Free Moonlight & Vines by Charles De Lint

with how she’d been able to enter than for his own personal safety. At the sound of his voice, she looked up in surprise. She laid the book down on her lap, finger inserted between the pages to hold her place.
    â€œYou can see me?” she said.
    â€œJesus.”
    John shook his head. She certainly wasn’t shy. He set his fiddle-casedown by the door. Dropping his jacket down on top of it, he went into the living room and sat down in the chair across the coffee table from her.
    â€œWhat do you think?” he went on. “Of course I can see you.”
    â€œBut you’re not supposed to be able to see me—unless it’s time and that doesn’t seem right. I mean, really. I’d know, if anybody, whether or not it was time.”
    She frowned, gaze fixed on him, but she didn’t really appear to be studying him. It was more as though she was looking into some unimaginably far and unseen distance. Her eyes focused suddenly and he shifted uncomfortably under the weight of her attention.
    â€œOh, I see what happened,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
    John leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. “Let’s try this again. Who are you?”
    â€œI’m your watcher. Everybody has one.”
    â€œMy watcher.”
    She nodded. “We watch over you until your time has come, then if you can’t find your own way, we take you on. They call us the little deaths, but I’ve never much cared for the sound of that, do you?”
    John sighed. He settled back in his chair to study his unwanted guest. She was no one he knew, though she could easily have fit in with his crowd. He put her at about twenty-something, a slender five-two, pixy features made more fey by the crop of short blonde hair that stuck up from her head with all the unruliness of a badly-mowed lawn. She wore black combat boots; khaki trousers, baggy, with two or three pockets running up either leg; a white T-shirt that hugged her thin chest like a second skin. She had little in the way of jewelry—a small silver ring in her left nostril and another in the lobe of her left ear—and no makeup.
    â€œDo you have a name?” he tried.
    â€œEverybody’s got a name.”
    John waited a few heartbeats. “And yours is?” he asked when no reply was forthcoming.
    â€œI don’t think I should tell you.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œWell, once you give someone your name, it’s like opening the door to all sorts of possibilities, isn’t it? Any sort of relationship could develop from that, and it’s just not a good idea for us to have an intimate relationship with our charges.”
    â€œI can assure you,” John told her. “We’re in no danger of having a relationship—intimate or otherwise.”
    â€œOh,” she said. She didn’t look disappointed so much as annoyed. “Dakota,” she added.
    â€œI’m sorry?”
    â€œYou wanted to know my name.”
    John nodded. “That’s right. I—oh, I get it. Your name’s Dakota?”
    â€œBingo.”
    â€œAnd you’ve been . . . watching me?”
    â€œWell, not just you. Except for when we’re starting out, we look out after any number of people.”
    â€œI see,” John said. “And how many people do you watch?”
    She shrugged. “Oh, dozens.”
    That figured, John thought. It was the story of his life. He couldn’t even get the undivided attention of some loonie stalker.
    She swung her boots to the floor and set the book she was holding on the coffee table between them.
    â€œWell, I guess we should get going,” she said.
    She stood up and gave him an expectant look, but John remained where he was sitting.
    â€œIt’s a long way to the gates,” she told him.
    He didn’t have a clue as to what she was talking about, but he was sure of one thing.
    â€œI’m not going anywhere with you,” he