Spirits in the Wires : A Novel of Myth and Magic-on the Streets and on the Net

First Meeting Don't make of us more than we are, she said. We hold no great secret... SASKIA MADDING, "Arabesque" (Moths and Wasps, 1997) Christiana Tree "I feel as if I should know you," Saskia Madding says as she approaches my chair. She's been darting glances in my direction from across the cafe for about fifteen minutes now and I was wondering when she'd finally come over. I saw her when I first came in, sitting to the right of the door at a window table, nursing a tall cup of chai tea. She'd been writing in a small, leather-bound book, fountain pen in one hand, the other holding back the spill of blonde hair that would otherwise fall into her eyes. She looked up when I came in and showed no sign of recognition, but since then she's been studying me whenever she thinks I'm not paying attention to her. "You do know me," I tell her. "I'm pieces of your boyfriendthe ones he didn't want when he was a kid." She gives me a puzzled look, though I can see a kind of understanding start up in the back of those pretty, sea-blue eyes of hers. "Youare you the woman in his journals?" she asks. "The one he calls Mystery?" I smile. "That's me. The shadow of himself." "I didn't... " "Know I was real?" I finish for her when her voice trails off. She shakes her head. "No. I just didn't expect to ever see you in a place like this." "I like coffee." "I meant someplace so mundane." "Ah. So you've made note of all those romantic flights of fancy he puts in those journals of his." I close my eyes, shuffling through pages of memory until I find one of them. "'I can see her standing among the brambles and thorns of some half-forgotten hedgerow in a green bridal dress, her red hair set aflame by the setting sun, her eyes dark with mysteries and stories, a wooden hare's mask dangling from one languid hand. This is how I always see her. In the hidden and secret places, her business there incomprehensible yet obviously perfectly suited to her curious, evasive nature.'" I get a smile from Saskia, but I don't know if it's from the passage I've quoted, or because I'm mimicking Christy's voice as I repeat the words. "That's a new one," she says. "He hasn't read it to me yet." "You wait for him to read them to you?" "Of course. I would never go prying..." She pauses and gives me a considering look. "When do you read them?" I shrug. "Oh, you know. Whenever. I don't really sleep, so sometimes when I get bored late at night I come by and sit in his study for awhile to read what he's been thinking about lately." "You're as bad as the crow girls." "I'll take that as a compliment." "Mmm." She studies me for a moment before adding, "You don't read my journals do you?" I muster a properly offended look, though it's not that I wouldn't. I just haven't. Yet. "I'm sorry," she says. "Of course you wouldn't. We don't have the same connection as you and Christy do." Charles de Lint is the author of 'Spirits in the Wires : A Novel of Myth and Magic-on the Streets and on the Net' with ISBN 9780312873981 and ISBN 0312873980.