Lilith waited at the bottom of the stairs, holding the lantern at shoulder level. When Mason finally reached the basement floor, he peered into the gloomy and shifting shadows, trying to get a feel for the basement's layout. Tiny wedges of windows were set high in the walls just above the ground, but only a graying of starlight leaked through. The aroma of dry rot gave way to a deeper, older decay.
He stumbled and his tool satchel banged against his hip. The handle was starting to dig into his skin where the satchel dangled from his shoulder. Lilith led him past a couple of thick wooden beams, a cluster of old furniture, and a small doorway. The lantern's firelight glinted off rows of dusty wine bottles tucked in the narrow alcove.
'Why is it so hot?' Mason asked. His voice was swallowed by the dead space.
'Central heating,' Lilith said. 'Mr. Korban insisted on having his fires.'
Mason wondered if he would be able to work down here for long stretches. Sculpting usually sent the sweat gushing from his pores. The work was as much muscle as it was inspiration. Only the final touches, the thin detailing and polishing, were not so physically demanding that they wore him out.
'Where's the stove?' he asked.
Lilith pointed into the darkness toward the left end of the basement. 'There's a separate room over there so the workers can keep the fire stoked from the outside. The ductwork runs all through the house.'
She lifted the lantern higher and Mason saw the dull metal sheeting of the ducts.
'Air-circulated heat,' he said. 'That was pretty sophisticated for its time, wasn't it?'
'I'm not a historian, Mr. Jackson. Miss Mamie would be the one to answer such questions.'
Lilith led him into an area that wasn't exactly a room. It was more like a bit of floor space divided by timber posts and shelving. A rough-finished cabinet flanked the near side of what he guessed was going to be his studio.*
'I hope this will do,' she said. 'We've only had a few sculptors at the manor, but many painters. And one old gentleman who did acid etchings and woodblock prints. We've all managed to work just fine down here.'
'Oh, do you paint?'
'I used to.'
He didn't want to comment on her career change. His own might be coming soon enough. 'Maybe a little of that creative spirit soaked into the walls.'
'Maybe so, Mr. Jackson. Maybe more than we know.'
She was an odd one, Mason decided. If she weren't so frosty, he would risk getting to know her. But he was better off focusing on his work. Besides, he was positive that Miss Mamie wouldn't approve of the hired help cavorting with the guests, no matter how much the guests cavorted with each other.
A thick table stood in the center of the studio space. Mason set down the bulky maple with a solid thump. He shook the satchel from his arm onto the table as well. It would stay dark down here even during the day. He didn't mind, though. He worked mostly by touch and instinct, anyway.
'Will that be all?' Again Lilith seemed to be in a hurry to get away from him. Or perhaps it wasn't him. Maybe she wanted to be away from this dim, claustrophobic place where Mason was going to spend his time.
'So will I have to curse the darkness?' he answered.
'Excuse me?'
He pointed to the lantern. 'I assume you're taking that with you.'
'Oh, I see.' She stepped toward the shelves, and in the lantern light Mason saw a clutter of half-melted candles. 'There are matches in that cupboard.'
She waited until Mason lit two of the thick candles. He found an oil lamp on the bottom shelf and rolled up the wick. He had just touched the tip of a candle to the wick when she called, 'Good luck,' then she was gone.
As her echoing footsteps receded up the stairs, he muttered to himself, 'Jeez, no wonder people make up stories about this place.'
Mason lit an extra candle and spread his tools across the table. He studied the sharpened edges of the blades before turning his attention to the red maple. Then he paced, his mind drifting into that mysterious well-spring from which ideas bubbled forth.
His foot caught on something, causing a muffled crash. He brought the lamp down low to see what he had tripped over. It was a stretched canvas, the back graying with age. He turned it over.
On the canvas was a perfect reproduction of Korban Manor on a stormy night, done in the same thick oils as the other paintings that lined the walls of the house. The manor was drawn to precise scale, seeming such a natural part of the landscape that it looked as if the house had grown out of the soil like a living thing. In the painting was the knothole that Mason had noticed earlier that morning in the siding beneath a second-floor window.
But the photographic realism wasn't the only quality that made the painting so powerful. The manor was vibrant, as if it were shaking with the force of the fantasized gale. The trees were wild with wind, and black clouds hovered around the manor's flat roof. Mason gently touched the canvas and a cool electricity surged up his arm. He wondered why such a beautiful work was relegated to the corruptive air of the basement.
He leaned it against the table and brought the lamp closer, careful not to let the heat sear the finish. He scanned every inch of the artwork, softly running his fingers along the furrows made by the brushstrokes. The angles of the gables were geometrically accurate, the shading well proportioned, the range of colors as true as the human eye. Even the bark of the trees had a sophisticated complexion.
He was looking at the top of the house, at the white railing of the widow's walk, when he spotted the painting's sole flaw. The artist had inadvertently smudged the colors together. A grayish blotch marred an area on the widow's walk. The artist could have easily fixed the mistake, but for some reason hadn't. Still, the painting was far too skilled to remain hidden away in darkness.
Mason didn't know how long he ended up staring at the painting. It had such mesmerizing power that it seemed to soak him into its maelstrom. Finally, he shook his head, realizing that if he didn't get started, he would waste the first day of his last chance. He leaned the painting out of the way against a support timber, promising himself that he would ask Miss Mamie about it later.
He had been putting off the start of his own work, the hewing of the bark from the section of maple. He was annoyed to find his mind drifting back to the painting.
'Come on, you bastard,' he chided himself. 'This is it. Think of Mama back in Sawyer Creek, shriveling away because she made the sacrifice. Alone in the dark.'
He heard her voice in his head, telling him to hold on to his dreams. He rearranged his tools, laying out his fluter, his gouge, his hatchet, his adze, his mallet, his half-dozen chisels with their different edges and angles. Still no idea came to him. He looked around at the shadows sent leaping by the candlelight.
Someone was in the surrounding darkness, watching.
A faint rustle in the corner. Mason lifted the lamp. A small, dark thing separated itself from the lesser darkness and skittered toward the wine rack.
A mouse. Mason's toes curled inside his shoes. He'd always hated rodents. When he was young, just before his father had died, the family had lived in a rented mobile home. The trailer park was next to a trash dump, and rats multiplied fruitfully thanks to the wealth of garbage.
One night, he heard scratching sounds inside the couch that he slept upon. He turned on the light, and watched with horror as tiny newborn rats spilled from a tear in the couch's fabric. Equally repulsive was the family's old gray cat, which swallowed the rats whole, one by one, as they emerged blind into the world. The mother rat must have been sick or something, because the couch stank of her death for weeks afterward. By then, Mason had taken to sleeping in a reclining chair on the other side of the living room.
And another, older memory rose, but he pushed it back into its dark chink of slumber.
This creature in the basement had been only a mouse. Mason could handle that. Mice were timid. Rats were the ones to despise, with their long tails, deliberate manner, and those eyes that shone with a defiant intelligence.
He tried once again to focus on his work. Maybe the mouse had been his Muse. Other artists talked about the spirit moving them, moving inside them. Mason didn't understand. All he had was stubbornness and anger to drive him.
He addressed the chunk of wood that Ransom had helped him cut from a fallen tree. 'Okay, what kind of secrets are you hiding inside you?'
He studied the pattern of the growth rings and caressed the grain of the wood. The dead sap pulsed. A draft
