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  When the demolition began, Roscoe charmed a farmer into lending him his pickup truck so that he could cart away whatever he needed from the demolition sight. He found ways to reuse everything he took. Even the nails were reusable when the wizard was done with them.

  His cabin, when it was completed, was a thing to behold. It was larger than any of the others, rectangular in shape with a fine roof made of shakes from a white oak which he had split with a frow. The rustic interior of the solitary room was contrasted by the huge stained-glass window which he had gotten from an old church. The window featured twelve beautiful white birds descending from a blue and purple heaven. At the bottom were the words, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” Roscoe had installed the window dead center on the west wall. It was the only one in the cabin. Mahogany-framed beds had been built into the north and south walls. The one on the north wall was built up from the floor a few feet. There was a handsome mahogany storage cabinet beneath it. The other was a bunk bed, for guests, the wizard said. On the east wall, near the door, was a fireplace, made from the bricks that had once been part of the façade of an old hardware store. It was functional both inside for cooking and heating—and outside—for barbecuing. A bookshelf ran along the north, south, and east walls, hanging down about a foot and a half from the ceiling. It had been made from the countertops in what used to be a bank. When you entered the cabin, especially in the evening when the sun was low, and saw the light pouring into the room through the stained-glass window, white and purple and blue, and the doves flying twice—once at the window and once again on the floorboards which had come from an old bakery and which still smelled of flour—you found yourself whispering and waiting for something magical to happen.

  Outside the cabin, Roscoe set a cast-iron, claw-foot tub up on rocks so that a fire could be started beneath it when the weather was cold. He ran a pipe down from the creek for filling it. Everyone was impressed, and no one wanted to take baths at the farmhouse anymore. Everyone said, “That Roscoe is a wizard!” But only Belinda, who had been watching him carefully since he’d come, knew that he really was a wizard, that he’d put a spell on all of them, that he was evil through and through and could play games with people’s wills as easily as he could play his flute, and that the pretty words at the bottom of his dove-littered window were only a cover-up for his real ambition—which was to acquire her, Belinda, just the way he’d acquired the things he’d needed for his cabin and the truck he’d carted them away in. Why did he want Belinda? Well, as I said, she was a pretty little thing. But what really enticed him was the fact that Belinda had dreams, plans for the future which she had put aside but not forgotten. Roscoe’s great desire was to cast a spell so powerful that everyone on Maura’s Mountain would stay just as they were. (Peter Pan was his predecessor.) His great fear was that Belinda, with all her plans and such, would somehow interfere with that.

  Winter on the mountain was a quiet affair. Some people had work, more didn’t. The ones who didn’t spent their days replenishing the firewood stacks for the ones who did. They also did most of the cooking. There was plenty of food to go around. Much of the fall harvest had been canned and stored in the root cellar at the farmhouse. The locals were still coming by occasionally with meat. Bart bought a shotgun and snagged himself a buck. Ethel, the woman with the kids, bought two goats with the money she earned on weekends reading to a blind woman in town. One of the goats was called Pauline, a tribute to Paul, the first to find what he needed on the mountain.

  In the evenings, different groups gathered in different cabins. Most of the talk was about construction and gardening. Plans were drawn up for improvements and extensions on the cabins. One of the teepee couples was planning the cabin they would build in the spring. Another teepee couple was going to pack it up and give another mountain in another place a try.

  Sometimes everyone gathered in the farmhouse for a party. Eddie brought his guitar then, and George his banjo. Roscoe, of course, always had his flute. When the music was done, and the magic plant that grew in the garden had made everyone else lethargic, Roscoe, who was never lethargic, juggled. Roscoe could juggle anything; he juggled balls, fruit, socks, whatever was handy. Sometimes he turned off the lights and juggled flashlights in the dark.

  Belinda spent some nights with Roscoe. She didn’t love him and he knew it. That was the one thing he just could not make her do, though he tried hard enough; he wasn’t quite that powerful. But he was powerful enough to keep her coming when he wanted her. Some evenings, for instance, she would be lying in bed, up at the farmhouse, nearly asleep, and all at once she would feel him calling to her. Even as she was dressing she would be telling herself that she wasn’t going to go and cater to that man. When she arrived, she’d find him awake, sitting on the floor with his arms folded, the kerosene lamp before him making his face a mask of light in the dark. “About time,” he’d say.

  One Sunday afternoon Belinda went down to the wizard’s cabin to invite him to dinner at the farmhouse. Jen’s father had shot a wild turkey, and Maura was cooking it up with trimmings. Belinda was about to open Roscoe’s door when she heard his voice. He was talking to someone almost in a whisper. She heard him laugh, and then she heard his flute. She stood with her ear to the door listening. The only time the wizard ever played for an audience of less than three was when he went off to the woods to play by himself. Yet she knew by the way he had whispered and laughed that there was only one other person in the cabin there with him. For which of the other girls, she wondered, was he playing?

  When the tune was over, she knocked. Roscoe called, “Come in.” She took a deep breath to prpare herself for a confrontation and she opened the door. And there, sitting beneath the window, immersed in the multi-colored light that streamed in through it, was not one of the women Belinda had imagined, but a young man. He wasn’t what you’d call handsome, but he was kind-looking. He had the sort of large, clean-shaven, sympathetic face you’d expect to see on a holy man. Roscoe introduced him as Donald and explained that he’d met him at the college in the nearby town where Donald was a graduate student and Roscoe, when he wasn’t juggling at children’s parties, was a janitor. Belinda found herself immediately drawn to the wizard’s friend. She stepped over to the fireplace and lifted the lid on the pot of water that was boiling there. Roscoe announced that they were making pasta and that she could join them if she liked. She could tell even before she glanced at him that his invitation was less than halfhearted. But she accepted anyway and without even bothering to mention the turkey that was roasting up at the farmhouse.

  While they ate, Belinda decided that Donald’s shyness was charming. She especially liked the way he parted his lips and struggled with his responses as if he feared they might be inappropriate—when in fact they were astute and conclusive when they finally got clear of his tongue. And she loved his laugh, which always seemed to be high in his throat, ready to burst out at the slightest provocation. It was as contagious as any virus.

  Roscoe explained that Donald was a poet and had come to the mountain to look at Roscoe’s verses. Belinda was bewildered! She’d never known the wizard to write anything. But she said nothing. After dinner, they drank the bottle of wine Donald had brought from town. Roscoe rolled a joint to go with it, but when he passed it to Donald, Donald looked down and shook his head. Roscoe laughed and invited Donald to give up his room in the dorm and come to the mountain to live. He said he would help him build a cabin, or, if he preferred, he could stay at Roscoe’s. There was plenty of room. Donald’s lips groped for a response. Then he tilted his head from one side to the other and said, “Why?”

  “Why not?” Roscoe responded. Donald laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, but he passed again just the same.

  When Donald had gone, Belinda said good night to Roscoe and headed for the door. But Roscoe leapt across the room and grabbed hold of her waist. “Don’t get any
crazy ideas,” he said.

  “What can you be talking about?” she answered, shaking herself free.

  Donald began to come out to the mountain regularly, on weekends. He watched with interest as cabins went up and teepees came down, but still he couldn’t be persuaded to change his mind about living there himself. He seemed content, in fact, to be an observer to most of the activities.

  As spring approached, everyone turned their minds to the garden. Belinda, who’d argued with Maura, was living in Roscoe’s cabin by then. He had moved to the upper bunk across the room, and Belinda was sleeping in the single bed. They seldom slept together anymore. Roscoe didn’t seem to mind. He seemed pleased just to have her under his roof where his spells could be easily administered. When Donald came out on Friday nights, he slept on the lower bunk of Roscoe’s bed. Donald and Roscoe and Belinda spent most of their time on their own, away from the others. They burned kerosene and incense and sat beneath the white doves talking quietly or listening to Roscoe’s flute. Sometimes Donald brought one of his school books along and read poetry aloud. He read beautifully, in a louder, deeper voice than the one he spoke in. He was shy about reading his own work, but given enough wine, Roscoe could get him to do so. Roscoe never read his, but occasionally he gave Donald poems to take back to school and inspect at his leisure.

  When Donald began comparing their friendship to the one that Wordsworth and Coleridge and Dorothy had had, Belinda went and found herself a thick book about the three at a secondhand bookstore in town. She kept it hidden when Roscoe was home. When he wasn’t, she tore through the pages trying to learn as much about Dorothy as she could. She concluded that Donald had meant to imply that she was naive, but sweet and inspirational. But the question was, Did Donald see himself as Wordsworth or Coleridge? If he was Coleridge, then maybe he loved her after all. If he was Wordsworth, then he loved her the way brothers love sisters, plus some—but not enough.

  One week Roscoe had to leave the mountain suddenly. He’d received a letter from the world beyond; his father was sick in the hospital and wanted to see him. Belinda wondered if he would stop at the campus on his way out to let Donald know. He was in a great rush when he left, and she thought there was a good chance he wouldn’t. This was in the middle of the summer, and things on the mountain had begun to change by then. Ethel and her kids had left; they’d gone back to town to live with Ethel’s mother. A few couples had split up, leaving one person in some of the cabins where there had previously been two. Maura and Sally had argued over the electric bill, and Sally had gone back north. Bart and Eddie had decided that the pace on the mountain was too slow for them. They hadn’t left yet, but they were talking about it; they were saying that they felt unproductive. The garden and the cabins weren’t enough for them anymore; they felt that life should be more of a challenge. Eddie was tired of working in the mines. Bart had been unemployed for a long time and was tired of being broke. They made these complaints, of course, when Roscoe wasn’t around. Roscoe thought the mountain was the center of the universe, and he despised anyone who talked about leaving. The people who did leave always tried to keep it quiet until the last moment so as not to arouse the wizard’s wrath—the signs of which were subtle, but you knew they were there. It seemed that Donald was the only person Roscoe could tolerate having a view to the future. His was all laid out. He had one more semester, and then he was going north, where he had come from, to work on his doctorate at another school. Belinda hoped she’d be going with him. She thought she might get a job up north and take a few classes at night. Donald’s conversations had her longing to know everything there was to know about the Romantic poets. Maybe one day she would even write some poetry herself. Anyway, she’d had it with the mountain.

  Donald showed up at the cabin that Friday night as usual. He stood in the middle of the room with his green duffel bag in his hand while Belinda explained that Roscoe wasn’t going to be there, that his father was sick, but that he was welcome to stay nonetheless. She had no sooner got the whole thing out of her mouth when his started in, laboring for a response. None came. He just stood there working hard at it with his eyes darting over the floor. “Are you afraid?” Belinda asked at last. “Are you afraid that something will happen between us that’ll cost you your friendship with Roscoe?” His head jerked up so suddenly that she knew that must have been exactly what he was thinking. “Roscoe and I are only friends,” she went on quickly. “You should know that by now.”

  She reached for the duffel bag, but he drew back and lifted his gaze from the floor just long enough for her to see how hard he was struggling with his feelings. Then all at once she knew. Of course! Roscoe had cast a spell over him too! She could feel him trying to resist it, trying to break through it. “We won’t let anything happen tonight,” she assured him. Donald only stared at her. She smiled and reached to take his bag again. This time he let her have it.

  Through dinner and the bottle of wine that followed, Belinda did most of the talking. She could see that he was still not altogether at ease about being there alone with her. Saying she was unusually tired, she got into bed early and watched while he turned up the lamp and opened the book he had brought along. But she could tell by the way his eyes got stuck in one place that he wasn’t really reading it, that what he was really doing was trying to separate his desire for her from the wizard’s sorcery. She decided to help him along. Donald, come, she said to herself. I love you, Donald, come to me. She turned herself over and whispered her incantations to the wall. She listened for the sound of pages being turned, but she didn’t hear any. She imagined he was watching her now, studying her blanketed form, burning with a longing he had never know before. Then the next thing she knew, it was morning and Donald was gone.

  Belinda felt weak and helpless. She lay on her bed and cried. But after a while she saw through her tears that there was a folded piece of paper lying beside the kerosene lamp in the middle of the floor where Donald had been sitting the previous night. Still sobbing, she got out of the bed to see what it was that he had left behind. She read it once and could not believe her eyes. She got some tissues and blew her nose and read it once again. It was the most beautiful poem she had ever seen. It was all about the power of love, about the narrator’s love for a very special woman. The tears began again, but now they were tears of joy. He loved her; she was sure of that. And since he’d been too shy (and too much under the wizard’s spell) to come to her, he’d let her know in his own special way. She folded it up and put it in the leather bag where she kept her letters from home and Wordsworth’s biography.

  Belinda was very happy in the week that followed. She could think of nothing but the fact that Donald loved her, that all through the night while she had been sleeping, he had been laboring to write her a poem. Over and over again she saw him as he must have been, sitting on the floor, listening to her breathing across the room while he summoned up the words that would let her know what her every breath meant to him. There was only one problem. Roscoe had to be told. And Donald had to be the one to tell him. He would have to be stronger than Roscoe to overcome his spell.

  When Roscoe returned the following Thursday he was more miserable than Belinda had ever known him to be. He’d argued with his father and his mother. And now that he was back, he was sorry. Belinda was glad; his distractions, she calculated, would be sure to have a dampening effect on his powers. She was tempted to show him the poem and really bring him to his knees. But of course she didn’t.

  That weekend Donald didn’t come, nor the one after that. Roscoe said, “Did you do something to scare him away while I was at my father’s?”

  “Why don’t you go find out for yourself?” Belinda answered.

  And he did.

  She watched from the door as he went up the hill and climbed into his old VW. For two weeks now she had been in a state of quiet panic over Donald’s absence. She’d even lost a few pounds as a result. She felt certain that Donald had lost his courage, that he had none
to fight the wizard with, that he would rather throw away the thing he loved best in life than confront Roscoe. But now he’d be forced to take a stand. Her heart was beating so loud that it was a wonder that she even heard the sound of Roscoe’s engine as it faded off into the hills. One way or the other, things would finally be cleared up.

  Belinda sat all day waiting for Roscoe’s return. She stared at the doves on the window and tried to imagine it. Would he come in angry? Would he beat her? He’d never hit her before, but who knew what kind of strange ideas a person like Roscoe might have? Or maybe he would come in with his head hanging low, repentant, but unable to change the facts. Maybe he would simply ask her to leave his cabin, get out of his sight forever. Or maybe Donald hadn’t even told him, and while her speculations were driving her out of her mind, the two of them were sitting in Donald’s dorm having a good old time.

  As the hours passed, Belinda began to be afraid. Now she thought that they’d probably had a fight. Donald was bigger than Roscoe, but he really wasn’t very strong. Roscoe, on the other hand, was solid muscle. The setting sun came dancing through the window and the doves fluttered at her feet. The crickets outside sang, “Belinda, Belinda, Belinda.”