Free Quiet Magic by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

hands quickly, as if
switching gears. Rob noticed that they were competent looking
hands, with a stain here and there that might be new paint or an
old tattoo.
    "I think that Jeffrey does not find
school easy," she was saying when Rob brought his attention back to
her bright face. "In fact he will not find it easy. I was afraid of
that when Madelaine accepted her grant and went off to do research
for a year and a half. She had been teaching Jeffrey and Phoenix at
home. None of the rest of us is a teacher--at least, not as
recognized by this state. No tutors were to be found. So Jeffrey
must go to school--and Phoenix when her leg is healed..." She
smiled at him.
    "The maiden aunt rambles. But the
point is, Mr. Davis, that Jeffrey has been taught much that I feel
is not taught in the first grade of this school. In other cases,
Madelaine came to the knowledge by a different path..." She
stopped, eyes focused beyond the tips of her outstretched
fingers.
    "You're saying," Rob said slowly,
"that Jeffrey is in a new environment, probably being taught things
he already knows and that he'll be bored."
    She smiled, eyes still hazy in
thought. "But he's a polite boy, so he won't say anything. Only
feel ready to scream with frustration and strangeness and noise."
She lifted her eyes to his.
    "He'll need his candle more than ever,
to remind him who he is, who we are. To remind him that there is a
place that is not strange and people who do not ignore him,
perhaps, because he is only a little boy.
    Rob sighed, leaned back in his chair
and regarded nothing with great intensity for a time. Finally, he
said, "Is there some kind of a substitute? A--I don't know--a
flashlight? A painting?" He looked at her, unaware of the
admiration lighting his face. "You're a painter, aren't you? Why
not paint him a picture of a candle?"
    "Paint a picture?" She frowned, then
suddenly stood, radiant, holding her hand out to him. Confused, he
rose, took it and stood holding it tightly in her own. She did not
pull free.
    "Mr. Davis, you have hit upon the
solution. Not a painting, exactly--but no playing with fire in
defiance of the rules, either!" She smiled and disengaged her hand;
frowned again briefly. "What day is it?"
    "Day? Thursday," Rob said, content
that she felt some sort of compromise had been reached.
    "Thursday." She laid her hand on his
sleeve. "You must allow us a day's grace, Mr. Davis. I think that
by Monday all will be harmony, as Uncle Tulaine would say. In the
meantime, I will pick Jeffrey up and take him to lunch tomorrow--if
that's not against school regulations?'
    "No--here, I'll write a note for
Jeffrey's teacher." He scrawled a line on his notepad, signed it
"R. Davis," and handed the slip to Elmira Brown, maiden aunt. She
folded it carefully and placed it in the pocket of her
jeans.
    "Thank you, Mr. Davis," she said as he
opened the door for her. She moved away a step, then turned back to
him. "You should come to dinner on Sunday. Around seven." And she
was gone.
    Rob shut his door on Mrs. Jenson's
look of speculation.
    * * *
    IT WAS AN old house, and a large one;
the roof overhung the second story to form a porch around the
entire perimeter--one side of which had been converted to a
sunroom. Wisteria and ivy grew where they would. There was a walnut
tree by the gate.
    Rob stood for a moment, regarding the
house, the flagstone walkway, the fence and gate of black
wrought-iron. Carefully, he worked the latch and let himself in,
making sure the gate closed firmly behind him. He walked the
flagged path slowly, breathing in the smells of damp grass and
growing things. His feet found the steps to the porch and he
mounted.
    At the front door he paused,
confronted with choice: a heavy brass knocker in the shape of a
man's beak-nosed face or a cord attached to a ceramic bell
suspended from a roofbeam.
    He rang the bell.
    There was a moment when he feared no
one would answer. Then there was a creak in the hallway beyond and
the door swung open to