“It’s important to know about the venue for big shows.”
“Really?”
“You need to think about how the magic will look to the audience and what you can do to make it easier to take in. To be a pro is to always have your audience in mind. I need to be able to select from multiple patterns to answer what best matches the crowd on the day of the parade.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Spberry… Are you listening?”
“Sure, sure.”
My empty responses must’ve ticked off Sophie, because she karate-chopped my rib cage, which made me yelp in pain.
“What are you so distracted by?”
“Oh, you know. Maybe if I keep my eyes peeled, I can find Marie’s love interest.”
“Even if he’s here, he might not be wearing the same jacket she told us about. There are countless big men in mountain jackets out here today.”
“That’s true.”
“You should stop trying to do something so pointless.”
“We won’t know if it’s pointless until we try, though.” As I talked back to Sophie, she abruptly stopped in her tracks. “What’s up?”
“That…”
Sophie pointed to the crowd, and standing a head above everyone else was a large man in an orange mountain jacket, carrying a big backpack. He had his hood on and was walking through the busy street.
Wait, is that actually him?
Maybe?
You know, I think it is.
It definitely is.
If that ain’t him, then he ain’t here!
A meeting of multiple tiny Meg Raspberrys convened in my mind, reaching a unanimous decision. Despite my certainty, I had no concrete proof. It just seemed too coincidental for someone who perfectly matched the description to appear like this.
This is fate.
“Follow that man, Sophie!”
As soon as I spoke, we sprang into action, trailing the man. Unfortunately, the dense crowd had other plans, making it nearly impossible for us to push through. At this rate, we were going to lose him.
“How about this?!”
I scrambled up a stone wall bordering the street and perched on top. The passersby all turned to stare as I extended my arm, pointing directly at the man in the bulky orange jacket.
“You, sir, in the big orange jacket! Stop right there!”
Startled by my booming voice, the man looked over, then began to run away.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going? Come back here!”
I took off along the stone wall, giving chase. My sense of balance was excellent, and I had always been more physically fit than magically skilled. I was determined not to let him escape.
Noticing my balancing act on top of the wall, the man cut through the crowd and emerged into an empty alleyway. I was going to need to cross the road if I was going to catch him now.
“Not so fast, backpack boy!”
I focused my magic into my finger and wrote a formula onto my feet that allowed me to ignore gravity. I used Sophie’s method to cast my magic circle. Using a formula in my mind, I actualized it with my hands. This was something I’d figured out how to do during the Portal Ceremony.
My body became weightless. With a leap of faith, I soared over the crowd, floating through the air. I maintained my momentum until I reached the opposite end of the street, where I canceled my spell and landed firmly on the ground.
“Wait up!”
Watching the poor man flee for his life, I broke into a full-body sprint, fixated on his back. I gracefully leaped over a toppled trashcan in the alleyway and dodged a waltzing tabby cat. I was completely in the zone.
The only problem was that this alleyway led to another main road. If he reached it before me, I might lose him for good. As I racked my brain for a solution, I realized we were nearing a wall.
A wall? When did they build that?
Unaware of my confusion, the man ran down the alley, the one with a dead end.
Just as I suspected, the man was trapped with no escape route. Breathing heavily, I wiped some drool from my mouth as I closed in.
“Huff… Huff… Geh-heh-heh… I have you now.”
His back was against the wall. I slowly advanced toward him, only to be snapped out of my hunter’s trance by a voice behind me. “Spberry.”
“Sophie! Where were you?”
“I went around and set up an illusionary wall.”
“Oh.”
“It would’ve been easier to catch him if you weren’t chasing him like that.”
“Oh.”
This revelation solved the mystery of the random wall; it was Sophie’s creation. But when and how did she manage to get ahead of us?
You Seven Sages are built different, aren’cha?
The man, clearly shaken and looking out of place with his imposing figure, stared at us.
“Wh-who are you two?”
“You’s got nothing to worry about, see? Just come here with us for a bit, see?”
“I-I’d really rather not…”
“Lookie here, Sophie. We’s got ourselves a wise guy. Let’s see how tough he is without the hood!”
Reaching out, I removed the man’s hood and revealed his identity—leaving both me and Sophie utterly speechless.
“Don’t look at me!”
“You…”
His face was covered in fluffy fur, with a long snout and sharp eyes.
He was a wolfman.
“I was hiding my face because I didn’t want anyone to find out…”
Once things had calmed down, we brought the wolfman to the side of the road, where he quietly confided in us. The reason he hid his face and identity was because he didn’t want anyone to know he was from another world.
“Why would you want to hide your face? There are all sorts of people from all over the worlds here today. I mean, we passed a kobold, an elf, and a lizardman just while we were chasing you.”
“I’ve been coming to this town ever since I was little, but one time, some of the townsfolk thought I was a real wolf. I do this so I don’t scare them.”
“So that’s why you ran away from us?”
“Well, no… I ran away from you out of fear, due to the bloodthirsty look in your eyes.”
“Was I really that scary…?”
I turned to Sophie, who quietly confirmed with a nod.
“You had the eyes of a predator staring down its prey. The eyes of a killer.”
“That’s odd. I’d intended to show a smile of love and mercy.”
“Maybe you should hold those emotions back. It was quite horrifying.”
“You really should keep some comments to yourself…”
“So why were you two trying to get my attention?”
Oh yeah. I’d almost forgotten the reason we’d chased him down in the first place.
“We actually have a friend who’s been looking for you.”
“For me…?”
“That being said, we had no way of knowing it was you without talking to you. Do you remember helping a young woman during last year’s Celebration of Worlds?”
“Ah…”
The wolfman reacted to that. I turned to Sophie; it looked like we had our guy.
“Does that sound familiar to you?”
“I helped out a girl who was feeling sick last year. We had a chat and watched the fireworks together.”
“The person you helped is looking for you.”
“Why’s that…?”
“Well, that should be obvious. Because she wants to see you again. She’s never forgotten about you.”
“Really? That girl…” The wolfman brightened for a moment, but then he shook his head as if to shake himself back to reality and quietly murmured, “I can’t. I can’t meet her. I know she’ll be disappointed to find out the person she’s been wanting to see all this time is some hideous wolf.”
“Why would she…”
…think that? I couldn’t bring myself to finish my sentence. It was true—a small portion of the population found people from other worlds scary.
“It’s for the best.”
“But is it best for you?”
“What…?”
“It sounds to me like you haven’t forgotten about her, either. Just now, you looked pretty excited for a split second.”
The wolfman’s expression darkened.
“I mean, I thought she seemed like a wonderful, mature, gentle person. I’d like to meet up and chat with her again, if I could.”
“Then why not now that you can? Why give up?”
“It’s better this way.”
“No it isn’t!”
I ended up yelling at the man, which surprised both him and Sophie. I continued, though, poking his chest with my finger.
“Why is everyone so willing to give up?! ‘Oh, it might not work’—you won’t know until you try! You were the one who approached her last year! And she liked the time she spent with you! And now you have a chance to meet her again! So why toss it away ’cause you’re anxious?!”
“That’s easy to say, but…”
“Fine! How about this? I’ll tell her we found you, but you’re a wolfman. If she…Marie says yes, will you agree to meet up with her?”
“Marie?”
“That’s her name.”
“So her name was Marie…”
The wolfman’s gloomy expression brightened once more with a warm smile. It was clear he had feelings for Marie, even if he denied it.