Mixed Magics

short fiction by

Douglas Christian Larsen

It was chilly in the forest, and an imminent sensation of dread clung to the moisture in the air, like parasites with parachutes dropping onto David's clothes. He felt his skin crawling with fear mites. He shivered, huddling in his sweater. Don't blow it, he said to himself, over and over again, a litany of courage, because this was his chance, the chance of a lifetime, to be out here, alone, in the woods, with Belle, even if she had to blow poisonous smoke all about them, a poisonous, noxious bubble cloud like mustard gas on some battlefield in World War II.

It would be bad enough if it were cigarette smoke pluming from her mouth. But it was much worse. Clove cigarettes! A cloying claw of creeping clove. He'd seen a report on 20/20 or one of those bogus news shows, how the smoke from cloves ate away your lungs. He shivered again. This was crazy, just being out here was crazy, David thought, crazy to be with Belle and her clove smoke, and especially crazy to be with a girl wearing a letterman's jacket with a name stenciled on it — that name stenciled on it!

If he had any brain at all he'd go get his skateboard from where he'd stashed it behind a bush, and he'd bug out of here. Belle was crazy, he'd heard it a million times, maybe more than a million times. Rumors had it that she'd been kicked out of her last school when some guy got killed, like eaten by animals or something. David was too collected to believe anything like that, but still, the way she stood here now, huge black eyes glazed over, not seeing anything, her wild black hair hanging crazily about her thin shoulders, spilling both over her chest and back — she was in some kind of hypnotic trance or something. The sleeves of the too-big letterman's jacket were pushed up almost to her elbows, and she must have at least five bangles or bracelets or scrunchies or whatever on each wrist, some of them metal, like brass, and some of them cloth, and some of them leather.

What a freak.

He glanced down at her too tight jeans with the ripped-out knees. He swallowed, hard, and looked away. What was he doing? He shouldn't be out here with her. But a girl, with a body like this, how could he say no? He'd never even ridden on the back of a motorcycle before and when she came roaring up alongside him, nearly blowing him off his skateboard, all that wild hair all about her, her mirror-frame shades glinting sun into his eyes, and when she smiled at him with all those teeth — the kind of smile the wolf in grandma's bed must have smiled — she could have told him to jump off a building and he would have saluted and began looking for the tallest building to use as his diving board.

"Get on," she commanded.

"Huh?" he returned, like an idiot.

"You that kid from Creative Writing?" she asked, not moving, like maybe the statue of the sexiest girl alive, perched on a rice rocket that was way too big for her.

He nodded, not knowing what to say, not knowing if he'd ever be able to speak again. This was beyond the wildest day dream he'd ever dreamed. She was so pretty, no, so gorgeous, so beautiful...

"What are you waiting for?" she said.

"Huh?" he repeated. Man, what a brain on him!

"We're moving out, Soldier, climb aboard . . . muy pronto!"

And he did. Like he was under her spell or something. Wouldn't that be shocking, if she turned out to be some kind of witch or something. He'd heard worse about her than witchcraft, however, and riding on the back of the too-big bike, grabbing her around the waist, squeezing her tight every time he thought the bike was going to slither into a curb and burst his brain like a watermelon dropped from 35,000 feet — his mind never even registered the fact that he was squeezed up against the most beautiful girl he'd ever met or would ever hope to meet.

Now, in the forest, the darkest forest she could find apparently, he stood awkwardly, posture uncertain, purposefully slouched. But he could never look bad, tough, like all the stoners at school, or even the bone-headed jocks. Man, even the eggheads could look badder than him. He stood, gawking at her from the sides of his eyes — he hoped she remained in this spell, so he could stare at her. He was out here with the girl the whole school lusted for, the mysterious Belle who had only come to this school about three or four months before.

He swallowed and pushed his glasses up against his eyes with his index finger.

Her eyes came alive, suddenly swinging away from the forest to pin David back, a dead bug under glass. She pursed her lips, those thick wet-looking lips.

"Come here, Soldier, double time!"

He swallowed like some kind of pubescent frog, grinned, swallowed again, and then made a few lurching steps toward her. He felt like he should run, and his entire being tensed, ready to do just that. If she made any kind of sudden movement, he was out of there! He paused a few paces away from her.

"Huh?" he said.

"Give me your hand, Soldier! Don't stand there with your mouth hanging open, Soldier. Your hand, NOW!"

He tentatively put out his hand, like a little kid who's about to get it slapped by a nasty teacher — withdrew it again to push up his glasses onto the bridge of his nose, and she rolled her eyes — and then eased it out again. He nearly fainted, because his fingernails had black oil beneath them, oil and grease and goop from auto mechanics class. She snatched his hand like a snake sinking its fangs into a plump rat.

She reached up and snatched the sunglasses from the top of her head and strands of hair fell forward over her face. She tossed her head to clear her view and tucked the sunglasses into a pocket on the letterman's jacket. Her dark eyes never looked away from his eyes — was it possible for eyes to be that black? Maybe she didn't have irises, just two huge pupils that filled her eyes. But the whites of her eyes were almost too white, they kind of glowed in the darkness. How come it was so dark in here? Back in the real world it must be at least two hours before the sun would go down.

Her face did a strange thing. It smiled. Her big eyes — David was pretty much sure these were almond eyes — crinkled, and her face softened, and she looked heart-breakingly beautiful.

"Don't be afraid of me, David," she said, purring, her smile half sad.

"Huh?" he said, thinking, like wow, she actually knows my name, and then shook himself — he actually shook himself like a dog just released from a bath. "I'm not afraid," he said, recovering after only an instant, "um, of you."

What a lie. Because he was terrified of her. He couldn't believe he was standing this close to someone like her. He couldn't believe he had actually managed to ever say a word to her, and that she was holding his hand right now, and of course she could feel that he was trembling. Great, he was trembling like a Chihuahua. What was she going to think of that? He was a baby. Sixteen years old and still a baby. He'd never touched a girl before, never kissed one, never even held hands with one — what kind of guy was he, anyway?

Maybe he was gay, he'd thought, except that guys looked pretty disgusting to him. No, images of women flashed through his inner eyes at the worst times, like in History, and when the buzzer sounded he couldn't even get out of his desk until he'd thought about baseball for two minutes, calming himself down.

He realized she was pulling on his hand, moving it toward her, closer, and closer, and his eyes widened as he understood that his hand was now inside the letterman's jacket, and suddenly a shock went through him as the back of his hand bumped against her hard belly, and when she began to slide his hand upward his eyes moved upward and slammed into the stenciled name on the lapel: "Mickey" as in Mike Mormon, the kind of rough block-head jock that was twenty-one years old and only out of high school for a year — you didn't want to stand next to someone like him, let alone touch a girl wearing his letterman's jacket.

David yanked his hand back and free from her.

Belle pouted for a moment, and then her eyebrows arched up humorously and she laughed, her eyes closing, and she put out both hands and slapped him on either shoulder.

"I like you, David me foine laddie, I like you fine," Belle said, grinning, her face only two inches away from his face, and then she seized each of his smooth cheeks (not even one whisker, what was wrong with him?) and shook him vigorously. His jaws clomped and his teeth rattled and his cheeks made an embarrassing flapping sound.

Man, that hurt. But at least he didn't scream: "Oowwww!" Boy what kind of wuss would he be if he were that dumb? He must have made some kind of face, though, because suddenly she was smoothing her hands over his face, whispering: "Hush, shhh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, David." The baubles on her wrists chittered and clinked and whispered strange music.

He couldn't move, couldn't speak, could only stare into her, wishing this could last forever. He looked at her lips. He stared at her lips. He wanted to kiss those lips. But he'd probably have a heart attack, a big ole brain embolism plus a stroke. Might as well run naked on the freeway with a plastic bag over your head as kiss those strange, fat lips...

"Don't be afraid of me, David," she whispered, her lips now only an inch away from his lips. "I would never hurt you. I've learned to control it by now, so don't be afraid, okay? People like us, we need each other, okay? Okay, David? Okay?"

"Okay," he whispered, and his lips nearly touched her lips. His whole being tingled. Maybe he was going to faint.

But she wasn't looking at him any longer, her face was tilted back and she was sighing loudly, and then she was standing away from him, her arms outstretched, reaching for the trees, spinning around and around, chanting it sounded like, and he could only watch her, not even breathing, devouring her as she danced through the trees.

"Just look at these trees, David, they're so old, they're so dark — they were probably around when the dark elves roamed the world," she whispered, or sang, doing a kind of ballet, but there was nothing foo-foo in her graceful, sensual movements.

She moves like the strippers on Cinemax, David thought, and then forced his thoughts away from that territory. That wouldn't help, not even an inch.

"The dark elves, lithe and swift, leaping from branch to branch!"

David blinked and looked upward and behind him, because what was that? He was sure he'd sensed movement up there, in the trees, something large!

Stupid, he muttered. Probably just a fat squirrel stuffed on marshmallows.

She whirled and pointed at him. Was she looking at him? It was always difficult to tell, because one of her eyes always tracked off slightly askew, he could never tell which eye was the one wandering, but it gave her an otherworldly look, like she was a prophet or something — a prophetess. David thought it was about the sexiest thing about her. Well, that . . . and her body, it was hard to forget about that body. Ouch, ooch, and yow!

"Three elves are hanging another elf!" she cried, and his body flooded with terror, because she was seeing whatever she was describing and he whirled and looked and sure enough there were these three long figures, too thin for their height, too graceful for this heavy world, stretching a noose about the fourth, struggling figure.

"The condemned elf is struggling for his life, he's madly squirming, he doesn't want to die, David!" Belle screamed, tears running down her cheeks. "He's terrified, he's humiliated, and see the way he looks to us to help him!"

And he was, the elf, he was frantically bucking and jerking, but the other three were too much for him. They were too committed to this deed. There would be no pardon, no rescue, no reprieve.

"Do you know why they're hanging him, David?" she whispered, her voice dramatically falling, as she moved close to him, heat emanating off her body, and she placed her hands upon his shoulders and drew him to her. She trembled. He trembled.

It was all too real.

He looked away from the execution. His eyes found her. His heart was beating too loud. Could she hear it? She moved away from him, calmly, all the while lighting another clove cigarette.

"No," he whispered, his throat cracked, dry as if he'd not had water in days, instead of just an hour ago. "Why are they hanging him?"

Stupid, he thought, playing into her games this way. There's nothing out there, nothing but trees, no elves, no execution. It was all games.

Belle smiled over the glow of the clove. "It's because they have no choice. The dark elf is a maniac, a sociopath. A psychopathic murderer! If he could get free, right now, he'd kill all three of them, and then he'd come after us, and no matter how far we ran, or no matter how well we hid, he'd find us. And you know what he'd do to us, don't you, Davie me foine laddie?"

David shuddered and looked back into the trees. The condemned elf was staring over at him, looking directly into David's eyes. David closed his eyes and looked away. Why did he look? He didn't need to see that face. That face. Now he'd never be able to forget that face, those glittering eyes, almost all whites, the sharp nose with the drop of blood in one nostril, the insane smile and the sharp teeth. David's mind was stained, forever imprinted with that haughty, effete, angry face. That horrible face.

Belle came forward and tweaked David's nose. He opened his eyes and she was smiling into his face. Her beautiful eyes and flashing teeth were shining upon him. How could a human being be this beautiful?

"We have something, Davie. You and me. Together. Us."

Then she turned and ran a few steps down the path. She flicked the cigarette ash at him and stuck out her tongue, turned and dashed between trees — gone, vamoose, abracadabra. What if she really were a witch? Dave didn't want anything to do with witches or wicca or wizardry, oh my!

David wrapped his arms about himself. This sweater was just no good for a night like this. What in the world! It was already night! How long had he been out here? Whenever Belle did this story kind of thing — David lost time, he didn't know where it went, how it was even possible, the things this weird girl could do. Like in class, was it yesterday, only? How was that even possible? It even freaked out the unflappable Mr. Guesome. David looked about the forest, hugging himself tightly. He could see winking spots of light shimmering about the trees.

Wow. Fireflies. He had no idea there were fireflies out here in the woods. He hoped they were fireflies, and not spirit lights, or will'o the wisps or whatever those glowing things in stories were, you know, the lights that lead you to falling into quicksand or whatever. Committing himself, he swallowed hard, and slowly began to move his head. Then his body. He turned. Slowly. He turned and stared back to where the dark elves were — of course, nothing was there. David could even make out the lightning-cracked tree that comprised the mad elf's face, splinters jutting. There was nothing there, no people — let alone elves, for goodness sake, but for just a few heartbeats, just a few moments, David had seen them there, just as Belle had described them.

How did she do it, anyway?

Belle ran among the trees, smoothing her long hands upon the rough bark. She inhaled great lungfuls of the pine breath, the loam of the dark soil, the crisp evergreen breeze creeping about the trees on silent feet, the sap, the blood, the night. He could be the one, she felt, she felt it within her bones. She leaned against a tree and inhaled her clove. She breathed out the smoke in a plume above her head and watched it rise and dissipate.

Could David be the one? His looks were passable. He'd never be considered gorgeous as was Mickey Mormon. But Mickey's head was as dense as a brick, solid bone that little head with its short forehead. Mickey needed drugs, more drugs, drugs and booze just to see the things that David naturally could see. David was not very strong, at least not physically, and he was so innocent, she nearly felt guilty that her inexorable process of corruption had already begun with him. There was such a goodness to the kid. Man, he was not her usual type, that was for sure. The wenches in Juvie would laugh at her if they could see David. David, with his innocent eyes, his wide innocent eyes, and his constant "Huh?" Those glasses. Dork clothes. The skateboard, oh my.

But there was a certain promise to David. At sixteen he was weak, a little dumb. But in his shoulders, and the turn of his eyes, there was a certain promise to him. That he was going to become something more than he was now. That lines would form in his face and muscles in his body and someday a confidence would take command of him, a self-confidence that other men could only pretend. A hidden strength where now was only visible dorkiness.

Yesterday in CW she had glimpsed the magic in David, the rare magic. In this day and age, people hardly even read anymore, let alone visualized, let alone believed. People were too crapped out with TV and stuff. Books opened doors in your brain, whereas TV bricked in the doorways of your mind. And yesterday, when that fat pig Guesome who couldn't stop checking out the curves beneath her jeans, when he had insisted that she share her "juvenile piece of horror fluff" with the whole class, she had let him have it.

She had let them all have it. She didn't just read it. She breathed it into life, punching the terse prose, punctuating it with drama, her fine voice rising, falling, building, ebbing, leaning toward them all, the stupid high school kids who thought pot and speed were the thing, the dumb goth girls with the tattooed spiderwebs in the corners of their eyes, the pigskin-brained jocks leaning into the aisles to check out her bod — she let them have it, oh yes she did. And five minutes into her story they all sat there, completely silent, no whispers, no notes, even Guesome dropped the sneer and sat there, his mouth hanging slack, eyes bugging out, not checking out her bod, none of them were. When she got to the part where the psychopathic janitor approached the CW class, the mop clenched in his greasy fist, the mop handle sharpened to a deadly point, coming upon the unknowing students, all of them sitting with their backs to the door as he entered the class, raising the mop —

— David had whirled in his seat with a short scream.

The entire class reacted with startled squeals and intaken breaths of shock. A few kids even came down with hiccups.

The door slammed. Everyone stared at the door, but especially David, sitting halfway to the back of the class — David sat with bulging eyes, and it was obvious he had seen the janitor peeking into the room, the janitor with the bizarre mop with the pointed handle.

The class had broken up into relieved laughter and then the buzzer rang, and horrible Mr. Guesome kept sitting there, not watching them go, shaking his head slowly, frowning, shaking his head, shaking his head.

David was a boy of imagination, and Belle had to admit she felt very drawn to him. He made her belly grumble. He was kind of cute, in a quiet, bookish kind of way, with dreamy eyes behind thick round spectacles. He would never dream it, but she thought he was cute. His smile was bright and boyish, and it was endearing the way he dipped his head in embarrassment when he laughed. Very cute, Davie me foine laddie. But mostly, Belle could see that David believed every word she spoke, believing and seeing everything in real time.

"Hurry up, Soldier!" she cried into the quite forest. "Hurry or the wolves will gettchya!" And then she circled back on the outer trees, doubling back to scare his pants off.

David started. How long had he stood here hugging himself? It was colder now, and darker. All around him the forest was alive with crackling branches and rustling leaves.

What was that Belle had called to him? Something about wolves? He swallowed and peered into the night, pushing his glasses squarely against the bridge of his nose, the stupid things, they just wouldn't stay up.

What was that? He thought he saw something between trees. Was it softly glowing red eyes? Was that a wolf stalking him, moving ever so slightly? Run, he told himself, but he couldn't move.

"Waaaaah!" Belle shrieked, pouncing on the poor kid from the trees.

David nearly went into conniption fits. He backed away from her so fast, shouting in surprise, bumped into a tree and tripped over a branch, sat down hard right on his wallet. That really hurt. But worse, he'd screamed like a little girl.

He gritted his teeth and glared up at her. At least his glasses hadn't flown off, that would have been too much. Or maybe his pants might have fallen down. She would have gotten a kick out of that, wouldn't she? He could almost picture himself standing in the forest, his jeans about his ankles, white boxer shorts glowing in the dark.

"Sorry, Chumley," she crooned, smiling sweetly at him. She produced a silver flask from an inner pocket and unscrewed the lid and took a swig. "Brandy?"

He should just get to his feet and march out of this place. She had just brought him out here to make fun of him. Or worse, he couldn't help admitting to himself that maybe ole Mickey was out here, waiting, so that the real fun could begin. Wouldn't that be funny.

She held out the flask to him.

"I don't drink," he muttered, looking away, into the forest. How silly to think wolves were prowling around out there. There probably hadn't been any wolves in these woods for a hundred years or more.

"Don't drink?" she said with mock horror, clutching at her heart. "The next thing you're going to tell me is that you're a vegetarian too! You know, animal rights and all that?"

He didn't look at her, just sat there, his butt aching from the fall, his pride nearly split in half. Well, not that he ever had anything to be proud about — the girls were always laughing at him at school. What was the use, anyway? Plus, with her mysterious verbal thrusts, she had wounded him again — how in the world would he ever admit to her that he really was a vegetarian? How could she know such stuff?

She put out her hand. "Come on, Soldier, let me help you up."

He stared at the ground.

"Come on, David, I'm sorry, I was just having fun," she said, and there was a new tone in her voice. "I didn't mean to knock you over, for goodness sake."

He glanced up, and though she was half smiling, at least she was looking at him as if she liked him, maybe a little, and her long white hand was still out there, hanging in space, and hey, he didn't need that big an excuse to touch her. He reached and took her hand and with surprising strength she swung him up to his feet. They stood close for a second or two, the heady smell of alcohol overpowering between them, the stench of clove too strong about them, but the breath of a boozy ashtray didn't seem to tarnish the glow about her, and David felt like he might burst into tears, he loved her so much.

Man, what a dope, to think that he was in love with her. But wasn't he? I mean, from the first moment he'd seen her walking across the grass in her tight jeans, barefoot, sandals swinging from her finger, her breasts swelling beneath her sweater, all her hair moving in slow motion, and those dark, smiling eyes — yup, he was a goner, at that moment, and it was a literal miracle that he had not dropped his backpack or tripped over a sprinkler or something. Only fifty feet or so away from, it might have been fifty light years, a girl like her was so removed from David's reality. If she would only look at him, he might consider signing up for monk school or something, because that would really be enough, he thought in his heart, for her to look at him, that's all he'd ever really need, to have someone like her even notice him, even for a split second. How could he help but love someone like her?

And now he was standing here, smelling her terrible smoke breath, inhaling the vapors of the alcohol, and she was still holding his hand after helping him up from the ground, and maybe this wasn't heaven, but he couldn't comprehend a better place to find himself.

"I like being out here with you," she said, still smiling, and leaned closer to him.

He looked away. His heart pounded. For a second there, he thought she was going to plant a big smoocher on him. He'd either die or pee his pants. Kiss me, kiss me, just please oh please don't miss me.

"Sure you wouldn't rather be out here with Mickey?" he said, feeling bold, feeling stupid, and why in the world did he have to go and blurt that out for? I mean, really, idiot, what if she says YES, she WOULD rather be out here with Mickey! Duh.

She chuckled and swigged some more brandy, stepping away from him, half turning away, and he wanted to grab her and shake her and pull her back, please, keep paying attention to me, I don't care about Mickey or any other guy, just keep paying attention to me, okay? You can jump out and scream BOO anytime you want to, you can do anything you want, just don't turn away.

"Don't you think I could be out here with anyone else I wanted to be with? Any of those kids at the school?" she said, softly. She lit up another clove cigarette. "If I wanted to be with somebody else, Davey pooh, me foine laddie, chances are I'd be with somebody else." She turned back to him and blew smoke in his face.

He coughed.

"Do you know what that means, Davey boy? When a girl blows smoke in your face?" she crooned.

He coughed again. "What, that you want to give him cancer?"

She laughed, took another swig of the brandy, and propped the cigarette in the corner of her pouty lips.

"You know, Belle, those things are really, really bad for you," he said, trying not to sound too much like his dad. "Worse than regular cigarettes, even."

She tilted her head back and peered at him through the bottoms of her eyes, smoke curling up around her face and she squinted against it. "Yeah? Is that so?"

"Yeah," he said, not meeting her eyes. Don't give her a lecture about smoking, you're not dear old dad, okay, so just shut up now.

"So, like, are you trying to tell me that you care or something?"

He didn't respond. But his heart moved from seventy-five miles per hour to eighty-five.

"Yo, Davey boy, you trying to tell me that you care about me, or maybe that you just don't like second-hand smoke? Me, or you?"

Both, he thought. But really, the first. Man, he could just see it now, her lungs inside that body, that perfect, sexy body, the lungs dissolving, bleeding. It was terrifying.

"I care," he whispered.

She tossed the cigarette onto the ground.

"Shhh," she breathed. "Don't go telling Smokey the Bear."

He stepped on the clove.

She smiled and extricated the pack of cloves from her jacket, twirled it before his eyes — the pack snapped still, inches from his face, and then her hand clamped down around the soft pack, crunching it.

"Okay?" she said, smiling with her slightly off-kilter gaze. Man, even her screwy eyes were sexy. "All gone, okay? So like, you cured me, okay?"

He actually smiled back, looking into her dark, dark off-kilter eyes. "Okay," he agreed.

"Gee," she smiled. "He cares. About me. Imagine that." She dropped the pack onto the forest floor and then sprinted away, disappearing into the close crowding trees.

"Don't let the wolves get you, Davey boy!"

He hesitated, just a moment, then dipped down and snatched the crumpled pack off the ground. He hated to litter, but he didn't need her to know that. He wasn't exactly a goody-two-shoes, but sometimes you had to take a stand for things, like animals that not only couldn't fight back, they couldn't even talk back, or the forest even, who cared about the forest anymore? He looked about for just a second, then shoved the smashed pack into his back pocket.

He grinned like an ape. Idiot, he thought. She's just playing with you. Don't be so easy. But he was — so easy. For Belle, he was moist Silly Putty in her palm. Idiot, ding dong, wonker, wanker, monkey spanker.

What was that she had called out? "Don't let the wolves get you?"

Dave looked about himself, at the forest, the tall trees, and he noticed the sounds. Maybe he was even standing under the tree from which that purpling elf had swung. Well, not really — but he had sure imagined it vividly, those hateful eyes staring at him, hateful insane eyes, dead eyes, just like the insane terrorist orbs of Yomama Been Laden. All around Dave the forest seemed alive, branches crackling under unseen feet, leaves rustling in unfelt breezes. Maybe there really were wolves all about him in the trees, everything swirling toward Dave, like he was at the bottom of the biggest forest drain in the world and everything was coming down on top of him.

Idiot, he thought, just stop creeping yourself out. Don't blow this time with Belle. Don't blow it. I mean, who cared if she were only fooling with him, doinking around, yanking his chain. He was here, alone, with Belle, he really was. And was it déjà vu, or did it only seem like all this had happened before?

He dashed along the path in pursuit of Belle, not allowing himself to imagine the wolves coming up behind him, but then again, not thinking about wolves was pretty much the same thing as thinking about wolves. The wolves were there, in your mind, and that was real. Was she going to jump out and give him a heart attack again?

But she was there, waiting, calmly leaning with her back against a tree, her face glowing in the darkness. It was getting hard to see, and they didn't even have flashlights.

"Did you know that I'm a wolf, David?" Belle said, softly, almost whispering.

"Yes," David managed to say without even pausing to consider her words.

"But you are magic, too, David," she said, moving away from the tree, toward him, moving her arms about his waist. He shivered, but managed to move his arms about her waist as well.

"I am?"

"Sure, we go together, you and I. Like mustard and ketchup. I'm the storyteller, and you, you're the believer. I weave the tapestry. But you bring it to life."

David stared at the ground. He could not meet her eyes, not even here in the darkness when her face and those eyes were only a blur. But the truth was, he had always thought that maybe he was different, at least not quite like all his friends, or his family — but of course his friends and his family and his teachers didn't think so, they smashed him over the head every chance they got with a mantra of mediocrity: "You're like everyone else, average, the same, and you'll always do things the same, think the same, forever..."

But somehow he had always believed he was different. Some how, some way. Special. Different, so different in fact, that he had sworn to himself that he would never drink alcohol, or smoke cigarettes, or even experiment with drugs. He wasn't going to be like everyone else. Doing those kinds of things robbed you of being special.

At least that is what he'd always half-believed.

But man, was it dark out here in the dark woods. The dark woods full of dark elves and wolves with glowing red eyes.

"We should be going back, Belle," he said, and marveled that his voice did not squeak. "It's already almost too dark to see."

Belle laughed. She bent and began gathering branches and pine cones. David watched for only a moment, and then he too dipped down and started pulling together sticks and pine cones. He didn't know why he was doing it, but she did not tell him not to do it, so he figured he better do what she did.

Night birds hooted from the black forest canopy and crickets sawed their fiddles in discordant symphonies. Somewhere down below, along the path, or maybe in the ravine, there was a loud plunking noise — maybe a rock falling into a stream. Frogs croaked.

Belle watched the kid from the corners of her eyes. She nearly giggled when she saw him flinch from the noise down below. He hadn't seen her fling the rock into the ravine. But she admired how silently obedient Dave was, how eager to please. She had never known anyone like him in her life. It was like she didn't even need to verbalize her commands — somehow Dave was so attuned to her that he could sense her wishes. Well, she would treat her foine laddie to a treat tonight! She suppressed nervous giggles of anticipation.

She wondered about how deeply she actually cared for him. Getting to know him had started off as more a whim than anything deeper, but now — now she could not truly say. Possibly, she wasn't joking when she claimed they were kindred spirits.

Then they set off, each lugging armloads of wood. The path was just discernible in the blackening night and they kept well to the right side of the path, because on the left the land fell away to apparent nothingness — how deep was the ravine, anyway, she wondered? When she had flung the rock out it had seemed to take nearly a minute for it to hit bottom.

The couple entered a sudden clearing of trees glowing with a full thunder moon.

David looked up, squinting in the sudden light, and perceived more than saw the stone tower sticking up in he woods like a finger. At the crest of a small hill before them, the tower stood straight and stark in the moonlight.

"We going up there?" David wheezed, close to an asthma attack.

"Up there, soldier," she returned, also a little breathless from the climb.

She continued up the short, steep slope, leaving him to stand gaping up at the tower. She smiled, it had to be an incredible sight, coming on the tower like that, out of the woods, with the bloated moon thundering down like an eerie sun. Lucky guy, she thought. The first time I came up here there was no moon. Only screams.

David stood numb. He dropped his wood and adjusted his glasses. Could he actually go up there? This was like a scene from some horror flick. What dummies they always were, to actually go up into a place like that, the ding dong kids! A tower, of all things, out here in the middle of the woods. What better place for some real-life Bela Lugosi to hang out. He removed his glasses and polished them on his shirt. Squinting, he realized the tower looked even worse when he looked at it half blind. He returned the glasses to h is nose. No way was he going up there. Of course, the forest, and the ravine, were behind him, almost as bad.

He retrieved the twigs and pine cones and branches.

Belle appeared suddenly beside David. He squeaked and released his load of sticks. He was lucky he didn't fall over backward again. She laughed and bent to help him recollect everything.

"Ooh, boy-oh-boy, Captain Dave, but you're getting ripe in the mood!" she laughed.

As David stood, angry, ready to throw the sticks in her face, she suddenly leaned in close and planted a deep, wet kiss on his mouth.

He couldn't speak. Fright, anger, arousal — he ought to be a bomb, he thought. His head just might explode any second.

Fire flared in the darkness. Belle held aloft a blazing match. David shielded his eyes by hiding behind some of his branches and squinted at Belle. She stared back at him, her dark mirroring eyes huge, again the prophetess look, looking at him but not looking at him, sexy and insane. She looked even more beautiful.

"Come on," she whispered, and he followed without thought.

The match went out. He was nearly blind, not even the light of the moon helped.

"Dump it here," she said, motioning to a pile of wood just before the tower. David added his gatherings to hers and looked at the huge door on the tower. Thank goodness, it looked locked. No way would they be able to get inside such a creepy place, and that was okay with David.

"You wait here while I work my magic," she said.

"Magic?" he squeaked, suddenly afraid, because maybe she was a witch, like everyone whispered at school. He could imagine smoke coming from her hands and other Harry Potter embellishments as she spoke the tower open.

She was at the tower, her hands smoothing over the jutting stones. "Five years in gymnastics can appear to be magic," she said, giggling.

David blinked. Belle was ascending. It did seem like magic. Like she was floating. But in the pale moonlight he observed her hands moving upward, outward, her feet moving sideways, her toes digging in, and rock by rock she ascended the tower, climbing like Dracula in reverse. It was weird, she was so sure of herself, she almost moved too fluidly, too gracefully — she didn't even seem quite human.

"I hope you don't think I'm climbing up after you," he called up into the darkness. He couldn't even climb the rope in the gym, let alone scale some rock tower in the moonlight. And she was so high now she was only a blur. Had she practiced this before?

Her only response was laughter. Small stones came pinging down around David. What would he do if she fell? The thought of her falling made his heart clamp down, it felt like he was having a Charlie horse in his chest.

He couldn't even see her any more. Where did she go? Did she disappear? She couldn't have fallen without him seeing, could she? Unless maybe she had moved around the other side of the tower.

Should he call out to her? No, she'd think he was a complete geek. Okay, he corrected himself, so she already probably thought that way about him. But what if all this was part of it? Part of the joke? What if Mickey was hiding inside the tower? Make the dumb kid think he's going to get some Belle and then give him a double-helping of Mickey, yeah, that would be great, but no, he could tell, David could really tell, that Belle like him, she wasn't going to do anything to hurt him — he could trust her, he knew it was true.

"Belle!" he whispered into the dark. Craning his head back he peered into the darkness. He couldn't see anything, really, other than the gleam of the stones, but the moon was now mostly behind clouds, and he couldn't see anything up there, except for maybe some small birds flitting around up high.

Birds? Out at night? No way. He knew, without a doubt, those were bats. He instinctively ducked his head an inch and thought about covering his hair. Urban legends, that bit about bats getting tangled in your hair, right? That's all those stories were, really, urban legends, pure and simple. Nothing to be afraid about bats. Except rabies.

The door creaked loudly and pushed out an inch or two.

David took a step back, swallowing, his heart up in his throat. His hands came instinctively into fists (not that he knew how to use fists) and he prepared himself for Mickey's ugly face (okay, so Mickey wasn't ugly, was in fact what most girls would call "gorgeous"). Silence. No Mickey erupting from the tower.

"David," someone whispered in the silence, from behind the huge door, from inside the stone tower, from the darkness.

David was about to run. Running was the best idea. Who needed all this anyway? He didn't ask for this. Belle was playing games with him. He didn't need Belle. Not only was she going to hurt him, but she was probably going to make a joke out of him, as well. Kids would point him out at school — that's the geek boy that Belle flushed down the toilet!

"David," came again the whisper. What an old trick, trying to scare him by whispering in the dark.

His knees vibrated — thank goodness his legs were spread, or his knees would be knocking together. That would be too much. Okay, so the old trick was working just fine.

The door came open all the way and Belle stood grinning at him. At least it looked like she was grinning at him. Maybe she was dead, suspended on the tip of a spear, and her mouth was twisted at him in a last and final snarl of pain and terror.

Sheesh, he needed to stop watching those "Scary Movie" movies. Stupid, but they worked on you, all right.

"Don't you like me anymore, Captain Dave?" Belle said.

At least she wasn't dead. Stop that. Of course she wasn't dead. And apparently Mickey Mormon wasn't going to come flying out at him like a bat out of hell.

"There's bats up there," David said, pointing up.

"Yeah, they got tangled in my hair," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

"How in the world did you get inside?" David asked.

"There's a window about fifty feet up," Belle said, and then came out into the night and began gathering up the sticks and pine cones. "I've come here a few times, and finally got the brilliant idea about climbing up to the window. You're going to love it inside."

"Bring a lot of guys here?" David asked, gathering up as many of the branches as his arms could hold, wanting to at the very least manage to carry more than Belle did. He also knew that he sounded stupid, or at least jealous, constantly harping about her other men. Youch, what a thought. Belle had probably been with actual men, David thought a little sourly, the kind that could legally drink booze, and had jobs and stuff. And, especially, knew everything there was to know about the female animal.

She grinned at him, her teeth looking huge and bright. "A few, but don't be jealous." She gestured with her head. "Come on, we're almost there, to our destiny."

Huh? Destiny? At least he didn't say "Huh" for once. His dad was always getting on his back about saying "huh" to everything. But it was a hard habit to break.

"You believe in destiny, don't you Captain Dave?"

"Huh?"

She didn't repeat the question. She turned and flowed into the tower. David swallowed and followed after her, lugging his armload of wood. He didn't want her to get too far ahead of him, because in the dark like this he was pretty much blind. Blinder than most people, anyway. He had hardly any night vision, whatsoever.

"Ouch!" Belle snarled.

"Sorry," he said, after bashing into her back.

"Just take it slowly, stay close to me," Belle said, suddenly whispering, as if maybe there was something here that she didn't wish to wake.

"Ouch!" she cried again.

"Sorry, I can't see," he said. This time he'd given her a flat tire.

"Listen, Captain Dave, you wait here. If you don't kill yourself, then you're going to kill me."

"I don't want to wait —" he began, but she whirled on him and nearly made him tumble backward.

"Shup up! Silence thy lips, oh frailheart, lest the great fanged vampire bats do waken."

Eyes wide, he trembled, and waited. Alone. He waited. It was pitch black. He didn't even know what it looked like in here. He waited. For all he knew, there could be things hanging on hooks all around him. Something could be right in front of his face, and he wouldn't be able to tell. Great. Now he was certain that there was something hanging in front of his face. And he was sure whatever it was, it was probably wet, and cold, and slimy. Good night, how long had he been standing here, waiting, hanging in space, loose in the void, floating in icy pools of darkness. Oh brother.

Something different, he thought, blinking his eyes. He looked up. Faintly, he could just discern a glow — a moving glow, a light descending. Sheesh, how high was the ceiling? Was he looking up into a hollow tower? Or were there interrupting floors? The light dazzled his eyes, but it seemed miles away, like a motorcycle coming over the horizon. The light wound around and around and seemed to get hardly any bigger, but then, finally, he heard Belle's voice call out: "Keep your pants on, Captain Dave, I'm almost there."

The branches in his arms poked and scratched. The dust on the pine cones, or the pollen or whatever, made his nose itch. It was really a miracle that his asthma did not kick up. That would be just great, no disk inhalant to open up his tubes. He'd wheeze and go blue and conk out at Belle's feet. Good night, no matter what he did, no matter what happened, he was going to end up looking like a complete geek boy.

Here came the light — a candle, in Belle's beautiful long-fingered hands. Wow, but the sucker was bright. He feared, briefly, that his zits might glow in the dark like a velvet painting beneath a black light.

"Good, you waited," she said, smiling. And again, miraculously, she kissed him. He never knew that lips could feel like that. It wasn't at all like kissing your dad, or your grandmothers. There was something terrible in those lips that shot tiny fiery arrows down into his loins. Maybe she'd cured his asthma — he felt certain his acne was gone.

He managed to refrain from saying "Huh" again, and then said: "Of course I waited for you!" in what he hoped was a cool and confident manner. That's what his dad always said: "Say it as if you mean it, in a cool and confident manner, that's how to convince people." His dad was a salesman and most of the stuff he said made absolutely no sense at all — this was a first.

"Follow me, soldier," she said, and turned and began climbing stone steps.

The candle helped, a little, but he still couldn't really see. They were ascending, that much was certain, and on his left was empty space — if he stumbled that way he'd have to be sure to wave "bye-bye" to Belle as he plummeted to his death. He kept close to the wall on his right side. Belle didn't seem to have any problem at all with the dark, as if she could see like a cat. He couldn't tell how many times they made complete circles, but they seemed to climb up quite a many stone stairs, and each of their footfalls echoed hollowly in the tower. Finally, he began to perceive another glow, brighter than the candle, above them.

"Watch your head, sweetheart," she whispered, and he almost didn't duck fast enough — still, he'd gladly crack his skull open if she'd call him "sweetheart" again. His hair brushed against the ceiling as he bent at the knees and took another step up and entered a chamber with an actual floor. Light, everywhere light, was his first awareness, and then he noticed the candles everywhere — there must be over a hundred fat white candles, or old sunken-in dirty candles, it was kind of beautiful, if you liked candles.

David was more a fluorescent lighting kind of guy.

"What do you think?" she said, leaning against a rough stone wall, watching him with eyes he would only have dreamed about just yesterday, and now here she was, watching him, smiling for him, was it real?

"Wow," he said, looking about at all the candles. There was also a giant fireplace he could almost walk into if he ducked down, and a big pile of blankets which obviously were a recent addition. There was also signs of a recent fire in the fireplace.

"I had to come in from up there," she said, pointing to a door in the ceiling. "Lots of bat guano up there — lots of bats, too!"

David looked about the room closer.

"Nope," she said, "none in here. Don't worry. There's old iron screening on the windows."

David couldn't help wondering just who it was she'd had up here recently? And what had they done? And why had she brought him up here?

"Over there," she said, pointing to the stack of wood and kindling.

He dumped his load onto the pile and then joined Belle in preparing a small teepee of branches and twigs in the fireplace. She handed him a little paper matchbook and he was lucky enough to get the fire going with only two matches. He sighed a little deep inside himself, because thank goodness there wasn't enough wood up here to make a sacrifice of himself, or anything. At least she didn't have that in mind.

"Okay," she said, seating herself on the blankets, close to the fire. "Now, it's magic time."

"Magic time," David repeated, dusting off his hands, seating himself across from Belle, facing her — despite there being several blankets, it wasn't very comfortable. He hoped she didn't mean any of that Hogwartz stuff. In a book it was fine, but he didn't want any spells or incantations in his real life.

She put her foot in his lap and his hands automatically clasped her calf. Wonderful. Now he could die at peace. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. Just don't pass out, whatever else you do.

"My father was a flyer in World War II," Belle began, her voice deep and smoothly cadenced. Her unsettling eyes moved slowly over David's face, and then did that otherworldly detachment thing, focusing nowhere in particular, or everywhere. The candles and the firepit flickered light upon them. For an instant he could see her wonderfully, and then the very next instant she was more shadow than light. "My father flew a secret mission with the British, testing a new Spitfire — he was to tryst with an American convoy off the coast of Wales. But he shouldn't have been flying — he was warned about the fog, but my father believed he was invincible, indestructible. He was young, his hair was black, he was strong, and..."

She lowered her voice and her eyes closed. She leaned toward him and instinctively David leaned toward her, gripping her leg in his hand.

"...my father was a wolf," she whispered. "I don't say this in a figurative way. Although, yeah, he obeyed his own rules; he made up his own rules, but he broke all the other rules. But he couldn't break the rules of flying in fog and get away with it. He crashed in the bogs. My father, the wolf, crashed in the bogs."

Actually, Belle never knew her father. Her mother left him when Belle was only two, maybe three years of age — and as far as World War II or Wales or Spitfires went, Belle had "Hogan's Heroes" and a few old movies as reference and had absolutely no idea where Wales could be located on a map of the world. But the story wrote itself, as they always did, and she never quite knew where the story came from, or where it was going, where it began or where it ended — her stories were always fluid, and that fluidity was magic.

"My father bails out just before the crash, and he is all alone, a broken leg, and it is very dark, very cold. My father is positive that something is stalking him in the fog, something staying just out of sight, just on the edge of the milky curtain..."

As Belle wove her tapestry she watched the light play upon David's face, the shadows cast from his glasses, the thick lenses reflecting and refracting light, and David's eyes grew, they seemed to expand in the dark. She was fascinated with his acceptance, with his fear, with his seeing.

She wondered how it could feel to actually live out each moment of a story? It was one thing to create the story, weave the tapestry — but to live it, to breathe life into it, that was something she could only barely begin to understand. She was a mere Salieri in seeing, whereas David was Mozart.

"...because the mission is top secret, and of course against all the rules of the Geneva Convention, my father doesn't have a weapon other than his big survival knife. But he knows how to use it, and he crouches, waiting behind a bush to attack whatever the thing is that stalks him.

"He hears something large — very large — approaching, something sloshing through bogs instead of going around, something slapping huge feet, something heavy, ponderous, but clever, something smart coming through the fog.

"Then, in the darkness, a huge shape looms above my father. It looks the size of a bear. It comes out of the fog and is on him, so fast, with tremendous strength, and although he fights the thing, the huge thing, it is just too strong for him. My father stabs it, or tries to, but the blade bounces off its skin..."

David leans over her leg, his eyes swollen huge, his head tilted comically back — he isn't even adjusting his glasses as he always does, they've slipped to the bulb of his nose. His fingers are buried in her leg, hurting her, terribly, but she cannot pause her flow, because his mouth is open and a slick of drool is ebbing dangerously at the corner of his lip and the fire casts light over his face creating strange shadows, shadows which cant up over his forehead, forming ridiculous dark antennae which seemingly protrude from his head, he suddenly appears to be a giant insect, a gasping grasshopper — she can't stop now, because they are in the flow, and who can imagine what kind of magic can come out of this mixture?

"...the thing seizes my father and slings him over one bony shoulder — it is so strong it's like my father is a baby, or a small sack of potatoes — the thing is wide, squat, and as strong as a gorilla. My father can't believe it, but he realizes it is a troll that is carrying him!"

— David hisses softly through his teeth and distractedly wipes a hand at the corner of his mouth —

"...yes, a troll, a big, fat, muttering troll. It's head is flat and bald, like rock, and its whole stinking body seems to ooze slime. It grips him over one shoulder so tightly he can hardly breathe, and it carries him for what must be miles without slowing, without getting tired. They come to a cave in the fog and the troll throws my father into the hole and slams the door so my father can't escape..."

From below, in the tower, came the sound of the heavy door slamming, so loud the tower floor reverberated with the shuddering impact. David and Belle each started, their heads snapping to the stairwell. They both stared for many heartbeats, and then slowly they turned their heads in unison, to stare into each other's eyes — Belle's eyes were huge, and her neck felt as if it were filled with cement, why couldn't she move?

David was shaking.

"Did you take something?" she whispered fiercely.

David looked away from her. He looked back at the stairwell. He swallowed. He pushed up his glasses with his finger.

"Did you take something, David? Acid? Something like that?"

His head snapped back and he sneered at her. "I don't do drugs," he said, mechanically, not quite seeing her, and then his neck cranked back, so he could stare at the stairwell. He stared, listening, staring—

— almost as if he expected to hear huge footsteps ascending the stairs. That was ridiculous, it was crazy, but that's what he seemed to expect. Was anyone in the real world that completely, utterly stupid? Or was anyone in the real world that . . . special?

There came the heavy thud of something very heavy coming up the stairs, coming up the stairs slowly.

Belle shook her head. This wasn't what she expected. Sure, with Mickey, what could you expect, because he was drugged out like usual, he was always drugged out, but that couldn't be the case with David, could it? She knew that David was clean. She had smelled his breath several times, even offering him the brandy as a test, and he was as clean as a baby with a fresh diaper.

"Stop it, David," she whispered. "Mickey was on speed, and crack and booze and whatever else he did. This can't be happening, not this time..."

But something was coming heavily up the stairs, steadily, loudly smacking wet feet upon the stone steps. She found herself counting the steps: ten, twelve, twenty... And she knew what it was, terribly, she was an experienced girl, and she knew without a solitary doubt what was shaking the stone steps as it ascended. David stared, saliva oozing out the corners of his mouth — his eyes were glazed, his mouth hung slack, his thin arms wrapped fitfully around his narrow chest.

She shook her head. She had to stop this mixing of magics, David was taking it too far. Further even than with Mickey, because that time she could not see anything, nor hear it — only Mickey could see what was coming up, only Mickey could hear it, and she had thought he was joking, because things like this did not happen in the real world, and it was Mickey only that had felt the blunt, huge teeth as she watched him opened up like a bag of potato chips.

"Stop it," Belle whispered. "Stop it, David!"

"Whuh?"

"Stop believing!"

Whatever it was, it was very close now. In fact, Belle knew that at any second a troll's flat, bald and lumpy head would appear, rising in the stairwell, rising up, the head streaked with flat, purple veins, the forehead short and slanted, a cro-magnon caveman, and then the vicious, viscous eyes rising with hatred, evil intent, murder, hunger, bloodlust and insanity — Belle knew this was how it was going to happen because she was a storyteller, and she instinctively knew the path of a story winding into darkness, even her own darkness, and this time it was not a drugged-out bully that was hearing the feet on the stairs, it was Belle, and it was David — David, sweet and innocent.

But this time she heard it, and this time she would see it, and so it would not just be sweet David who would die, the thing would come after her as well.

Here it came, slowly rising into view, jerkingly, as below its huge blocks of feet lifted up each step, and here came its impossibly fat head with a sickly greenish tinge, bumpy, horrible purple veins palpitating with sluggish, viscous blood. It rose into the candle light and its eyes were upon them, eyes evil with malice and hunger, eyes reflecting the light in lamps of gold, horrible cat's eyes, looking at them, staring at them, mean, nasty, angry, and hungry. Belle knew exactly what the troll would look like, even before it rose into view: the narrow but huge shoulders, the thick arms shuddering with loose fat and rangy muscle, the heavy drooping breasts, the distended belly pregnant with rotting meats. It swung up its disproportionately short legs and its feet with twisted toes came to rest fully in the room, not more than ten feet from Belle and David.

It stood there, fully in view now, stinking and breathing hard, not quite facing them, not quite looking at them. It was staring at the fire in the fireplace, its wet lips pulled tight into a sneer — it seemed as if it were pretending they were not in the room, even though it had looked at them as it had first risen into view.

They like to play with the prey, Belle knew, like a tomcat with two mice. Belle knew that trolls loved the taste of young meat, young meat pumped spicy with adrenaline. The tang of fear sweat and terror. She knew all this, she knew it all, because she was a storyteller, and this was how a story went, this was the path you traveled, and it was not her fault that she had always had a penchant for horror, a wistful yearning for fantasy!

Belle knew that the troll would begin emptying its huge pockets.

The troll began emptying its pockets, pulling odd things from the rough fabric of its clothing — clothing that appeared to be made of disparate animal furs, hides, and some odd pink stretched leather. Belle had no doubt what that pink fabric was, and she hugged her arms tightly about her breasts. Old rope emerged and fell to the floor, a dead dog, stiff and rotting, a live rattlesnake which sidewinded into a corner to chatter and rattle, then something dark and wet and raw and very new, and several glaring old bleached bones.

Then the troll paused. It smiled, showing flat, broken tombstone teeth. The troll rummaged deeply in its pocket.

"It's going to pull out a knife," Belle whispered to David. The knife, the troll's tool of choice. A big knife, one perfect for peeling back flesh.

The creature withdrew its scaly paw and a very large kitchen knife came into view. No, it wasn't a kitchen knife, Belle saw. She swallowed. It was a big survival knife, the kind used by World War II pilots — the kind a pilot would need if he crashed his plane in the fog, in the bogs somewhere in Wales.

David began to whimper, softly.

Belle looked at him. His face was contorted in terror, his body locked into stonelike immobility, his eyes bugging from his sockets, huge and pale.

Think! Belle screamed within her sweating skull. This was not what she had intended to happen! Not really, no way. Sure, perhaps she had considered it, maybe she had allowed a small fantasy to play out deep within her mind, to feel this kind of power, but no, no, this was not what she wanted. Smelling the troll, its reality, seeing its sly Cheshire grin, no, this was not at all what she wanted.

"Go away troll — troll away, troll away, troll away home! Troll be gone!" she shouted at it.

But stories did not work that way, Belle knew. Stories just don't fold neatly in upon themselves to fit back into your pocket. Stories took on a life all their own, and they grew, and swelled in power, and once breathed into life they did not die.

And the troll went back down the stairs in search of juicier prey, Belle thought with all her might...

...but that was silly, wasn't it, because what prey could be juicier than David, more luscious than Belle?

No, stories went more like: and the foolish girl could not control the horrible power she had loosed, and she paid dearly for her mistake, with her life, but not before she had watched the creature dismember the young man she could have loved...

...and the troll chowed down mighty!

Yes, that's much more the way stories went, at least the terrible horror stories she had always loved!

The troll turned, finally, and looked at them with its tiny, puffy eyes. Pig eyes. Eyes bloodshot and bracketed with veins. It looked first at Belle and there was a certain gleam of recognition there, deep within the horrendous orbs — had it seen her, the other time, although separated from her by the wall of her disbelief, as it had bent and broken poor drugged-out Mickey? Then it looked at David, and it licked its jagged lips with a hideous, swollen wormlike tongue. Oh yes, Belle knew which tasty treat it intended to sample first.

Think, Belle told herself, repeating it over and over again, think, think, THINK!

But that was stupid, because how could you actually think if you were filling your brain with the word t-h-i-n-k...?

The troll, however, was apparently too famished to allow Belle the few moments she needed to collect her thoughts, regroup her storytelling — it reached out a shovel-sized hand and thumped David on the chest, like a housewife testing melons at the market. David tottered and fell backward. The finger tap upon his chest echoed hollowly in the chamber. Apparently the troll was satisfied by the melon sound, apparently David was ripe, and the troll smiled gleefully, showing all its cracked yellow teeth. The creature swiveled its eyes to Belle, and it winked at her.

"Thank you," it grunted in its thick, gluey voice. What a hideous sound was its voice, with the squeal of pigs mating, the scream of a rabbit caught by the coyote's teeth, the hiss of a snake, the delighted cry of the hawk plunging down upon the mouse.

Hadn't she heard the same terrible utterance of thanksgiving the day Mickey had screamed and levitated from the floor, lifted by unseen fingers, when his chest began to spread and rip? Hadn't Belle thought she had heard the same grating voice? The same bubble glee of thanks?

But that had been all a hallucination, hadn't it? Because it was the first time that Belle had gone along with the stoner Mickey, had accepted his acidic gifts. She had been pushed out of her own mind, hadn't she, transformed by drugs and lust, lying drugged and doped upon the litter-strewn floor of the abandoned apartments. Hadn't it all been a hallucination, isn't that what she had repeatedly told herself over the last couple of weeks?

She had never gone back to the abandoned apartments, because she was too afraid of what she might discover. Because what if it had been something more than night terrors induced by drugs and ghost stories?

Of course, she had always known it had been real. But she was positive this time it would be different, because this time she was clean, wasn't she, well, except for the smoke of cloves and the tang of brandy, she was clean, wasn't she? She was in control, this time, she was the storyteller.

But, this time, David was the believer.

It made all the difference in the world.

The troll thumped David again. The creature was drooling.

Belle stood up. She pointed a finger at the troll.

"Did you know that I'm a wolf?" she screamed at it.

The troll stood straight. Its face went comically blank. The sneer disappeared.

"My father had hoped for a boy, but got me, a daughter, instead," she said, storytelling. It had worked with awful Mr. Guesome, why shouldn't it work with a troll that had sprung from her head? Her off-kilter gaze bored into the troll. She only half-heard what she was saying, only half-knew what the story was that leapt from her lips. But it was an old story. One she had been telling herself since she was no more than a toddler. The completely made-up story of her Papa. "He told me a story when I was only seven years old, about the time he crash-landed in Wales..."

The troll grunted, its jutting, sloped forehead wrinkling as if it were trying to think. Its solitary furry eyebrow crinkled down to hood its tiny eyes. It looked from Belle to David.

"He told me about how a stupid troll tried to eat him — how he would have died because the troll took his knife away, his big survival knife. Do you know why he wasn't eaten by the troll?"

The troll cocked its head and made a piercing noise, a grating chitter, insectile and shrill. It shook its head at Belle and frowned.

Belle rushed forward, in David's general direction, gradually moving herself between the troll and her boyfriend. The troll's eyes narrowed further and it reached out a hand to grab the boy, but Belle blurted onward with her story, and the troll's hand paused.

"My father would have died, except for the wolves," she said, Belle did, and she seemed to grow in height. She felt as if strength flooded her body, like a beam of sunlight falling into a garden. And distantly, it seemed she heard the beautiful mournful cry of a wolf. One piercing howl that echoed ghostlike over the forest.

The troll grunted and waved the knife at Belle, but it wasn't looking at her. It was looking toward the iron-screened window. It was listening, it's lumpy head cocked to one side.

"A pack of wolves gathered in the bogs, gathering to give birth to the Empress of All Wolves. They saved my father!" she cried, stepping toward the hulking brute.

The troll stepped back. And all about the tower, from out in the night, piercing cries lifted up, soared above the night, as wolf after wolf lifted its snout in rousting howls.

"Do you know what the wolves did to that troll?" Belle said, moving confidently toward the troll.

The troll shook its head and moaned, backing away from the girl.

"The wolves promised to tear the troll to pieces if he would provide the seed for the Empress of All Wolves. They knew that their kind was being annihilated, eradicated by man, and they knew that if they were to survive, they must adapt and become one with man, and they judged my father worthy of that link between the two races, wolves and men..."

The cries of the wolves rang loudly, all about the tower, and now it seemed that many of the voices were inside the tower, down below, and rising. Wasn't that the feint scratching of large claws upon the stone steps?

The troll, muttering beneath its rank breath, looked nervously between the stairwell and Belle. And it was listening intently to her. Listening, as raptly to the storyteller as any believer.

"Story," it muttered. "Only story. Not true. Not real."

"A savior must be born, the wolves knew, to save the doomed race," Belle said with fire, alive with power.

The troll backed away from the stairwell, because snarls rose up, panting and the clack of heavy claws upon stone — Belle could hear muscular bodies crowding up the stairs. The troll trembled, wielding its knife like a shield, but it faced the stairwell, moving away from David and Belle.

Still speaking, Belle bent and snatched David by the arm. David scrambled to his feet, his arms going around her, and they scuttled to the far side of the chamber together.

"...and my father agreed to provide the matter that would become the Empress," she said, and wasn't this story true? Couldn't she actually remember his masculine, kind face, holding her close in his warm arms, telling her, whispering, that she was special, that her Papa had made her special, how she was the Empress of All Wolves? Wasn't it true? Or was it only a story? "And the wolves escorted my father from that troll's cave, and he returned to my mother, who gave birth to me..."

Now the cries of the wolves were terrific, and dark shaggy bodies erupted into the chamber to crowd and encircle the cowering, cringing troll.

"...and I, Empress of All Wolves, have searched the Earth until I have found my White Wolf Knight..."

Belle felt David's grip about her spine loosen, she felt him strengthen and tighten at her side.

"...a special man, one whose strength and bravery have been hidden, even unto himself..."

David stood away from her. He seemed taller — his shoulders seemed more square. He seemed more solid. He removed his glasses and smiled at her. It was perhaps the first time he had met her, eye to eye. And he was different, she realized, he was handsome, not just cute. He did possess strength.

He was a man.

And he was special. David truly was special.

David grinned at her and he looked positively dashing. As terrified as he had been only moments before, now he was bursting with bravery, emanating courage and daring.

She actually felt her heart flutter. Imagine that? Wild Belle who manipulated boys like clay, feeling something like a soft heart attack? The strength seemed to seep away from her knees. Wow, she could get used to this!

David bowed low to her, very courtly, his hand sweeping at his breast. He stood to his new full height with the troll's knife in his hand, saluted her with the weapon, and strode forward through the crowd of wolves. The wolves made room for him and quieted. They watched him with their bright, intense eyes.

"It doesn't matter to me," David said, speaking to the troll, "whether you die or return to the place you came from."

The knife in his hand seemed larger, longer, brighter. Now more a sword, a saber of glistening white metal.

The troll compacted into itself, bunching its muscles and it threw itself at David. For a moment, it dwarfed David, and then they seemed to trade places — or at least sizes, for now David was the giant, and the troll a dwarf. And the sword caught the troll, full in the neck, and the body and the head fell in separate direction.

The wolves flowed like water, seizing the troll, dragging its body, yanking its head, and in a fluid wave they washed the muck and reek down stairs and out of the tower. The wolves flowed and sang her pale-tongued moon songs, they moved and danced, until only Belle and David remained in the chamber.

For a brief moment, a great figure rose from the stairwell, pale and shaggy. A wolf, white and beautiful, came into the chamber.

Belle bowed her head to the Empress, the being released from her tale. David saluted with his sword.

And the animal was gone.

David and Belle stood alone.

She reached out her hand and he took it. They started away from the place. She paused.

"Yes, my Lady?" he breathed.

She smiled mischievously, withdrawing the flask of brandy. She tossed it into the fire.

"If we're going to be together," she said, "we should be equal."

She removed the jacket with "Mickey" on the breast and tossed it into the flames.

"It's cold outside," he told her.

"I guess you'll have to keep me warm," she said, stepping into his embrace.

Would they ever dare mix their lethal magics again? Perhaps, but not for a while, because they had other magics they would need to experience, blend, mature and nurture.

But could Belle enter this greater, more frightening magic with David? And did he even begin to feel for her what she felt for him? Did Belle have the necessary bravery to stay in this amazing adventure.

David, perceiving her thoughts pulled her close.

"We'll figure it out together," he said.

They departed the tower and the forest seemed a new world.