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.”
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
