laughter and unexpected plot twists.
Mason overheard one of the group say, 'Let me tell you about this lovely idea I had for a novel. It's about this writer who-'
Mason gave a last look back at Korban's face, then entered the autumn sunshine. The fields were golden green sheets stretched to the surrounding forest. Great ridges of earth rose along the horizon, carved and chipped and smoothed by that master sculptor, Time. Mason now knew why these mountains were called the Blue Ridge, though the changing leaves splashed such an array of colors that he almost wished he'd stuck with painting.
Pumpkin orange, summer squash yellow, cornsilk gold, beet purple. Van Gogh would have given his other ear to paint this place.
Except such a thought smacked of that dreaded ideal of artistic sacrifice. He wondered if the esteemed historical roster of insane artists had not been schizophrenic or poisoned by the lead in their paint, but had instead been driven mad by the whispering of demanding Muses. Mason drove the thought from his head because it seemed like an option only a nut would consider. And he'd given up painting not because of a lack of desire or talent, but because of its visual nature. His mother could feel the sculpture with her fingers, but a painting was nothing to her but an endless piece of darkness.
A few horses and cows grazed in the meadow that sloped away from the front of the house. The open land must have been about twenty acres, cleared of boulders and carefully tended. Mason found it hard to believe that these soft grounds gave way to steep granite cliffs on all sides.
Not even a jet trail marked the blue autumn sky, as if the manor were remote from modern civilization not only in distance but in time as well. Majestic hardwoods spread their limbs at carefully spaced intervals along a carriage trail that wound toward the west. An apple orchard covered a rise beside the pasture, the trees dotted with pink and golden fruit. Lush grass swayed softly in a hayfield beyond, ending at the edge of a dense forest.
A soft voice interrupted his reverie: 'Now you know why artists trip over their egos to get up here. Especially in the fall.'
It was the dark-haired woman with the cyan eyes. She crossed the porch and leaned over the railing, then closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose with an exaggerated flourish. 'Ah. Fresh air. A nice change from the stench of pretension inside.'
'You a painter?' Mason asked, still looking across the fields, irritated by her jab at artists.
'No.'
'Me either.'
'What are you, then?'
'Does everybody have to be something?'
The woman tilted her head back toward the house. 'If you listen to them, you'd think so.'
'Well, this is a retreat, after all. Back up and go, 'Whoa,' I reckon.' He didn't want her to know he felt out of his element. He already missed Sawyer Creek's dirty little streets with their utility poles and peeling billboards. Back home, he'd be heating up the teakettle and tuning the radio to Mama's favorite conservative talk show right about now.
'What's in the bag?'
'This satchel? Nothing. Just some tools.'
'I thought you were one of the staff,' she said. 'Too bad. Because I despise artists. I think they're full of themselves. Nothing personal.'
Mason tried not to look at her too closely, though that was all he wanted to do. She was pretty, sure, but there was also the sense that she wouldn't let him hide behind his dumb bumpkin act, the one he'd used to bluff his way through art college. Those cyan eyes pierced too deeply, saw beyond the slick face of first impressions. He came up with a snappy comeback a couple of seconds too late. 'Then why are you making it personal?'
'Because you're probably worse than the rest. You're so attached to what's inside your satchel you wouldn't trust it with the rest of the luggage.'
He wished he could tell her. The tools were not all that expensive, but they had come at great cost. He thought of Mama alone at their cramped apartment in Sawyer Creek, sitting in her worn recliner, a cat in her lap. Eyes never blinking.
This woman he'd only just met was too damned insightful and saw his self-doubt with uncanny clarity. He was worse than the rest, even while pretending he was apart from other artists, not buying into their wank-ish and vain prattle. He wasn't sure whether his work revealed anything about the world, but he was determined to shove it in the world's face and make it notice anyway.
Mason adjusted the satchel on his shoulder, feeling the woman's eyes on him. 'Sculpting tools,' he said. 'A hammer, hatchet, chisels, fluters, gougers, some blades.'
'You do wood?'
'I've done a little of everything.' He finally looked her full in the face, forcing himself not to blink against her gaze. 'Except here I'll be doing wood.'
She nodded as if she'd already forgotten him. 'Six weeks is not very long. It would be hard to tackle something stone in that time.'
Her accent was almost rural, as if she'd tried to be country but somebody had sent her off to college to have it squeezed out of her. One of the horses, a big roan, galloped across the pasture. She smiled as she watched it.
'Some place, huh?' Mason said.
'I've seen pictures, but they certainly don't do it justice.' Again she sounded distracted, as if Mason were as boring as Miss Mamie's well-heeled gang in the foyer.
Mason stepped between the shrubs and fingered the mortised joints of the railing. Grooved columns held up the portico, the paint thick and scaly where the layers had built up over the decades. The stone foundation of the manor wore a fur coat of green moss. A sudden juvenile urge to impress the woman came over him. 'Colonial revivalist architecture,' he said. 'This Korban guy must have had the bucks.'
'Do you know anything about him?'
'Only what I read in the brochure. Industrialist, made a fortune after the Spanish-American war, bought out this mountain, and built the manor as a summer home. Two thousand acres of land connected to civilization by nothing except that wooden bridge.'
He hated himself for blathering. He hadn't come to Korban Manor to mess around. He needed to get serious about his work, not spar with someone who seemed about as interested in him as if he were a piece of lint. Besides, artists were supposed to be aloof.
'So you only have the sanitized biography,' she said. 'I did a little research on him myself. That's my line.'
'You're a writer?'
'Something like that.'
'Figured. They're more stuck-up and screwed-up than artists, if you ask me.'
'Nobody did. As I was about to say, Korban set down in his will that the place be kept as a period piece from the end of the nineteenth century. He stipulated that Korban Manor become an artists' retreat. While he was alive, he encouraged the servants to fill the house with handmade mountain crafts and folk art. Maybe he liked the idea of his house being filled with creative energy. Sort of a way to keep himself alive.'
'That portrait of him is a bit much, though,' Mason said. 'He must have had a hell of an ego.'
'He probably was an artist, then.' She looked tired and gave him a dismissive and maddening half smile. 'Excuse me, I have to go to my room.'
Mason fumed inside. Stupid self-obsessed girl, distracted and abrupt, as snotty as any of those Yankees chattering in the foyer. He should have faked it a little better, acted like a heartbreaker. Maybe he'd start wearing a beret, appear sophisticated, grow one of those wimpy little Pierre mustaches. That would get a laugh out of the boys back at Rayford Hosiery.
'See you later,' he said, trying hard not to sound optimistic. Then, without knowing where the words came from, he added, 'I hope you find what you came here for.'
She turned, met his eyes, serious again. 'I'm looking for myself. Tell me if you see her.'
Then she was gone, swallowed by the big white house that bore Korban's name.
