I start getting into that kind of mood, I usually get on my bike and just ride. Which is how I found myself in Fitzhenry Park a few hours after Sophie and Jilly left me at my apartment.
I laid my bike down under the young Tree of Tales and sprawled on the grass beside it. I could see a handful of stars, looking up through the tree's boughs, but my mind was back in the Standish, listening to Puck warn Oberon of the coming dawn I drifted off to the remembered sound of his voice.
5
Puck breaks off and looks at me. The play has faded, the hall is gone. It's just the two of us, alone in some copsy wood, as far from the city as the word orange is from a true rhyme.
'And who are you?' he says.
I make no reply. I'm too fascinated by his transformation. Falling asleep, the voice I heard, the face I imagined, was that of the actor from the Standish whom I'd seen earlier in the night. But he's gone along with the city and everything familiar. This Puck is more compelling still. I can't take my gaze from him. He has a beauty that no actor could replicate, but he's more inhuman, too. It's hard to say where the man ends and the animal begins. I think of Pan; I think of fauns.
'Your hair,' he says, 'is like moonlight, gracing your fair shoulders.'
Maybe I should be thinking of satyrs. Legendary being or not, this is a come-on if ever I heard one.
'It's dyed,' I tell him.
'But it looks so full of life.'
'I mean, I color it. I'm not a natural blonde.'
'And your eyes?' he asks. 'Is that tempest of dream-starved color dyed as well?'
I have to admit, he's got a way about him. I don't know if I should assume 'dream-starved' to be a compliment exactly, but the sound of his voice makes me wish he'd just take me in his arms. Maybe this is what they mean by fairy enchantment. I've only known him for the better part of a couple of minutes, and already he's got me feeling all warm and tingly inside. There's a musky odor in the air and my heartbeat has found a new, quicker rhythm.
It's a tough call, but I tell my libido to take five.
'What do you mean by 'dream-starved?' ' I ask him.
He sits back on his furry haunches and the sexual charge that's built up between us eases somewhat.
'I see a storm in your soul,' he says, 'held at bay by a grey cloud of uncomfortable reason.'
'What's that supposed to mean?' I ask.
But I know. I know exactly what he's talking about: how everything that ever made me happy seems to have been washed away. I smile, but there's no light behind the smile. I laugh, but the sound is hollow. I don't know how it happened, but it all went away. I do have a storm inside me, but it can't seem to get out and I don't know how to help it. All I do know is that I don't want to feel like a robot anymore, like I took a walk-on bit as a zombie for some B-movie only to find that I can't shake the part once my scene's in the can.
'When was the last time you felt truly alive?' he asks.
I look back through my memories, but everything seems dismal and grey. It's like walking into a room where all the furniture is covered with sheets, dust lies thick on the floor, all color has been sucked away.
'I... I can't remember....'
'It was not always so.'
A statement, not a question, but I still nod my head in slow agreement.
'What bedevils you,' he says, 'is that you have misplaced the ability to see— to truly see behind the shadow, into the heart of a thing— and so you no longer think to look. And the more you do not look, the less able you are to see. Wait long enough, and you'll wander the world as one blind.'
'I already feel that way.'
'Then open your eyes and see.'
'See
Puck shrugs. 'It makes no difference. You can look upon the most common thing and see the whole of the cosmos reflected within.'
'Intellectually, I know what you're talking about,' I tell him. 'I understand— really I do. But in here—' I lay the palm of one hand between my breasts and cover it with the palm of the other '— it's not so clear. My heart just feels too heavy to even think about sunshine and light, little say look for them in anything.'
'Then free your heart from your mind,' he says. 'Embrace wonder for one moment without the need to consider how that wonder came to be, without the need to justify if it be real or not.'
'I... I don t know how.'
His lips shape that puckish smile then. 'If you would forget thought for a time, let me love you.'
He cups my chin with his hand and brings his lips close to mine. At the touch, being so close to those wild eyes of his, I can feel the warmth again, the fire in my loins that rises up into my belly.
'Let the storm loose,' he whispers.
I want to, I'm going to, I can't seem to stop myself, yet I manage to pull back from him.
'I'll try,' I say. 'But first, and I don t know where this thought comes from, 'first— tell me a story.'
