Over the past year, most of Alan’s ghosts had been laid to rest, but working on the book with Isabelle and Marisa as he had, Kathy had never been far from his thoughts. Tonight she was closer than ever.
She should have been here, he thought as he and Marisa took out a couple of boxes from the trunk of his car. She should have been here not only to celebrate the launch of this book and the culmination of her dream for an arts court for street kids, but because she had deserved better than what she’d gotten.
She’d deserved happiness. She’d deserved to live. If only one of her friends could have seen through the mask she presented to the world ...
That was what hurt the most, he’d realized. Unlike Isabelle, he’d accepted her death as a suicide from the start, but he’d never understood why she had killed herself until he’d read the journal. All she’d wanted was amnesia. All she’d wanted to do was to forget. He couldn’t imagine the life she’d lived, the dichotomy between who she seemed to be and the world inside her head, filled with the horrible memories she’d carried with her for all those years until she finally simply couldn’t bear to remember them anymore.
Marisa touched his arm. When he turned to look at her, he saw that she understood what was going through his head.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked.
He nodded. “But I can’t stop thinking about how unfair it is that she’s not here. I can’t stop missing her.”
“I never got the chance to meet her,” Marisa said, “but I find myself missing her, too. Especially tonight.”
She gave him a hug that Alan returned gratefully. Among all the things he’d learned and had to work through over this past year, discovering how much he loved her, and she him, was one of the few things he didn’t regret.
He closed the trunk of the car and hefted the box of books that they were going to sell at the opening. The box that Marisa was carrying held their give-aways: illustrated bookmarks and pins. They paused by the side of the car, looking up at the building that the advance money from the paperback sale of the omnibus had allowed Kathy’s estate to buy.
The arts court was an odd, square-shaped box of a building, situated just a few blocks over from the Newford Children’s Foundation. It had gone through many incarnations since it was first built in the thirties, housing any number of commercial ventures over the years, but this would be the first time the building harbored a nonprofit organization. Alan only hoped they’d have more luck than all those failing businesses had before them.
They’d been working for months to get ready for tonight and Alan couldn’t have done it without Isabelle’s help. Not only had she donated all her advance from the book, as well as the money from the sale of most of the original paintings she’d done to illustrate it, but she’d also overseen the renovation and design and was going to be responsible for the dayto-day running of the place.
She had a modest apartment on the third floor that she shared with Cosette and her cat Rubens, dividing her time between it and her home on Wren Island, though Alan couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent more than a weekend on the island. The other two floors were divided into various open-concept workplaces for every sort of visual art one could imagine. There was even a large room set aside on the second floor which doubled as both library and work area for would-be writers.
Alan couldn’t believe the difference, inside and out, between when they’d bought the place a few short months ago and tonight. The zigzagging iron fire escape remained, running from the ground up to the roof, and most of the original brickwork, but the windows had all been enlarged and modernized, a porch had been added out back, landscaping had been done—most of the labor and supplies provided by friends, members of the Lower Crowsea arts community and the kids themselves for whom all the work was being done. July and Sophie had painted the huge sign above the front door that proudly proclaimed the building’s new identity.
“Shall we?” Marisa asked, indicating the front door.
Alan smiled. “Right.”
He and Marisa had thought they were arriving early, but when they opened the front door it was to step into an open-house party that seemed to have been in progress for hours. Geordie Riddell had put together a pickup band for the evening and they were already set up in one corner of the largest ground-floor room, playing up a storm. Everywhere Alan looked he spotted familiar faces—friends from the area, artists and musicians and writers, counselors from the Foundation and, of course, the street kids. Some of them looked bored and sullen and he couldn’t tell if they were simply uncomfortable with all the attention or if that was how they really felt. Dark currents, he thought, hoping that once the arts court got going it would help to dispel some of those shadows. More of the kids seemed to be literally vibrating with excitement.
He led the way through the crowd to the table where they were going to set up their display for the book. They had their first customer as Alan was still stacking up the books.
“Looks good.”
Alan lifted his head and was surprised to see Roger Davis standing there in front of the display table.
He hadn’t seen the detective since they’d finally cleared their way through the confusion and accusations that had followed on the heels of last year’s events in the Tombs. Davis looked different, and it wasn’t just that he was dressed in chinos and a workshirt with a windbreaker overtop. There was a friendliness in his features that Alan had never seen before.
“You seem surprised to see me here.”
“I guess I am.”
“Yeah, well we’re real proud of what you’re trying to do here. Mike—my partner?” Alan nodded, remembering the man. “Mike and I took up a collection at the precinct and we raised almost twelve hundred bucks. Even the Loot kicked in.” Davis pulled an envelope from the pocket of his windbreaker.
“I’ve got the check for you right here.”
Alan accepted the envelope. “I ... I don’t know what to say.”
“‘Thanks’ works for me,” Davis said, smiling.
“Of course. Thank you.”
“So this is the new book,” Davis said, picking up a copy. “I never did get around to reading anything by her. How much’re they going for?”
“Please,” Alan said. “I’d like you to have a copy.”
“The money you make from these gets kicked back into this place, right?”
Alan nodded.
“Then I’m buying my copy,” Davis said, reaching into his hip pocket for his wallet. “And don’t give me any argument, or I’ll run you in.”
Alan glanced past the detective and caught a glimpse of Isabelle standing by the refreshment tables, talking to Jilly and Rolanda. She felt his gaze and looked up, smiling when she saw Davis pulling out his wallet, a copy of the omnibus in hand. Alan returned his attention to Davis.
“You won’t get any argument from me,” he said. “We appreciate all the support, Detective Davis.”
“Roger,” Davis corrected him. “And if you folks ever need anything, you come see me—you got that?”
“This is very sweet of you,” Marisa said.
“Yeah, well ...”
Jesus, Alan thought. The detective was actually blushing.
Davis paid for his book, then crossed the room to join Isabelle and the others. Alan shook his head.
“Can you believe that?” he asked Marisa.
“Which part of it?” she wanted to know. “The fact that he’s human or that I made him blush?”
“All of it.”
Marisa slipped her arm around his waist. “It’s this place,” she said. “I told you as soon as we came to look at it that I had a good feeling about it, didn’t I?” Alan nodded.
Marisa looked up at him. “Did you ever feel homesick for the home you never had?” she asked.
“Not really.”
“Well, I have. And so have a lot of people. I think this is going to be one of those places that will make everyone who comes in feel as though they’ve come home
.”
II
I can’t believe what a great turnout we got,” July said. “I wasn’t expecting nearly so many people.”
“I know,” Rolanda said, nodding in agreement.
Isabelle smiled and took a sip of her wine. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “Not with all the support we’ve had since we bought the building.”
“This is true,” Jilly said. “You know I’ve had over a dozen artists come up to me, saying they wanted to come in and help out with the kids.”
“That’s great. But they’ve got to remember, we’re not here to instruct. The way Kathy envisioned it was that the arts court would be a place where the street kids could come and do what they wanted to do with their art. All we’re providing is the space and the materials.”
“But what if someone needs instruction?” Rolanda asked.
“The way I picture it,” Isabelle explained, “is that we’ll do our own work here—just as though we were in our own studios—so we’ll be providing instruction by way of example. The kids can learn by watching us and then experimenting on their own.”
“But—”
“But if they do want instruction,” Isabelle said, “and whoever’s here at the time is willing to teach, then that’s okay, too. I just don’t want it turned into a school. We’ve already got the Newford School of Art for that.”
“Shades of Professor Dapple,” Jilly said. “I could be in one of his classes now, listening to him.”
Isabelle smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment. I just wish he could have come.”
“You know the professor and crowds. Besides, what if he’d come and brought along Goon?”
“Goon still works for him?”
Jilly nodded. “And he’s as grumpy as ever.”
Detective Davis approached them then and they spent a few minutes talking with him before Rolanda took him away for a tour of the rest of the building.
“I wish Kathy were here to share this,” Isabelle said as the pair were swallowed by the crowd.
Jilly nodded. “I think everybody here feels the same way. But you know, we’re all putting out such seriously good vibes, I’m sure she can feel us all thinking about her.”
“Vibes?” Isabelle repeated. “How retro.”
“Well, can you think of a better word?”
“No,” Isabelle admitted. “You’re right. That says it all. None of this would exist without her and it’s only going to get better.”
She set her wineglass down on the table behind her and surveyed the crowd. Jilly was right. For a gathering this large, especially with some of the people in the Lower Crowsea arts crowd who could be obnoxiously opinionated at the best of times, there was a noticeable aura of harmony and goodwill hanging over the proceedings.
“You know what I like the best about this?” Jilly said. “Imagining all the new artistic voices that will be raised in here, sending their messages off, just the way Kathy sent hers. Some of them answering hers, others going off on their own journeys.”
Isabelle nodded. There was a line Kathy had liked to quote from one of her favorite authors, Jane Yolen. She repeated it now.
“‘Touch magic, pass it on,’” she said. “That’s what the idea of the arts court meant to Kathy and that’s what I think it’s going to do. It’s going to be a magic place.”
“Especially with you here,” Jilly said. She looked around the room with a considering glance. “I wonder if any of the kids that come here will have the gift of bringing numena across.”
Isabelle had given up the last secret that lay between Jilly and herself when she got out of the hospital.
She didn’t make it common knowledge—there was too much chance of another Rushkin appearing for her to do that, she felt—but she trusted Jilly and who better to share such a secret? They were both disappointed when they realized that for all her creative talents and commitment to both art and the paranormal, the gift didn’t lie in Jilly.
“That’s not something I’m about to teach anyone else,” Isabelle said.
She was watching Cosette as she spoke. The wild girl was barely recognizable from the portrait that was once again hanging in the Newford Children’s Foundation. Cosette had taken to wearing her red hair cropped short to her scalp. Her wardrobe consisted entirely of baggy jeans and sweatshirts and her most prized possession: a pair of burgundy Doc Martens that laced halfway up her calves. And she kept experimenting with the most outlandish styles of makeup. Tonight she’d daubed her cheeks with white clay, large dots on her brow above the eyes, three lines on each cheek and one that ran down the center of her nose. What amazed Isabelle the most was how it always looked so natural on the girl.
“What’s next?” Jilly said, following her gaze. “Body piercing?”
“God, I hope not,” Isabelle replied.
Looking across the room to where Cosette stood talking with some of the older kids who’d helped with the renovations, she knew a familiar twinge of fear. Rushkin was gone, but what would happen to her own numena when she was gone, too?
“Don’t worry about us,” Rosalind had told her on one of her brief visits to the island. “We’re far more resilient than you think. Let us go out into the world and fend for ourselves. There’s no need for you to protect each and every painting you produce—not now that the dark man is gone.”
Remembering that conversation, Isabelle lifted a hand to touch the black velvet choker that hid the prominent scar on her throat. That day in the tenement was probably the closest she’d ever come to knowing what Kathy had been feeling when she took her life. The scar was Isabelle’s reminder that it had really happened, but it always felt as though it had happened to someone else. Not because she was building false memories again, but because she finally felt fulfilled and couldn’t imagine welcoming death now.
“I suppose we should mingle,” she said.
Jilly nodded. “An administrator’s job is never done.”
“Oh, please. I’m only going to paint here and make sure we stay stocked with materials.”
“I rest my case.”
Isabelle aimed a kick at her shin, but Jilly dodged into the crowd before it could connect.
III
Later, Isabelle went up through her darkened apartment and onto the roof. She could still hear the party from where she stood. Though the night was cool, the press of the crowd made it hot enough inside for most of the windows to be left open. Geordie and his friends were beginning what had to be their twentieth set of the evening. Isabelle looked out over what she could see of the city’s skyline and let the waltz the band was playing take her thoughts away. She started when a hand touched her elbow and a soft, familiar voice said, “Ma belle Izzy.”
She turned to find Kathy standing beside her—the Kathy of twenty years ago, hennaed hair, patched jeans, ready smile. Rushkin had been right. It had been possible to bring Kathy back—but not as she truly was. Only as Isabelle remembered her.
Maybe it was better this way, Isabelle thought. At least this time Kathy was happy.
“Let’s dance,” Kathy said. “Your turn to lead.”
So they moved in three-quarter time to the tune that drifted up from the windows below, dancing together as they had from time to time in their dorm at Butler U., or in the apartment on Waterhouse Street. Really, Isabelle thought, the whole night reminded her of Waterhouse Street, except now it was bohemia without the extremes, Cosette’s sense of fashion notwithstanding.
When the waltz ended, they stepped apart and Isabelle saw another figure standing by the edge of the roof where the railings of the fire escape protruded above the lip of the cornice encircling the roof.
This was always the oddest part, she thought as her younger self approached, to see what could be her daughter, in Kathy’s company.
The two numena joined hands, unself-conscious in their intimacy. “Don’t be such a stranger,” Izzy said. “We miss seeing you.”
Kathy nodded. “It’s hard for us to come her
e.”
Because of who might see them, Isabelle thought, finishing in her mind what they left unsaid. It wouldn’t do for the dead to walk, or for there to be two versions of herself wandering about the city.
That could raise too many questions with no easy answers.
“I’ve been too busy to come to the island,” she told them.
“That’s what Rosalind says,” Kathy said. “But we still miss you.” Izzy smiled. “Paddyjack most of all.”
“And ... John?” Isabelle asked.
“Ah, Solemn John,” Kathy said, using Cosette’s name for him. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
Stepping forward, they each gave her a kiss, one on the right cheek, the other on the left; then they disappeared, returning to where their source painting hung in the refurbished barn on Wren Island. The other numena on the island still preferred their odd little rooms that they’d set up so long ago in the woods, but Kathy and Izzy had made a home for themselves in her old house.
Isabelle sighed, considering John.
Ask him? she thought. First she had to find him. She hadn’t seen much of John in the last year, although more so in the past few months when he’d pitched in to help with the arts court. But then they were never alone. They could never talk. Not that Isabelle knew what she’d say to him. There was so much lying between them now, not the least of which was the fact that while she grew older every day, adding grey hairs and lines to her features as the years took their toll, he never changed. When she was sixty, he’d still be the eternal John Sweetgrass, forever a young man in his twenties as she’d first painted him. “Ask me what?” John said.
Isabelle turned. She hadn’t heard him approach, but she wasn’t at all surprised to find him here, sitting on the wooden bench she’d brought up onto the roof a few days after first moving into the apartment. This seemed a night for visits and old friends, as witness the party going on below.
“If you think of me,” she said as she joined him on the bench. “All the time.”
But ... ? Isabelle wanted to say. Instead she held her peace. She didn’t want any serious discussions—not tonight. Tonight was Kathy’s night, absent though she was. It was for celebrating, not brooding. From downstairs rose the sprightly measures of a jig and she wondered what John would say if she asked him to dance, especially to that. The thought of it made her smile.
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