Текст книги "Nameless"

Автор книги: Sam Starbuck

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He nodded, opening the file and studying it. "A very...unique boy, Lucas. I hope he's well. All of this is by way of saying I know more about what happened than most in the village. Confidentiality, of course, requires me not to share any of this," he added. "Besides, it's not really the point."

I watched him, bewildered now. "What is the point, then?" I asked.

"You say you had no attack when you were bitten."

"That's right."

"Can you tell me when the last time you felt any arrhythmia was?" he asked.

I thought about it. "Not recently."

"How long?"

"I don't know," I said. I did know – but I didn't really want to admit I'd had at least two arrhythmias without telling him. After all, they'd said to expect them...

He looked at me.

"Three months, maybe," I said.

He nodded and got up, walking around his desk and picking up an oversized envelope, which he passed across to me. Still confused, I pulled out the papers inside, the x-ray films, the charts and graphs. It looked to me like gibberish.

"Listen, I don't have a medical degree," I said, spreading them out in front of me.

"Those are the results of tests performed on you when you were in Chicago," he said. "They're not what anyone expected, which is why it took me a while to get them. They had to do some verification that there hadn't been a mix-up."

"Oh," I said in a small voice. I thought, I should have known better. I'd really believed that Lucas had healed me when he'd touched me on the chest to reset my heart, the night he'd shown himself to be Nameless. But of course belief wasn't a luxury afforded to me – I needed to have facts.

"So, six months?" I asked, looking up at Kirchner, who frowned. "Or three? Should I be in hospice care?"

"What – no!" he said, looking startled. "No, Christopher – sorry, I'm so sorry, that wasn't what I meant at all. You're not in any danger."

I exhaled with relief. "Then what do these say?"

"They say...well, they say they've found nothing," he said, sitting down to face me across the desk.

I blinked at him. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"Well, it is, and it isn't. It's perplexing," he explained. "These tests show a perfectly healthy heart. No irregularities, nothing at all wrong with the tissue itself. None of the weakness that we should be seeing, especially after Halloween. Far as they can tell you're a perfectly healthy young man."

"Did they mix up my tests?" I asked.

"That's what I thought, but they assure me they double-checked, hence the delay. And I have to say, having been your doctor for three years....this is your heart, Christopher," he said, reaching over to pick up what looked to me like a blobby, grainy green-and-black photograph of someone's thumb. "Only thing I can think is that maybe you got some hemlock in it when you – went with Lucas to Chicago," he added, giving the words a slight sardonic twist. "But there aren't any known applications of hemlock for heart conditions, so that's basically hoodoo, and I can't explain it. Can you?"

I looked down at my hand, turned it over so that it was palm-up. I didn't even know what to think. I wondered if it was possible to be an atheist and still have a crisis of faith.

"I think I know what happened," I said, after a while.

"Well, you could share it with me," he replied, looking annoyed. I smiled.

"Frankly, I don't think you'd believe me," I told him. "Do you need me to do any more tests?"

"They'd like to see you in the city again, just to confirm some of their findings."

"Immediately?"

"Soon would be better, but that's up to you. If you feel well, Christopher, that's what matters," he told me. "Let me get you that cream, and you can get out of here."

I stopped him with a hand on his arm as he was headed for his supply cabinet.

"Does this...happen to people?" I asked. "I mean, is this documented or anything?"

He shook his head. "When you moved here I did a lot of reading. God knows I'm no heart specialist, but I know just about as much as anyone does about yours. You shouldn't have expected it would go away – you shouldn't now, until you've confirmed your results. If you're healed I won't ask too many questions, but if you're not..." he gave me a regretful look. "You know you'll be lucky to make it another ten years, Christopher. You have to know that."

"Yeah," I said. "Appreciate the honesty, Kirchner."

I let him go, stood there and waited, gripped the tube of scar cream when he pressed it into my hand.

"You all right, son?" he asked. I nodded.

"Fine. Thanks for the news. I'll see what I can do about getting up to the city soon," I said. I put on my coat, stepped out into the cold, and walked back up the street to Dusk Books. Inside, I took my pulse, fingers pressing lightly against the artery at my throat.

Steady and even. Seventy beats per minute. I put my hand over my heart and could imagine Lucas's hand there under it. A good heart meant I had a choice. I could leave if I wanted, permanently leave. I could go back to Chicago, which I'd missed in my first year in Low Ferry with a desperate longing that had only begun to fade with my second summer in the village.

But...it had faded. And I'd already made my decision.

***

In Chicago, they joke that "spring'll be on a Tuesday this year," but in Low Ferry spring comes a little earlier and stays longer. I promised myself I'd visit the city soon, but it was April before I knew it and with the warm weather came more customers. I propped my green door open permanently and began using the glass door again. One sunny morning, I borrowed the ladder from the cafe and hauled a bucket of black paint and a brush up the ladder to retouch my sign.

"Hiya, Christopher!" Paula called, as I was carefully going over the curve of the u in Dusk. "Nice day for painting!"

"Yup," I called back, turning the brush a little to keep it from dripping as I pulled it back. I started on the upright. "Spring's early this year."

"Are you complaining?" she asked, climbing the steps and leaning against the support-pole nearest me.

"Not at all. You must be doing good business."

She laughed. "Yeah, everyone's fixing all the things they've been putting off because of winter."

"Nice work if you can get it. All my customers are out sniffing roses and wandering the fields and stuff." I refreshed the brush and dabbed at a stubborn knot in the wooden sign that never took paint well.

"Tourists'll be in soon enough," she said.

"Don't I know it. Bert just had a whole shipment of decongestants come in."

"I stocked up on tire irons and tent patch kits," she agreed. "What about you?"

"Flower identification guides," I said, absently thumbing away a smear of misplaced paint in one curve of the s. "Camping handbooks. Lots of picture books to keep the kids busy.

"And a pretty new coat of paint on your sign," she said, smiling up at me.

"That too," I agreed. "You have to look nice for the city folk."

"You really want to look nice, you'll – "

" – rip out the porch and put in a new one, yeah. Maybe in the summer," I told her. "And I'm going to do it myself. It'll be good."

"What about your heart?" she asked. I carefully applied myself to the fickle angles of the k.

"I haven't had an episode in months," I said. "I'm going up to Chicago sometime, but I think the worst of it's past me, you know? I feel better than I ever have."

"Low Ferry worries about you," she said seriously.

The weird thing is, that felt good. No twinge of regret that I was different, no irritation over being handled. Low Ferry worried about me, because I was one of theirs – even if it might be another decade before I wasn't also the city boy.

"I know," I answered, climbing down the ladder to shift it over so I wouldn't have to stretch to reach the s in Books. "And I'm glad. Just...don't worry too much." I gave her a smile. "I'm okay, Paula. Really."

She grinned and gave me a hug, careful not to spill the paint.

"Well, I'm glad," she said. "Now, how much lumber can I get you for that porch?"

***

What finally sent me to Chicago for those tests the doctors wanted was a phone call to Marjorie, which in turn was spurred by another Low Ferry departure.

I'd all but forgotten that Michael and Nolan were leaving in mid-April, so it caught me off-guard when Carmen brought me a plate of pancakes and a mouthful of hot gossip early one warm morning.

"Did you hear yet?" she asked, as I sliced up the pancakes and, to my delight, found two links of sausage underneath them.

"About what?" I said, mouth half-full.

"The boys at the bank?"

I swallowed sharply and cleared my throat. "Nolan and Michael?"

"They ran off last night," she said, leaning forward and whispering, eyes wide.

"I hope they didn't rob the place," I said.

"No, but I hear they cleaned out their bank accounts. Nolan's little sister says they went to Chicago."

"Really," I said innocently.

"Together!" Carmen added, a hint of scandal seeping into her voice.

I admit to a little mischief. After the last few months, I felt I was owed that much. "Well, it's better to travel in pairs."

"No! Like, together."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Is that so. I suppose I can see why they'd run off, then."

"You mean aside from Michael's dad throwing him out of the house?"

"Well, this just gets more and more operatic. Did he really?"

"That's what I hear."

"Well, what do you think of it?" I asked, honestly curious. She glanced at me, frowned, and looked out the window nearby.

"Some people are meant for the city, I guess," she said. "But we look after our own folk, don't we?"

"That we do," I replied.

"So...things're changing. Maybe they just change here a little slower." She grinned. "Says something that Charles is fit to be tied at Michael's dad, huh?"

"Is he going to excommunicate him?" I winked.

"Well, he's right out of the choir and the Farmer's Association are thinking of taking measures too. Everyone sort of thinks it isn't really right, what he did to his boy."

I nodded. "What about Nolan's parents?"

"Haven't heard yet. If they don't know now, they will soon. Nolan's mother's liable to go down to Chicago with a shotgun and haul 'em both back, though, don't you think?"

"I hope not," I said.

"You liked those boys," she said – a half-question.

"I still do," I replied. She twisted her fingers together, looking from the window to me and back to the window.

"If you could go back to Chicago, would you?" she asked.

"Why do you ask?" I said.

"Just wondering." She tried to act casual, and mostly failed.

"Chicago wasn't perfect either," I told her.

"What if...you know..." she prompted, and I frowned.

"What if what?"

"What if Lucas came back?"

I stared at her, openmouthed.

She gave me a dry look. "Wasn't exactly a secret, Christopher. Plenty of people worried for your state of mind after he took off."

"I..." I said, blinking. "Low Ferry's my home, Carmen. Whether he were here or not. And if he did come back – this'd still be my home."

"Good," she said, all smiles now. "And you know Charles would tan anyone who came after you, and I'd be back of Charles with a baseball bat unless the Harrisons beat me to it."

"Comforting," I said. "But I don't think it's needed. You've got a line, by the way," I added, pointing to the cafe, and she swore and yelled "Bye Christopher!" as she ran out the door.

I sat at my counter thought about it for a while: what she'd said of Michael and Nolan's flight, how she'd asked if I would go too, what it meant to say I was putting down roots here, to say it to someone in Low Ferry who mattered to me.

Marjorie answered the phone almost before I'd realized I had the phone in my hand. Her cheerful "Eighth Rare Books, Marj speaking" startled me, and I stuttered over my hello.

"Christopher," she said. "Your ears must have been burning, I was just saying to someone that I should call you."

"Oh yes? What can Dusk Books do for you today?" I inquired.

"Nothing at all, as you well know. No, I was just saying I wanted to invite you up to Chicago soon," she said. I heard her pencil tapping on the newspaper in the background.

"Well, I thought I might come up, actually. Play tourist a little, that kind of thing. My doctor wants me to have my heart looked at."

"Oh?" her voice turned concerned. "Have you had another attack?"

"No – not for a long time, actually. That's why they want to take a look. It'll depend on when I can get into the hospital to get seen, but I'll swing by when I'm in town. How does that sound?"

She hesitated then, which I didn't think much of at the time. I assumed she was checking her calendar, or ringing up a patron.

"Come when you can," she said finally. "But I'd like to see you soon."

"You too, Marj. Look after yourself."

"Same back. Bye, Christopher."

"Bye," I said, and hung up. Then I went to look for the phone number of the hospital, to set up an appointment so that they could sample and study my healthy heart for as long as they wanted.

***

There's really no good way to get to the El from Union Station, the central train terminal in Chicago. Somewhere between laying out the El and situating the ordinary train tracks, they forgot about the Chicago river. The nearest El station is over the river and three or four blocks northeast, further if you're trying to get to the Red Line. Still, when it's not freezing or snowing it's a nice walk. The river's pretty when it thaws.

I took the El south when I reached it, down to the hospital where they received me with a mixture of skepticism and interest. Heart troubles are tricky; there are lots of ways for them to hide, and from the thoroughness of the tests they were determine to look in every dark corner of my cardiovascular system. I spent the night there, aching from all the various invasions, and was finally kicked out the next afternoon with the assurance that Kirchner would get my results in a couple of days. They asked if I wanted to go over them with someone, but I didn't see the point. The looks on their faces told me all I needed to know. Science, I've learned, is not perplexed by the unknown, but magic tends to throw it for a loop.

I was tired by the time they released me and desperately in need of dinner and intelligent conversation, so I made for Eighth Rare Books with speed. Eighth Street wasn't far by El, and as I came down to street level from the train I joined the loose crowds of students emerging from the last classes of the day at the nearby colleges. I stood back and let them go ahead, well-aware that this was Marjorie's busy spell and she'd have more time for me once she'd settled her patrons a little.

There was a coffee-shop across the street from Eighth Rare Books, one of the few holdouts against the chain-store invasions, and I bought a cup of tea to kill a little time. I was about to grab a newspaper and settle in somewhere when I glanced up at the wide plate-glass window next to the entrance to Eighth Rare Books – and froze.

Lucas was standing in the window. The same shaggy light-brown hair, the same sharp and ordinary profile. It was a shock to see him, and then when I'd recovered from that came the second surprise.

He was speaking to a young woman, hands moving quickly, sketching out shapes in the air. His face was lit up as he explained something to her and she was listening, smiling, responding occasionally. Even as I stared, she brushed her hair out of her eyes in a sort of coy flip that made it very clear her question, while perhaps important, was designed to get something more than just information out of him. She was flirting with him, and from all appearances he was flirting back.

I watched him pick up a book, hand it to her, scribble something on the notepad she was carrying, and send her off with a broad, charming smile. Then he busied himself at a display next to the window, frowning in concentration as he rearranged the books to his satisfaction.

I must have stood there in the coffee shop for a good five minutes, staring at him, getting in the way of the other patrons and going totally unnoticed by Lucas across the street. The last time I'd stood on Eighth Street I'd been in muddy clothing, my hand bandaged up in a large white paw, Lucas next to me carrying our dinner in a plastic bag.

Eventually the heat from my tea started to bleed through the doubled paper cup and make my hand uncomfortably warm. I glanced down at it, threw it still-full into a trash can, crossed the street, and pushed through the door into the warm dust-and-paper smell of Eighth Rare Books. Marj was ringing someone up and missed me amid the crowd near the entrance. I stopped and looked around.

The shelves were the same, but hanging on the end of each row were two or three easily recognizable masks. Lucas's masks – animals, grotesques, dazzling paste-jeweled Mardi Gras faces, and even a couple of Dottores. I crept around one shelf and read the little placard pinned underneath – For Sale by Artist, Inquire At Front Desk.

I circled, crossed at the back of the shop, and came around behind Lucas where he was fussing with another book display.

"Excuse me, do you work here?" I asked.

"I do, can I hel..." he trailed off as he turned, and the ready help-the-customer smile on his face dropped into surprise. "Christopher!"

"See, I'm looking for a book," I said casually. "But this store is kind of small and it doesn't even have a coffee stand in it – "

"Oh, the hell with you," he laughed, and wrapped me in a warm, tight hug. He still smelled like plaster. "My god. It's good to see you, Christopher."

"You too," I replied numbly, stepping back. "You look good, Lucas."

"You look exhausted. Did you come up on the train?"

"Yesterday. I was at the hospital," I added, and he got a grim look in his eye.

"How are you?"

"I'm fine. No, honest truth," I added, when he opened his mouth. "Well – not fine. But physically I'm okay."

"Not fine?" he asked. I looked at him.

"It's good to see you," I said, by way of answer. He cut his eyes away and nodded.

"You have every right to be angry," he said, but then he turned back to me and the faint hint I'd had of his usual reticence was gone. "I'll make it up to you. I'm sorry I disappeared. I'm glad you came up to Chicago." He gave me a wide, engaging grin, so unlike anything I'd ever seen from Lucas that I found myself grinning back. "Did Marjorie – "

"Christopher!" Marjorie shouted from behind me, interrupting. I turned to look her way. "Stop harassing my staff!"

"But I need a book!" I shouted back, well-aware that everyone in the store was staring at us. Enjoying it, actually.

"You need your ears boxed, come over here," she ordered.

I raised an eyebrow at Lucas and crossed the floor, bending to hug her before dropping into the chair next to her desk. Lucas leaned against the side, beaming at both of us.

"You, layabout, back to work," she said, and he shot her an indulgent look.

"Find me before you leave," he said to me, and wandered off to interrupt a pair of students browsing the history textbooks.

"This is a nice surprise," Marjorie continued, offering me her half-finished crossword puzzle. "Forty-five across. You never tell me when you're coming to town."

"Mm," I said, writing in the answer and handing it back. "I didn't want you fussing over me at the hospital. Next time I'll give you a warning."

"Oh – how did that go?" she asked.

"Pretty well. I think I baffled them," I said with a grin. "And you, Marj, you're in trouble."

"For what!" she asked, indignant already.

"You didn't tell me Lucas was here."

"Well, I did tell you to come see me," she said. "He didn't seem like he wanted you to know, and it's not my business I'm sure."

"Everything's your business. That's why we get along so well," I scolded.

"Besides, it was good to give him some settling-in time," she continued, ignoring me.

"How long's he been here, Marj?"

"A little over a week. Showed up here with a change of clothes and a box of masks. I'm given to understand some of your Travelers dropped him off."

"Good people."

"No doubt. You can ask him where they took him before he stepped off in Chicago; he hasn't told me much about it. He traded on his friendship with you and coerced me into hiring him."

I laughed. "Another protégé? You're starting a collection."

" I needed an assistant. I can't run this place on my own forever, and you won't come back, so. Someone's got to show you youngsters how it's done. He's a good boy, Christopher," she told me, as if I weren't aware of the fact. "Much more charming when he's not recently out of the hospital. Besides, I thought someone ought to keep an eye on him."

"I'm glad he found you again."

"So am I, he's very useful. All the patrons adore him."

"Has he seen his parents?" I asked. She frowned.

"I'm not his keeper, Christopher. Ask him."

"I plan to. In fact, I'm about to take him to dinner, I think. Do you mind?"

"If you can tear him away," she said, tipping her head at Lucas. He was leaning over someone's shoulder at one of the desks at the front of the shop, pointing out a passage in a book.

"Lucas," I called. People all over the shop turned to look my way, but I was only watching Lucas, whose head shot up. I felt a little smug when he smiled at the customer he was helping and excused himself.

"Had your gossip?" he asked, cheerfully.

"Just a bit," I said. "How's Gwen?"

He ducked his head a little – that was more like the Lucas I knew. "She's fine. They all say hello."

"Good," I said, standing up. "Come on, Marjorie's giving you the evening off."

He looked to her for confirmation, then turned and followed me towards the door. Chicago was chilly, but not quite heavy-coat weather; he took his old tan jacket off a hook near the door of the shop and shrugged into it as we stepped outside.

"Where are we going?" he asked, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Dinner," I said. "Know anywhere good around here?"

"Yeah, this way." He guided me down the street and then north along the park, a wide stretch of greenbelt that skirts Lake Michigan from the near south all the way up through downtown. There were joggers and tourists out, people walking their dogs, and plenty of children playing near the weathered old circle of Buckingham Fountain. He turned east when we reached the fountain's plaza and I shot him a questioning look but he just kept walking, nodding at a hot-dog vendor in the corner.

"I did tell you I was paying, didn't I?" I said, as we made our way to the greasy little stand.

"I like it here," he answered. "Two, everything," he told the man behind the cart, and I passed over a ridiculous amount of money for two hot dogs.

"You know this is a tourist trap," I remarked, accepting my hot dog. The vendor gave me a dirty look.

"Nothing wrong with tourism," Lucas answered. "You see things you wouldn't normally notice. Come on, over here."

We walked and ate until we'd almost passed through the narrow park. To the east, across the street, Lake Michigan glittered in the afternoon light. I waited patiently until he took a breath.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry, but I didn't know how," he said. "I hope you didn't worry."

"Well, I did, but I figured you ran off with the Friendly. I knew they'd look after you," I answered.

"They let me come along. Just for a few weeks. I wanted to come back to Chicago but...they take the slow path, you know how they are."

"I know they never come to the city," I said.

"I paid them to bring me here. Gwen and Tommy dropped me off at the fountain," he said, nodding back towards it. "Gave them nearly all my masks, except for what Marjorie's got up in the shop."

"Pretty steep fee."

"Worth it. Anyway, I can always make more masks." He hesitated, then forged ahead. "Marjorie's letting me stay with her, until I can get a place. I put up a workshop in her garage. I'm doing an installation next month at a gallery on the north side."

"I'm glad to hear it." I licked mustard off my fingers. "I missed you, Lucas. You could have left a note."

"I left you my book," he said.

"Didn't exactly explain it though, did you?" I replied. "Just my name. Was I supposed to keep it for you? Was it proof you weren't coming back?"

He frowned. "No – it was a gift. For you. Because I didn't need it anymore, and I thought...maybe it would help you. When you thought you didn't see enough wonder in the world. God knows I can't show you any."

"Why do you say that?" I asked. He looked out over the lake, the wind ruffling his hair.

"When someone gives you a gift, and you throw it away, you don't usually get it back," he said. "I earned the power I had in Low Ferry but it was also something...special. Something people don't get very often. I didn't appreciate it. Just not using it would have been one thing, but I treated it – myself – like I wasn't enough for the world. Life teaches hard lessons." He fell silent, watching the cars move back and forth, watching the shallow waves break on the concrete barriers beyond.

"What happened to Nameless?" I asked softly. He snorted.

"It sounds stupid," he said. "I buried him. Out in the field below The Pines. It wouldn't work anymore, you know. None of it. Not the rain, not the snow, not the mask. I threw away all that power, and I got my life saved..." a shy grin for me, "...but that's all I got back."

"That's a hell of a lot, Lucas. Your life."

"I didn't used to think so," he said thoughtfully. "Things are different now."

"That boy you used to tutor – " I started, but I couldn't figure out how to say what I meant.

"Is he angry?" Lucas asked.

"No, he disappeared. About the same time you did."

"Disappeared?" he asked, looking faintly worried.

"Nobody knows where he went. I don't think he was...I don't know what he was, but he wasn't normal. Have you ever noticed you can't think of his name?"

Lucas frowned, brow furrowing. I watched as the familiar sequence of emotions passed over his face – concentration, confusion, forgetfulness.

"What were we talking about?" he asked after a while. I shook my head.

"Doesn't matter," I said, though it did. It mattered that I was the only one with a clear memory. Which meant that the boy had not necessarily been there – the Waxwing had not always stood guard over the door to The Pines – for the sake of Lucas. Some part of all that magic had been mine. "Have you seen your parents, since you came back?" I asked carefully.

He looked rueful. "Couple of days ago. They tried to talk me into a clinic until I told them Marjorie gave me a job. Now I'm on an installment plan for paying off the hospital bill."

"Pulling no punches," I said.

"Must learn responsibility," he answered, managing to look amused and regretful at once. He glanced down and kicked against the cement a little. "So, is this how it's going to be? Polite and friendly?"

"I don't know," I said. "I don't know what you want, Lucas, except that you wanted to run away from me."

"No – no," he said, giving me a hurt look. "That wasn't what I wanted. Christopher, you don't think that."

"You left," I said. "You didn't tell me why, you didn't call me when you got to Chicago. Marjorie thought you didn't want me to know. If you want me to go back to – "

"I found the mask you made," he blurted, words running together. I stared at him. "You didn't even give it to me yourself. You didn't wait until I woke up."

"I...didn't know how," I said, startled.

"Welcome to the club," he replied. "I left because I was scared. Christopher, do you even understand what you did?"

"I thought so," I said. "But then you left, so I didn't know. I didn't even know you'd found it. Half the time I thought I was crazy."

"I'm so sorry," he said, and there was real regret in his eyes.

"What did you do with it, anyway?" I asked. Slowly his face transformed – sadness into a kind of secretive joy.

"What do you think?" he asked, and reached up to the back of his head. I thought he was scratching it for a minute, and then he cupped his other hand carefully over his face. When he brought it down again there was that same shimmer in the air, a sense that the whole world was focused on the empty space in his palm.

I looked up from the mask and saw his shoulders slumping inwards, his head automatically dipping, eyes now trained anywhere but my face.

"Your heart," he said, which I hadn't been expecting. I looked down at his hand, where a mask no-one could see dangled by invisible ribbons. "It's healed, isn't it."

"You should know," I said. "You did it."

"I thought I might have, but I couldn't be sure. So...I gave you this thing, health, and the right to choose – even if you chose Low Ferry instead of Chicago," he said. "And you gave me this. I'm not afraid anymore. I'm...still me, but I'm not afraid."

"So why run?" I asked gently.

"I wasn't sure you'd want to see me the way I am now. You liked me the way I was."

I almost laughed – would have, if I hadn't spent the last two months grieving a loss, only to find it restored to me. "I like you, Lucas," I said. "I always have. It doesn't matter to me."

"Good. Because then I don't have to wear it around you." He lifted his face a little, into the wind. "Would you come back to the city? No, you won't, will you," he said, before I could tell him.

"Low Ferry is my home," I told him. "The city can't give me anything I want, not anymore."

"Nothing?" he asked, still staring at the lake.

"Well. I'd like to see that gallery show of yours," I ventured. "And hear what you did with the Friendly."

"Yeah?" A faint smile.

"Yeah. And you know me..." I grinned at him. "If I had a good reason to visit the city, it wouldn't be any trouble to come up a few times a month. If you wanted to see me, say."

"I do," he said quickly. "Marjorie too."

A couple of kids ran past through the park, trailed by a panting mutt of a dog, all wispy terrier hair and lolling tongue. Behind us, the fountain's central jet began to plume.

"I love the city," Lucas said. "I love everything about it. I fit here. So...thank you."

"My pleasure," I said, and meant it. How often do you get the chance to give someone a city? "Lucas...I have a train to catch soon. I need to go home. I'll come back, though. I'll stay longer next time."

He smiled and finally, finally looked at me without the mask.