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DECEMBER 2006

He is Moon, and he believes in magic.

Not the magic of trapdoors, and false bottoms, and sleights of hand. Not the magic that comes in the form of a pill or a potion. But rather the magic that can grow a beanstalk to the sky, or spin straw into gold, or turn a pumpkin into a carriage.

Moon believes in the pretty girl who loves to dance.

He had watched her for a long time. She is in her twenties, slender, above average in height, possessed of great refinement. Moon knows she lived for the moment, but for all that she was, for all she was going to be, she still seemed quite sad. Yet he is certain she understood, as does he, that there is an enchantment that lives within all things, an elegance unseen and unappreciated by the passing pageant—the curve of an orchid’s petal, the symmetry of a butterfly’s wings, the breathtaking geometry of the heavens.

A day earlier he had stood in shadows, across the street from the Laundromat, watching as she loaded clothes into the dryer, marveling at the graceful way she encountered the earth. The night was clear, terribly cold, the sky a seamless black fresco above the City of Brotherly Love.

He watched her step through the frosty glass doors, onto the sidewalk, her bag of laundry over her shoulder. She crossed the street, stood at the SEPTA stop, stamped her feet against the chill. She had never been more beautiful. When she turned to see him, she knew, and he was filled with magic.

Now, as Moon stands on the bank of the Schuylkill River, the magic fills him again.

He looks at the black water. Philadelphia is a city of two rivers, twin tributaries of the same heart. The Delaware River is muscular, broad of back, unyielding. The Schuylkill River is crafty and cunning and serpentine. It is the hidden river. It is his river.

Not unlike the city itself, Moon has many faces. Over the next two weeks he will keep this face unseen, as he must, just another dull daub on a gray winter canvas.

He gently places the dead girl on the bank of the Schuylkill, kisses her cold lips one last time. As beautiful as she is, she is not his princess. He will meet his princess soon.

Thus the tale is spun.

She is Karen. He is Moon.

And this is what the moon saw …