A Wizard Alone New Millennium Edition (24 page)

Huh?
Kit said.

Well, that’s half my question answered,
Nita said.
You sound wrecked. You okay?

I guess so.

Nita raised her eyebrows. This wasn’t exactly a normal response for Kit. Either he was okay or he wasn’t, but the middle ground wasn’t usually an option for him, in Nita’s experience, especially when he sounded as dulled as he did.
I’m coming over in a while,
she said.
There’s some stuff I have to show you.

Okay.

And that was it: he dropped the connection.

Nita blinked.
Either he’s really exhausted,
or there’s something really wrong
…

She knew what her present hunch suggested, though. She was seriously getting worried about him now.
He’s been hitting this problem with Darryl so hard,
Nita thought,
that he’s just been wearing himself down. That’s one possibility.

So why don’t I think that’s what’s
really
going on?

Nita headed downstairs to make herself a sandwich. “By the way,” Dairine said in a piercing voice as Nita went past her door,
“someone
seems to have eaten all the bananas.”

Nita sighed. “I’ll stop by Brazil on my way home. Or Panama.”

“Costa Rica.”

“Please,” Nita said as she went down the stairs. She had never been any good at remembering which exports came from which countries. It struck her as information that, for someone in junior high, was about as useful as dissecting the history of the gold standard.
When I get a job at an import-export firm,
Nita thought, turning the corner into the kitchen, then
I’ll worry about who exports bauxite and who exports tin. Not before.

She rummaged around in the cupboards to find a can of tuna fish; opened it, drained it, mashed it in a bowl with mayonnaise and Tabasco sauce, made herself a sandwich with it, and ingested the sandwich without paying it much attention, for Darryl was on her mind.
He’s more important than
all
of us, Carl said.
The thought was sobering. She and Kit had done some moderately important and useful things in their time working together, but what Carl seemed to be describing was a different level of function—one in which just
being
there, just being alive and breathing, could be more important to the world than any amount of running around
doing
things. It made a strange kind of sense when Nita put it together with what Tom had been saying about the Powers finding the difference between active and passive work “illusory.”
If just by being here, Darryl is channeling the One’s power into the world, then if something were to happen to him suddenly
…

It was a scarier thought than any Nita had had in quite some time.
Whatever else I do,
she thought,
I’ve got to find a way to help him. Because he doesn’t know it, but he’s helped me
…

Nita went to get her coat, and then went out to walk over to Kit’s.

***

“
Hola, Carmela.
¿Qué pasa?
” Nita said as she came in Kit’s back door.

“
Watashi wa ureshii!
” Carmela said, more or less dancing past Nita into the living room, with the TV remote in her hand.

Nita blinked as she slipped off her coat and dropped it on the floor beside the dining room sofa. The Japanese thing was something Carmela had been working on for a while, and now that she was getting good at it, you never quite knew which language you were going to get from her. “Let me guess. You’re saying you’re going to turn into a giant robot?”

“No,” Carmela said, “that would be,
Watashi, imakara sugo-ku o-kina robotto ni naruno!
”

“I’m impressed,” Nita said.

“If I really did turn into a giant robot, I bet you would be,” Carmela said, heading back into the living room.

Nita followed her. “Oh,” she said. “Is this the new entertainment center?”

“
Ohay
ō gozaimas’!
” shouted the TV and the DVD player together.

“Oh,” Nita said. “Hi, cousins. Nice to meet you.”

“
D
ōzo yoroshiku!
”

“Uh, yeah.” To Carmela she said, “Don’t you find that a little unusual?”

“I’m used to it now. Kit says he thinks we’re having some kind of wizardry leakage in the house,” Carmela said, very matter-of-fact. “Mama can hear Ponch. And Pop and I can hear the TV when it shouts at the DVD. Mostly it’s friendly shouting now, since Kit fixed the remote.” Carmela plunked herself back down on the sofa, stretching out her legs.

“
Fixed
it,” Nita said, still having some trouble with this concept.

“Oh, it was way worse before, believe me! He said he was going to ask Tom what was going on. Meanwhile, in case you’re wondering, Kit’s in his room. Mama and Pop are out shopping, and they did not take Kit with them because they are
annoyed
with him.” She lowered her voice. “But also because he slept real late, and he looks like hell. Mama thinks he’s coming down with something.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Nita said. “Uh, have you been having any trouble with—?” She glanced in the general direction of the TV and DVD while turning enough to conceal the look.

“Trouble? Not at all. Weird stuff turns up sometimes, but all the regular TV’s there, the cable and all. I don’t care how many aliens I see, as long as I’ve got my MTV and the shopping channels.”

Nita grinned. This was Dairine’s attitude as well, though it was the music channels that interested her more than the shopping. “Half the time, with some of those videos, you can’t tell what planet they’re from anyway,” Nita said.

Carmela snickered. “Later,” Nita said, and went back to Kit’s room.

He was lying on the bed, his manual open and facedown on his chest, looking up at the ceiling. Ponch was lying next to him on the bed, his head on Kit’s chest. Ponch’s eyes shifted to Nita as she came into view, but he didn’t move or say anything.

Nita paused in the door and knocked on the door frame. “Hey,” she said.

Kit glanced over at her. It was the least-interested glance that Nita could remember seeing from him in some time.
Why doesn’t he just come out and say that he wishes I wasn’t here?
Nita thought, shocked. But it occurred to her then that she’d been distant enough with him lately. Maybe he was giving her a taste of her own medicine.
That wouldn’t normally he his style, either. But if he’s really feeling sick, maybe he’s just saying what’s on his mind, stuff he’d keep to himself otherwise.

Nita felt briefly guilty, then put the feeling aside. “You look kind of out of it,” she said.

“Yeah,” Kit said. “I feel that way, too. I didn’t sleep real well after I got in last night.”

“Late?” Nita went to sit in the chair by his desk.

“Yeah.”

She waited a moment to let him tell her what he’d been doing, but he just turned his head away and looked up at the ceiling again. He wasn’t going to tell her. “You have any luck with Darryl?” she said.

“Not really.”

Nita started feeling around for something sarcastic and angry to say to Kit, and then she stopped herself.
He didn’t push me when I didn’t want to talk,
she thought.
I’m not going to push him now.

But there’s still something that needs saying.
“Kit,” she said, “about Darryl … I’m getting the feeling that you going after him the way you are isn’t doing you any good.”

“Uh-huh.”

Nita pursed her lips. That was the same “uh-huh” that she used on Dairine, as code for the message, “I am not listening to you. Bug off.”

He doesn’t mean to be rude. He just doesn’t want to tell me what’s on his mind, or hear what’s on mine.

Did I sound like this? He should have hit me on the head with something until I paid attention.

Nita let out a breath. “Okay,” she said, “forget about it for now. But I have a message for you. You need to go see Carl.”

That finally made Kit look at her again. “How come?”

“Tom’s out of town,” Nita said. “Some Advisory or Senior thing. Carl’s handling his interventions for the next day or so. You owed Tom a debrief on what’s up with Darryl, and Carl wants to know where it is. Just between you and me, I think he’s steamed. So if I were you, I’d get over there and take your medicine.”

“I’ve taken enough medicine for one weekend,” Kit muttered.

“After you got in late?”

“Yeah. My pop didn’t say much, but my mama did.”

“Tore a few strips off you, huh?”

“It wasn’t my fault, Neets,” Kit said. “The timing got blown, that’s all.” He sighed. “But it doesn’t really matter.”

Nita looked at Kit with concern. That was a theme she’d been singing too much herself lately, and Nita wasn’t going to be indifferent to it when someone else started in on it.

“They didn’t ground you or anything?”

“No. Anyway, they would have done that
how,
exactly?” Kit said.

Nita had to smile, despite her worrying. It was extremely difficult to ground a wizard without the wizard’s consent. Still, you had to live with your parents … and rubbing their noses in the fact that they couldn’t control you no matter how much they wanted to wasn’t a great way to make that life an easy one.

Kit sighed. “Neets, I’m sorry, I’m just…” He trailed off. It wasn’t that he was too tired to pursue the thought. It was just that he didn’t care.

“Okay,” Nita said, and got up.
At least he talked to me a little. It’s possible he really is coming down with something
… Well, we’ll see.
“Look, call me when you feel better, okay? There’s stuff we have to discuss about Darryl.”

“Sure.”

“But go see Carl first.”

Kit turned his attention to the ceiling again.

Nita gave him one last look as she turned away. As she did, Ponch glanced up at her. His eyes had been all for Kit until now, but the look Ponch gave her had even more concern in it than Nita was feeling.

Nita met the gaze, glanced fractionally at the door, and went out.

That could have turned into an argument,
Nita thought,
if he
had enough energy to bother. But he didn’t.
She passed through the living room; there Carmela was curled up on the sofa watching the TV, where models in frilly things pounded up and down a catwalk. Nita paused briefly, eyed the things the models were almost wearing.

“Not for me,” Carmela said, not taking her eyes off the screen. “Drafty. How is he?”

“He looks tired,” Nita said. “Anyway, tell your mama and pop I said hi.”

“Sure, will do.”

Nita got her coat and headed out the back door. She didn’t shut it right away, because after about half a minute, Ponch came trotting out of the dining room and headed outside, past Nita.

She closed the door, brushed some stray snow off the back steps, and sat down. Ponch sat down next to her.

“Ponch,” Nita said in the Speech. “What’s with the boss?”

He’s sad,
Ponch said.
But there’s more to it than that.

Ponch looked down the driveway toward the street.
I’m sad, too,
he said.
And I’m afraid. Something’s happening to him, and I don’t know how to stop it.

Somewhere down the street, a dog began to howl in a high little voice, like something out of a cartoon.

“It’s about Darryl, isn’t it?”

We were there again this morning.

“Again? I thought you went last night.”

We did. I took him there. But the second time we went, he started to go by himself. I had to follow him.
Ponch licked his nose nervously.
It wasn’t easy. He wasn’t going the way I go.

“Was he dreaming?”

Yes.

“Lucid dreaming, though? The guided kind?”

No. He was worried. His dream took him there without him wanting to he there, at first. Then he couldn’t get out. They were getting alike
…

Nita pondered this. Her own nonlucid dreaming had brought her to Darryl, or Darryl to her, and those dreams hadn’t been good, either. But this experience, at least as Ponch described it, sounded slightly different.
I bet their minds are starting to get locked together because of all the time Kit’s spending in there,
Nita thought.
This is not good
…

And reality doesn’t feel the same way to Darryl as it does to Kit,
Ponch said.
The boss is starting to feel it the way Darryl does, and he doesn’t know how to do it right.

Nita shook her head. “Ponch, I don’t think you should take him back in there for a while. At least not until he’s feeling better. And when you go, I want to go with him.”

I want you to do that, too.

Nita lifted her head, listening, realizing that the howling of dogs down the street had increased. Three or four more dogs had joined the first one. “What’s the matter with the dogs?” Nita said. “Is someone using one of those silent whistles or something?”

No. I think it’s because I’m afraid,
Ponch said.
I think they hear me being that way, and they’re upset for me.

“But that’s not all, is it,” Nita said, looking thoughtfully at Ponch. “Something else is happening to you besides just being afraid for the boss. Isn’t it?”

There was a long pause.
I don’t know,
Ponch said.
I don’t know what it means. I don’t have the words. But I’m frightened for me, too.
He licked his nose again.

The howling down the street got louder, and Nita suddenly found herself thinking that it wouldn’t be smart right now to press the question any further. She put an arm around Ponch and roughed his fur up a little. “We’re both nervous about a lot of things, big guy,” she said. “I’ll be glad when the boss is better. But listen. Kit needs to go see Carl right away. He’s not in the mood to listen to me right now. But he needs to go, anyway. Will you nag him? Get him to go over there?”

I will.

“That’s my boy.” She rubbed Ponch behind the ears and pulled the door open for him. He went back into the house.

Nita shut the door and headed home. She was almost halfway there before, as she went over the conversation with Ponch in her mind, she realized that at least once Ponch had answered a thought in her mind—not something she’d actually said out loud.