Boys Life

“One with a lamp on it?”
    “Yes’m.”
    “Want a horn?”
    “That’d be fine,” I said.
    “Want it to be a fast one? Faster’n a cat up a tree?”
    “Yes’m.” I was getting excited now. “I sure do!”
    “Then you’ll have it! Soon as I can get my old self up from here.”
    “That’s awfully nice of you,” Mom said. “We sure appreciate it. But Cory’s father and I can go pick up a bike from the store, if that’s-”
    “Won’t come from a store,” the Lady interrupted.
    “Pardon?” Mom asked.
    “Won’t come from a store.” She paused, to make sure my mother understood. “Store-bought’s not good enough. Not special enough. Young man, you want a real special bicycle, don’t you?”
    “I… guess I’ll take what I can get, ma’am.”
    At this, she laughed again. “Well, you’re a little gentleman! Yessir, Mr. Lightfoot and I are gone put our heads together and see what we can come up with. Does that suit you?”
    I said it did, but in truth I didn’t quite understand how this was going to bring me a brand-new bicycle.
    “Step closer,” the Lady told me. “Come around here real close.”
    Mom let me go. I walked to the side of the bed, and those green eyes were right there in front of me like spirit lamps.
    “What do you like to do besides ride a bicycle?”
    “I like to play baseball. I like to read. I like to write stories.”
    “Write stories?” Her eyebrows went up again. “Lawd, Lawd! We gots us a writer here?”
    “Cory’s always liked books,” Mom offered. “He writes little stories about cowboys, and detectives, and-”
    “Monsters,” I said. “Sometimes.”
    “Monsters,” the Lady repeated. “You gone write about Old Moses?”
    “I might.”
    “You gone write a book someday? Maybe about this town and everybody in it?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    “Look at me,” she said. I did. “Deep,” she said.
    I did.
    And then something strange happened. She began to speak, and as she spoke, the air seemed to shimmer between us with a pearly iridescence. Her eyes had captured mine; I could not look away. “I’ve been called a monster,” the Lady said. “Been called worse than a monster. I saw my momma killed when I wasn’t much older than you. Woman jealous of her gift killed her. I swore I was gone find that woman. She wore a red dress, and she carried a monkey on her shoulder that told her things. Woman’s name was LaRouge. Took me all my life to find her. I’ve been to Lepersville, and I’ve rowed a boat through the flooded mansions.” Her face, through that shimmering haze, had begun to shed its wrinkles. She was getting younger as I stared at her. “I’ve seen the dead walkin’, and my best friend had scales and crawled on her belly.” Her face was younger still. Its beauty began to scorch my face. “I’ve seen the maskmaker. I’ve spat in Satan’s eye, and I’ve danced in the halls of the Dark Society.” She was a girl with long black hair, her cheekbones high and proud, her chin sharp, her eyes fearsome with memories. “I have lived,” she said in her clear, strong voice, “a hundred lifetimes, and I’m not dead yet. Can you see me, young man?”
    “Yes’m,” I answered, and I heard myself as if from a vast distance. “I can.”
    The spell broke, quick as a heartbeat. One second I was looking at a beautiful young woman, and the next there was the Lady as she really was, one hundred and six years old. Her eyes had cooled some, but I felt feverish.
    “Maybe someday you’ll write my life story,” the Lady told me. It sounded more like a command than a comment. “Now, why don’t you go on out and visit with Amelia and Charles while I talk to your momma?”
    I said I would. My legs were rubbery as I walked past Mom to the door. Sweat had crept around my collar. At the door, a thought hit me and I turned back to the bed. “’Scuse me, ma’am?” I ventured. “Do you… like… have anythin’ that would help me pass math? I mean like a magic drink or somethin’?”
    “Cory!” Mom scolded me.
    But the Lady just smiled. She said, “Young man, I do. You tell Amelia to get you a drink of Potion Number Ten. Then you go home and you study hard, harder’n you ever did before. So hard you can do them ’rithmatics in your sleep.” She lifted a finger. “That ought to do the trick.”
    I left the room and closed the door behind me, eager for magic.
    “Potion Number Ten?” Mom asked.
    “Glass of milk with some