After the Rain | Page 6

this was the kind of dark and broken and
smelly street they wanted the city to be returned to, so they'd left it
untouched as an example of what the defenders should be working
towards if they wanted to escape with their lives.

Down the street she ran, and then down an alley and another street. She
stopped running when she came to a dead-end and her chest heaved.
Running had warmed her up a little, but she hadn't had much 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