“I’m not about to sell them to Rushkin,” Kathy said. “Give me that much credit.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. But Rushkin doesn’t even know they exist. I’m afraid if he did, he’d find a way to get at them.”
“But –”
“One of the things I hate about being away from the island is that I’m always afraid he’s going to sneak into the farmhouse while I’m gone and steal the ones I have there.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Kathy said. “Except for Paddyjack hanging in the kitchen, you’d have to be very determined to find the rest of them.”
There were storage spaces behind the eaves in the attic, between the drywall and the outer walls, and Isabelle had hidden the numena paintings in them, enfolding them in protective wrappings and then covering them over with old insulation and boards. Kathy was the only person Isabelle had ever shown them to.
“I know. But still …”
“Actually,” Kathy said, “I don’t think you have to worry so much about Rushkin anymore. Didn’t you hear? According to Nora, he’s got himself a new protégé.”
“Anybody we know?”
Kathy shook her head. “Her name’s Barbara Nichols and apparently she’s just a young thing, still in art school.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“You seem pretty blasé about it.”
Isabelle laughed. “Why do you say that? Did you think I’d be jealous?”
“No, but I was thinking that maybe she should be warned – you know. About Rushkin and the numena and what he does to them.”
“I don’t think so,” Isabelle said. “If he hasn’t already told her about them, she’d think I was nuts – or at least jealous. And if he has taught her how to bring them over, nothing anyone might have to say would stop her from continuing to paint them. Trust me on this. I know.”
Or at least she hoped she did. She hoped she was saying this for the reasons she was giving to Kathy and not for a more selfish reason. But she had to admit the thought had crossed her mind that if Rushkin had found another artist to provide him with the numena he needed, then it would mean that her own would be safe.
“Have you seen her work yet?” she added.
“No,” Kathy said, “but Jilly has. She says it’s stunning.”
The poor girl, Isabelle thought.
“So, anyway,” Kathy went on. “Don’t you think that puts the threat of Rushkin out of the picture?”
Isabelle hated to disappoint Kathy, but she had to shake her head. Unless she could be absolutely sure, she couldn’t take the risk.
“I know you must think I’m paranoid,” she began, but Kathy dismissed her explanation with a wave of her hand.
“Don’t even worry about trying to explain,” she said. “I understand. But you have to promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“That one day you’ll illustrate one of my books.”
“I …” Isabelle hesitated.
“Oh, come on. One day Rushkin will be dead and gone and you’ll be able to do it with a complete peace of mind.”
“All right,” Isabelle said. “One day I’ll do it.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” Kathy assured her, then changed the subject. “So when does your new show open?”
“In October. I just have a couple more pieces to finish for it.”
“I think it’s going to do great. The island just seems to flow through your paintbrush onto the canvas.”
“I’ve always loved painting there.”
“And you are going to stay with me for the week of the opening?”
“Try to keep me away.”
XXV
Wren Island, Beltane Eve, 1980
“What a great idea this was,” Kathy said. She adjusted the folded blanket she was sitting on and leaned back against a rock with her feet near the fire.
Isabelle nodded contentedly beside her. It was still jacket weather once the sun went down, but they’d lucked into a perfect day for their Beltane Eve party. After the morning mists rising from the lake had been burned away, the sky had remained clear for the rest of the day. It was too early in the year for mosquitoes or blackflies, and for once the reason you couldn’t see any no-see-ums was because they weren’t out yet, either.
The bonfire was on the beach of a small cove on the east side of the island – a towering blaze of salvaged driftwood that was tended by whoever happened to be near enough to toss another few logs in when the fire got low. Isabelle had lost count of how many people had arrived by now. The dirt road on the mainland leading from the highway to her pier was crowded with parked cars, and her little rowboat and two others she’d rented from the marina had been ferrying people back and forth from the island all afternoon and well into the evening. The field up behind the cove was dotted with tents. Those who hadn’t brought tents had laid out their sleeping bags in the big barn. A hardy few planned to sleep under the stars – easily the best choice, Isabelle had decided once the sun finally set, for it was one of those nights when the sky went on forever, the stars seeming to flicker a handbreadth away from your face.
With the potluck dinner finally over, music had started up on the far side of the fire. A dozen or so musicians jammed on a mix of folk songs, old hit-parade favorites and Celtic dance music. From where she sat with Kathy, Isabelle could see Christy’s brother Geordie among them playing his fiddle, and Amy Scallan with her pipes, the two of them happily playing along on both Beatles’ songs and Irish reels.
Sitting near the musicians with their more traditional instruments was a whole contingent of people keeping rhythm by tapping sticks against each other or drumming them on rocks. On the stretch of sand between the lake and the fire, a growing crowd was dancing, singing along when they knew the words.
Wine and beer continued to flow abundantly and the air was redolent with the smell of the fire, the lake and the pinewoods behind them, all mingled together with a sweet underlying scent of marijuana.
When a joint came their way Isabelle shook her head, but Kathy took a long toke before passing it on.
Isabelle had a couple of glasses of some mystery punch that no one was quite sure who’d brought and, she decided from the slightly woozy way she was feeling, it must have been spiked stronger than she’d thought. She wasn’t exactly drunk; it was more that she was unusually focused. Everything she looked at or concentrated on for any length of time seemed inordinately interesting.
Kathy turned to look at her, the firelight making her hennaed hair seem to glow with its own inner lights.
“I’m having the best time,” she said.
Isabelle nodded. “I didn’t think so many people would show up, it being a Thursday and all.”
“What, are you kidding? I don’t think one of our friends has a regular job.”
“But still.”
Kathy smiled. “I know. It’s like one of the old Waterhouse Street open houses, isn’t it?”
That was a perfect description, Isabelle decided, because just as at those parties, she only recognized about half the people here. But by all indications, as small groups got together, broke up and then re-formed into new configurations, everyone was still connected to someone she knew.
“I’ll bet most of them stay straight through the weekend,” Kathy added.
“Oh, God. I hope my plumbing survives the onslaught.” She’d put the old outhouse back into service, but people were going into the farmhouse to use the facilities, as well. The plumbing dated back to her grandfather’s time and had never been upgraded.
“I just hope the beer lasts,” Kathy said.
“We can always make a run to the marina tomorrow,” Isabelle told her. “We’ll probably need more food by then, too.”
“Well, don’t pay for it all yourself – take up a collection before you go.”
“Yeah, right. With this crowd?”
“It’s worth a shot.”
“I suppose,” Isabelle allowe
d. “Say, do you know who that guy is?”
She’d been noticing him on and off throughout the afternoon and evening, but every time she went to meet him, someone came up to distract her. As the evening progressed she found herself getting more and more curious about him.
Kathy peered in the general direction that Isabelle had indicated. “Which guy?”
“Just on the other side of where Jilly and Sophie are sitting. The one that looks sort of out of place.”
There was something old-fashioned about the cut of his clothes and his hairstyle, though it was hard to tell exactly what because of the poor light. Still, she couldn’t help but feel he’d be more at home on a turn-of-the-century street in Lower Crowsea than here on her island.
“We’re all out of place here,” Kathy said with a laugh. “Except for you, my hardy country girl.”
“You know what I mean. Who is he?”
“I haven’t a clue.” Kathy turned to her. “Do you like him?”
“I don’t even know him. He just looks familiar and it bugs me that I can’t place him.”
“Familiar as in, you might have seen him around, or he looks like someone you do know?”
“A little of both.”
“So go ask him,” Kathy said, ever the pragmatist.
“I would, except I can never seem to get near to him. Whenever I try, that’s exactly the moment somebody comes up to me and asks me something, and the next thing I know, he’s gone.”
“Allow me to investigate this phenomenon,” Kathy said loftily, beginning to rise to her feet.
Isabelle pulled at the sleeve of Kathy’s sweater, making her sit down again. “Too late. He’s gone again.”
It was true. The place where he’d been standing was now occupied by two women having an animated conversation. Isabelle knew that the Oriental woman was a performance artist, but she couldn’t remember her name. The other woman was a complete stranger to her.
“Now I’m intrigued,” Kathy said. She turned, suddenly. “You don’t think it was one of your numena?”
Mostly, Isabelle had gotten used to life without her otherwordly friends. She still painted an occasional gateway painting and she kept all of them safely stored away, but it was starting to get to the point where their existence seemed to be nothing more than a dream – a fading memory from the past that she wasn’t sure had ever actually been real. But then something would remind her of them and the memories would tumble back into her mind along with a blazing shock of realization that couldn’t be denied. They had been real. And she missed them terribly.
Kathy’s casual mention of her numena reawoke all those old memories and feelings. Isabelle felt a sudden tightening in her chest, but she forced herself to remain calm, to not let the memories take hold and spoil her mood.
“If he is,” she said after a moment, “he’s not one of mine.”
“Hmm.” Kathy gave her a quick smile. “I wonder if that new protégé of Rushkin’s has come far enough along in her studies to bring them across. Maybe she’ll paint the perfect companion for me.”
“Oh, please.”
“Well, you won’t.”
“Trust the voice of experience,” Isabelle said. “It doesn’t work out.”
Kathy shook her head. “Sorry, but I don’t buy it. The next thing you’ll tell me is that if your relationship with the first boyfriend you ever have falls through, then you might as well just give up on ever finding another one.”
“You could be right.”
“Oh, poo. You’re far too young and attractive to become a hermit – which is what’s basically happening to you. You do know that, don’t you?”
“This from the woman who hasn’t had a steady boyfriend for as long as I’ve known her?”
“That’s different,” Kathy told her. “I’m just waiting for you to bring across the perfect numena.”
Isabelle sighed with mild exasperation.
“So until then,” Kathy added, “we’re stuck with each other.”
“That I can handle.”
“Hey, Izzy!” someone called.
Isabelle turned to see an indistinct figure approaching them. It wasn’t until she stepped into the light cast by the fire that Isabelle recognized her as Nora. With her spiky brown hair standing at attention and her baggy jacket and jeans hanging loose on her slender frame, she looked like a gamine from a Dickens or Hugo novel, set loose and gone feral in this setting.
“Jack’s here with the Maypole,” Nora said when she reached them, “except he doesn’t know where you want it.”
Initially, Isabelle had planned to put it in the field behind them, but it was so full of tents by now that she couldn’t see how it would fit.
“Why don’t we put it up in that meadow you took me to this morning?” Kathy said. “The one that had all those yellow fish flowers in it.”
“Trout lilies,” Isabelle explained for Nora.
“They didn’t look anything like trout to me,” Kathy said.
“They’re called that because of their speckled leaves.”
Nora nodded. “My grandmother’s got those in her garden, except she calls them adder’s tongue.”
“An even more apt description,” Kathy said wryly. “Anyway, I think it’d be the perfect spot.”
Isabelle agreed. “I’ll come show you where it is.”
“You’ll have to show Jack yourself,” Nora said. “I think I’ve had one glass of wine too many to go traipsing off into the woods about now.”
In the end, Isabelle and Kathy both went along to help. Isabelle had to grab Kathy’s arm for a second when she first stood up because everything went spinning.
“Are you okay?” Kathy asked.
“Too much mystery punch,” Isabelle explained.
Kathy laughed. “Too much vodka in the mystery punch is more like it.”
Jack Crow was the last person Isabelle would have approached to help her with the Maypole. He worked in a tattoo parlor and looked more like a biker, with his leathers and all his tattoos, than someone who would have gone out with Sophie for a few months. But Jilly had assured her he’d be perfect, and now that Isabelle could see his work – albeit in the light cast by a couple of flashlights – she had to agree that he’d done a wonderful job. There seemed to be hundreds of streamers of colored cloth, wrapped around the pole to transport it, each one a different color and breadth, complementary colors vibrating against each other so that the entire length of the pole appeared to pulse. Looking at the pattern they produced made Isabelle think of the cloth bracelets she’d made from Paddyjack’s ribbons. Without thinking of it, her hand strayed to her wrist, but the bracelet wasn’t there. She’d stopped wearing it a long time ago and kept it tacked to the wall of her studio. She hadn’t thought of it in months, but for some reason she missed it now.
It took them a half hour to get the Maypole to the meadow Kathy had suggested and then set it up. The last thing they did was unwrap the streamers. A light breeze plucked at them, making them whirl and dance. Isabelle watched them, mesmerized. It seemed as though the streamers all had afterimages that pulsed and throbbed with as much energy as the streamers themselves, making a whirling kaleidoscope of moon-drenched color. For a moment she thought she could hear a rhythmic tappa-tap-tap, but it was only in her memory.
“This’ll be so perfect,” Kathy said as they stood back to admire their handiwork. “When the sun comes up to hit all those streamers, it’s going to look seriously gorgeous.”
Isabelle couldn’t imagine it looking any more magnificent than it already did.
“I hope somebody brought a camera,” Kathy added.
“I saw Meg earlier,” Isabelle assured her when she was finally able to tear her gaze from the light show of the streamers.
Meg Mullally was a photographer friend of theirs who never went anywhere without a camera or two slung over her shoulder. What with Kathy’s surname being Mully, Alan used to kid them that they had to be related somewhere back in the dim co
rridors of antiquity.
“I know there’s tons of people here tonight,” Jack said as they started back, “and they’re probably all over the place by now, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s somebody else out here with us as well.”
“What kind of somebody?” Kathy asked, obviously intrigued.
“I don’t know. Somebody old and mysterious.” Isabelle could hear the embarrassment in his voice. “Maybe …” He cleared his throat. “Maybe, you know … not quite human. It’s like I can feel somebody watching me, but whenever I turn around, there’s no one there. No one that I can see, at least. But I can still feel them there, watching me.”
He was sensing her numena, Isabelle realized. Time to change the subject. But before she could, Kathy piped up, her voice pitched low and serious.
“Well, the island is supposed to be haunted,” she said. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”
“Haunted?”
Isabelle gave Kathy a poke with her elbow, but Kathy pretended she didn’t feel it and simply went on. “It’s like there are ghosts or faeries in the woods,” she said. “We don’t know what. We just know there’s something out there.”
“Yeah, right,” Jack said, and then he laughed, but Isabelle could sense a vague nervousness behind the sound. “You sound like Jilly now.”
So much for his tough-guy image, she thought.
“Believe what you like,” Kathy told him.
“So have you ever, you know, seen anything?” Jack asked.
Or maybe he’s just stoned, Isabelle amended. Lord knew with the quantities of alcohol and hallucinogens being consumed tonight, people would be liable to see anything. She felt a little stoned herself, rather than drunk, even though all she’d had was a couple of beers in the afternoon and then the mystery punch with her dinner.
“Well, once,” Kathy began, and then she launched into an improbable tale that borrowed as heavily from Hawthorne as it did a tabloid.
Since they’d reached the farmhouse at that point, Isabelle left them to it. She went inside, walking around and talking to people until she found herself in her studio. The bracelet she’d made from Paddyjack’s ribbons drew her attention, pulsing where it hung on the wall with the same energy as the Maypole’s streamers. She looked at it for a long moment, then took it down from the wall and put it on her wrist. She moved her arm back and forth a few times, tracking the afterimages the bracelet left, then finally went back outside again.
Memory and Dream Page 45
