Carrier pigeon, Mike thought, and he hadn’t been kidding when he said that to Scott and Kenny last night about trying to get a hold of Mikael.
Mike climbed the fire escape to the roof of a building in Westside. He’d met Eleanor Bergin once and could tell from Sight that she was a practicing sorceress. She did not use blood. She wasn’t pagan. She believed in mother earth, yes, but she wasn’t a tree-hugging, evangelistic left-wing radical. She was, if anything, a generally normal person.
Except she talked to the fairies that rode her steeds.
Her steeds were located in a coop at the top of the building. Mike brought some sunflower seeds in a large bag as an offering to the birds and Eleanor.
Eleanor was sitting outside of her coop, petting a fat young pigeon when Mike cleared the roof. “Grimaulkin,” she said, with a slightly Spanish accent, “How good to see you. You’ve brought a present?” She rose from the chair, placing the bird to perch on her chair.
“I need a favor,” he said, and presented her with the sunflower seeds.
“How sweet of you.” She kissed the air over both of his cheeks. “What do you need? Remember, I will not give up my children for a sacrifice.”
“No, no, nothing like that. I’m looking for someone.”
“Who, dear?”
“My lover.”
She tilted her head, similar to the birds she cared for. “I do not understand.”
Mike sighed. “My lover, I think, has sequestered himself, for a reason I don’t know. I can’t use my spells because – well, because of certain constraints.”
“You wish my darlings to see if he is all right?”
“Just to check on him. Deliver a message.”
“If you let him free, he will come back to you if he wishes.”
Mike frowned. “He will, I only want to–”
“To tell him you are waiting.” She shook her head. “I will send my children to find him, but I will not deliver a message from you.”
“Why?”
“He must be free to choose.”
“But he loves me!”
“And if you love him, you will allow him to come to you in his own time.”
Mike wanted to take the sunflower seeds back and storm off the roof. But his concern for Mikael overrode his anger. “All right,” he said.
“Good. I will speak with Brightlock who will ride with Pipper. Wait here.”
She walked back to the coop, and soon came out with a simple brown pigeon. She tossed him to the air, and he flew up, then doubled back and flew northwest. Mike watched as it disappeared to the horizon.
“Wait with me,” she said. “Do not be angered.”
“I want him to know I love him,” Mike said, staring out at the spot where he last saw the bird. Tears formed in his eyes from either the sunlight or his own emotion, he wasn’t sure which. “I want him to know I’ll wait until the end of the world and beyond for him. I want him to know – I won’t die.”
Eleanor put an arm around his shoulder and looked out at the distance. “He knows, my dear. He knows.”