She would go to July’s studio, away from Rushkin’s influence, and deliberately attempt to call up a being from that so-called otherworld. Not a man like John who, because he had the appearance of a normal person, could as easily be a product of either world, but a being for which there would be no question that its place of origin was utterly alien. And then she would wait and see. If it would come to her. Here. In this world.
You’re mad, she told herself as she got off at her stop and walked down Waterhouse to the apartment. Well and truly. Except she knew she had to make the attempt. Because, what if ... ?
She wouldn’t think of it anymore. She was tired enough as it was without exhausting herself further worrying over it. Tomorrow she would just do it. Start a painting. And then see what, if anything, it called to her.
As she was making her way down the block, she saw that John was waiting for her, sitting on the stoop of her building. She thought the spectre of the day’s suspicions would rise again at the sight of him, but either she was too worn out, or the decision she’d made to conduct her own experiment put everything else on hold until that one question was resolved.
“How did it go?” John asked, rising to his feet at her approach. She felt as though she could just melt into the hug he gave her. “Are you okay?” he added.
Izzy nodded against his shoulder. “It wasn’t my painting you found,” she told him. When they sat down together on the steps, she leaned against him, appreciating the support as much as the contact. “It was a copy of it that Rushkin had done,” she went on to explain. “He destroyed it so that people wouldn’t think I was copying from him, even though it was the other way around.”
“Why would he want to copy your work?”
Izzy sat up straighter and turned to look at him. “Because he thinks I’m magic,” she said, smiling.
“Remember? He’s lost his magic and he thought he might be able to recover it by doing a painting the way I do it. Or at least that’s what he says.”
John gave her an odd look.
“It’s okay. Honestly,” Izzy said. “I saw my paintings and they were all still there.”
“If you say so.”
“Oh, don’t go all vague on me, John. I’m way too tired. If you’ve got something to say, just say it.”
He hesitated for a long moment, then took her hand in his. He traced the lines on her palm with a fingertip.
“You really thought what I brought you was a piece of your own painting, didn’t you?” he finally asked.
Izzy nodded. “I know my own style. God, I spent so long on parts of that painting I could redo it in my sleep.”
“And the works that were intact—they were yours?”
“Yes.” She started to get an uncomfortable feeling as she saw where this was heading. “Look,” she said. “Rushkin’s a genius. Of course he’d be able to duplicate my work.”
“Enough so that you couldn’t tell the difference?”
“Well, in some ways, that was the whole point of why he did it, wasn’t it? To do it exactly the way I did it. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to find this magic whatever-it-is that he’s looking for.”
John nodded. “So how do you know that the paintings he destroyed were the ones he did?”
For a long moment all Izzy could do was look at him.
“I ... I don’t,” she said in a small voice. “What are you saying? That he lied to me?”
“I’m just saying to be careful. Don’t be so trusting.”
Again that warning, Izzy thought. John warning her against Rushkin, Rushkin warning her against John. It made her head hurt, trying to work it all out.
“Why would he lie to me?” she asked. “What could he possibly stand to gain by lying to me?”
“Maybe that’s the wrong question to ask,” John replied. “Maybe what you should be asking is, what does he stand to lose if you know the truth?”
“You’re presupposing that he is lying.”
“Doesn’t what he told you about copying your work seem more than a little odd to you?”
“When you come down to it, everything’s odd about him.”
“Just think about it, Isabelle.”
I don’t want to, she thought. But she knew she would. It was the kind of thing that, once someone brought it to your attention, you couldn’t help but think about. She hated carrying around suspicions. It was like today all over again, except it would put Rushkin in the seat of scrutiny instead of John.
She regarded him for a long moment. Suspicions concerning Rushkin, suspicion in general, made her mind travel a certain circuit. Without wanting them to, all her earlier uncertainties concerning John were back in her mind again, demanding that she deal with them.
“Did you kill those men?” she found herself asking.
“No,” John replied.
Believe him, Izzy told herself.
“I believe you,” she said, and by saying it aloud she knew it was true. She did believe.
How could she not, and still love him?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That I had to ask, you know.”
“Friends don’t need to apologize.”
“When one of them’s wrong they do,” Izzy said. She paused, then gave him an uncomfortable look.
“I’ve got to know one more thing.”
John smiled. “And that is?”
“Are you real?”
He took her hand and laid it against his chest. She could feel the rise and fall of his breathing.
“Are you?” he asked.
And that was all she could get out of him that evening.
Paddyjack
