NOS4A2(141)

There had been other insights over the years: a child found in a well, information about a man lost at sea while attempting to sail around the world. But they came less and less often, further and further apart. The last, a little article about Maggie helping to locate a runaway, had appeared in 2000. Then there was nothing until 2008, and the articles that followed were not about miracles but something like the opposite.

First there had been a flood in Here, Iowa, a lot of damage, a drowned library. Maggie had nearly drowned herself, trying to rescue books, and been treated for hypothermia. Fund-raisers failed to collect enough money to keep the library open, and the place was shuttered.

In 2009 Maggie had been charged with public endangerment for starting a fire in an abandoned building. She had drug paraphernalia in her possession at the time.

In 2010 she had been arrested and charged with squatting and possession of heroin.

In 2011 she was arrested for solicitation. Maybe Maggie Leigh could predict the future, but her psychic gift had not warned her to stay clear of the undercover cop in the lobby of a Cedar Rapids motel. She got thirty days for it. Later that same year, she was picked up again, but this time her destination was the hospital, not jail; she was suffering from exposure. In that article her “plight” was described as “all too frequent among Iowa’s homeless,” which was how Wayne found out she was living on the street.

“You want to see her because she knew you were coming and she told my mom,” Wayne said finally.

“I need to see her because she knew I was on the road and wanted to make trouble for me,” Manx said. “And if I do not have words with her, I cannot be sure she will not make trouble for me again. This is not the first time I have had to deal with someone of her ilk. I try whenever possible to avoid people like her. They are always nettlesome.”

“People like her . . . You mean other librarians?”

Manx snorted. “You are being coy with me. I am glad to see you recovering your sense of humor. I mean to say there are other people besides me who can access the secret shared worlds of thought.” He reached up and tapped his temple, to show where that world resided. “I have my Wraith, and when I am behind the wheel of this car, I can find my way onto the secret roads that lead to Christmasland. I have known others who could use totems of their own to turn reality inside out. To reshape it like the soft clay it is. There was Craddock McDermott, who claimed that his spirit existed in a favorite suit of his. There is the Walking Backwards Man, who has an awful watch that runs in reverse. You do not want to meet the Walking Backwards Man in a dark alley, child! Or anywhere else! There is the True Knot, who live on the road and are in much the same line of work as myself. I leave them be and they are glad to return the favor. And our Maggie Leigh will have a totem of her own, which she uses to pry and spy. Probably these Scrabble tiles she mentions. Well. She seems to have taken quite an interest in me. I guess if we are driving by, it would only be polite to pay a visit. I would like to meet her and see if I can’t cure her of her curiosity!”

He shook his head and then laughed. That husky-hoarse caw of his was an old man’s laugh. The road to Christmasland could make his body young, but it couldn’t do anything about the way he laughed.

He drove. The dotted yellow line stammered past on the left.

Finally Manx sighed and went on. “I don’t mind telling you, Wayne, almost all of the trouble I’ve ever known started with one woman or another. Margaret Leigh and your mother and my first wife were all cut from the same cloth, and Lord knows there have been plenty more where they came from. Do you know what? All the happiest times in my life were times when I was free of the feminine influence! When I didn’t have to make accommodations. Men spend most of their lives being passed from woman to woman and being pressed into service for them. You cannot imagine the life I have saved you from! Men cannot stop thinking about women. They get thinking about a lady and it is like a hungry man thinking about a rare steak. When you are hungry and you smell a steak on the grill, you get distracted by that tight feeling in your throat and you quit thinking. Women are aware of this. They take advantage of it. They set terms, same as your mother sets terms before you come to dinner. If you don’t clean your room, change your shirt, and wash your hands, you aren’t allowed to sit at the dinner table. Most men figure they are worth something if they can meet the terms a woman sets for them. It provides them with their whole sense of value. But when you take a woman out of the picture, a man can get a little quiet inside. When there’s no one to bargain with, except for yourself and other men, you can figure yourself out. That always feels good.”

“Why didn’t you divorce your first wife?” Wayne asked. “If you didn’t like her?”

“No one did back then. It never even crossed my mind. It crossed my mind to leave. I even did leave a time or two. But I came back.”

“Why?”

“I got hungry for steak.”

Wayne asked, “How long ago was it—when you were first married?”

“Are you asking how old I am?”

“Yes.”

Manx smiled. “I will tell you this: On our first date, Cassie and I went to see a silent movie! It was that long ago!”

“What movie?”

“It was a horror picture from Germany, although the title cards were in English. During the scary parts, Cassie would hide her face against me. We attended the show with her father, and if he had not been there, I believe she would’ve crawled into my lap. She was only sixteen at the time, just a nub of a thing, graceful and considerate and shy. This is the way with many women. In youth they are precious gems of possibility. They shudder with feverish life and desire. When they turn spiteful, it is like a chick molting, shedding the fuzz of youth for darker feathers! Women often give up their early tenderness as a child gives up his baby teeth.”