New Orleans, Louisiana

The Past, Eleven Years Ago

Remy was revived by a sharp, hard slap to the back of his thighs. He emitted a cry of surprised pain and thrust his arms forward. He propelled himself off the couch to land flat on his back on the wooden floor. The hand-knit quilt followed him, caught up in the tangle of his flailing limbs.

"Get your lazy backside up off my couch!" Tante Mattie was ranting in rapid-fire staccato, wooden spoon in hand.

"Aïe! Tante!" Remy cried and threw his arms over his head, half hiding under the blanket.

"D'you think you can come out here and just lay about all day?" Tante Mattie continued.

Remy curled up around the blanket on the floor. "Aahn...Tattie. I sick," he moaned. "Quit yellin'."

"You ain't sick," she snapped and tapped him on the head with her spoon. "You hungover. You ain't foolin' anybody!"

Remy tried to pull the blanket back over his head but Tante Mattie snatched it away from him. "Up, up, up!" she was saying while Remy whined in protest.

"Ohh," Remy said. "I'm like t'die."

Tante Mattie seized him by the arm and hauled him upright. "Serves you right, kouyon. Now get yourself up and outdoors. You want to hang about here you're gonna do some work."

Remy leaned his forehead against his drawn-up knees. "I'm sick, I say. You'll be sorry when I drop dead."

He was answered with another smack to the back of the head. "Don't you ever talk that way!" Tante Mattie said.

Remy crawled away from her wrath before climbing ponderously to his feet. "Why you gotta be so mean t'me?" He rubbed the back of his head.

"There's folks've got it a lot worse'n you. You got no reason t'complain," Tante Mattie said and folded her arms over her chest. "Now get outside and tend to them chickens before I give you somethin' t'complain about."

Remy did some more incoherent whining and moaning as he stomped across Tante's living room. He snatched up his jacket before throwing himself out her front door. He did truly feel miserable, but not from drinking. The previous night he had delivered the girl, Temperance, to her older brother's care. As for the truck, formerly owned by Thomas something-or-other, it was placed in the hands of several mechanics who had dismantled the vehicle to its component parts in under an hour. The elder brother then offered Remy a ride home, seeing as Remy now lacked a mode of transportation. Remy accepted the ride out to Tante Mattie's house.

If he had been intoxicated at the time, the wad of hundred dollar bills pressed into his hand would have been enough to sober him up right quick. Remy had handled art, jewels, and artifacts worth more than the sum he'd gained from selling the truck to the chop shop. The difference, however, lie in that the money was entirely his. His, and not the Guild's. As far as Remy was concerned, no one needed to know about the cash he now had stashed inside an old cigar box in Mattie's attic. The money only nurtured the idea planted the previous night. The sight of the open road with himself seated at the steering wheel was inspiring; he could see the possibilities stretching out before him. The answer to his problems was simple...he could just run away from them.

Once out on the front porch, Remy stretched his aching muscles. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms until spots of light appeared behind his closed eyelids.

Probably sore from sleeping on that lumpy ole couch, he thought sullenly. Remy scanned the landscape. The yard was lit up with bright sunshine. The temperature was mild but he folded himself into his coat, feeling somewhat chilled. There was a wire egg basket on the seat of a worn painted chair nearby. He picked the basket up by the handle and stepped down from the porch. He squinted in the dazzling sunlight and ducked his head.

Remy had been sick, very sick, several months ago with complications from hypothermia. His complaints then had been in protest to Tante Mattie's ceaseless doting and mothering. He didn't want her care then, feeling undeserved of her love and attention when he was still alive and his cousin very dead. He had plenty of time to consider his own mortality while floating adrift at sea for the hours after escaping from The Pig's Pen.* It was a toss-up to which was more painful, starving on the streets abandoned and ignored by the people around him...or freezing to death alone in the middle of nowhere.

Could be worse, Remy thought and rubbed his head with his free hand, raking his fingers through his longish tangled hair. Could be both at the same time.

The chicken coop was at the back of the property, just within sight of the window over Mattie's kitchen sink. He could feel her staring at him now as he trudged towards the coop. He didn't mind the chickens so much. They made a nice, contented sort of clucking sound when they milled about in the grass. The rooster was another matter. He was big, he was noisy, and he was mean. Several hens had their feathers pulled out by his relentless attentions. Remy himself had been pursued across the yard by the evil bird. He held the wire basket before him like a shield.

Lookit me. I'm Cap'n America, Remy thought ducking behind the shelter of the basket, wary of the cock he could hear but not yet see.

The rooster was squawking somewhere nearby. The hens were ill at ease and scattered when Remy approached. He saw a flash of red-brown feathers and spotted the cock hopping up and down in the weeds.

There was a hoe set up against the chicken coop. Remy picked the hoe up and walked towards the flapping, angry bird. He swung the wire basket to shoo the rooster aside. The bird fussed and clucked at him, staring at Remy with one marmalade-colored eye full of hate. Remy sent the basket spinning after the bird to send him on his way. The bird squawked and launched itself into the air to land on top of the coop.

Take that, Rhode Island Red Skull, he thought at the bird.

Remy then turned his attention to the thing that the rooster had been attacking. He saw it was a kingsnake, speckled black and yellow. The rooster had been throttling the snake and protecting his domain. Remy could see the lump in the snake's body, either an egg or a chick, swallowed whole by the predator. Remy placed the hoe's blade to the back of the stunned snake's head. If it were Mattie standing with the hoe, the snake's head would have been off in a heartbeat. Remy glanced over his shoulder at the kitchen window. Seeing no one, he slowly lowered himself to wrap his hand around the snake, at the place just behind its head. He set the hoe aside and picked the constrictor up with both hands. The frightened snake released a terrible stink and Remy held it well away from his body. He started off into the woods with it.

Remy tread a familiar path through the woods. In the time he had been taken into his father Jean-Luc's care, he'd become somewhat accustomed to life outside of the city. Prior to then, his only experience with wild animals was with feral cats, rats, pigeons, and the occasional raccoon. There were lots of animals out where his Tante Mattie lived; deer and opossums and nutria and turkeys. There were also a lot of snakes. The one he held now was harmless, unless you were a chicken. Tante would be sore at Remy for saving the snake. But in Remy's thinking, killing the snake wouldn't make the chick any more alive.

The path he walked along now was one he'd walked many times before. He would take the path to a clearing on the edge of Tante Mattie's property where he used to meet up with Belle. Remy would pretend not to hear Tante Mattie calling for him and in turn Mattie would pretend not to know where Remy was or what he was up to. The reality of a boy and a girl being alone together was a lot more innocent than what one would imagine. Sex only happened when they were bored or ran out of things to talk about. Remy had never been bored when with Belle. And they'd only stopped talking very recently. Before that, there was swimming and swinging and climbing and all the other things he'd never had the leisure to do because he was too busy just trying to survive on the New Orleans streets.

When he reached the clearing, he saw that a tree had fallen across a stretch of water. The tree created a crossing to a patch of ground previously inaccessible by land. Remy walked to the fallen tree and shoved it with his foot. The tree was stable. Broken branches crunched underfoot as Remy climbed up onto the tree trunk. He walked down its length to the opposite shore. Once on the opposite side, he hopped down from the fallen tree. Remy walked a few paces to a patch of weeds. He crouched and loosened his grip on the snake. He felt the smooth scales and powerful muscles of its length as the snake slipped through his hands. The snake's belly touched the leaf-covered ground, and it paused as if tentative to accept its newfound freedom. Its forked tongue tasted the air. Suddenly, it took to the ground and slithered quickly away. Remy watched it disappear into the grass.

Remy picked up a long tree branch and began to explore the island, poking the ground before him with the stick to search out sink holes in the marshy turf. In a little under a half-hour he completed a circuit of the island and returned to the fallen tree. He looked at the cracked stump. Remy jammed the end of his walking stick under the fallen tree trunk and attempted to leverage the tree into the water. It rocked slightly as Remy shoved, but then resettled back into the muddy ground. Thwarted in his efforts, he struck the tree with the stick. He swung again with a little more force. The third swing cracked the stick in two. With a small grunt of effort, he sent the broken branch spinning out over the water where it landed with a splash. He reclaimed the other end of the broken branch and snapped it over his knee, then tossed the pieces one after the other into the water. Remy sat on the tree trunk and slouched with his elbows resting on his thighs. He wasn't sure what he hoped to accomplish by trapping himself on the island.

This was not the island he hoped to find himself alone on. Where he really wanted to be was the island of Manhattan. That was the plan, to make his way to New York City. He would disappear into a crowd of eight million people, find himself hidden in a place where people were stacked one on top of another for stories into the sky. A place where everyone was a stranger. Where people could live next to one another for years and never know their own neighbor's name. Your neighbor could die alone in his apartment and no one would know for days. Not like here, where there was always a neighbor looking over the fence or stopping by with news. Most often the news happened to be about Remy himself. In New York, no one would know him. There would be no Diable Blanc, no Guilds, and no Rites of Passage.

Remy needed new identification, transportation, and cash. More cash than what he'd stowed in Mattie's attic. He would figure out the rest once he got to New York. He also entertained a ghost of a thought at the back of his mind: that New York would be the place where he would find more people like himself. Not part-demon, not touched by Satan himself, as the rumors around town would have everyone believe, but a mutant. Remy had seen mutants on the news, though the media purported that all mutants were a lurking menace and a threat to society. Surely, Remy thought, there had to be some mutants who didn't wear purple capes. Mutants who didn't try to steal nuclear missiles. And besides, there were all sorts of strange folks in New York with powers. What difference did it make if Remy was born with his powers or had gotten them after being zapped by space rays like the Fantastic Four?

Remy reached into the inside pocket of his coat and withdrew a pack of playing cards. With practice, he had learned how much of a charge an object would take. He'd learned a lot more about how big of a bang he could actually make. Remy flipped open the lid of the little cardboard box and ran his thumb over the playing cards inside. He didn't so much see a deck of cards but fifty-two little bombs. Cards were easy to come by, easy to carry, and easy to charge. Not so easy to throw, as he was coming to find out. Remy stood and walked a few paces away from the tree. There were times when the card would simply snap itself out of his fingers and fly true. Then there were the times a card would spin back and cut through the air in an arc, sending Remy diving for cover. He hadn't quite managed to consistently throw an entire deck's worth of cards without incurring some sort of injury.

With a card held loosely in his fingertips, he took aim at the tree stump. Remy made an effort to keep himself calm. The worst throws usually came when he was trying too hard. The slightest charge had the card in his hand glowing. Remy let his arm fly out, felt the card leave his fingers and watched it spin across the open expanse of air. The card missed its mark, but not by too much. It exploded, sending up a small clod of dirt and grass. He let out the breath he'd been holding and told himself to breathe normally. The second card flew nearer to the stump, but farther out over the water. A small gout of water appeared when the card detonated.

Stupid, he told himself and readjusted his stance. If you'd only learned how to use these powers for something other than playing pranks... Remy tossed the third card and it caught the breeze to spin up in a tight arc. With a surprised cry he dashed aside as the card exploded overhead.

"Enh, zut!" Remy said, raising his arms over his head. He angrily climbed to his feet and brushed at the mud on his jeans. Likely kill myself before I get it right, he thought. Then that'll be two of us dead because I can't use my powers proper-like. If you can see me now, Etienne, I hope you're having yourself a good laugh.

As the fourth card left his grip he let out a short exhalation. He knew the card would fly right the moment it left his hand. Remy didn't have but a second to enjoy his success before the card exploded against the stump with more force than he'd intended. Remy stumbled back as he was struck with shards of debris. He landed on his backside on the grass, his hands flying up to protect his face a moment too late. A bit of wood caught him on the cheek just below his left eye. The yell that escaped from his lips was more a scream of frustration and anger rather than from pain. His arm swung out and he sent the remainder of the deck spinning. Cards flew out across the island and into the water where they landed harmlessly; just paper and plastic strewn pathetically across the grass.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Remy shouted, tearing up clumps of grass as he regained his feet. He kicked the stump in a helpless rage. "God dammit!"

It always seemed that when success was just within reach, something happened to set him back another step or two. There was no easy win, nothing came to him without a fight, nothing was given to him without strings attached. Remy let himself give in to the anger. He felt it welling up inside his skull, blocking out all other thoughts. He put his hands over his eyes and yelled.

A bright light seemed to shine through the blackness of his closed eyelids. With a jerk, Remy lowered his hands and opened his eyes to stare at his open palms. He saw then that the glow was coming from himself. The surroundings were awash in the bright light, outshining the sun itself. Remy felt as if he were being pulled forward, like a puppet on a string. The light was so bright, he could see nothing else. He yanked himself back and stumbled a few paces, suddenly free from the pulling sensation, the string snapped.

Remy found himself on the far side of the island. He wavered unsteadily on his feet. He reached out a hand to brace himself on a nearby tree.

"Quoi–?" he thought, putting a hand to his spinning head. He then heard a sharp cry.

"Enh, zut!"

Remy looked around for the source of the sound. He stumbled to the next tree and caught himself against the trunk. He felt very disoriented. There came the sound of a sudden explosion and Remy instinctively ducked. There was another cry. Remy released the tree and trotted forward several paces. He passed through the brush to see a small clearing and the now-familiar stump. He saw a vision of himself a few yards away, laying in the grass pitching a fit.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! God dammit!" he heard himself cry.

Do I really sound like that? Remy thought dazedly. He watched as his other self threw the deck of cards, scattering them across the island and into the water. Is that how I look?

Remy continued to watch the events he'd just lived through transpire a second time, thinking to himself that he looked like a stupid child, throwing a tantrum. As his past self disappeared in a flash of light, Remy fell forward, his arms reaching out to brace himself for impact.

~ oOo ~

Remy heard his name being called. He opened his eyes and saw nothing. His hands reached out to touch his face when he realized he was not blind, as he had first thought, but that it was dark. Now other sounds were reaching his ears. He could hear crickets and frogs. A mosquito whined by his ear and he slapped it away. It was night. Remy could make out the moon through the branches of the trees overhead. He sat up slowly. The moonlight danced on the water. Remy could see another light bobbing through the darkness; a flashlight.

Remy heard his name again.

"Over here," he said, though his voice was swallowed up by the nighttime sounds. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Here!" he called. "I'm over here!"

The flashlight's beam arced towards him and Remy held up a hand. A second beam joined the first. There were two figures making their way towards him. Remy put his hand to the fallen tree and pulled himself up onto it. He felt dizzy and tired.

"Remy!" a voice called. He recognized it as his father's. "What are you–," Jean-Luc began, then interrupted himself. "Stay here, Mattie. I'll go across."

Remy felt the slight tremor through the tree trunk as his father walked down its length towards him. "Remy, bon dieu, where have you been?" his father asked with impatience that barely covered up his concern. "Are you hurt?"

Remy wiped at the tacky smear of blood on his face. "No," he said even as his father leaned down closely to look at Remy's injury.

"What happened?" Jean-Luc asked, his hand on the back of Remy's head.

"Nothin'," Remy said. "An accident. I fell."

"You've had Tante Mattie worried sick. Where have you been all dis time?" Jean-Luc said as Remy pulled himself from his father's grip.

"Here," Remy said. "I've been here. On dis island."

Jean-Luc made a disgusted sound and pulled Remy to his feet. "For two days, you been out here?" he said with disbelief. "You had us thinkin' you dropped off de face of the earth. Or got swallowed up by it!"

"No, 's true," Remy complained as he was pulled across the little bridge created by the fallen tree. "I–I lost track of time."

Remy was taken into Tante Mattie's custody. She seemed to be torn between throttling him and hugging him fiercely. "You–you little monster! I oughta tan your hide for makin' me worry!"

"I'm sorry, Tante!" Remy cried breathlessly as he was crushed against her front. "Please, stop!"

"Do you have any idea how much trouble you be in?" Tante Mattie scolded, shaking him by his shoulders.

Remy glanced back at the island. "Just a hunch," he said.

~ oOo ~

Jean-Luc often accused Remy of having an overactive imagination, particularly when he was at lessons, in church, or any other time when he was supposed to be keeping still. Remy found if he spent any amount of time in a stationary position, his brain began to work overtime as if to make up for his lack of motion. Jean-Luc also observed that the opposite was true; if Remy was in action, he seemed to put very little thought into his rather impulsive and unpredictable behavior.

"It's too bad you can't seem t'do both at the same time. Think and act," Jean-Luc had scolded. "Give some thought to what you do before you do it. Instead of usin' that imagination of yours to cook up some tall tale to cover your tracks."

When Remy had been questioned about his whereabouts over the last two days, he insisted he didn't recall. He told Jean-Luc that he'd fallen on the island and woke up much, much later. Jean-Luc wasn't buying it, and continued to press Remy for the truth. Finally, Remy confessed to having been hiding in BellaDonna's bedroom the entire time. This made Tante Mattie's blood boil, but mollified Jean-Luc. Remy figured it was a safe enough lie. That if asked, Belle would deny it, and not just because it wasn't true, but that she didn't want anything to do with Remy at the moment. And though Mattie was sore at him for making her worry, she couldn't trump Jean-Luc's "boys will be boys" mentality. Remy was let off with a warning, but he'd have to steer clear of Tante Mattie for a few days or he'd end up having to muck out the chicken coop or worse, be forced to eat green vegetables.

Remy was fairly certain he hadn't imagined the events of the past few days. It had only seemed like hours to him, but the calendar didn't lie. Remy was missing two days from his life. Could he have been unconscious all that time? He suspected otherwise. He decided to bring his hypothesis to the only person he could think of who might be capable of providing some answers. Remy was going to talk to The Witness, who seemed to know things he couldn't possibly know.

The Witness was certainly the strangest person Remy had ever encountered. There were plenty of strange people in New Orleans; voodoo priestesses, oracles, magicians, cat ladies, vampires, and there was even a man who wore a duck on his head, just to name a few. It was harder to name what The Witness was. Perhaps he was a mutant, perhaps a madman, maybe both. The Witness wasn't very good at answering questions. He also wasn't very nice, not usually, except if you were a pretty woman...or a child. This was one of the few instances Remy was glad he wasn't an adult yet.

Remy walked down Magazine Street to where The Witness had a storefront. It was not in the best part of town with all the galleries and antique stores, but within a block that contained a bodega, a tattoo parlor, a uniform store, and a Planned Parenthood. It wasn't too terribly far from Audubon Park in Uptown. It was also right next door to a place that Remy knew to be a good source of free candy.

Mrs. Muñoz was a shorter woman, and even though she was an adult, she and Remy were of a similar height. She was older with gray streaks in her thick black hair that she always wore in a bun. Her face was round and she wore lots of black eye makeup that made her eyelashes look like spider's legs. She was always kind to Remy, probably because she was under the impression, as many were, that Remy was either blind or not very bright. Remy wore a pair of dark-lensed glasses of such an unfashionable style people often assumed he couldn't see. Remy usually paired the glasses with clothes in outrageous colors; at the very least people supposed Remy was colorblind.

Mrs. Muñoz loved to complain about The Witness, and she vacillated between making the Sign of the Cross or uttering curses when she spoke about him.

"I don't know that you can do anything to save that crazy viejo," she told Remy and pressed a piece of wax paper-covered candy into his palm.

Mrs. Muñoz also loved Remy because he was an altar boy at the church she attended. Remy could do no wrong in her eyes, and attributed his visits to The Witness as some kind of charity work.

"Just like my Paulo," Mrs. Muñoz liked to say. Remy was an altar boy just like Paulo had been once. Mrs. Muñoz measured everything against her son. She made certain foods because that's what her Paulo liked. Other men weren't as handsome or clever as her Paulo. No woman was good enough for her Paulo. The Witness had said that her Paulo was a spoiled, dimwitted pretty-boy who was just waiting for his mamacita to croak so he could sell her bodega and hare off to South America to get drunk and stupider. This was just one of many instances where Mrs. Muñoz and The Witness did not see eye to eye.

Remy peered behind Mrs. Muñoz and into the store. Paulo was seated behind the counter staring at a football match on the television mounted from the ceiling. Paulo's pinky finger was digging in his ear as he looked open-mouthed at the screen. Remy was of the opinion that The Witness was probably right about Paulo.

"Look at this mess," Mrs. Muñoz said, gesturing to the sidewalk in front of her store. "That crazy viejo feeds those filthy birds and now I've guano up and down my front walk."

Remy silently observed Mrs. Muñoz's demonstration while chewing on the hardened taffy she'd given him. He had been strictly forbidden from eating candy, and he was pretty sure his orthodontist was going to be angry later. Remy nodded in agreement with Mrs. Muñoz, then swallowed.

"Is he here?" Remy asked and pointed at The Witness' storefront.

Mrs. Muñoz flapped her hand dismissively. "Oh, he's there. Twice today I've complained about this mess he makes. Does he listen to me? No!" She turned and shouted into the shop. "Paulo, bring the water hose! Paulo!"

Paulo was cheering for his team and doing a victory lap down the drug aisle. "Goooooal!" he cried.

"Oh, never mind. I'll get it." Mrs. Muñoz reentered her shop. She glanced over her shoulder to look at Remy and say with warm indulgence: "My Paulo likes his football."

Remy stared after her, shoved the remainder of the taffy into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. It was reassuring to hear The Witness was in his shop. There were times he had come to the shop to find it empty, the lights off, the windows soaped. When he had asked Mrs. Muñoz where The Witness was, she had looked at him curiously.

Qué? she had asked with a little concern.

The man next door, Remy had said and pointed to the empty shop.

That store's been empty for years! Mrs. Muñoz had said.

It was as if The Witness hadn't existed at all. The next week, The Witness was back, the shop door open. And seemingly, Mrs. Muñoz's recollection of how much she hated her neighbor was restored.

You disappeared! What happened? Remy had asked The Witness.

Sneezing fit, was the reply.

Remy approached The Witness' shop now. The narrow storefront had once been painted green and gold, but the paint had badly flaked, revealing a coat of faded pink underneath. Gold letters spelled out the store name on the glass pane set in the wooden door. Remy was about to step up onto the single stone plinth that served as the front stair when he heard a crash of a trashcan falling from the alley. Remy peered around the corner and into the alley between the bodega and The Witness' shop. He spied a gray cat with a bird in its mouth. It growled at him ferociously.

"Hist," he said to the cat. "Drop it!"

The cat crouched to dart away. Remy stooped to pick up a piece of pea gravel. He flung it after the cat, which let out a surprised squall as the tiny charged rock hit its rump. The bird was dropped and the cat ran off down the alley. Remy walked towards where the bird lay flapping on the ground. He crouched and picked it up and cradled it lightly in his hands. It was a small reddish bird, he wasn't sure what kind. Remy could feel its heart beating very fast against his fingers. The bird gave a sudden sigh, then it closed its eyes and its head drooped. The fast beating ceased.

"Oh," Remy said, surprised. He continued to look at the little bird in his hands. He lifted a finger and rubbed the bird's back, thinking it would revive. It had just been so alive a second ago.

"Likely died of fright," said a voice from the mouth of the alley.

Remy startled. He quickly turned to see the lean, angular form of The Witness standing behind him. Even in the dim alley, the tall man seemed unnaturally pale. Long white hair framed his narrow face.

"It was de cat," Remy said. He straightened and walked towards where The Witness stood.

"You stole its lunch," The Witness said. He had a shoebox in his hand. He extended the open box towards Remy.

Remy looked at the open box, then up at The Witness. The Witness' expression was inscrutable behind the small smoke-colored lenses he wore. After a moment, Remy set the bird inside the shoebox. The Witness closed the shoebox lid, then walked from the alley and back out onto the sidewalk. Remy followed.

Mrs. Muñoz was rinsing her front walk with the spray from a garden hose. She gave The Witness a glare. "Quit putting food out for vermin!" she called, waving the hose. "You see the trouble you cause by attracting all these filthy birds?"

"You may be right, señora," The Witness told her, his hands wrapped around the box.

Mrs. Muñoz regarded him, unsure of The Witness' sudden candor. He always wore an ironic grin, so it was hard to tell when, if ever, he was being serious. Remy waved to Mrs. Muñoz apologetically as they stepped into the shop.

The bell over the door rang as The Witness entered. Remy was greeted with the smell of printed paper and tobacco. A number of clocks ticked away on the walls. Remy saw that there was a patron inside the shop which was somewhat unusual. The Witness' cantankerous attitude was off-putting to most people. Remy saw the customer was a man he knew, Dan Down, who owned several buildings in town. Mr. Down was reading a newspaper.

"Hey, where d'you get these gag papers from, anyway?" Mr. Down said conversationally as he flicked through a copy of The Wall Street Journal dated for several years in the future. "A Black president? That's a laugh. Now I've seen everything."

"Maybe more than most," The Witness said as he walked towards the shop counter. "But not everything." It was known that Mr. Down could read the cards, but only when playing Poker. He often lost, so he probably wasn't very good at predicting the future. The Witness set the box with the bird inside onto the worn wooden countertop. "This ain't a lendin' library. Pay for de paper or get out."

Dan lowered the newspaper to look at The Witness, a wide grin on his dark face. "You can't kick me out of my own building. Hey, hey. There's Remy. What's this now? Two customers in one day? That's unheard of. Maybe you'll make rent this month, yeah?"

The Witness sat himself on a stool behind the counter. He apparently didn't feel the need to remark on Dan's comment. Instead, he picked up a small screwdriver and set to fiddling with the mechanical mess he had out on the counter.

Undeterred, Dan continued. "What're you up to, young man?" he asked Remy convivially. "Givin' your daddy gray hairs?"

"He'll be bald when I'm done," Remy said.

"I seen you already done a number on your brother Henri, there," Dan said.

"Show me a trick, Mr. Dan?" Remy asked and pointed at Dan's coat pocket where he always kept a deck of cards.

Dan grinned and removed the deck as The Witness muttered to himself.

"Watch now," Dan said and showed Remy the top of the deck with the red Bicycle pattern. He inverted the deck to reveal the Ace of Spades at the bottom. He tapped the Ace with the forefinger of his left hand. Holding the deck in his right hand, he neatly cut the deck in half with his index and middle fingers and moved the bottom half of the deck onto the top with his ring and pinky, shuffling the cards' order. His ring finger flicked and a card jumped from the deck as if tugged by a string to land in Dan's opposite hand. Dan turned the card around to reveal the Ace of Spades once again.

Remy grinned and took the offered card from Dan's hand.

"That one's called a 'false cut.' It makes it look like the Ace is shuffled when you've got your ring finger on it the entire time. You want to give it a go?" Dan asked and held out the rest of the deck.

Remy held the cards in his right, but couldn't make the cut with only one hand. "My hands are too small," he said with a frown. He handed the deck back to Dan.

"You're overdue for a growth spurt," Dan told him and for a moment he stared at the cards fanned in his hands. He gave a little frown and shook his head, then neatly folded the cards back into his pocket. "Bit of a late bloomer, hey?"

Remy cringed. He hated that term with a passion. "I can do this," Remy said, and threw the Ace he still held in his hand. It winged through the air over The Witness' head where it lodged by its corner into a cork-board. The Witness, distracted from his project, glanced at Remy with a raised eyebrow.

"Hey, that's pretty good Remy," Dan said.

"Don't you have someplace y'ought t'be?" The Witness asked Dan. "Like gamblin' away de rent you collect from your honest, hard-workin' tenants?"

"You tryin' t'make me feel bad? It ain't gonna work. Lucky for me, I ain't got no honest tenants," Dan said and tucked his folded newspaper under his arm.

"You intend on payin' for that paper?" The Witness asked.

"Remy, it sho' is kind a'you t'come look in on this old goat," Dan continued, ignoring The Witness entirely. "You be good. Well. Be good enough."

"'Bye, Mr. Dan," Remy said as Dan walked through the front door, setting the bells ringing again.

Remy turned back to The Witness and walked over to the counter. There were tools and screws and wires and electronic components strewn all across the countertop. A large oblong shell, looking like an enormous bowl of a spoon, sat cradled in a towel. Inside the bowl were more mechanical bits. The Witness was twisting two pieces of wire together, holding them nearsightedly up to his face. There was another half to the shell which sat on the counter as well. Remy picked it up and regarded his distorted reflection in its shiny surface.

"What is dis?" he asked.

"A bauble," The Witness said absently.

"It looks like a big shiny Easter egg," Remy said, turning the shell over to look at the concave interior.

"Put that down," The Witness said as he worked on the other half of the egg. "De last thing I want is for you t'cause some kinda temporal rift on account of your taffy-covered paws muckin' up de machinery."

"Temporal–wha...?" The shell made a hollow sound as Remy set it back down on the counter. He left several smeared fingerprints on the shiny outer surface. Remy rubbed at one of them with the hem of his coat.

"Quit! Shoo!" The Witness said and flagged Remy away.

Remy stepped back from the counter and tucked his hands under his armpits. "Where'd you go when you disappear?" he asked.

"Away from you, pest."

"When I asked where you went, it was like Mrs. Muños never heard of you b'fore. Dan plumb forgot you even existed. How'd you do it? Hypnosis?" Remy continued.

"No Svengali, me," The Witness answered and picked up the half of the egg Remy had touched.

"Well, what are you then?" Remy finally asked, exasperated.

"A fly in de ointment," The Witness said with a grin and placed one half of the egg over top of the other.

Remy sighed, defeated. There was a stool under the window which he dragged over to the counter. He clambered onto it and sat facing The Witness.

"Make yourself comfortable, why don't you," The Witness said wryly.

"Something weird happened to me," Remy told him.

"Do tell," The Witness said as he polished the egg with the towel.

"I think I traveled through time. On accident," Remy said. He rubbed his palms on the knees of his jeans.

The Witness looked up at him. "Really?" he said doubtfully.

Remy nodded. "There was this light, coming from me. I felt like I was being pulled forward. I could see a bunch of...I dunno. Like threads or ropes. Pulling me forward, but in different directions. When I pulled back, I went back."

"Back? Back in time?"

"Yeah," Remy said, somewhat nervously. It sounded stupid now that he had said it aloud.

The Witness set his egg upright on the folded towel.

"It was only a minute or so," Remy continued. "And I saw my past self. Standing just in front of me like you are now."

"Hm," The Witness said.

"You don't believe me," Remy said. He added bitterly: "You're in good company. No one believes a word I say."

"I don't think you're lyin'," The Witness admitted. His hand rested on top of the egg. He tapped it with his finger thoughtfully. "But I don't think you're tellin' me de whole story."

Remy tried not to fidget in his seat. "Well, I was just thinking..."

"There's your problem," The Witness quipped.

Remy frowned at him. "I was thinking – that what if it were true? That I could go through time, go back to de past."

"Yes?"

Remy poked the corner of the shoebox with a forefinger. "If I'd been a minute earlier, the bird might still be alive."

"And you think hoppin' about through time and space is worth it for some little bird?" The Witness asked.

"Well...no. But–."

"I already know where your mind is goin'," The Witness said.

"What if I could go back further than a few minutes? What if I could go back a few months?"

"And do what?"

"Change things. Make it so Etienne wasn't killed."

"You could."

Remy sat up straight. "Do you t'ink so?"

"You could go on and on thinkin' of ways you could go back and change things. Spend all your time livin' in your past."

"I could make it right," Remy said, warming to the subject.

"Who's t'say what's right?" The Witness asked. "You? You're just a pup. There are some things that can't be changed."

Remy glared. "I got these powers for a reason," he said hotly.

"You t'ink so? Not by some miracle, luck, or chance then? Mebbe it's fate. Y'are Le Diable Blanc after all, enh?"

"I'm – I'm a mutant, not a devil," he contested.

The Witness smiled slyly. "That'll play well 'round dese parts, I'm sho'. Chèr, better t'be a live devil than a dead mutie. Trust me."

Remy pulled off his sunglasses and threw them onto the counter. "I don't trust you! You're some, some kinda – I don't even know what!" He hopped down from the stool to stand.

"Best t'keep 'em guessing," The Witness said mostly to himself. "A good disguise, the not-knowing." He released his hold on the egg and for a moment it sat balanced on its end on the counter. Then in a crackling flash of blue light it disappeared.**

Remy blinked in surprise at the space where the egg once stood. "Wha–! Where'd it go?"

The Witness scratched his thumbnail across his forehead. "Hm. More importantly, 'when' did it go? Ah well, I'm sure it'll turn up. Mebbe in de right place at de right time. I like t'leave some things up t'chance. Makes it more exciting that way."

Remy shook his head with incomprehension. "This was a waste of time," he said flatly.

"Mn, yes," The Witness said and then suddenly pulled open a drawer behind the counter. "Speaking of time..." He began searching the contents of the drawer with a great amount of rattling and shuffling.

The Witness retrieved something from the drawer. Remy stepped back as The Witness extended his arm towards him.

"What is it?" Remy asked warily.

The object dropped from The Witness' fingers to hang on a long gold chain. The object on the end rocked slowly back and forth like a pendulum. Slowly, Remy reached out and took the dangling pocket watch from The Witness' hand. It was gold with a filigree design. The lid was slightly dented. Remy opened it to reveal the clock's mother-of-pearl face with small Roman numerals. The tiny exposed wheels and gears ticked out the seconds.

"Time," The Witness said. "You're going to want to keep track."

~ oOo ~

*Gambit Vol. 3 #7

** What is that thing? See Gambit Vol. 3 #10. It's not important to the story, really. Just that The Witness needs something to do with his hands.

kouyon – dummy

zut – dang it!

viejo – old man