“Let’s see, this site estimates the current number of great greys in the U.S. at eleven thousand one hundred.” Marian retrieves her big desk calculator. “Say, three hundred million Americans, give or take. Hit the three, now eight zeroes; good, Seymour. Remember the division sign? One, one, one. There you go.”
27,027.
Both of them stare at the number, absorbing it. For every 27,027 Americans, one great grey owl. For every 27,027 Seymours, one Trustyfriend.
At the table beside Audiobooks he tries to draw it. An oval with two eyes in the center—that’s Trustyfriend. Now to make 27,027 dots in rings around it—the people. He makes it to somewhere around seven hundred before his hand is throbbing and his pencil is dull and it’s time to go.
* * *
Third grade. He gets a ninety-three percent on a decimals assignment. He accepts Slim Jims, saltines, and macaroni-and-cheese into his diet. Marian gives him one of her Diet Cokes. Bunny says, “You’re doing so well, Possum,” and the moisture in her eyes reflects the lights of the Magnavox.
* * *
Walking home one October afternoon, ear defenders on, Seymour turns right onto Arcady Lane. Where this morning there was nothing, now stands a double-posted four-by-five-foot oval sign. EDEN’S GATE, it reads,
COMING SOON
CUSTOM TOWNHOMES AND COTTAGES
PREMIER HOMESITES AVAILABLE
In the illustration, a ten-point buck drinks from a misty pool. Beyond the sign, the road home looks the same: a dusty strip of potholes flanked on both sides by huckleberry bushes, their leaves flaring autumn red.
A woodpecker dips across the road in a low parabola and disappears. A pine marten chatters somewhere. The tamaracks sway. He looks at the sign. Back at the road. Inside his chest rises a first black tendril of panic.
FOUR
THESSALY, LAND OF MAGIC
* * *
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antonius Diogenes, Folio Δ
Tales of a comic hero who travels to a distant place seeking magic show up in virtually every folklore in virtually every culture. Though several folios of the manuscript that may have narrated Aethon’s journey to Thessaly are lost, it’s evident that by Folio Δ, he has arrived. Translation by Zeno Ninis.
… eager to find evidence of sorcery, I headed straight for the town square. Were the doves on that awning wizards in feathered disguise? Would centaurs stride between the market stalls and deliver speeches? I stopped three maids carrying baskets and asked where I might find a powerful witch who could turn me into a bird: a brave eagle, possibly, or a bright strong owl.
One said, “Well, Canidia here, she can extract sunbeams from melons, turn stones into boars, and pluck stars from the sky, but she can’t make you an owl.” The other two tittered.
She continued, “And, Mero? here, she can stop rivers from running, turn mountains to dust, and rip the gods from their thrones, but she can’t make you an eagle either,” and all three of their bodies split with laughter.
Undeterred, I went to the inn. After dark, Palaestra, the innkeeper’s maid, called me into the kitchen. She whispered that the wife of the innkeeper kept a bedchamber at the top of the house stocked with all sorts of equipment for the practice of magic, bird claws and fish hearts and even bits of corpse flesh. “At midnight,” she said, “if you crouch at the keyhole outside the door of that room, you might find what you seek…”
THE ARGOS
MISSION YEARS 55–58
Konstance
She’s four. Inside Compartment 17, an arm’s reach away, Mother walks on her Perambulator, the gold band of her Vizer sealed over her eyes.
“Mother.”
Konstance taps Mother’s knee. Tugs the fabric of her worksuit. No response.
A tiny black creature, no longer than Konstance’s pinkie nail, is climbing the wall. Its antennae wave; its leg joints extend, bend, extend again; the jagged tips of its mandibles would frighten her if they weren’t so small. She sets a finger in the creature’s path and it climbs aboard. It crosses her palm, proceeds to the back of her hand; the intricate complexity of its movements dazzles.
“Mother, look.”
The Perambulator whirs and pivots. Her mother, absorbed in another world, pirouettes, then extends her arms as though soaring.
Konstance presses her hand to the wall: the animal climbs off and continues along its original path, ascending past Father’s berth, until it disappears through the joint where wall meets ceiling.
Konstance stares. Behind her Mother flaps her arms.
* * *
An ant. On the Argos. Impossible. All the grown-ups agree. Don’t worry, Sybil tells Mother. It takes children years to learn the difference between fantasy and reality. Some longer than others.