Ancilla

The Magus

The man standing next to me in the Classic Literature section of the bookstore has interesting taste. Surreptitiously, I'll look up every now and then to see what else is in his stack of books; I can't see all the titles, but from what I can tell, it's an eclectic mix of occult philosophy, poetry, history, and something I can't quite make out. Some kind of fiction, maybe. Given the section we're both browsing, that seems to be a reasonable assumption to make.

   He's also very good-looking, for an older man. Hair dark sable, with strands of silver – a shade of brown so dark that it's almost black. On second glance, maybe it is black. I can't tell in this lighting. Nice wool dress trousers, silk shirt, both slightly rumpled, both in dark hues. Slender – unusually so – I suspect he has muscle, but of the wiry sort. Pale skin, a bit on the olive side. Almost my height, so he's tall. I'd say he's probably about six feet one or so, maybe six-two.

   There's something compelling about his hands, although I can't for the life of me say exactly what. Maybe it's because of the way they're held still, but seem full of pent-up energy. Maybe it's the fascinating way they're gnarled and lined. I look at his hands and think of the grove of birches that was on the lawn in front of my college library.

   He's interesting.

   His books look interesting, too.

   Heck with it.

   "You buy books the way I do – in bulk," I say to him. "What have you got so far?" It's been a long while since I've been able to buy my books rather than just read them in the store while soaking in the bookstore ambiance, but I don't feel like talking about that.

   Without a word, he holds out his books for me to see. Books on the Golden Dawn; the complete poems of William Butler Yeats – all right, I saw those earlier. A rather outdated text on the supposed religion of the Etruscans written by Charles Godfrey Leland. Saw that. Then I see the titles I didn't catch earlier. An issue of Gnosis. An issue of Yellow Silk. Nice. Umberto Eco's Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. Jung's Red Book. Some paperback with a plain yellow cover and the title in understated black lettering; the author appears to be French. So does the book's title, which means whatever the book is he's reading, it's in the original French, unless it was written in English, in which case he's reading a French translation for whatever reason. The first scenario seems the more plausible one. Hmm. Histoire translates as "story," if I remember correctly from my very rusty lower-school French classes. It's fiction. Other than that, I've no idea what it is, and I can't puzzle it out.

   At the bottom of his pile are a couple of Julia Child cookbooks.

   "You cook?"

   "It's one of my hobbies."