Page 26 of Shelf-Made Man
“It’s something Aunt Virginia told me when I visited her last. Right before she gave me the box withyou inside, in fact. It meansyou only live once. She was advising me to crawl out of my shell and live more fully.”
Tobias maneuvered along the streets, carefully avoiding lost tourists and foolhardy pedestrians. He’d been to Aunt Virginia’s condo only once in the past decade and had never driven there himself. But with his troll skills, he inherently knew the way. He wondered idly whether his magical tracking abilities took into account current road conditions the way Google Maps did, or whether he was simply routed the shortest way. That might be interesting to experiment with, someday. If he didn’t die first.
“Tobias, may I ask you a question?”
“Of course.” Tobias was a little distracted, watching people hanging off a cable car that was chugging up a hill. How did the city’s lawyers let them get away with that?
“You said that when I was entrusted to you, I was, erm, a doll.”
“Yeah. I mean, more of a figurine, I guess? Like a really nice Christmas decoration.”
Alfie chuckled. “I’m glad I was of some use, at least. But I was wondering—how did you transform me back to life?”
“I didn’t. I left you on my shelf and then the next daycrash! There you were on my living room floor. Bleeding.” A small wave of nausea hit him at thememory.
“And no wizards entered your house in the interim?”
Tobias shook his head. “Not that I know of. I don’t actually know any wizards.”
Alfie was silent for a few moments. “That’s puzzling.”
There was a lot of that going around in Tobias’s life lately. He turned a corner, narrowly missing a jaywalking man with several Macy’s bags in one hand and a cell phone in the other.
“Are you sure you didn’t do anything to reanimate me?” asked Alfie. “Think carefully, please.”
Tobias tried to remember every event from the moment he’d opened the shoebox, but it wasn’t easy. “I unwrapped you and put you on the shelf. That was about it. The next day I worked until dinner. Then THC snickerdoodles.”
“What is that?”
“Cookies. With, uh, cannabis.” Then he added, in case Alfie didn’t know, “A relatively mild psychoactive drug.”
He felt a little embarrassed, although he didn’t use the drug often or irresponsibly and didn’t think that there was anything immoral about getting stoned now and then. It just felt sort of sad that he was eating weed cookies all by himself when most other people were out celebrating the season with friends or family.
Alfie put a hand on Tobias’s arm. “You combined a sweet pastry with a mind-opening substance?”
“Um, yeah?”
“Many of our important magic rituals begin that way. What did you do next?”
They were at a seemingly endless red light behind a long line of other cars, which gave Tobias a chance to think. “TV. Legos. That’s about—” He stopped and felt his cheeks heat even before he described his next actions. “I kinda admitted to you—doll you, I mean—that I was lonely. And… I said I wished you were real.”
Alfie gasped and jerked his hand away as if he’d been burned.
“What’s wrong?” Tobias turned his head to see Alfie staring at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. His face was even paler than usual, but the tips of his ears had gone bright red. “Alfie?” Tobias was ready to pull over despite the horrendous traffic.
But then Alfie blinked a few times and shook his head, his expression deeply troubled. “I… I need a bit of time to… think.”
This wasn’t good, whatever it was. But someone was honking impatiently. “Should I continue driving to Aunt Virginia’s? We’re about ten minutes away.”
“Yes. Please.”
There was a thick and heavy silence between them now. Tobias’s insides—instead of reminding him of a cinnamon roll—felt filled with gravel. The nasty kind that works its way into your shoes and hurts when you walk.
Aunt Virginia’s building perched atop Russian Hill,but after circling the nearby blocks several times, Tobias couldn’t find a place to park. He eventually resorted to temporarily blocking someone’s driveway in order to consult his phone, which directed him to a parking garage near Ghirardelli Square, several blocks away.
When he and Alfie emerged onto the street after stowing the car, he expected Alfie to pause and admire the view of the bay, which was very pretty. However, he was clearly too distracted to do more than glance at the water and then trudge alongside Tobias up the steep hill. Mindful of Alfie’s injuries, Tobias walked slowly.
“That’s her,” he said, pointing to the building when they were a block away. It wasn’t a particularly necessary piece of information, but the lack of talking was getting on his nerves.
