Sairey whispered “Why?” more clearly this time, and Mourra’s face was suddenly so cold that she did not even notice that she was crushing her flower against it. She was terribly thirsty, but she could not move from the window, even for a moment, to reach the pitcher of water near Findros’s bed. Sairey said, “Why?” again.
“Your son said it—magicians do tricks. I was weary of tricks before he was born.” His laugh sounded as painful as though his throat and his mouth were full of glass. “Before you were born.”
Sairey’s voice softened, as it had when she spoke of watching her children sleep. “Listen. Listen. You don’t know. That branch breaking when you…. what if that were the magic, protecting itself and you? That farm cart coming when you were lost with the children, when you called for help together….”
“Mourra said that.” The magician might have been talking to himself. “But the child was being kind.”
Sairey said, “The woman in my story never thought about whether what she was doing was magic or not. She was no magician at all, she simply opened herself to whatever there might be within her. You must do just the same as she to allow yourself what you wish for.”
Schmendrick stubbornly kept his back to her. “Wishing will not make it so. Believe me, I would know.”
Mourra heard her mother’s breath catch briefly once more before she spoke again. “So would I.”
The magician finally turned. He said nothing for the longest while, his face shadowed, his shoulders pale with the moon. “I expect to go on being a fool. I feel you should know this.”
“You’re alive. It’s much the same thing.”
“No more searching for the perfect branch, you think? Mind, I can’t promise.” He walked slowly toward her as he spoke.
“Oh, you’ll do as you must. People do.”
“But you will hope.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Yes.”
“So, then.” He leaned down, holding his open hands to either side of her own, where they rested in her lap. “Another gift. Palms out, please.”
From the window Mourra saw her mother raise her hands slowly, almost shyly. She wished she could see her face.
The magician laid his own palms gently against Sairey’s, his large, smooth hands completely hiding her small rough ones from view. He stood still for a very long time, murmuring, his head bowed and his hat near tumbling off, before he finally stepped back and said, simply, “There.”
Sairey spread her fingers. “I don’t see anything.”
“No, neither do I. But I don’t think I’m supposed to.” His tone, which might have been expected to be sad or frustrated once more, was in fact curiously pleased. “You might ask Findros in the morning, or Mourra.”
Ask me what? Mourra thought sleepily.
“You are a very strange man…. and always welcome. Farewell, friend. Come to us again.”
To Mourra, eyes closing, chin now on her window ledge, it seemed that she heard the magician’s faint answer, “I will,” though later she thought that she might have dreamed that part. He never once looked back; her last glimpse of him was of a silly hat bobbing with determined jauntiness against the rising moon. As young as she was, and no matter what adults told her, she had never convinced herself to see more than a profile of some sort on the moon: now it seemed that she could make out almost the entire figure of a man leaning forward over something that might have been a fishing line. And behind him, over his shoulder….
Maybe that’s Papa. Maybe that’s Papa in the moon.
Sairey looked after the magician for a long time, before she finally patted the arm of the old chair. “Well, you were always my Earth,” she said aloud into the soft night air. “And I would have gone to the moon with you, or anywhere else. Except for the children, I would have gone.”
But Mourra missed the last words, and only noticed the new flower lying next to hers on the window ledge—white as the stars, except for its wine-red center—when the sun turned her pillow golden, and she awoke.
PETER S. BEAGLE
Peter S. Beagle was born in 1939 and raised in the Bronx, just a few blocks from Woodlawn Cemetery, the inspiration for his first novel, A Fine and Private Place. Today, thanks to classic works such as The Last Unicorn, Tamsin, and The Innkeeper's Song, he is acknowledged as America's greatest living fantasy author; and his dazzling abilities with language, characters, and magical storytelling have earned him many millions of fans around the world.
In addition to stories and novels Peter has written numerous teleplays and screenplays, including the animated versions of The Lord of the Rings and The Last Unicorn, plus the fan-favorite “Sarek” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. His nonfiction book I See By My Outfit, which recounts a 1963 journey across America on motor scooter, is considered a classic of American travel writing; and he is also a gifted poet, lyricist, and singer-songwriter.
www.conlanpress.com
Peter S. Beagle, Sleight of Hand
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