John turned to look at her. “What makes you think I haven’t?”
“I know, John. I know all about how you came here. I don’t know exactly where it is that you came from, but I do know it wasn’t anywhere in this world.”
His eyebrows lifted quizzically, but he didn’t reply.
“I brought somebody else across,” Izzy went on. “I haven’t seen him yet myself, but Kathy did. She wrote a story about him without ever having seen my painting, so that’s how I know he’s real. She described him exactly like the weird little man I painted.”
John nodded slowly. “The treeskin.”
“The what?”
“That’s what we call them—part tree, part manitou. Little mysteries made of bark and vine and bough.”
“So you know about him?”
“How could I ignore him? The poor little fellow’s been lost and scared ever since he arrived.
Someone had to look after him.”
“I never thought of that.”
John shrugged. “No one can think of everything.”
A flash of irritation went through Izzy. Though she doubted he’d done it on purpose, she didn’t like to be on the defensive. Not today.
“Why did you always play me along?” she asked.
She was surprised at how calm she felt. She’d barely slept the night before and all day long she’d been nervously rehearsing what she was going to say, how she was going to say it. But now that the moment had come, all her nervousness had fled. She felt only a melancholy resignation inside, a sense that something was ending, that she was bringing it to an end, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“Because your knowing changes everything,” John said.
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t meet as equals anymore. Every time you look at me now, you’re going to be reminded of how you brought me across from the before. You feel responsible for me. You think that I can’t be who or what I want to be without affirmation from you.”
“That’s not true. I mean, I know I brought you across, but ...” She sighed. “No. You’re right. That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
“And the funny thing is, that’s the way it is for everyone. You can decide to call yourself Janet, but if everybody you ever meet insists on calling you Izzy, then you’re going to be Izzy whether you want the name or not. It’s that way for every facet of our lives—from the way we look to the careers we choose for ourselves. We all depend on other people to confirm who we are and what we’re doing here. The only difference with you and me is that with us this sense of confirmation is more specific. You think I exist because you painted me into existence. I know that I was somewhere else, in some before, and that you merely called me over.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying you didn’t make me. You just brought me here. The way you could go to Australia and bring a native of that country into this one. There’s no difference. None at all.”
“Except that Australia’s on the map.”
John nodded. “While in the before, there is only story.”
“You said that before, this thing about stories. First you said you came from nothing, then you said it was just a different kind of story from the one we’re in now.”
John looked away, over the snowy common of the Silenus Gardens.
“I don’t remember the before,” he said finally. “I came here and I had a name in my head. You painted me as a Kickaha, so I know the Kickaha. I know their history and their customs. You painted me in an urban setting, so I know this city. Everything else I learned as our story unfolded.”
“What about Rushkin? You tried to warn me against him when we first met.
John shook his head. “No. When we first met on the library steps I just wanted to make a connection with you. I didn’t know what he was until later. I didn’t warn you about him until we met in the lane behind his studio.”
“So
“A monster.”
“That’s what he calls you.”
An anguished look crossed John’s features. “He feeds on us, Izzy. I don’t know how, but it has something to do with the way he destroys the paintings that call us over.”
“But he didn’t destroy them,” Izzy said. “The paintings he destroyed were the copies he made, not mine.”
John shrugged. “Whatever.”
“I know my own work, John. He didn’t destroy them.”
“You thought the painting fragment I showed you was your own work, too.”
“I know. But I was wrong. I just got confused because he’s so good. Naturally if he’s going to copy one of my paintings, it’d be perfect.”
“So how do you know which he burned?”
“Do you still have those dreams you told me about?”
Izzy shook her head. “Not for a few months. Now I keep dreaming about someone looking for me.”
“For you, or your paintings?”
“Me, I think,” Izzy said; then she shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“And have you done any paintings like the one of the treeskin at Rushkin’s studio where he could copy them?”
“No, but what does that prove?”
“It’s not just that we have a connection to you,” John told her. “You have a connection to us as well.
When we die, you are aware of it. You see it happen, if only in your dreams. You used to dream about Rushkin destroying your paintings. Now you’re dreaming about him looking for them.”
“How can that even be possible?” Izzy asked.
“After bringing us over from the before,” John said mildly, “you’re still arguing about what’s possible?”
“But why would Rushkin do it? I know he’s got problems, a bad temper, but he’s not evil.”
“Why is it that you can’t picture him as evil? Because he creates such beautiful works of art?”
Could that really be the reason? Izzy thought. And was it also the reason that she let him mistreat her in ways she wouldn’t take from any other person? Had her values become so twisted around that she simply couldn’t perceive of Rushkin as a monster because of his talent?
“Here’s another experiment you can try,” John said. “Since he can’t seem to find the paintings you’ve done at the professor’s greenhouse, the next time you want to call one of us over, do the painting at his studio where he won’t have any trouble finding it. Leave it there for him to ‘copy.’ Then wait for the dreams to start again.”
“What an awful thing to say! I couldn’t do something like that.”
“Why not? Is it any worse than turning a blind eye to what he does to us? We’re
But we’re still real.”
“Stop it!” Izzy cried. She shook her head and turned away from him. “You’re mixing me all up until I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“You mean you don’t know what you want to believe. You’ve no problem believing that you’re like some little god who can bring whatever she wants to life with a few daubs of paint and a canvas, but not that these creations might have a life of their own beyond your influence. And heaven help anyone who suggests that perhaps you should take responsibility for what you’re doing. That perhaps your precious Rushkin presents a danger to us—a danger that you could avert simply by accepting the truth and keeping us away from him.”
It was going all wrong, Izzy realized. She’d only come here tonight to try to get John to open up to her. She hadn’t been expecting a confrontation. She’d wanted to get closer to him, but instead they were being driven apart. When she looked at him now, she saw a stranger sitting beside her on the bench.
