After the Rain | Page 6

to eat except cabbage and cold cereal with water for weeks, and she couldn't run like she used to.
The cold stole back over her. It was full dark, and the blackout curtains on the windows meant that not a sliver of light escaped. The moonless cloudy night made everything as dark as a cave.
Finally, she cried. She hadn't cried since she found out that Reeta had died -- she hadn't even liked Reeta, but to have someone die that soon after your seeing them was scary, like you had almost died, almost.
The wizard came on her there, weeping. He appeared out of the mist carrying a little light the size of a pea that he cupped in his hand to muffle most of the light. He was about her father's age, but with her mother's look of having survived something terrible without having survived altogether. He dressed like it was the old days, in fancy, bright-colored clothes, and he was well-fed in a way that no one else in the city was.
"Hello there," he said. He got down on his hunkers so he could look her in the eye. "Why are you crying?"
Valentine hated grownups who patronized her, and the wizard sounded like he believed that no little girl could possibly have anything real to cry about.
"My dad died in the war today," she said. "In a trench."
"Oh, the American trench-busters," he said, knowingly. "Lots of children lost their daddies today, I bet."
That made her stop crying. Lots of children. Lots of daddies -- fathers, she hated the baby-word "daddy." Mothers, too.
"Let's get you cleaned up, put a coat on you, feed you, and send you home, all right?"
She looked warily at him. She knew all about strange men who offered to take you home. But she had no idea where she was, and she was dark and shivering and couldn't stop.
"My mother is a hero, and a soldier, and she's killed a lot of men," Valentine said.
He nodded. "I shall keep that in mind," he said.
The wizard lived in the old town, in an old building, but inside it was as new as anything she had ever seen. The walls swooped and curved, the furniture was gaily colored and new, like it had just been printed that day. There was so much light -- they'd been saving it at her building. There was so much food! He gave her hamburgers and fizzy elderflower, then steak-frites, then rich dumplings as big as her fist stuffed with goose livers. He had working robots, lots of them, and they scurried after him doing the dishes and tidying and wiping up the slushy footprints.
And when they arrived and he took her coat, old familiar laser-lights played over her, the kind of everywhere-at-once measuring lasers that they used to have at the clothing stores. By the time dinner was done, there were two pairs of fresh trousers, two wooly jumpers, a heavy winter coat, three pairs of white cotton pants (all her pants had gone grey once she'd started having to launder them, rather than get them printed fresh on Sundays) and a --
"A bra?" She gave him a hard look. She had the knife she'd used on the hamburger in her hand. "My mother taught me to kill," she said.
The wizard had a face that looked like he spent a lot of time laughing with it, and so even when he looked scared, he also looked like he was laughing. He held up his hands. "It wasn't my idea. That's just the programming. If the printer thinks you need a bra, it makes a bra."
Leeza had a bra, though Valentine wasn't convinced she needed it. But she had noticed a certain uncomfortable jiggling weight climbing the stairs, hadn't she? Running? She hadn't looked in the mirror in -- well, since the siege, practically.
"There's a bathroom there to change in," he said.
His bathroom was clean and neat and there were six toothbrushes beside the sink in a holder.
"Who else lives here?" she said, coming out in her new clothes. (The bra felt really weird).
"I have a lot of friends who come and see me now and again. I hope you'll come back."
"How come your place is like the war never happened?"
"I'm the wizard, that's why," he said. "I can make magic."
His robots tied up her extra clothes in waterproof grip sheets for her, then helped her into a warm slicker with a hood. "Tell your mother that you met someone from the city who fed you and gave you a change of clothes," he said, holding open the door. He'd explained to her where to go from there to get out to the old shopping street and from there she could manage on her own, especially since he'd given her one of his little