Bren slept badly and woke far earlier than was decent on a gray Sunday morning. A great chance to sleep, he told himself sternly, but it was no good. He was awake, and he was thinking about Erika and his mother and his father and his father’s possible girlfriend. None of these subjects was in the least restful. With a growl that startled his still-slumbering dog, he threw back the covers and stumbled out of bed.
The kitchen was nearly dark except for the light over the stove, which revealed an array of dismantled burners and the rear end of Louise, who was either gassing herself or cleaning the oven. The thought of a peaceful and solitary cup of coffee would have to be abandoned. Bren snatched up Shadow’s water bowl, slammed it down on the edge of the sink, and turned the cold water on full.
Louise emerged from the oven. “Hi, babe,” she said. “You sure up at the dawn crack.”
“So are you,” Bren said crossly. “I was hoping for a cup of coffee, but I guess it’s going to be that kind of day.”
Louise sat down and regarded him amiably. “Won’t be long now, babe. I been whacking away at this old monster since six o’clock, and she almost clean or as clean as she ever going to be. Gonna ask your daddy for a new stove one of these days, just see if I don’t. One of those that cleans itself.”
“Lots of luck, Louise,” Bren said. He put the water bowl down and poured some dry dog food into another. “Here, Shadow. Be grateful your breakfast doesn’t have to be cooked.”
“Oh, your daddy’s not so bad. His bark a whole lot worse than his bite.”
Bren perched on the edge of the counter and studied Louise. Even though he had known her all his life, she continued to surprise him. “I thought you couldn’t stand him,” he said.
“As men go, he got a lot to recommend him,” Louise said. “I just put him down to put our lady’s back up, and maybe she see she can get along without him, too—like if she could get the idea he was no great bargain after all.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” Bren said. “And I also doubt that foul-tasting mixtures of rhino horn work very well the other way.”
“There’s things you don’t know. There’s a pile of things, and you never will, even if you see it happen right under your nose. You not one of us, Bren babe, and I guess that good, but don’t you doubt what you don’t know nothing about.” Louise took a halfhearted swipe at the oven door but continued to gaze at Bren with her small, dark eyes. “You look peaked,” she finished. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” Bren said, but there was something about Louise that made him want to confide in her almost against his will. “I’ll tell you one thing, though, I know she can do,” he went on reluctantly. “She can still call me when I’m someplace else, and it drives me up the wall.”
Louise nodded. “Mind power. She best at that, and that not even proper witchery.”
“I don’t care what you call it, I don’t like it. I feel like some kind of puppet, Louise.”
“What you got to understand, Bren, is your momma is a momma first before she a witch or anything else.” Louise laughed. “How many mommas you think would like to be able to call they babies the way Miranda call you? About a hundred percent, that’s how many. Instead they got to nag and carry on. Maybe you lucky, ever think of that?”
“No,” Bren said. “I didn’t and I’m not about to. It’s a howling nuisance and it’s…embarrassing sometimes. I wish she’d just stick to her spells and potions.”
“For spells you better come to me,” Louise said. “Miranda careless when it come to spells. She cast a fine spell when she concentrate, but you can’t just count on her to do all the little things in the right order. You want to charm a girl and be sure it work, you come to old Louise LaReine.”
Bren jumped off the counter. “Stop that,” he shouted. “I don’t want to charm a girl, and furthermore I never will. Come on, Shadow. We’ll have a walk to the deli and get me some breakfast. It’s too early in the morning for all this garbage.”
Louise chuckled and put her head back in the oven, but Bren’s exit was foiled by the arrival of Madame Lavatky. Wrapped in an ancient peignoir trimmed with scraps of ermine and peacock feathers, she appeared in the doorway and cut off his escape.
“Stop, thief!” she cried, and pointed an accusing finger at him. He stopped, puzzled at this display of hostility from an admirer. His head was beginning to ache. “I come for my beautiful book which you take and do not return,” continued the singer, seeming to tremble with indignation.
“She come to see what she can snatch from the kitchen before anybody else get up,” Louise said.
“You lie, black fiend,” cried Madame Lavatky. “Never have I been so insulted. What use have I for your decimated tea bags? I who drank tea with the Empress of all the Russias?”
“Tea, was it?” Louise said. “That a damn sight better than lamb chops.”
“I’ll get your book,” Bren said, and fled up the stairs, nearly tripping over Luna, who was stretched completely across one of the top steps.
He came down cautiously with the heavy volume, skipping the tread where the cat still lay. Luna snarled quietly as he went by. “You were such a nice kitten,” Bren said over his shoulder. “What went wrong?”
Madame had retreated from the kitchen and was waiting for him in the hall. “My dear young man,” she said. “There was no need for such rushing. Did I not say keep it forever if you wish? Keep, study, enjoy the so beautiful arts of the Ballet Russe. We who know of the finer things,” and she cast a malevolent glance toward the kitchen, “we must share. Is it not so?”
“Thank you, Madame Lavatky. I’m sure it is, but I’ve finished with your book. Maybe I’ll borrow another one sometime, but now I absolutely have to go out and get some breakfast,” Bren said, and snatching Shadow’s leash from its hook by the door, he escaped from the house.
The day was even more dismal than it had seemed from inside, foggy and dank with a chill that made Bren shiver in his light jacket. He thought of going back when Shadow had had his walk. Maybe Louise would have finished the stove by then, and he could settle down with his breakfast and a book in the kitchen. But maybe she wouldn’t have. It was just as likely that she and Madame Lavatky would go back to their exchange of insults and that the kitchen would be uninhabitable. Bren tugged Shadow toward Broadway. Having the dog with him made breakfast a problem. He knotted the leash around a small tree in front of the deli, bought coffee and a doughnut, and carried them out to eat on the sidewalk.
The Apthorp was directly across the street. Bren leaned against a lamp post, sipping his coffee and contemplating, through the tall iron gates, the scene of last night’s disaster. He looked at his watch. Nine o’clock. Just the time on a Sunday morning when sensible people were stretching luxuriously between the sheets and turning over for another snooze. Brief though their friendship had been, Bren could easily imagine Erika in the sensuous enjoyment of her last few hours in bed. He thought of her face, with the covers pulled up to her nose, the dark lashes lying against high cheekbones, the incongruous bright hair tousled against the pillow. Then he thought of the rest of Erika, slim and wiry like a little cat, curled contentedly in an oversized bed. What was he going to do with himself until it was a civilized hour to make a phone call? Bren sighed, threw his coffee cup into a litter basket, and untied Shadow’s leash.
“Let’s go down to the river, old boy, and wallow in misery for a while,” he said, and headed for Seventy-ninth Street and the two long blocks sloping down to the Hudson. They crossed Riverside Drive into the park and took the path that went under the highway. Shadow tugged at his leash, impatient for the waterfront with its pigeons and gulls and wonderful smells. They went down the curving steps leading to the great stone rotunda. Here there was a shallow fountain where in summer a circle of bronze turtles spouted thin streams of water. It was a favorite wading pool for dogs and children, but Shadow, recognizing its present uselessness, pressed on toward the river. Bren unsnapped the leash; there were no more streets to cross and probably no policemen to object to a dog’s freedom on this unpromising Sunday morning.
Leaving Shadow to his adventures, he walked to the rail and stared gloomily at the multitude of small craft swaying slightly in some imperceptible current beneath the still, dark surface of the water. The masts of the sailboats were wrapped in fog, and the sleek sides of the speedboats glistened with moisture. Then Bren saw that one touch of color enlivened the scene. An old houseboat was anchored close to the shore, and in its peeling superstructure was a window from which warm yellow light shone through a frill of red curtains. What a way to live, he thought: just me and Shadow and some nice girl (Erika, of course) floating by ourselves on the river.
Bren turned reluctantly from this vision of cozy independence to check up on his dog and saw that he was no longer alone. A small figure, instantly recognizable in spite of being muffled in a huge black hooded sweatshirt, was leaning on the rail not ten feet away. He felt a suffocating surge of terror and joy and incredulity. Even a life spent with the everyday practice of magic had not prepared him for such serendipity.
“Erika!” he shouted. “I thought you’d be asleep.”
She turned, a wide, silver grin flashing out of the black hood. “I wondered when you were going to see me,” she said. “What a funny coincidence. I thought you’d be asleep, too. Everybody else seems to be. It’s weird down here, and there’s this huge black dog scouting around by himself.”
“No, he’s mine,” Bren said, laughing. “That’s Shadow. I forgot you hadn’t met.”
“Good name. He’s like something mythological flitting between the trees.”
“Yes, well, he’s like a shadow, and he follows me like a shadow, but you’ll find he’s all too real, if he takes to you.”
“Is he likely not to take to me?” Erika asked.
“If he doesn’t, it will be a first,” Bren said. “You shouldn’t be flattered by Shadow’s approval, but it’s nice to have just the same.” Bren whistled, and the Newfoundland came bounding out of the mist. He gave Erika only the briefest examination, and then he licked her chin, something he was able to do merely by stretching his neck with all four feet on the ground. Erika stood very still, looking both pleased and terrified.
“You’re not used to dogs,” Bren said, astonished that this should be true of someone he felt so close to.
“I’ve never had a pet, not even a turtle.”
“That’s awful. Doesn’t your father like animals?”
“I guess not. I used to ask for a kitten when I was little, but I never got one, so I gave up. Since he’s hardly ever home, I can’t see what difference it would make.”
“Is he home now?” Bren asked.
Erika shook her head. “He was out all night,” she said. “He’s got a girlfriend. He said we’d do something together today, but who knows, and if it’s going to be a threesome, forget it. I have half a mind to stay out all day.”
“Let’s stay out all day together,” Bren said. “My father seems to have a girlfriend, too, and my mother is full of terrible plots for revenge.”
Erika produced another of her dazzling smiles and pushed the hood away from her face. “Down with families,” she said. “Here, Shadow, let’s make friends. This is a threesome I can go for.” She held out one hand, and the dog thrust his muzzle into her palm.
Bren pointed to the houseboat. “Just before I saw you, I was thinking how great it would be to live there by myself with Shadow and…” He hesitated. “Well, maybe one other very congenial person…”
For a long moment they stared at each other. Then Bren said, “My headache went away, incidentally, so let’s turn the clock back, oh, about ten hours, I should think.”
“To another headache?” Erika asked, moving closer to him.
“No,” Bren said. “There won’t be any more of those.”
Her mouth was soft and her hardware barely noticeable, at least at first. Bren, whose experience so far had been confined to brief kisses at school parties or on the steps of brownstones after movie dates, discovered in the next few minutes many variations on the same fascinating theme. At last he simply held her close, his arms wrapped around her slim body, her face buried in his shoulder.
She lifted her head, looking a little dazed. “We have the whole day ahead of us,” she said. “Just think of that.”
“I am,” he answered. “And it’s clearing up.”
Out in the harbor the clustered masts were emerging from the mist. On one a flag stirred and opened to the rising breeze, flaring into color with the first touch of sun. Behind them the wet branches of the trees shone silver in the new light growing in the east, and on the face of the river the fog rolled and broke, the gray water suddenly flashing blue.
They turned to walk along the waterfront, their arms entwined, the big dog ranging among the trees, the world brightening around them. Ahead stretched a day of infinite possibilities unfolding before them like a multicolored fan.