The Magic Rain
Ch. 14

Chapter Fourteen: Reading the Rain

"What are we going to do with the body?" I asked.

We were sitting out on the patio. Mike, Scott and the girls had gone home, after they had agreed to let Jo-Bri cast a spell on them that prevented them from telling what they knew to anyone outside our little group.

"I’d like to send him back to Hodon," he replied. "But even if I could build a portal to do that, I wouldn’t, because Hodon might use it to come here."

I nodded and suppressed a shiver.

"I’ll make him disappear before going to bed tonight," he said.

I frowned. "How does all this magic stuff work?" I asked.

He laughed and so did I, realizing what a huge question I’d just asked him.

"Gee," I said, mocking myself, "How does that nuclear physics stuff work?"

He arched an eyebrow. "Actually, it’s more like mathematics than physics. No, that’s not true, it doesn’t really get separated like that. Mathematics is physics, it’s the language of physics – and of magic."

I frowned. "Mathematics is the language of magic."

He nodded then paused, obviously searching for the best way to explain this to me.

"I should warn you," I said, "I don’t do so well with math. So maybe you shouldn’t even try to explain it to me."

He frowned then, and I felt a twinge, not wanting him looking at me like that, like he was… disappointed.

"You limit yourself," he said.

I shrugged, blushing.

"So much of what I know of your world comes from your mind," he reminded me. "You knew about nuclear physics, and then looked surprised when I spoke your words back to you about it. You’re smart – very smart. Why do you pretend not to be?"

I was really blushing by now. No one had really busted me like that. I felt a little irritated, but I knew that was only because I didn’t want to face this issue about myself, and partly because I knew that what he was saying was true.

"Is it the girl thing?" he asked.

I stared at him, the irritation growing now.

"What ‘girl thing’?" I asked, not expecting Jo-Bri to be sexist.

He saw my reaction and tilted his head.

"I see it in girls – even your mother," he said. "You… put yourself in second place, behind the men in your lives. You dress to show off your bodies as if your hearts and minds weren’t enough to attract a man."

"Hold it," I said, really teed-off now. "We can dress any way we want to."

"But why would you show off your breasts so much unless that’s all you wanted a man to look at?"

Okay, that stopped me. I mean, I was still ticked off, but… I glanced down at my top and realized that it was low cut – really low cut. I mean… that was the fashion, most girls wore stuff this low-cut and even worse -- even my mother. So why was I suddenly embarrassed about it?

"So what?" I asked, resentful. "Do women cover up in your world? Like Muslim women?"

He laughed.

"You were the one who was afraid to go skinny dipping," he said, and if possible I blushed even more deeply.

"Yeah, so?"

"So," he said, as if explaining to a small child, "in my world we are comfortable with our bodies. Our parents often walk around our homes naked because there’s nothing wrong with being naked and if it’s warm enough not to need clothes, then why have them? We start having sex just after puberty, because that’s what puberty is for – you wouldn’t be given a sex drive unless you were supposed to use it."

"So you’re a bunch of ho’s," I snapped. "At least we don’t run around naked all the time."

"No, you run around selectively naked," he countered, pointing at my cleavage, which suddenly made me feel way more exposed than I had been at the beach when I hadn’t had a stitch of clothes on.

"When you’re naked," he went on, "you show your body. When you wear something like that –" and he nodded at my cleavage again, "you intentionally draw attention specifically to your breasts, and by wearing push up bras you lift those breasts even higher like they were on a tray of appetizers just waiting for somebody to come by and taste them."

Okay, that one felt way sexier than it should have, probably because of who was saying it.

"Then," he went on, "you wear skin tight short skirts so that the eye is drawn up, up the thighs, all the way to the place between those thighs – "

"Hey!" I objected.

He laughed.

"Oh, I appreciate your beauty," he said, and he said it so naturally that for the first time I actually believed him. He actually thought I was beautiful. I sat stunned at that realization, never mind that he had already been trying to tell me that.

"Doesn’t sound like it," I grumped. "Sounds like you want me either naked or covered with a blanket.

He laughed again.

"If given the choice," he said, and suddenly his voice dropped a half octave, sending a chill up my spine, "I’d take the first choice."

I realized I was breathing heavier now. Damn, why was it so easy for him to make me feel this way? Here we were, having our first argument, and he was driving me crazy with that voice of his, and his innuendos...

"Unless of course," he added, "you were naked and under a blanket… and I was under the blanket with you."

I nearly fell off my patio chair.

"Okay, so you’re single," he said, shifting gears and leaving me panting in his wake. "But let’s say you had a boyfriend."

He had to know that that was exactly what I wanted and that I wanted him to be that boyfriend – no, my lover. And then I thought of Kawille and felt guilty because for just a moment I actually hated her.

"If you had a boyfriend," he repeated, as if trying to bring me back to point, "Would you stop wearing your blouses so low and your skirts so high?"

I hesitated. He was maddening with these damned questions of his. All I wanted to do was to get back to the part where he appreciated my beauty and wanted to get naked under a blanket with me. I didn’t want to have to think about things and figure things out.

"You being an incredibly beautiful, sexy, desirable girl," he said, and every one of those words hit me like a trip hammer, a trip hammer that then turned into a warm embrace sending chills through me, "shouldn’t be a… " He thought about it while I examined that face of his, his eyes, that jaw… those full lips… "A handicap," he finally said.

I intentionally leaned back, trying to get further from him, to lessen his overwhelming influence over me. "Handicap?" I said.

"It shouldn’t make you less of a person, but that seems to be the way you do it in your world. In my world, a woman begins by being a human being who has as much value as she gives – if she works hard, she’s honored for being a hard worker. If she’s smart, she’s honored for being smart and she’s asked to help – with working or with solving problems or planning things. If she happens to be beautiful, well… then she’s smart and a hard worker and beautiful, so she’s even more valuable than ever, and her beauty never gets in the way of her intelligence or ability to work hard. It’s… an extra. Her beauty adds to everything else that she is, it doesn’t replace it."

"But not here?" I said, and I was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel of his argument.

"It doesn’t seem like it. But then… if you wear those kinds of clothes, do you think that the people who see you will think about your intelligence and work ethic?"

"Or just my boobs," I said, and brought a hand to my mouth in surprise at myself.

He didn’t laugh, and I liked him for that.

"Not that that’s a bad thing to think about," he said softly and I could have hit him at that moment for throwing me so far off balance again. "Just… not all the time," he added. "And not instead of other things. Like the kindness in your eyes. Or the way your smile transforms you from beautiful too absolutely stunning. Or the way you say things, with intelligence, but also with concern for how your words affect others."

He suddenly reached out and put his palm against the left side of my face and I automatically leaned my head against his hand, feeling dizzy at his touch. I thought back to how he had looked on the beach before the attack, his muscular physique, the way those muscles moved when he walked, but also… the tear on his face when he had looked up at me from where he was squatting on the sand when I reached the other shore.

He laughed. "I haven’t seen one man walking around with his penis hanging out of his pants, wondering why people don’t take him seriously, or while trying to explain a mathematical theorem or just get a job done."

"But here I am," I said, laughing with him now, "hanging my boobs out – "

"And expecting me to think about what you’re saying instead of what you’re showing."

I hated myself for it, but I wanted to lean forward at that moment, to show him even more of my cleavage, but thankfully I resisted – barely, no pun intended. Instead, I latched onto what he had said a few seconds before.

"Speaking of mathematical theorems," I said, daintily dabbing at my moist forehead. Damn, we were outside in the fresh night air, why did it seem so hot?

He hesitated, and I realized that he had to pull himself back from the edge too, and I smirked. At least I wasn’t the only one.

He smiled -- at himself, I think, and then nodded. "Magic spells are like math equations."

I waited, still gathering myself, still slowly, carefully, and reluctantly backing away from that cliff we had both been racing toward during our conversation.

His smile widened, and I saw now that he had pulled back too, and that the conversation was now no longer on dangerous ground, although to be honest I think that as long as he was within reach we were in some danger. A delicious, tantalizing danger.

"It’s more than just that," he said, thinking about it now, trying to frame it in a way I would understand. "It’s like – a lock. The spell is like the combination to a lock, except that the combination keeps changing."

I shook my head. "I don’t understand."

"Imagine a room full of locks – no, a world full of locks. Everywhere you turn, there are locks, and behind those locks are things of value and power and beauty and wisdom. And to get at those things, you have to know the combination to the locks."

"But the combinations are always changing," I said. I was really trying hard not to notice his wonderfully sharp jaw line as he spoke, or the way his full lips caressed his words into existence…

Damn. What… is… wrong… with me?

He nodded. "The combinations are spells. The things behind the locks are the effects of those spells. The magic: Wealth, love, fear, pain." He paused. "Sometimes death."

I felt a surge of fear and remembered how the disfigured man on the beach had looked, lying dead on the sand.

He thought a second, and then closed his eyes and smiled, as if recalling a pleasant memory. I suddenly realized that as amazing as it was to see him naked on that beach, and as sexy as it had been, as much desire as it had created in me, this moment, seeing him with his eyes closed, his lips curved upward in that little smile, wondering what he was thinking about, was more intimate than any nudity could be. I realized suddenly, and it startled me, that although I had been falling in lust with this boy – this man… that I was falling in love with him too. It amazed me that he did not realize what I was feeling.

"I do know what you’re feeling," he said quietly, and opened those piercing and yet somehow cloudy green eyes, staring at me and scaring the bejeebers out of me too. "But you asked me a question," he added, "and I thought you wanted the answer."

I didn’t know what to say.

"We can go off that cliff together," he said, startling me again. Was he reading my every single thought? "Or we can take it slow, so that we know it’s the right thing to do."

I stared, really not knowing what to do. I was suddenly afraid because my realization about how much I loved Jo-Bri made everything seem scary.

"Take it slow, " I said, nearly choking on the words, because slow was not how I wanted to take it.

He leaned forward, sliding off his chair so that he was kneeling beside mine, and he took my face so gently in his huge hands and pulled me to him, kissing me and I actually wondered if I was going to pass out, the feelings were so intense, both the sexual ones and the emotional ones. When he released me, figuratively and literally, I realized my hands were clenching the arms of the chair. My lips tingled – as did other parts of me.

He stared into my eyes and I felt like I was one big corny stereotype, because yes, I really did feel as if I were falling into those eyes. I could say nothing. I wanted to say something – everything, but I couldn’t. I realized I was stunned – literally.

"Kawille," I finally managed, and cursed myself. Why did I always have to bring up her name? Because until that issue is addressed, I told myself reluctantly, we can’t move forward.

He nodded, looking down, obviously thinking of her. Finally he looked back up at me.

"She’s always with me," he said and my heart sank. "Are you okay with both of you being in my heart?" he asked, and then smiled. "It’s a big heart, I promise," he said, "with lots of room for both of you."

I felt fear then, and didn’t really know why, though I could guess – I had never faced anything this… big… before. Even if it was a good thing – an incredibly, unbelievably good thing, it was still overwhelming in magnitude. But, as my father would sometimes say, ‘my mother didn’t raise any fool

"Yes," I heard myself say.

He nodded.

"But slow," he said, and sat back in his seat, but not before trailing his fingers along my arm and wreaking havoc inside of me with that simple skin-to-skin gesture. There are many different kinds of magic.

"Math," I said, barely able to speak now, wondering what I had just committed myself too, while wondering how I had managed to be given a gift of this magnitude, a chance at something I couldn’t even have dreamed of three weeks before. Okay, maybe I had dreamed of it, but how often do those kinds of dreams come true?

"Math," he said, smiling, and I realized he was staring at my lips. He was remembering how they felt against his, and I laughed.

"What?" he said, still smiling.

"Oh," I replied coyly, "I was just reading your mind."

"Good," he said, sending another thrill through me. None of the amazing spells I had seen him weave were anywhere near as powerful as the simple words he used to so easily make me feel dizzy and flushed.

"Math!" I snapped, laughing, in mock exasperation.

He nodded.

"Now," he said, picking up from where he had left off before the kiss and before he had actually allowed me into his heart right beside Kawille. I silently thanked her, as if she had actually spoken up and given me permission to love her man. Maybe she had.

"Now," he repeated, and laughed, still a little rocky himself and I liked it that he could be affected by it, and not be invulnerable to my spells either. "Imagine all these locks, with all those constantly changing combinations, and all the good, powerful things behind those locks, and then imagine that it’s raining numbers."

"Raining numbers," I said, as much to try to stabilize and focus myself as anything else. I had to admit, it was a wonderful imagery – raining numbers.

He nodded again. "The numbers raining down on you are reality."

"I don’t understand," I said, and he held up a hand, smiling patiently.

"I’ve seen in your mind and read in your books, that physicists believe the world to be made up of atoms and even smaller particles. What seems to us to be solid is actually made up of these little particles vibrating and racing around each other, always moving and not at all solid. But they seem solid to us.

I nodded. That much I understood.

"They actually go beyond that, they think that everything is actually energy shifting in and out of matter."

"Quantum physics," I said, surprising myself. Maybe I’d been paying more attention in science class than I thought.

Jo-Bri nodded. "Yes," he said and glanced at the patio table beside him. "In fact some quantum physicists believe that this table exists only while we’re here to see it. When we leave, it returns to the big energy field that’s reality, and comes back into matter only when we return, and only because we expect that table to be there, so our expectations in essence create the table."

"Or at least turn it from energy to matter in that particular form," I said.

He stared at me. "You see, even that amazing cleavage of yours can’t hide that even more amazing brain."

I blushed again. I had forgotten how I was dressed and now was aware of it again. Was I imagining things or was the evening air getting cooler, because suddenly I felt nearly naked. I nearly laughed at the thought that parts of me were responding exactly as if it were cold.

"But there is something even behind the energy, and that’s the organizing principle of it all."

I tilted my head.

"Damn," he said, laughing, "how do you do that?"

"What?" I asked, puzzled.

"Up your cute quotient through the roof just by tilting your head that way."

I laughed.

"My ‘cute quotient?’" I asked. I had titled my head without even thinking about it and I wondered when I had learned that doing that made me more "cute."

"Anyway," Jo-Bri said and I could tell from his smile that he was enjoying this as much as I was. In fact, I realized, this was foreplay. I remembered a line from a movie, "If this is foreplay, I’m a dead man." If just talking like this was foreplay, would I be able to survive actual sex with this man? I couldn’t wait to replace out, because even if it did kill me, what a way to go.

"Okay," he said, laughing at himself, and I wondered if he were still reading my thoughts, "mathematics is the organizing principle behind energy and matter -- behind reality."

"So when we’re looking at a chair, we’re actually seeing energy mathematically organized into a pattern.”

He nodded. "That’s how we see it, anyway. It’s how I was taught how to see it by my father, and he was taught how to see it by his."

"Okay," I said, happy that the topic was interesting enough to get my mind back on track – or mostly anyway, "so how does this relate to spells?"

"Well, let’s get back to it raining numbers," he said. "So to us, as wizards, it’s like we’re standing in the rain, and it’s raining numbers, and we’re surrounded by locks and each lock has an ever-changing combination, and we have to figure out the combination to any lock we want to open. But, it’s more than that. You see, the combinations aren’t changing randomly. They’re changing in reaction to the particular numbers that are raining down at that moment at that point in space."

"I’ve got a headache," I said, and cursed myself silently for saying it, because it wasn’t true. It was a "girly" thing to say like "oh, can you change this tire for me," or "this is so heavy, can you lift it?" or "I’m a girl, so I’m not good with numbers." I had to admit, there was a payoff to that kind of forced stupidity, it got boys to do whatever we wanted them to, it made us less threatening and practically forced boys to notice us, help us, fawn over us and, if we wanted them to, got them to want to take care of us and ask us out on dates.

I stared. What a… stupid way of living life! Hang a lot of skin out there for boys to see, then pretend to be helpless and we got whatever we want, except that we’re stuck acting like stupid sexpots for the rest of our lives.

"Do you really have a headache?" Jo-Bri asked, looking concerned.

I laughed. Okay, so maybe it did work, but… I didn’t want that to be my relationship to this guy, I didn’t want him to see me as that – boobs and bootie and a lot of cute little helplessness.

"No," I said. "Go on. This is fascinating. So how do you figure out the right spell to say?"

He studied my face a moment longer, making sure I was okay, and then went on. "Part of it is just feeling the… ‘atmosphere,’" he said. "How hard is it raining numbers? What patterns can you see in the numbers that are falling all around you?"

"Do you actually see numbers?"

He shook his head. "No. You… feel them, kind of."

"Like you feel humidity? Or heat?"

He laughed in delight. "Exactly. And just the way you decide what kind of clothes you’re going to wear depending on how hot or humid it feels, you decide what spells to cast depending on the type of numbers that are ‘raining’ down around you. It’s almost like… ‘feeling’ color. The numbers have almost a type of ‘color’ to them as well as a pattern, and you judge that, you sense that, and you weave spells that will work in that atmosphere, in that place, at that time, and if you’re lucky – "

"Lucky?"

He shrugged. "Skilled," he corrected, "though luck sometimes plays a part in it."

"Okay," I said, narrowing my eyes, getting into it, both saddened and relieved that we had left that other stuff behind, or at least moved it to one side for a bit, "so the guy on the beach came toward you, firing on all cylinders, blasting you and us with what looked like energy."

"I could tell from that that he was either a bad wizard or that he was hurt or distracted somehow."

"Why? He nearly killed us, nearly killed you."

Jo-Bri nodded. "He was like an untrained gunman with a machine gun, spraying everything around him, hoping to hit a worthwhile target. He’s still dangerous, but far less dangerous than a trained sniper who might have only one bullet in his gun, but was expert at judging wind speed and distance."

"Numbers again."

Jo- Bri nodded. "Numbers. I remember facing Hodon, and I was caught by surprise."

I tensed up, thinking of Jo-Bri in danger, and reminded of Hodon’s imminent arrival and seemingly limitless threat to all of us.

"I blasted him with energy just the way that the wizard on the beach did to me. It bought me a few seconds and allowed me to escape, but it also nearly killed me. I was using my own body’s energy and firing outward at Hodon, and it was like ripping chunks of flesh from my body and throwing them at him, hoping it would clunk him in the head and knock him out before I ended up pulling so much flesh off me that I killed myself."

"You could have torn so much energy out of yourself that you died?" I asked, worried.

He nodded. "It’s an amateur way to use magic. Or a panicked one. I panicked. My father would have scolded me. But it was all I could manage. Hodon had killed Kawille – "

I felt a jab of fear, but forced it down. She was my roommate now, living with me in Jo-Bri’s heart, and I needed to love her because Jo-Bri loved her.

"He had wizards and soldiers all around him. I was surrounded."

"How did you escape?"

He stared at me.

"I told you about my village," he said, and I nodded, feeling the sadness in his voice – his sadness had somehow become mine. "Just before Hodon got to our village, when we knew he had his army with him, and that we could not defeat him, my father – "

Jo-Bri paused then, as if considering whether to go on. I stayed quiet. It had to be his decision alone.

"There is a thing called merging."

Some stupid joke about us merging came to mind and I tossed it aside, disappointed with myself.

"It’s the merging of human energies or spirits into a single body," he said and I marveled at the reverence in his voice. "Because we knew that we couldn’t escape as an entire village without being run down by Hodon, his wizards and soldiers, and because we knew that even my father, as powerful as he was, couldn’t defeat Hodon and his wizards and warriors together…"

I gasped.

He stared at me. "You understand?" he asked, amazed.

"They…" I shook my head, feeling dizzy again, but for a completely different reason now. "They’re inside you?"

He narrowed his eyes, studying me now, and I realized he was surprised. He finally nodded. "When Hodon attacked me and I responded by ripping energy out of my own body to defend myself, either my father or mother shouted a spell out at me, and I shouted it out loud without even thinking about it, maybe thinking that it would be a spell I could attack Hodon with."

"Your mother was a wizard too?" I asked.

"A witch," he corrected. "But the spell didn’t attack Hodon," he went on, "it took me away to another place, somewhere far away, a safe place."

I saw his jaw muscles flex.

"That made you angry," I said, feeling… I don’t know what.

Was this what it was like to be a girl, really, to feel so deeply that when someone you loved hurt, you hurt as well? Or did guys feel this way too? It didn’t seem like they did. It was if boys were… tone deaf, emotionally. Like they couldn’t feel the same emotions we did, in the same way. Or maybe they just hide it better.

"It’s why the men here love you women so much," Jo-Bri said, obviously reading my mind again. "They can’t see the colors, so they love you for seeing the colors for them. They can’t hear the birds, but they can watch you smile while you listen to all the lovely twittering. They can’t afford to be soft and vulnerable and open, so they risk their lives to keep you safe so that you can feel all those things for them, and show them what it’s like even if they can never feel safe enough to be that way or feel those things themselves."

I shook my head. First of all, he was reading my mind, and that’s weird enough. But then he was explaining to me what it was like to be a girl, a female, a woman, whatever, and he was explaining it better than I could have.

"It made you angry," I said, not really ready to tackle the issues he was bringing up, and not wanting to lose the thread we had created here, or to let him off the hook, emotionally.

"Yes," he said, nodding. "Hodon had killed Kawille. I wanted my revenge. My mother – or father, I couldn’t tell which, had taken me away, for my own good. They’d saved my life, but… it wasn’t what I had wanted at that particular moment."

"He would have destroyed you," I said.

"I would have fought, I would have taken him with me," he said stubbornly.

"No," I said. "Because how could you read the rain through all that hatred?"

He looked startled.

"The numbers," I said, thinking maybe he didn’t understand me. "How could you read the rain of numbers to make the right spell – "

"I understood what you said," he said gently, staring at me. "I just…"

"What?" I said, feeling self-conscious.

"You’re right. I wouldn’t have been able to read the rain."

The way he said it made it sound so profound, but I realized they were my words, and that they had affected him.

He tilted his head, studying me.

"What?" I blurted out, uncomfortable.

He slid off his chair and knelt in front of me. I stared at him, wondering what the heck was going on. Was he going to kiss me again? I was certainly okay with that.

He gently placed his massive hands on either side of my head.

"Close your eyes," he said softly and, without questioning it in the least, I complied, realizing how much I trusted this man. My man.

I saw nothing, at first, and then the darkness in my mind shimmered slightly, then more. What was I seeing?

"Numbers," I suddenly said, gasping.

"Yes," he said.

I didn’t open my eyes, but kept watching as the numbers rained down around me, shimmering and blinking, but when I tried to identify individual numbers they disappeared, so that I knew they were numbers, recognized them as numbers, but couldn’t "read" them, couldn’t tell which numbers they were, what sequence they were in –

"That’s okay," Jo-Bri said.

I opened my eyes, reluctantly, because the numbers were fascinating, almost hypnotic.

"You’re a witch," he said simply.

He removed his hands from me, and I resisted the incredibly strong urge to grab those hands and put them back on my face, they were so warm and strong. He sat back onto his chair and stared at me.

"I can’t read the rain," I said, and laughed, but it was almost a sob because I really wanted to read it and felt… empty in a way, that I had not been able to.

"You will, I think," he said.

"How could I be a witch?" I asked, and then laughed. "And I hope you meant that in a good way."

He smiled. "I came to your world and was able to perform my spells," he said, "so it’s obvious that magic is possible here. Your people and mine are alike – "

"Give or take two feet of height," I said, and laughed some more.

"So why shouldn’t one of you be able to perform that magic too?"

"But what are the odds?" I asked. "You come into our world and the first person you meet is a witch?"

"The first person I met was a wizard," he corrected. "And he nearly killed me. You were the second person I met and you…"

He smiled at me in a way that made me feel warm all over, and it actually made me feel like crying.

"You saved me," he finished.

"But… a witch? Don’t you mean a… potential witch? I mean, it’s not like I can cast a spell or anything."

"Lady," Jo-Bri said, imitating a New York accent – badly, I might add, "I’m still reeling from the spell you cast on me."

I stared at him dryly.

He put up his hands in defense. "Sorry."

"No, seriously," I said, feeling both afraid and a little excited. "Do you think I can be a witch?"

"Well," he replied, "anyone can be a witch, theoretically, just like anyone can be a baseball player or swimmer. But some people have more… natural ability than others. I’ve never met a non-witch who could read the rain."

"I couldn’t read it. The numbers just kept… disappearing whenever I tried to read them."

He laughed again. "You have no idea," he said. "Just to see the rain, and to know that they are numbers…" He shook his head.

"But seriously," I said, "why would you replace the only witch in the world on your first day in this world? Isn’t that a bit of a coincidence?"

He shrugged. "There are no coincidences," he replied. "If I found you it was because I was supposed to replace you."

"The numbers dictated it," I said, skeptically.

"Maybe," he replied. "All I know is that here we are, we feel the way we do, and you can read the rain."

I nodded. "Well," I said, "I can see the rain."

"You don’t understand," he said, and now sounded excited.

"What don’t I understand?"

"You’re part of the answer. You’re part of what I need to know and have in order to defeat Hodon."

"Well, unless I’m going to make him fall in love with me too, I don’t see what magic I can use to help you."

"You could make anyone fall in love with you," he said, smiling mischievously. "But more importantly, you see things differently. If there’s a way to beat Hodon, you’ll help me replace it."

He was serious.

"And the others," he said, thoughtful. "They have a role to play too."

"You mean Mike and Scott and the girls?"

He nodded.

"They’re part of the combination," I said.

He looked up at me, startled again. "You see? You understand without even understanding."

"Gee, so I’m what? An idiot savant?"

"In a way," he said, nodding, thoughtful.

I slapped his huge, muscular arm – and hurt my hand doing it.

"What?" I snapped, irritated.

"You’re my idiot savant," he said, mock afraid, and I couldn’t help but laugh, though I’d really wanted to be able to "hold" my anger a bit longer. Idiot savant, I thought, disgustedly.

"You’re not any kind of idiot," he said. "In fact, you might be a genius."

"But why me?" I persisted.

He stopped.

"Think about it," he finally said. "There’s my world, and there’s your world. Somehow the witch sent me from one to the other. Why did she send me to this exact spot on a planet of seven billion people, seven continents, and millions of square miles of area? She didn’t know anything about this world other than it existed. She didn’t know the street names, country names, longitude or latitude. It was like shooting an arrow from the moon toward the earth."

"So why did you end up here? With me?" I liked the sound of that last part.

"Numbers."

"Again with the numbers."

He nodded. "My numbers are generated by my mind, body, spirit, emotions, thoughts, and by my personal and cultural history. For some reason those numbers and the numbers they create and displace, fit better into this specific space and time than any other space and time on this planet."

He reached out and touched my cheek and as always it sent a thrill through me. "I think you had more to do with it than anything else."

"So it’s my fault you’re here?"

He shrugged. "Yours and that tree’s, and the highway I landed on, the car that hit me, the hill I rolled down, maybe even the wizard that came with me into this world of yours."

"But – "

"But you were a big part of it, and I think it’s because you displace space more than most people do."

"Are you saying I’m fat?" I asked. "I mean, all my life I’ve felt like I’m too skinny and now you’re saying I’m fat?"

I put my hands on my hips and pouted. I realized how much I loved playing with him.

He laughed, and that was my reward.

"You have strong numbers," he said, and I touched his smiling lips. "Not fat numbers. It’s how one wizard can tell when another wizard is nearby – the numbers are stronger. And I think it’s part of why I ended up here – I was attracted to your numbers."

I laughed this time. "So… you like my numbers."

He stared, and his smile faded slightly.

"Yes," he said, and his voice was huskier, which only triggered an even stronger response in me. "I do."

We stared at each other, no words necessary, though we both somehow knew the time was not quite right for what we wanted to do. So I took a deep breath to try to center myself and he did the same and seeing each other do that only made us laugh again.

"And now," I said, feeling dizzy, "I need to learn how to read the numbers."

"Not so much the individual numbers," he said, "more the colors and shapes they form. Then you need to match a spell to those colors and shapes so that your spells become the combination to the locks."

"But why do the others figure into it? Mike and the others?"

He shook his head. "I don’t know. But nothing happens by chance. Everything has meaning. They were there, they saw the other wizard, and now they know about us, Hodon, all of it. They’re part of it already, so we can fight that, or ignore them, or we can see how they can help us."

We sat like that for a while.

"It’s pretty scary," I finally said.

He nodded. "But you know, without all of this, the danger, Hodon, even the death of my parents and Kawille, I would not be here. With you."

"No," I said, and didn’t know why I was sure of this, "you would have found me, no matter what."

He stared at me, and then smiled.

"Idiot savant again?" I asked.

He nodded, compressing his lips in mock grimness, but his eyes told me all I needed to know – he loved me. I knew, because numbers don’t lie.