N. D. Wilson - 100 Cupboards

Also by N. D. Wilson Leepike Ridge

N.D.Wilson is a Fellow of Literature at New Saint Andrews College, where he teaches classical rhetoric to freshmen. He is also the managing editor for Credenda/Agenda magazine, a small Trinitarian cultural journal, as well as the author of Leepike Ridge, an adventure novel for young readers. He married a girl stolen from the ocean, and the two of them now live in Idaho with their four children. Thecat was large, used to feeding on the rubbish and scrapings thrown out the kitchen window and occasionally on the also overfed and lazy rats. Thecat was large, used to feeding on the rubbish and scrapings thrown out the kitchen window and occasionally on the also overfed and lazy rats.

He was a tom, black, with a white face and tail. He had no name that he knew of, but someone was calling for him. That someone wanted him. Needed him. He did not usually venture up into the room where the old man sat, the room with the gaping doors and the moon windows. The doors made his spine tingle and his pads cold.

But this time he leapt up the stairs with his belly swinging below him. He passed the cold body of a young wizard sprawled at the top. And then two others, and between them, the body of a dog. Once he was in the throne room, the calling thrilled him, filling his mind and all his senses. And there, standing inside one of the thickly curtained doorways and facing a young man, an orderly still on his feet, was a woman. To the cats mind, she was both old and young, weak and strong.

All-seeing but in need of his wisdom, his sight. He leapt into the womans arms, and she was inside him, his mind was with hers, and then, in a moment, his was gone. What is your name? the woman asked the man. The young man did not look away from her. Monmouth, he said. What is yours? The woman laughed, filling the stone hall with her echoes.

You are not even an apprenticed wizard, and you ask me this? I have fed myself on the lives of your masters who lie cold behind you, and you stand to request my name? She stepped toward him. I do, he said, and did not so much as shift his feet. She stepped even closer, stroking the heavy cats head. Then wake your doddering master Carnassus, and tell him this, if your mouth will hold the words: Nimiane, dread Queen of Endor, last in Niacs line, whose voice destroyed the magic of FitzFaeren, boiled up the sea to shatter the strength of Amram, and laid Merlinis to rest beneath the wood, once bound by Mordecai, Amrams son, has shaken off her chains as her fathers shook off the blood of Adam, and comes to see if an old man remembers vows he made when he was young. New prey waits on the Witch-Dogs. for imagining. for imagining.

Neighbor Cousins for listening. Heather for being. Jim T. for hacking, shaping, sanding, and, eventually, liking.

Henry,Kansas, is a hot town. And a cold town.

It is a town so still there are times when you can hear a fly trying to get through the window of the locked-up antique store on Main Street. Nobody remembers who owns the antique store, but if you press your face against the glass, like the fly, youll see that whoever they are, they dont have much beyond a wide variety of wagon wheels. Yes, Henry is a still town. But there have been tornadoes on Main Street. If the wind blows, its like it wont ever stop. Once its stopped, there seems to be no hope of getting it started again.

There is a bus station in Henry, but it isnt on Main Street. Its one block norththe town fathers hadnt wanted all the additional traffic. The station lost one-third of its roof to a tornado fifteen years ago. In the same summer, a bottle rocket brought the gift of fire to its restrooms. The damage has never been repaired, but the town council makes sure that the building is painted fresh every other year, and always the color of a swimming pool. There is never graffiti.

Vandals would have to drive more than twenty miles to buy the spray paint. Every once in a long while, a bus creeps into town and eases to a stop beside the mostly roofed, bright aqua station with the charred bathrooms. Henry is always glad to see a bus. Such treats are rare. On this day, the day our story begins, bus hopes were high. Mrs. Mrs.

Willis couldnt hold nearly as still as the town. She was brimful of nervous energy and busily stepped on and off the curb as if she were waiting for the bus to take her off to another lifetime of grammar school and jump rope. She had planned to wear her best dress on principleit was the sort of thing her mother would have donebut she had no idea which of her dresses was best, or how to begin the selection process. It was even possible that she didnt have a dress that was best. So she had remained in her sweatpants and T-shirt. She had been canning in her kitchen and looked pleasant despite the faded teal of her pants.

Her face was steam-ruddied and happy, and her brown hair, which had originally been pulled back into a ponytail, had struggled free. On this day, if you got close enough, as her nephew would when hugged, she smelled very strongly of peaches. She was of medium build in every direction, and she was called Dotty by her friends, Dots by her husband, and Mrs. Willis by everyone else. People liked Dotty. They said she was interesting.

They rarely did the same for her husband. They said Mr. Willis was thin, and they didnt just mean physically. They meant thin everywhere and every way. Dotty saw much more than thin, and she liked him. Mrs. Mrs.

Willis stopped her stepping and backed away from the curb. Something was shimmering on the highway. The bus was coming. She nudged Frank and pointed. He didnt seem to notice. The Henry on the bus was not a town in Kansas.

He was simply a twelve-year-old boy on a slow bus from Boston, waiting to meet an aunt and uncle he had not seen since the age of four. He was not looking forward to reuniting with Aunt Dotty and Uncle Frank. Not because he in any way disliked them, but because he had led a life that had taught him not to look forward to anything. The bus stopped amid a shower of metallic grunts. Henry walked to the front, said goodbye to a talkative old woman, and stepped onto the curb into a lungtaste of diesel. The bus lurched off, the taste faded, and he found that he was being held tight by someone rather soft, though not large, and the smell of diesel had been replaced by peaches.

His aunt held him back by the shoulders, her smile faded, and she became suddenly serious. We are both so sorry about your parents, she said. She was diligently eye-wrestling him. Henry couldnt quite look away. But we are very happy youre going to be staying with us. Your cousins are all excited.

Someone patted Henry on the shoulder. He looked up. Yep, Uncle Frank said. He was watching the bus march out the other end of town. The trucks over here, he added, and gestured with his head. Uncle Frank carried Henrys duffel bag while Aunt Dotty escorted him to the truck, one arm tightly wrapped around his shoulder.

It was an old truck. A few decades earlier, it may have been a Ford. Then it had been donated as a shop-class project to Henry High. Uncle Frank bought it at an end-of-the-year fundraiser. The paint was scum brown, the sort that normally hides at the bottom of a pond, attractive only to leeches and easily pleased frogs. The class had not been able to afford the bigger wheels they had dreamed of, so they had simply lifted the truck body as high as the instructor would allow.

The overall effect was one of startling ricketiness. Henrys bag was thrown into the truck bed. Hop in, Uncle Frank said, and pointed in the back. The tailgate doesnt drop, so just stand on the tire there and hoick yourself over. Ill boost you a bit. Henry stood on the tire and teetered for a moment, trying to get one leg over the edge of the truck bed.

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