Magda had always known there might come a time when her Erik—not Henryk; he had always been Erik to her, and always would be, and it did not matter if she called him by that other name always, even in their bed, in this place they had come to when Nina had been on her way—might have to leave. He had told her everything about where he had come from, everything about what the future might bring. She had thought she understood it before Nina's friends came, but she had since come to realize that she had never understood it before she had looked at their daughter, who spoke a thousand languages of a thousand different kinds of beast, and felt that fear in her heart. Fear that someday Nina would be found out by someone who wished to harm those who were like her; fear that someday there would be nowhere safe for her to be, any more than there was anywhere that was truly safe for her father.
Magda had known Erik might have to leave, someday. They had spoken of it many times, their voices low in the darkest night, their words at such times more intimate than she had ever imagined she could be with another person.
So many times, he had said it: That, someday, he might have to leave, for a while.
And so many times she had told him: If you go, you will take me with you.
Always, he had hemmed and hawed, about dangers he could not know yet, how it might not be safe. And always, she had answered him only by saying: I do not care. You will take me with you.
And always, in the end, he had agreed that he would not leave her, not ever, even if he one day had to go.
He hadn't been lying, not any of the times he had said it.
He hadn't been lying, but he had lied—because now, Magda had been left alone in the forest behind their house. Where she and Erik and Nina had been walking, just a few minutes before, intent only on meeting and learning about the newest of Nina's friends. She was alone, and they were gone, and Nina's friends had gone too, and there was nothing except the imprints of their shoes or hooves or claws in the soft places in the ground to say any of them had ever been in this place at all.
***
Magda stood there for a minute or two after they had gone. Long enough to ask herself, What should I do? Long enough to remember the answer, which was, Talk to Charles.
She went back to the house, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder. There was no one there, and that would not change, no matter how much she wished it to.
She found the telephone number in Erik's bag, the one he had kept always packed, just in case.
As she waited, holding the telephone so tightly in her hand that she almost feared she would break it, she prayed that her English would be good enough.
Someone picked up the phone, and said, "Xavier's Academy for Gifted Youngsters. How may I help you?"
"I must speak with Charles Xavier," Magda said. She had wound the cord around the fingers of her other hand so tightly that they had begun to grow numb.
"I'm afraid he can't—"
"I am the wife of Erik Lehnsherr. I live outside Pruszków, in Poland. I must speak with Charles Xavier."
"...I'll get him. Please hold."
Music filled Magda's ears. She listened to it for only a moment, then hung up the phone.
She would never have been able to explain what had happened over the phone—not in English, and of all the things Erik had told her about his former lover, one of them had been how bad he was in languages. By far worse than Magda herself, for why should someone who could make himself understood through thoughts ever need to know another tongue? She did not have enough English, and if Charles Xavier knew any Polish at all, it could not be more than a few words.
From everything else Erik had told her, none of it should matter. She had given Charles Xavier everything he needed, and so now she sat, thinking, as loudly as she could. I am the wife of Erik Lehnsherr. You need to look no further. I am here.
It was nearly half an hour of thinking, and then finally, just as she was thinking that perhaps she would have to call again, try to explain again, a presence came to her. Erik had never known exactly how to describe it, and now Magda would not, either; there were no words in any language to describe this, although perhaps someday there would be.
I'm here. What's wrong?
Beneath the words—if they were words—Magda could not help but hear what else Charles Xavier was saying.
Erik has not done anything, Magda said. He has been taken. He, and Nina, our daughter. They came, and they took them. I do not know where.
Who did?
Before Magda could think to answer, the answer rose in her mind, a replaying of the scene she had lived—could it be less than an hour ago? The armored blue man, who had said he wanted Erik, and whose eyes had then alighted upon Nina. The hunger that had been in them had not been anything Magda had ever wished to see in the eyes of anyone who looked upon her daughter. It was worse than hatred, worse even than lechery.
Erik had seen it, too, and the blue man's power: even Magda had been able to feel that. He'd said the man would take both of them, or neither.
In the end, as Magda stood to the side, unable to speak or even to move, the blue man had said he would have both.
You will help us, Magda said, a plea as well as a question.
Yes, Charles Xavier said. Yes, of course. Yes. I'll be back.
Then he was gone, and Magda was left in the dark and the silence, alone.
***
I've found them, he said, walking back into her mind without preamble or greeting. We're going to go get them. Is there anything else you can tell me that might help us?
I am going, too, Magda said.
I don't think—
This is my husband, my child. You will take me with you.
—All right.
***
Some hours later, the jet plane landed in the yard behind the house. Magda had never before known the reason Erik had insisted there be so much empty space between them and the forest—it had always seemed puzzling to her, when their daughter's friends were often reluctant to pass into open ground. She would have thought that Erik wished to have the open space for visibility's sake—except that there was no visibility to the front of the house at all, and the forest came nearly to the front door.
The bottom of the plane opened, exposing a ramp, and a tall skinny man at the top of it. "Hurry," he said.
She did, carrying Erik's bag with her—the one containing all their false papers, and now a change of clothes for both Erik and Nina, when they were found.
As the ramp drew back up again, the tall skinny man rushed to the front of the plane, and it began to rise in the air. In the seating area, there were a few people, none of whom Magda recognized, and one she did. She could not have missed him, for he was the only person with a folded-up wheelchair tucked in behind his seat.
Magda sat down across from him. She had seen Charles Xavier's face in the newspapers before, but somehow he did not look quite the same, any more than Erik had looked like Erik Lehnsherr when they had first met and she had tried to reconcile him with the terrorist shown on television.
"Where are they?" she asked. "What is happening?"
He did not speak Polish, and she did not speak very much English, but she understood him perfectly when he said, "They're in Cairo. They're all right, as far as we know right now. I was only able to speak with Erik for a minute before something blocked me...so I don't have much more to tell you, unfortunately."
"Show me what you did see," Magda said. "Show me what happened."
He did, and she saw Erik, terrified and pretending—that he cared about the blue man's goals, that he was loyal, anything to make the man forget him, anything to make it more likely that he could take Nina and run. She saw Nina, in the blue man's thrall as Erik was not. He had told her that all humans wished to take her Papa away, that there was no way he would ever be safe without this. Nina was only a child, and had never before been lied to. There was no way for her to know, no experience for her to draw on to make her resist...
"Hurry," Magda said. "Please hurry."
***
In Cairo, the battle raged, the unknown danger Erik had once feared so greatly, come to pass.
Magda waited in the jet for a time, watching, waiting. Once she saw them, it took all that she had not to rush into the fray...but it would do no one any good if she were to be torn apart before she could reach them.
Then there came a lull, a quiet eye of the storm. She stepped out into it, rushing to Erik's side.
"Magda," he said, and she said:
"Hush."
She kneeled down by Nina's side, heedless of the sparrows on her shoulders, screaming, and of the snarling jackal by her side. Nina's friends would not harm her family, neither she nor Erik, even if they tore the rest of the world apart.
She took Nina by the shoulders, and said, "Nina, it is all right," just as she had so many times, whenever Nina had had a nightmare...and for Erik, when he did. "It is all right. We are here. We are all together. Please come back to me."
She said it once, and then again, and again.
The sparrows stopped screaming, and the jackal stopped growling; elsewhere, all the creatures that had been fighting those who had come with Magda and Charles Xavier now began to turn and slink away from the battle. Nina's eyes changed, black back to brown.
"Mama?" she said, tearful.
"I tried that," Erik said. "I don't know why it didn't work."
"Because you were the one she feared for," Magda said. "And I am the one who—never mind, we must go to safety."
The three of them went to the jet, as the battle resumed behind them. And from the jet, Magda and Erik watched, while Nina began softly to cry.
"I have to help them," Erik said. "I have to go." To Nina, he said, "I'll be back, Schatz. I promise."
"Make it soon," Magda said, because he was right: she could not go with him, not this time.
She watched from the window as Erik entered the battle, for the first time on the side he wished to be on, now that Nina was safe. She watched, and she allowed Nina to watch as well, until the blue man had fallen, and all who had fought returned. Erik was nearly the last among them, and limping, but otherwise whole.
Nina and Magda hugged him, squeezing tightly. Magda did not want to let him go, any more than Nina did, but there was something that still had to be taken care of.
She went to Charles Xavier again, as the jet once again rose in the air, and she said, "There is more. Even before he came, we still needed someplace to go. We still need sanctuary."
He did not look surprised. Magda could imagine that he rarely was, not unless he wished to be. "Of course," he said, and his smile was tired, but very beautiful. It was not at all difficult to see why Erik had loved him so. "The three of you can stay as long as you need to. I mean that. It can be forever, if you want it to be."
What that was supposed to mean was not entirely clear—not to Magda, not even with the help of telepathy, and she suspected it was not clear to him either.
"That would be wonderful," she said, and meant it, whatever it might mean.