A sudden scrabbling of claws on wood somewhere behind me,
and Heather's little yipping voice: "Mr. Augie's inside! And
the El Brujo kitty! And my favorite squirrel friend Serena!
Please, Deena's dad! Let me in! I'm all done pooping and
peeing now!"
Deena perked up. "Dad, can you--?"
"Here she comes," Mr. Schwarber said from the kitchen,
and the creak of a door led immediately to a frantic clickety-
clickety-click across the linoleum.
"Mr. Augie! El Brujo! Serena!" Even in animal speech,
Heather managed to make our names one continuous blur. She
streaked brownish-gold past my chair and sprang into Deena's
arms. "I'm so, so sorry that I had to go outside and away
from you when you're feeling so sad!" the little dog cried out
with each lick at Deena's face. "I tried to hold my poop
inside me, but it can get insistent!"
Serena gave a grave little twitch of her ears, her first
movement in what felt like hours. "That is very true."
El Brujo sighed. "I'm learning so much today."
Heather turned her tongue-lolling smile toward me. "But
Mr. Augie is here! And now all will be happy and dancing and
running after tennis balls!"
"Heather?" El Brujo sounded far away somehow, like I was
hearing her from the next room even though I could see her
quite clearly on my lap. "We're all glad to be here together,
but right now, we need a few moments of silence. Mr. Augie is
having a slight crisis, you see."
"Insane," I said, nodding in agreement. "Absolutely
insane."
"Gus?" Deena asked, and I realized I'd said the words
with my human tongue rather than in animal speech.
But of course I'd said them with my human tongue!
"I can't talk to animals!" It hit me as hard as the sidewalk
always did whenever I managed to tip myself over while rolling
around the neighborhood. "No one can talk to animals!"
Deena was staring at me, the sadness in her face edging a
bit closer to fear. "I...I never said--"
"'Cause you're right!" I wanted to leap from my chair,
dump the cat onto the floor, shake the squirrel away from the
front of my jacket. But all I could do was flail my arms
around. "That's a fantasy! A fantasy!"
And every day, I realized, my arms freezing, my hands
shaking in the air before my face like the leaves on the trees
along the street in a cold November Santa Ana wind, every day,
I chose that fantasy, chose to pretend that I could talk to
animals. Every day, I woke up still paralyzed, still alone,
still abandoned, still ugly and brutish and short, and looking
at the world, I decided that I didn't want to live there,
didn't want anything to do with it.
I was an addict same as Deena had been. She'd wanted a
different world, a world with magic in it, and she'd finally
found it in whatever drug cocktail she'd been pumping into her
veins. I wanted a different world, a world with magic in it,
and I finally found it by succumbing to the tightening snap
and crackle of my diseased nervous system.
Motion in front of me, and I blinked at Deena crouching,
peering up at me, her father behind her, both of them looking
scared in ways they never should. "Gus? Is...is there
someone we should call? Someone at Chrysalis House?"
"No," I said, and relief washed over her so strongly, I
swear I could smell it, her hand coming to rest on my knee.
Not that I could feel it, of course, but seeing it there
made the jackhammer in my chest ratchet up another couple
notches. As did the sight of--
El Brujo, her deep caramel eyes half-lidded, her gaze
fixed on mine warm and solid and--
And real. More real than anything I'd ever known in my
entire life.
And that was when I knew.
"Reality," I told Deena, making my hand move to touch
hers. "It's a hard thing."
She smiled, fresh tears shimmering in her eyes. "I'm
learning that," she said.
"But the best part?" I didn't know how to say this.
"You can't choose it, but it can choose you."
Her smile faded but didn't go away. I took a breath.
"The life you had before, the bad one, the one you don't want:
that was you trying to choose. But reality? No, you're
right; you're one hundred percent right: that wasn't
reality at all."
My throat wanted to close up, wanted to squeeze tight at
the confusion in her face. I blinked, relaxed, let the words
trickle out like sand through an hourglass. "This, right
here, right now, this house, your dad, your dog, the hard life
of taking what's really there and working with it." I tapped
the back of her hand. "This is reality. And
sometimes?" I shifted to look at El Brujo, her whiskers
curling into a smile. "Sometimes when you least expect it,
reality chooses to be magical."
Deena coughed a laugh, and I saw she was smiling again.
"I'm learning that, too."
"Ah, August." That oh-so-familiar purring contralto
tickled at places that weren't my ears. "Well done."
"Is--?" Serena seemed like she was trying to glance at
everyone in the room at the same time. "Is he better?"
El Brujo gave a feline shrug. "Better is a relative
term."
"I'm OK," I said in animal talk, then switching to human
speech: "I'm sorry I scared you," I told Deena and her father.
Mr. Schwarber patted his chest. "As if my life hasn't
been exciting enough recently."
Standing, Deena stroked the back of my hand, and my
breath caught. "Exciting," I said. "Yes. Every day."
The scene continues in 42, the next section!
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