He looked at the bust of Korban, and it seemed to smile at him from the table. The wooden lips parted: 'So why can't you stop?'
I can stop any time I want to.
'Certainly. I believe you, Mr. Jackson.'
Look, you can't just turn creativity off and on at will. You've got to roll with it while you've got the wheels. You've got to take the Muse's hand when she wants to dance.
'Fine. No arguments. But let's just see you stop.'
Okay. But I want you to know that my shoulders and arms and finger muscles are going to scream in pain because they 're wound tighter than a spool of factory thread. Besides, I'm doing this for Mama, not me.
The bust said, 'Excuses, excuses.'
I'll show you. Here we go…
Mason flailed at the chisel. Two inches of dark red wood peeled away from the section that would be Korban's left kneecap. He repositioned the blade and drew back the mallet for another blow.
The bust laughed, a sound like the shuffle of rodents. 'You're not stopping.'
Okay, already. Get off my case. I just had to get USED to the idea.
Mason curled another strip of oak away, then looked down at his tools scattered around the floor among the shavings.
See? I can take my eyes off it if I want to. Just as an experiment, I'm going to think about something besides Ephram Korban's statue. Take, for instance, the lovely Anna Galloway…
Mason paused, a drop of sweat hanging at the tip of his nose.
'Ah, so it's fair Anna that makes your heart sing,' the bust said. 'You can have her, you know. Once you finish. I promise. And I always keep my promises.'
Mason clenched his teeth and gave the hammer an extra-hard swing. He could stop any time he wanted. He just didn't want to think about her right now. Didn't want to think, didn't want to think, didn't want to think 'I say, who were you talking to?'
Mason spun, hammer in hand, raising it as if to ward off an attacker. William Roth stepped back, his gray eyes startled wide. He almost dropped the canisters of liquid in his arms.
'Easy, mate.'
Mason lowered the hammer. The spell was broken. 'Sorry. I was just getting carried away there for a minute.'
'Looks longer than a ruddy minute to me. Have you been working on that thing nonstop?'
Mason nodded. The pain in the back of his shoulder blades sent its first red twinges to his brain. He rubbed his right biceps.
Roth looked past Mason at the statue. 'Good Lord, how did you get so much done already? You must be working like a pack of beavers.'
Mason looked at the statue and tried to see it as Roth did. All the limbs were clearly suggested in the mass of wood, and it was distinguishable as a human form. The head was a featureless block but in close proportion to the rest of the body. The legs rose up from the base with a vibrancy and strength.
'It's coming along,' Mason said. 'I promised Miss Mamie it would be lovely.'
'What's the rush? You're going to bust a blooming artery if you keep at it like that.'
'Say, can I ask you something?'
'As long as you put down the hammer.'
Mason laid the hammer on the worktable beside the bust. 'Take a look at this painting.'
Roth set his canisters on the table and Mason lifted the canvas to the light of the nearest lantern.
Roth pursed his lips in approval. 'Quite a piece of work.'
'What do you see in that smudge there, at the top of the house? Along the railing of the widow's walk?'
Roth bent close and peered at the shapes. 'Looks like people to me. Wonder who messed it up.'
'Would you believe me if I told you those people weren't there two days ago?'
Roth looked at Mason and then back at the painting. 'I'd say you're ass over teakettle from overwork.'
'Well, maybe it's something to do with the chemicals in the paint. It just bugs me, that's all. As an artist myself, I know how it feels to come up short of perfection.'
Roth gave his barking laugh. 'Don't kid yourself with all that 'artist' rot. It's all about jack, selling out for whatever you can get.'
Mason rubbed his chin and felt the scratch of stubble. He had been neglecting his hygiene. He could smell his own underarms. To Roth, the studio must have stunk like the laundry room at a gym. Mason knelt and retrieved his shirt, shook the wood chips free, and put it on. He glanced at the statue and felt guilty for thinking of abandoning it.
'What are you doing down here?' he asked Roth, before his mind could fixate on Korban again.
'Going to develop some negatives. Miss Mamie said I could use the wine cellar. Dark enough down here, don't you think?'
'And warm, too. They must be keeping the main furnace going full tilt. It's on the other side of the wall there. I hear them stoking it every three or four hours.'
'This Korban bloke must not have been much of a save-the-trees sort.'
Mason looked at the statue again. 'Maybe in some crazy way, he is the trees.'
'Get some sun, Mason. You're starting to go a bit dodgy.'
'Maybe you're right.'
'Loosen up, have some fun.' Roth grinned, flashing his vulpine teeth. 'Have a go at that quirky bird Anna. She's your style.'
'No, thanks. I have enough worries. I'd better get some food in me so I can finish this thing.'
From the stairs, Mason took a last look back at the statue that would be Ephram Korban. It was going to be wonderful. Dennis Graves would eat his mallet in jealousy. This creation was shaping up to be a god.
Spence wept.
The beauty, the elegance of the prose, was sweeping over him like the black tide in his novel. He could feel it approaching. With every sentence, every preposition, every punctuation mark, he was nearing the Word.
The keys sang as they slapped against the carriage, the ringing bell of the return heralded the coming glory. Spence could barely see the page through the blur of his tears, even with the sun pouring through the window, but he didn't need to see. The ghostwriter was compelling his fingers, sending them flying over the keyboard, the words no longer even remotely his own.
Spence wondered if that made any difference. The word author was derived from authority. He had always prided himself on his control and mastery of language, of juggling the alphabet, tricking verbs, nailing down nouns. But this was the uninhibited writing, the deeper language, the cracks between sound and thought. Communication that got to the heart of the truth.
He was dimly aware of Bridget on the bed. He would go to her later, when darkness came. New strength surged in his flesh, his blood was rejuvenated, his power to perform restored. The gift and blessing of the Word. The act of sacrifice always gave power back to the one making the sacrifice.
The room was cold, even with the fire leaping up the chimney as if yearning for the freedom of the sky. His fingers were like winter sticks, but still they rattled the keys, the music of ice cubes in a glass. Ephram Korban watched Spence from the portrait, the most encouraging of editors, his dark eyes suggesting plot twists.
Bridget could wait, impatient and aching in the warm bed. For now, there was only the page. The final page.
Spence sighed. The ending was always like a small death.
Those bittersweet words, The End.
Maybe End was the One True Word.
The only word that had ever mattered.
The manor welcomed Anna back, with its dark wainscoting and high ceiling and the fire roaring in the foyer hearth. And Korban, benevolent old Ephram, Grandfather Ephram, smiled kindly down from his vigilant perch above the mantel.
Maybe she did belong here. As much as anywhere. She belonged nowhere else, after all. And Korban Manor was the end of the world, the kind of place where Anna deserved to pass her final days, walking these windswept
