work?”
Jilly sighed. “That’s what’s so really infuriating about him. Unlike so many other people who’ll launch into a half-hour lecture at the drop of a hat, he can actually paint. Technically, he’s really good. A little reminiscent of Keane at times, but not so much as he used to be. And he really does practice what he preaches. I can’t believe how realistic his work is while still keeping its painterly qualities.”
“And he’s doing it with watercolors.”
“I
Izzy shook her head. “No—or at least not in the sense that you mean. I’m serious about him as a friend. It’s nice to have a man to go to a film or an opening with and not have to fend off advances or worry about all sorts of strings being attached. And I like to listen to him go on. I don’t agree with him all of the time, but I still fmd what he has to say interesting.”
“Uh-huh,” Jilly said, as though she thought there had to be more to it than that.
“It’s true,” Izzy said.
Jilly studied her for a long moment.
“You still miss John, don’t you?” she asked.
“Not at all,” Izzy lied. “I can’t remember the last time I even thought about him.”
Izzy finished
Her crossing over wasn’t the question at all. The question was, what would she be like?
Izzy had taken the inspiration for the reading woman from Kathy’s story of the same name. Rosalind was the character’s name; its numena would have the same. This was the first time that Izzy had deliberately set out to bring to life a numena whose genesis lay in another’s creativity rather than her own, and she had no idea what was going to happen. Would Rosalind be like the character in Kathy’s story, or would she be similar only in how both Izzy and Kathy had described her?
“Rosalind,” she said softly. “If you cross over, I hope you’ll be your own woman.”
“Whose else’s would I be?” a soft voice asked.
Izzy turned slowly to find the painting’s numena standing in the studio behind her. She had never seen one of her numena so soon after it had crossed over, and she studied Rosalind carefully, worried that she might feel disoriented and wondering what she should do if Rosalind was. But the numena radiated an aura of peace, just as Kathy had described in her story, just as Izzy had tried to capture on her canvas.
“Do you feel okay?” Izzy asked.
Rosalind’s smile broadened. “I’ve never felt better. Thank you for bringing me across.”
“You remember the crossing?”
“I remember I was in a story,” Rosalind said in that soft voice of hers, “but I don’t remember what it was.”
For a moment Izzy thought she was talking about Kathy’s story, but then she realized Rosalind was speaking of the before, describing it the same way John had. There were stories, he’d told her once. That seemed like a lifetime ago now.
“Can I get you anything?” Izzy asked. “Some tea, or something to eat?”
“I think I will sit for a moment.”
Rosalind crossed the room and settled in the window seat. She looked out over the snowy lane that ran beside the coach house, her face in profile. Izzy had painted her head-on, but only after much indecision and having sketched any number of alternate poses. She was surprised to see that Rosalind’s profile was exactly the way she’d imagined it to be, though why that should surprise her, she didn’t know. After a moment, she wiped her hands on a rag and went to join her visitor in the window seat.
“What’s the book about?” she asked.
She’d painted a book because in the story, Kathy’s Rosalind had always been reading. It had been the character’s connection to herself, a lifeline that helped her through the bad times, then a pleasure that she’d continued when her life finally turned around and she was able to have hope for the future once more.
Rosalind smiled at her question. “I’m not sure. I haven’t begun it yet.” The smile reached her eyes as she added, “But I have the feeling that it will be different each time I read it. That’s the way it is with enchantment, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Rosalind turned the book so that Izzy could see the one-word title on its spine—Enchantment—then brought the book back to her chest and folded her arms around it.
“I think I might take a walk,” Rosalind said. “I’d like to explore the city a little before I go.”
“Go?”
“To the island,” Rosalind explained. “I have this feeling that I will never be as comfortable indoors as living out among the elements. I will make myself a home there in a birch wood. There is a birch wood, isn’t there?”
“Where?”
“On the island.”
Izzy gave her a confused look. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
“Wren Island. It was your home, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. But ... how do you know that?”
Rosalind considered that, then finally shook her head. “I don’t know. It simply feels as though I always have.” She laughed lightly. “But then always is a rather short time when you consider how long it’s been since I crossed over.”
She rose from the window seat. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“That you live on the island? Of course not.”
Rosalind shook her head. “No, that I go for a walk. I know it’s rude to leave so soon after we’ve met, but I feel as though I need to look for somebody.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know that either. I’m living on intuition at the moment.”
“Let me get you a coat,” Izzy said.
“Oh, the cold won’t bother me.”
“Yes, but everybody else is wearing one. You don’t want to stand out, do you?”
“They will only see me if I choose to let them.”
Izzy nodded slowly. “How come I can always see you—I mean, you know, those who have crossed over? It doesn’t matter where I am, here in the studio or out on the street, I can always see you.”
“You’re a maker,” Rosalind said. “Makers can always see those who have crossed over through the objects that they have made.”
She stepped closer to Izzy and touched a hand to Izzy’s cheek, the way a mother might touch her child; then she glided more than walked to the door of the studio, stepped out into the snowy night, and was gone. Izzy stood looking at the door for a long time. She remembered what Rosalind had said earlier about why she was going for this walk and couldn’t get it out of her mind.
Izzy had the feeling that Rosalind wouldn’t find who she was looking for out on Newford’s streets.
Nor would she find it on the island. Izzy turned slowly to regard her easel. She took Rosalind’s painting from it and put up a fresh canvas that she’d primed earlier in the week. She didn’t even have to think about what she was doing as she began to block in the composition, because she was remembering another conversation now, something Kathy had once said:
“Sometimes I like to think that my characters all know each other, or at least that they could have the chance