Memory and Dream

Isabelle held up a hand, forestalling him. “I want my fees to go to the arts court as well,” she said.

“That’s awfully generous of you.”

Isabelle smiled. “It just feels like the right thing to do. But please, don’t let it get around how cheap I am.”

“And you’re okay working in color?”

The guarded expression returned to her features and he berated himself for the question he’d just blurted out. But he’d been thinking—of Isabelle’s curious demands concerning the originals, and then his dawn visitor’s cryptic comments. I’d suggest that you simply use monochrome studies to illustrate the book—that would certainly make it easier on Isabelle, you know.

Easier how? What was the difference between finished oils and monochrome work—beyond the obvious, of course. How did the difference between the two affect Isabelle?

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Isabelle asked.

Because someone he was fairly certain existed only in a dream had told him so. And hadn’t Cosette then added, But I have to admit I’m too selfish and lonely. It’ll be so nice to see a few new faces around here.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just thought maybe monochrome illustrations would be—”

For no good reason, the word safer popped into his mind.

“Would be what?”

“Easier?” he tried.

“Would you prefer monochrome? Black-and-white line drawings and wash? Or perhaps sepia?”

“Well, no. It’s just that—” Think quick, he told himself. “I thought, what with your having been away from this style for so long, you might find it more comfortable to ease back into illustrative work with something simpler.”

“I’d like to provide paintings,” Isabelle said. “I think the stories require a full palette.”

“Oh, I agree.”

“And I’m just doing this one project.”

“Of course.”

The mood in the room had become rapidly strained. The tension wasn’t quite the same as it had been last night, but it still lay between them like a thickening in the air. Alan knew he had caused the sudden coolness he could feel coming from Isabelle, but he had no idea what he’d done to cause it. He just hoped that he hadn’t blown the deal for Kathy’s book. But more importantly, he hoped he hadn’t completely estranged Isabelle again. Seeing her now, being with her after all those years of separation, he couldn’t bear the thought of being shut out of her life once more.

But as suddenly as the coolness had come, Isabelle appeared to shake it off. She smiled that winning smile of hers, the one that lit her entire face and had won his heart so long ago. Casually, she started up the conversation again, steering it back onto safer ground.

Alan was happy to follow her lead, but by the time he finally left the island, he was feeling more confused than ever.

Isabelle maintained her masquerade of casual good-naturedness until she’d seen Alan back to his car. Once he drove off, the mask dropped. She kicked at a pinecone that was lying on the dock and sent it flying into the water.

She was angry, but she didn’t know why.

Certainly it wasn’t Alan’s fault. He’d simply been talking about possibilities for the project, showing his concern for her having been out of touch with the illustrative field for as long as she had—not so much for the sake of the book itself, she had been able to realize, but for her own sake. For the sake of kindness.

But if it wasn’t Alan, then what was it?

Except, perhaps that same kindness that was to blame. It reminded her too much of how, after the fire, everyone had seemed to walk on eggshells around her. She’d understood—she’d appreciated—their compassion, but it had been misdirected. The loss they’d perceived had nothing to do with what had actually died in those flames. They could never have known, but it hadn’t made it any easier to deal with them.

It had proved simpler to retreat. She’d worked on the new show at the loft she’d shared with Sophie while she had the barn renovated into what was now her home and studio. Then, when the show was done, she’d left Sophie’s loft, the city, the art scene, everyone she knew—this time, she’d thought, for good. She’d known it would be easier, when someone came to visit, to deal with one small piece of her old life at a time than all of it at once, the way it would always be in Newford.

Last night’s joy at the thought of bringing Kathy’s visions to life in a new set of paintings leaked away at the thought of moving back. But she had no choice now that she’d accepted Alan’s commission. She would have to spend time in Newford, sketching and photographing locations, dealing with models, seeing too many familiar streets, meeting people she no longer knew but who would think they knew her.

It would be stepping back into the past, with all that had been left undone and unsaid and unfinished still waiting there for her; stepping back into that whole untidy tangle of memories and dreams that she had simply set aside because she couldn’t seem to find the wherewithal to deal with them.

Unable to do so then, and with nothing changed inside her, what made her think she could deal with it now? She’d found no new reservoirs of courage. She’d acquired no new abilities during her self-imposed exile.

It wasn’t anger she felt at all, she realized, except perhaps that old anger at herself and the weaknesses that drove her. It was fear.

She rowed back to the island, putting far more force than was necessary into the task. Her back ached from the fierceness she put into the effort and she had the beginning of a headache by the time she reached her dock and had moored the rowboat.

Massaging her temples, she walked slowly across the wooden planking until she stood in the forest’s shadow. There she paused. She realized that the decision she’d made last night had brought her to a demarcation of all that had gone before. She had stood in one of those rare border crossings between the past and the future where one is aware—so aware—that the decision about to be made will change everything.

She looked back across the water to the mainland. The red of her Jeep leapt out from among the surrounding evergreens. The maples in the hills beyond carried variations on that red off into the horizon.

Alan was gone, back to Newford, but she could no longer pretend she was alone. She turned back to the forest, realizing that she had to acknowledge them now.

“Which of you spoke to him?” she asked the dark spaces between the trees. There was no reply.

But she hadn’t really been expecting one. Still she knew they were there, watching, listening.

Meddling.

As she followed the path back home, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that this was all Rushkin’s doing. That Alan Grant hadn’t thought of her as the artist for Kathy’s book—not on his own; that she hadn’t made the decision to take on the project—not on her own.

There was no logical reason for her to see Rushkin’s hand in this, although, from the very first time she’d met him, he’d proved to be a master at manipulation. But then nothing about Rushkin had ever followed any sort of logic. Not his charismatic appeal. Not the impossible wonder he had taught her to wake from a canvas. Not the bewildering way he could shift from being arrogant to obsequious, compassionate to brutal, amiable to rude beyond compare.

And certainly there was no logic at all for why he did so many of the things he had done.

When she reached the barn, she went inside and shut the door firmly behind her. Her fingers hesitated on the interior bolt before she pulled them away. Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she slouched on a chair by the kitchen table and stared out the window. The familiar, happy view, brown and green fields dappled with sunshine, the bright blue beyond, had lost its ability to soothe her.

After a while she took out her letter from Kathy and reread it, turning the locker key slowly over and over in her hands as she did. Long after she’d set the letter aside, she still sat there, staring out the window again, still turning the key in her hands. Two things waited for her in Newford and she was frightened of them both. There was what was in the locker that this key would open. That was bad enough. But also waiting for her, she knew, was Rushkin.