Paul lay back down, his breathing rapid and shallow. Adam opened his eyes momentarily to see Paul staring at the ceiling. 'No drinks or smoke tomorrow, okay?'
There was a stretch of silence, one that only a noise-polluted New Yorker could truly appreciate. Finally Paul said, 'I told you I'd be working.'
Adam knew that tone. They'd argued enough for one vacation. Adoption, Paul's video, his drug use. And now Paul was seeing things. Adam suddenly wondered if their relationship would survive six weeks at Korban Manor.
He turned his back on Paul and burrowed into the pillows.
'She had flowers,' Paul said.
Mason's hands ached. Sawdust and wood shavings were scattered around his feet. Wood chips had worked their way down the tops of his tennis shoes and dug into the skin around his ankles. He tossed his chisel and mallet on the table and stood back to look at the piece.
He had worked in a fever, not thinking about which grain to follow, which parts to excise, where to cut. He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. The room had grown warmer. The candles had long since melted away, and the oil was low in the base of the lantern. He must have worked for hours, but the soreness in his limbs was the only evidence of passing time.
Except for the bust before him on the table.
He'd never attempted a bust before. He brought the lantern closer, examining the sculpture with a critical eye. He could find no flaws, no features that were out of proportion. Even the curves of the earlobes were natural and lifelike, the eyebrows etched with a delicate awl. The sculpture was faithful to its subject.
TOO faithful, Mason thought. I'm nowhere near good enough to produce this caliber of work. I've had successes along the way. But this… Jesus Henry Christ on a crutch, I couldn't do Korban's face this well if I'd KNOWN the old geezer.
But it was Korban's head on the table, the Korban that filled the giant oil paintings upstairs, the same face that hung above the fireplace in Mason's room. Most amazing of all was that the eyes had power, just as they did in the portraits. That was ridiculous, though. These eyes were maple, dead wood.
Still…
It was almost as if the figure had life. As if the true heart of the wood had always been this shape, as if the bust had always existed but had been imprisoned in the tree. The face had been caged, and Mason had merely inserted the key and opened the door.
He shook his head in disbelief. 'I don't have any idea where you came from,' he said to the bust, 'but you're going to make the critics love me.'
The love of the critics meant success, and that meant money. Success meant he'd never have to step foot in another textile mill as long as he lived, he wouldn't have to blow chunks of gray lint out of his nose at every break, he wouldn't have to wait for a bell to tell him when to take a leak or buy a Snickers bar or race the other lintheads to the parking lot at quitting time. Sure, he still had years of carving ahead, but success started with a single big break.
He was already planning a corporate commission, the gravy train for artists. He'd buy Mama a house, get her some advanced text-reading software and an expensive computer, and then find all the other ways to pay her back for the years of handicap and hardship. Best of all, he could make her smile.
Or maybe he was being suckered by the Dream Image, the high that came after completing a work. He still had to treat the wood, do the fine sanding and polishing. A hundred things could still go wrong. Even as dry as the maple had been after years in the forest, the wood could split and crack.
Mason rubbed his shoulder. His clothes were damp from sweat. The weariness that had been building under the surface now crested and crashed like a wave. Even though he was tired, he felt too excited to sleep. He took one last look at the bust of Korban, then covered his work with an old canvas drop cloth he'd found in the corner.
The first red rays of dawn stabbed through the ground-level windows. Mason's stubble itched. Back in his old life, he'd be on his third cup of coffee by now, waiting on the corner for Junior Furman's pickup to haul him to work. The start of another day that was like a thousand other days.
Mason traced his way back across the basement, ducking under the low beams and stepping around the stacks of stored furniture. He finally found the stairs and went up to the main floor. The smell of bacon, eggs, and biscuits drifted from the east wing, and kitchen-ware clanged in some distant room. Mason's stomach growled. An older couple passed him in the hall, steam rising from their ceramic coffee cups. They nodded a wary greeting. Mason realized he probably looked bleary-eyed and unkempt, like an escaped lunatic who'd broken into the medicine cabinet.
When Mason reached his room, he looked at the painting of Korban again, marveling at how closely his sculpture resembled that stern face. But the face seemed a little less stern this morning. And the eyes had taken on a little more light Don't be bloody DAFT, he chided himself in William Roth's accent.
Mason took a long, hot shower, then lay in bed as dawn sneaked through the cracks in the curtains. In his mind's tired eye, he saw Korban's face, then that dissolved away and he saw Anna. Then his mother, features worn, made even sadder by the pathetic light of hope that somehow still shone in her diseased eyes. Then he pictured Miss Mamie, with her haughty lips. Ransom, clutching his warding charm. Korban, dark pupils holding wretched secrets. Anna, soft and somehow vulnerable, harboring her own secrets.
Korban. His mother. The bust. Anna.
Miss Mamie. Ransom.
KorbanAnnaMissMamieAnnaKorban.
Anna.
He decided he liked Anna's face best, and thought of her until he slept and dreamed of wood.
CHAPTER 12
Anna woke before the first rooster's crow broke the black silence. Across the room, Cris rolled over in her sleep. The darkness behind Anna's closed eyes wasn't as total as the room's darkness. Streaks of blue and red flared across the back of her eyelids.
She slipped into her robe and went into the bathroom. The antique plumbing used gravity to flush the toilets, and the water pressure was inconsistent, though the central heating ensured plenty of hot water. She lit a globed lantern before extinguishing her flashlight, then stepped into the shower and turned the taps.
Under the dull drumming of the water, she forgot the pain in her abdomen. She hadn't dreamed last night, though the questions had swirled around and around as she spun down the drain of sleep.
Where was her ghost? Who was Rachel Faye Hartley? Why was Miss Mamie so curious about Anna's ''gift'? How much time did she have left? What would happen after that time expired?
And the biggie, would anyone even care?
She peeled back the shower curtain and wrapped a towel around her. The room had grown colder, and with the water turned off, the steam hung heavy on her skin. It coated the mirror above the sink, and though she wasn't in the mood to gauge the darkness of the circles beneath her eyes, she wanted to make sure she could pass for hale and hearty.
She was about to reach up a corner of the towel to wipe the mirror when the room grew even colder, as if a wind had crept through the crack beneath the door. Her blurred face in the mirror breathed mist.
Then the water collecting on the mirror ran in streaks, and Anna didn't believe her eyes. Because even somebody who saw ghosts didn't see things like this.
Letters formed, as if drawn by the tip of an invisible finger, the symbols silver in the soft glow of the lamp.
'G-O'
