Chapter Sixteen
Her Shadow tombstone stayed with her and she could not find Jakob. The ruse shop he’d rented was locked up and dark. He didn’t answer his cell. She called him
—Answer me! Where are you?—
but no reply and Shadows chased her all over Vestemere, hissing through the canopy of blossoms shading her street. “Now you’re dead,” they whispered, and she unlocked the rental cottage, sealed herself inside, dead-bolted the door then scooped up little Shoes. “Here, dítě,” she said and fussed, feeding the kitten, readying the new litter box. “See your fancy new bed?”
The kitten scabbered up her pant leg instead, sharp little claws biting her leg until it settled upon Natasha’s shoulder. Wincing, she extracted the kitten’s claws from where they kneaded her skin, stroked her downy fur till she purred. “My cousin has trapped me here in Vestemere,” she told it. And the Knight Crawler and Heart Face knew she was lying—but had no clue, yet, about what.
And someone else (or one of them?) wanted her dead.
Why?
Shadows surged through the room, shades of green that made her squint. “Sickened?” she deciphered. God knew it was exactly how she felt.
But the green deepened, murky. Tinged yellow and brown. Pus, she thought, like free association, then swallowed nausea back as a stench—that’s infection. That’s rot—wafted through the cottage. “Not sickened,” she breathed, and knew, instinct forming the word— “Jealousy.”
The odor, and color, deepened then fled, and Natasha inhaled deeply, chasing the smell from her nostrils, and reasoning: “My Shadows are just my own intuition. So all of this, the jealousy, the danger—all of it is something I already know.”
Her nose began to trickle as if her body agreed. She brushed the blood away. “So I know. But what do I know?”
The cottage was sunshine and soft colors and quiet, no Shadows forming to fill any answers.
Stroking Shoes, she moved to a spear of sunshine poking through the front window, let it warm her. “What is jealousy?” she muttered, analyzing. Jealousy…well, jealousy was a child’s emotion, was it not?
She relaxed a wee bit. Jakob was not childish. Settling onto the sofa, she kept on. Jealousy. It was also “…insecurity,” she said. “And Jakob, insecure?” Out rasped a humorless laugh. “It would do him well to try a little humility sometime.”
A Shadow breezed through the cottage, her Baba, rotund tummy shaking in a belly laugh. For of course she too had known Jakob.
Buoyed, Natasha felt a grin tease her lips. “Jealousy is also competition. And sourness. And…and bitter.”
None of which applied to her cousin, the epitome of confidence (Ahem. Try arrogance), disdain and, far from bitter, Jakob’s world view instead was a grim sort of amusement—on a good day—and weary defiance on most others.
And beyond that… “He loves me.” She knew it. Felt it.
So then why had her Shadows shown him taking responsibility for her tombstone?
She called to him.
He did not answer.
She kept calling till velvet night clasped the streets and Vestemere drifted to quiet. Cuddling Shoes, she waited. And waited.
Jakob did not come home.
—Where are you?!—
No response and midnight crept by. Then one o’clock. At two-thirty she went to her room, Shoes clasped close as she shoved a bureau in front of her locked bedroom door, then pushed an armoire to cover the window. Her tombstone was the last thing she saw before her eyes could no longer fight and she drifted…
Sunshine assaulted her cheeks alongside a rap on her door. “Kava!”
Coffee. Jakob! She leapt up, Shoes emitting an indignant mew. “Hush, baby,” she muttered and, after the briefest hesitation, plugged her iPod into its dock—turned it just loud enough.
Her cousin waited outside her door, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand, its creamy sugar smell sweetening the air. “Why are you playing music?”
“Where were you all night?”
“Where was I? Where were you? I called and called. Looked and looked.”
She gaped.
“Have you learned how to toss the black curtain you spoke of, Natasha? The one you saw out at Haslom’s when you rescued your creature?”
“No.” Her hands began shaking.
He stared. “It’s what I saw.”
“Not...not from me. I can’t…I don’t even know what that is, Jakob, much less how to do it.”
He gazed at her. “You’re not lying.”
Damn it, she was sick of people being shocked that she, who’d never made a habit of lying ever, was not lying. “Thank you for your faith.”
His nostrils flared and several seconds ticked past before he said, slowly, “I’ve sensed someone in Cascadia, the neighboring town, the one your Sea-Eyed Knight Crawler—”
“—told me was a better fit for your venue. I know where you mean.” Her heart pounded. “Who is it?”
He shook his head. “I sensed the presence there, not an identity—”
“Dammit, Jakob! Don’t lie—”
“I’m not. This person…they block our communication. The black curtain. I did try calling you, over and over.”
“I have a phone. So do you.”
“I don’t want a record of calls occurring between us.” He looked away.
A cold weight formed in her belly. “Why?”
“Kava,” he said, and held the mug out.
“Jakob—”
“I fixed it for you, Natasha. How you like.”
Was he pale? Sweating? Her eyes narrowed. Was he…scared? “Bratranek—”
“Natasha…it has occurred to me: Maybe I should not have stopped your idiot Railey from coming for you.”
Her pulse thundered. Why? And why had he stopped her in the first place? She swallowed, switched tracks back to what she knew. “Listen,” she said, “I think Owen Brophy and Jessalyn Haslom—”
He shook his head, the gesture impatient. “Wait,” he said, and reached out, set her coffee upon a side table. Then his palm flashed, fingers splayed, an offer of their strongest form of connection.
Her gut lurched. “What?” she whispered.
“I…I can’t tell you better than I can show you. I don’t have the words for how this…this person I sense in Cascadia makes me feel.”
Her belly flip-flopped but she faked brave, struck his palm with her own.
Shadows howled, a blinding gale sucking her backward like one of those ruptures in a dream, the ones where you plummeted off a sharp ledge, startling, last minute, awake.
Except she did not startle herself out and instead began drowning within that same tide of infected stench—It’s envy! Resentment!—from before. “Jakob! What is—” ‘This’ she couldn’t choke out. Bitterness burned up her throat.
“It’s who we seek,” he rasped. “It’s what’s inside them.”
Hate. Being in its Shadow was like being trapped within the warped glass walls of a prison the inmate had locked themselves in, purposely setting themselves apart out of a sense of superiority. Out of contempt and deep scorn for all others. “Suffer!” Natasha heard their voice whisper, and she shuddered from the black sense of purpose and malice underscoring the cry. And then….and then she felt the thing’s pleasure as a blade struck and blood ran. As a fire lit and flesh melted.
As a kitten cried out when a nail was shot through its small, helpless foot.
“No!” She jerked her hand away, cradling it as if it too had been mutilated by—“Sadism,” she gasped. “This…this person we’re seeking. A sadist.”
“Ja.” Jakob’s nose poured and he sounding winded, as if he’d just ran. “No compassion, Natasha. No…nothing.” Up came his palms, empty and reflecting his words.
She cast about, found a tissue box, shocked that her nose was not bleeding too. “Bratranek—”
He waved her off, tissues pressed to his face. “This…creature,” He grimaced as little Shoes wound ’round their ankles. “This animal,” he re-labelled. “Is far more unhinged than I thought.”
Her breath rasped. “So…what do we do?”
A war appeared to fight on his face. “I…I don’t want you to be unsafe.”
Really?Her tombstone Shadow leapt between them.
“But can…can you do one small thing?”
Only a small thing? Her shoulders sank and tensed, both at once.
“Jessalyn Haslom invited me to the dinner party she’s planned. Tonight. She wants us both there.”
“So you’ll go—”
“No, Natasha. You’ll go. I’m—”
“—going back to Cascadia.” She read it without effort and alarm raced, painted electricity under her skin. “Jakob—”
“I can make it different, Natasha. I know I can make it different.”
So…dogged. It scared her. She’d heard him determined before. And God knew he could be stubborn. Even vindictive. But this…she examined him, tried reading. This was different.
He grasped her hands. “I promise, the safest place you can be tonight is at that party.”
“But you said Rob and Jessalyn’s house was—”
“Dangerous, ja, but Natasha…please.”
Now desperation? What was this? “Jakob,” She shook him. “Tell the truth.”
“How much truth do you need?” He wrenched his hands away, flashed his palm in reference to what he’d just shown her. The bitterness. Hatefulness. Sadism. She shuddered. He softened. “Natasha…trust me. Trust when I say I’ve seen…even more.”
And she’d seen more too. He, crouching next to her grave, knowing it was his fault she was dead. She lifted her chin. “You’ve seen more,” she echoed. “So how much danger, exactly, am I in?”
“None if you let me return to Cascadia while you stay behind, play the enchanting newcomer.”
“But—”
“Natasha, please. And if you still want to leave after I swear,” he held his hands up, surrender. “I will call Railey O’Brien myself.”
***
He ignored any protests that since he was headed back to Cascadia she did not have a vehicle to get to the dinner party at Haslom’s. “Trust me, Natasha,” he repeated, wearily, and said he’d arrange for a ride.
Which he did—at seven sharp, a pirate appeared at her door; long, straight hair and hoops in both ears. He wore paint-splattered jeans and a sash, scarlet muslin, wrapped ’round his waist. “Buongiorno, Ms. Nikoslav! Antonio Danini, your chauffeur and guide!” Out swept an arm and he folded himself into a low bow, peeking up at her and beaming.
“I…hello. It’s—”A pleasure? A lost bet she didn’t know she had made? An alternate universe, maybe? “—it’s been quite an adventure I’ve had here in Vestemere already,” she said. Jakob had told her to play the enchanting newcomer, hadn’t he?
The pirate—Antonio—bounded to his feet, teeth radiant and eyes dancing. “Life is a waste if it’s not some form of quest,” he announced, and promptly offered his arm. “Shall we?”
Did she have a choice? And couldn’t life just be TV shows and potato chips and her new kitten at her feet? Did it have to be a quest?
Antonio Danini drove the way he looked, and Natasha tried, as discreetly as possible, to clutch the door handle in a way that did not look too obvious. “Salute!” he cried, as they crested a hill, then gunned the engine as they shot down, tires spitting gravel.
Good grief. If Rob Haslom’s killer did not murder her too, then surely she would meet her maker on this hairpin road with this maniac behind the wheel, believing he was on some sort of quest.
—Jakob? Do you see this?—
Her cousin’s laughter was his only reply, yet for a moment she glimpsed him and gasped, the sound swallowed by another of the Pirate’s joyful hoots. Jakob’s eyes...raccoon dark. Bruises? And his cheeks were so sallow.
—Jakob, what has happened to you?—
She saw him frown, puzzled, then
—I am laughing at you, Natasha. That’s what’s happening. You charm and delight me—
Mysterious tears pricked her eyes and
—Beloved cousin—
he said
—I just…adore you—
‘Beloved’. That word sizzled any others to ash in her throat and “Antonio, can we turn on the stereo on?” she asked brightly, earning a “Huzzah!” along with a blast of music loud enough to erase any further communication between her and her cousin.
She clung to the dash as he cranked the wheel, hit the brakes—“For effect!” he exclaimed—then parked, wheels squealing. Opening her door, he gallantly ushered her out, an old-world hand upon her back. They traversed the porch she’d crept over in the dark, and when he threw the door open he said “Our guest, safe and sound!”
Because he’d known there’d been a chance otherwise? Knees still quaking, she looked ’round the room, gaze stopping, and locking, on the Knight Crawler. His incredulous expression was matched only by a thought, which she caught:
—Now who the hell is this guy?—
He swung his gaping face to Rob and
—Old Man, what kind of company have you been keeping since I’ve been gone?—
She heard this too while Antonio bounded into the kitchen, blousy shirt blooming and collapsing like billows. Tucking a giggle behind her hand, she watched how the Knight Crawler stared as he planted kisses, right cheek then left, upon Jessalyn—who looked completely unfazed by his presence. Peeking around him, she said “Welcome, Natasha! Sit, be comfortable. Antipasto shortly. Robbie, get her a drink, please?”
Blue Eyes rose from his seat and grinned, tongue clearly in his cheek as he caught her eye. “I don’t know how we could all introduce ourselves to you any better than this.”
“I—”
“Hello,” said a small voice at her knees.
She looked down.
A tiny, raven-haired girl in a fussy, frilly dress ogled her with enormous, near colorless eyes. “Are…are you a queen?” she asked.
Natasha’s face flamed, white hot, and she could hear with complete clarity, the Knight Crawler, laughing.
—Not a Queen—
he thought
—A Tsarina—
She fried him with look. Stupidni man. Czechoslovakia did not even have a monarchy.
Rob said “This miniature is our niece, Robyn.”
Natasha looked back down and, to her bemusement, Robyn grasped a handful of her skirt, tugged it. “Did you forget your crown?” she asked, hushed.
Oh, Lord. Could the Knight Crawler please just shut up? She wished his brother, Steven, was here. He’d been gruff yet so sweet when she’d met him. He’d tell Owen Brophy to back off, to quit laughing at her.
—So tell him yourself, Natasha—
She scowled, internally, at Jakob too.
—How, exactly? You owe me HUGE for this, bratranek—
He grinned, and still his face was so peaked. She frowned, concerned, but—
“I know!” said Robyn, and bounded out of the room.
“Who knows what she’s got in mind,” said Rob, and took Natasha’s elbow, led her to a seat. “Thanks in advance for being a good sport,” he stage-whispered, then was knocked askew as Robyn returned, crinolines billowing, and saying “Look what I found!”
She had a plastic tiara gripped in one chubby fist, all peeled silver paint and garishly glittering rhinestones. “You can wear mine since you forgot yours.” She was breathless. Beaming.
Oh, dear.
Across the table, Owen Brophy’s sea-eyes danced with delight. Bastard. She’d like to mash the crown tightly down upon his unkempt head. Instead she crouched, eye-to-eye with Robyn. “You are so kind,” she said. “And I would be honored to wear your crown, but—” She took it, arranged it atop Robyn’s curls. “It looks so much more fetching on you.”
The child gawped at her, rapt. “Does fetching mean beautiful?”
“Yes, Sweetheart.” She melted. “Fetching absolutely means beautiful.”
Robyn’s feet looked as though they might sprout wings around the frou-frou on her socks, carry her up and away. “I would like to sit on your lap,” she announced, and pushed Natasha to her chair.
“Cara! Cara!” The Pirate rushed forward, aghast. Rob pulled an ‘I-told-you-so’ face.
Natasha waved them both off. Robyn smelled of Crayola and cake frosting and when she hoisted her up the child turned her wee face, beamed at her. “I am glad you’re here,” she said, and wriggled her little body, got comfortable.
“Me too,” said Natasha, surprising herself.
A willow, long legs, spiked silver hair, and the same oddly uncolored eyes as the child approached then, stuck a hand out. “Sabrina Danini,” she said.
“Mama,” Robyn supplied.
Sabrina kissed her on top of the head then handed her crayons and paper before reclaiming Natasha’s attention. “I’m his sister.” She pointed to Rob. “His wife.” Her aim shifted to the Pirate. “And I used to steal kisses from him on the school bus.”
Her finger singled out the Knight Crawler, who grinned. “You molested me,” he told her. “And if I did then what I do now, I’d have charged you.”
What? Confusion claimed Natasha’s brow, but then Rob said “I’ve always wondered, Old Man: how does parking in Vancouver work for cops, anyway? Civilians like me always get dinged with a bank account worth of tickets. So are you guys exempt, or what?”
Wait? A cop?
Brophy laughed. “I have a whole fistful of parking tickets, my friend. But thanks for the illusion of asylum.”
Natasha disguised astonishment by ducking behind little Robyn, and Shadows whirled ’round, locking together like puzzle pieces. First the needle and lighter she’d seen in the grocery store. Then the crack-cocaine pipe too. They were joined by new images: a shield on a chain ’round his neck. A stack of paperwork on a metal desk amid a sea of others, some occupied by people in plain-clothes, others by men and women in uniform. “Policii,” she blurted, and stared. “You…you’re a police officer?”
He squinted. “You didn’t know?”
How could she have? Wait. Had Jakob known? Was that why he’d laughed when she’d said Owen Brophy thought she was a prostitute? Why he’d ignored her when she’d tried, so frantically, to tell him about his late night visit to fake looking at the bathroom tile?
—How could you have been so blasé about policii coming to our house?—
He did not answer, and she cocked her head, took in Brophy’s long hair and tattoos anew. “So...you’re undercover?”
Sabrina laughed. Rob did too, and Natasha’s face burned. Why—why—did she always say the most awkward thing possible? “I-I’m sorry.” Her gaze sought the table. “That was thoughtless.”
“Oh, please.” Sabrina guffawed. “It was true.” She tugged Owen’s ponytail. “Natasha, this guy used to be the cleanest cut cutie you’ve ever seen. His Mommy used to show all us girls back here at home pictures of him in his uniform. We’d get all weak-kneed. Now he’s all inked up and badass.”
“As opposed to all spiked-up and smart-ass?” Owen Brophy, the cop. A policii! said, grinning.
Sabrina yanked his ponytail again and he snaked a hand out, jabbed her ribs. She squealed and Natasha watched them, seized by a sudden rush of unheralded, and inexplicable, envy. Sparring like that. Teasing and being teased. What would that be like? She peeled her gaze from them and cuddled Robyn, feigned interest in what she was drawing. “What are you working on, sweetheart?”
Robyn’s chubby hands lifted, revealed pink, fluffy flowers on her page. “Pretty?” she asked, and leaned back, tiny face warm and glowing.
Natasha stared. Peonies. Her heart pounded.
—Settle—
Jakob interrupted.
—Remember: she is a dítě, Natasha—
A baby. So of course she saw peonies. For Robyn, like all little children, was just as psychic as Jakob believed everyone would one day be. “Th-they’re lovely, honey,” she whispered, and peonies at once blossomed everywhere. On the table. On the floor. One was tucked behind Sabrina Haslom’s left ear. Why? To remind her—again—that Owen Brophy and Heart Face were sleeping together? It seemed so improbable now that she’d listened to him and Blue Eyes. Brophy clearly loved Rob the way she loved Jakob—like a bratr.
“Natasha.” Jessalyn set a plate of antipasto amid the peonies. “For the record, my dad C.C. doesn’t look like a cop, either.”
Choreographed. The Shadow word was back and chased the peonies away, leaving behind only Robyn’s childish replications. “Really,” she replied. “Two police officers?”
“Yes.” Jessalyn grinned. “You’re surrounded.”
She was not being playful. Concentrating, Natasha called:
—Jakob? Help me!—
He replied:
—You are fine—
‘Fine’? Fine was a limp word. A useless word. A lie told world-over whenever anyone said ‘How are you?’ Straightening, she felt Robyn’s sweet weight shift with her. “Well, this is a first for me.” She attempted to match Jessalyn’s brightness. “I’ve never met a police officer socially before.” This she aimed at the Knight Crawler.
His face was as remote as the carvings in Jessalyn’s gallery.
Rob, though, grinned. “Yet you’ve met cops non-socially? You have a lead foot, Natasha?”
“Yes. I mean no! I…” She panned a rapid look back to Brophy but his stoic silence dried the words in her throat and the truth: I am a recluse who has no idea how to have dinner with anyone other than Jakob and Railey bit at the back of her throat.
Once again Jakob replied:
—You also dine with the Shadows you call upon whenever you’re lonely—
Natasha swallowed, shamed and pathetic. Jakob knew that sometimes she surrounded herself with a past that made her feel less alone?
—Just settle, Natasha—
he called
—Be yourself. You have an ally in the sister—
In Sabrina Danini? She shifted, faced her. “I…I have only met police officers when I’ve had to report something,” she said, overcome suddenly, by a need to explain.
Yet again it was Rob, not Sabrina, who replied. “Really? You have a lot of crime in your little town?”
Shadows of pick-up trucks peeled through the kitchen, teenagers hurling eggs and tomatoes from their windows. She looked away but more Shadows, darker ones, seeped out of the walls. Other teenagers, these ones with masked faces and whispering voices. One held a red brush. Don’t show! she cried and “C-crime?” she echoed, old terror quivering in her throat. “Yes. Sometimes.”
Know what I tell people who live in high-crime neighborhoods?”
Owen Brophy. She carefully gave him her gaze.
“I say move.”
Was he being facetious? Compassionate? And where was Choreographed? She searched, but could not see its Shadow anywhere. “You…you sound like my cousin.”
“Jakob called Echo Creek a toilet,” chimed Jessalyn. “If all the crime is why then maybe you shouldmove.”
“I…” Aha! There was Choreographed, drifting between Heart Face and the Knight Crawler.
But then Rob spoke and Choreographed shrank as though scared. “When you own a business, picking up and moving isn’t as easy as you two seem to think.”
The edge in his voice made Natasha feel grateful for warm little Robyn on her lap.
Rob faced her. “Forgive me, Natasha, but I did screen you—and Jakob—when I agreed to rent to you.”
thought, Owen Brophy’s, landed in her ear
—You did, Old Man?—
and with it came his feeling: pride. The Knight Crawler was proud that his old friend had taken precautions.
Again this did not jibe with someone who, in turn, was also bedding his wife. Natasha gnawed her lip and Rob said “Natasha owns a massage clinic. Head to Heal. Clever name, by the way—”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“—and, as a business owner myself, I know I couldn’t pay so much as our mortgage if I just up and disappeared from my community.”
Natasha gaped. Rob got it. Unlike Jakob, unlike Railey, unlike Jessalyn and the Knight Crawler…Rob Haslom, a near-stranger, got it.
“Not to mention sentimental connection,” voiced Sabrina, and plucked an olive from the antipasto platter, popped it into her mouth.
“You’re waxing sentimental?” Owen Brophy jacked a brow.
“Just talked about swapping gum on the bus with you, didn’t I?” She stuck her tongue out.
The Knight Crawler, to Natasha’s astonishment, blushed beneath his so-called badass beard. Then Sabrina turned to her. “Are you sentimental about your little town?”
“I…” She sat back. Echo Creek had been so many dark things over the years, but special…?
A Shadow materialized, her Baba, tiny yet so round Natasha never used to be able to get her arms fully around her. “Well…yes. Yes,” she repeated, more emphatic. “I live in the same house my grandparents and I moved into in town once they got too old to work on the farm.”
“Your grandparents raised you?”
Rob again and his tone was still sharp, bewildering her. “Yes,” she repeated. “My matka—Silva—passed when I was just…” She gestured to Robyn. “And as for my father…” A blush, but also a smile, seized her face. “My father does not know there is a Natasha. Mama…well, let’s just say commitment wasn’t exactly her thing.”
Jessalyn laughed. “Sounds like you, Sab.”
Sabrina sniffed—“There are worse people to sound like”—then winked at the pirate. “Don’t listen to this commitment-phob stuff, baby.”
“I would not dream of it, Cara.”
Natasha beamed, enjoying them. Enjoying this.
“So…” Rob’s brow was knit. “Don’t you want to know your father?”
Jessalyn tsked. “Judge much?” she scolded, yet kissed him on the head. “Forgive Robbie, Natasha. He’s a traditionalist.” This she paired with the first real smile she’d offered since their introduction on the sidewalk outside the rental cottage, as sweet as the scent of the blossoming fruit trees.
Natasha clung to it, smiling back, Home once again a Shadow floating all around, but then—
“’Tasha?” Robyn craned ’round on her lap.
Home shone on her small face. “Yes sweetheart?”
“Look at my picture now. I made you.”
Natasha looked and “Oh!” A stick figure floated over the peonies, canary yellow hair and its mouth….an inverted U. She reached out, touched a self-conscious finger to it.
“Your smile is all upside-down,” Robyn said. “Did you know that?”
Of course. Jakob had told her so a thousand times: Even your smile looks like a broken heart, Sestranek. She always brushed him off. But today…today the observation unlocked an invasion of tears.
“Do you like it?” Robyn, leaned back, tiara poking Natasha’s chin.
“Y-yes, sweetheart. I love it. No one…no one has ever drawn a picture of me before.”
Across the table she could hear Owen Brophy:
—She’s touched. For real. She’s not lying—
while Robyn obliviously beamed. “Papa!” She thrust the picture toward the Antonio the Pirate. “Make this a frame like your pictures.”
“Si, si!” Antonio glowed, doting, yet Owen Brophy’s next thought was another Natasha caught:
—Jesus. What a spoiled little princess—
Tsking, she cuddled Robyn closer. Spoiled? Or loved? Surely that must be a difficult line to draw as a parent. She scowled—Cranky Knight Crawler!—then startled when he flinched as if a fly or a moth had batted wings too close to his skin.
Jessalyn said, “Since you’re already looking at pictures, Natasha, how about mine? You didn’t get to see much in the gallery.”
“Oh. I…” she cast about, for Shadows, but the only thing she fastened on was Rob’s cajoling, open-hearted smile.
“You did say you’d be a good sport,” he reminded, eyes twinkling, then “Sab, watch the stove.” He rose.
“Yeah,” chimed the Knight Crawler, also standing. “Stir the pot, would ya?”
Sabrina snapped a dishtowel at his rear and Natasha marveled at her easy pluck. Robyn latched onto her hand. “Me too,” she said.
“Cara,” The Pirate wagged a finger. “No touching in Auntie’s studio.”
Owen Brophy jacked a brow
—Finally this kid gets a rule—
Natasha frowned—What a crank!—and squeezed Robyn’s hand. “We will be on our best behavior, right?” She followed Brophy’s broad shoulders as he trailed Rob and Jessalyn down a windowed annex off the kitchen. The same rockabilly beat from the other night became louder and louder until the windowed hall opened into an immense, glassed-in studio. Natasha drew a gasp. No wonder Jakob had picked up on Rob’s wish to sell. She imagined trying to heat this place during one of her eastern Albertan winters and a Shadow of digits—her bank balance rapidly draining—flashed in front of her eyes.
Jessalyn led them all to a grouping of canvases in the corner. “My Painted Ladies,” she said.
Recognition seized Natasha by the throat and a name—Elayna—swirled, a Shadow over a face she knew, she had discovered it in a photo years ago, buried deep within a trunk of things that had once been her mother’s. Except…shrinking away, she recalled the picture her mother had hidden, a picture Natasha had known, instinctively, to never ask anyone about—not Baba, not Jakob, and clearly not Silva, long dead and unable to reveal why, why, she had gouged its eyes out, leaving only rough, unseeing circles behind.
“’Tasha? Your hand is all slippery.” Robyn slid her small palm away.
“You look startled Natasha,” added Jessalyn.
“I…” How many times would she feel grateful for the silky way Jakob had taught her to lie? She flitted a vague gesture to the portraits. “These are paintings?” She contrived shock, yet barely needed to; Jessalyn’s artwork didn’t look like paintings. More like photography.
“Jessie’s style is photo-realism.”
Natasha nodded, another deliberately enthralled movement, then “Show,” she murmured, under her breath.
Eager Shadows broke through the portrait of Elayna and raced together to form her Shadow, stepping out of the canvas to say “What are you doing here?”
Natasha glanced surreptitiously around, gauging the past her Shadows had formed:
An upscale dining room, candlelight and gardenias on the tables. “Well?” Elayna demanded, then another Shadow materialized.
Natasha choked upon shock.
Silva, her mother, strode up to Elayna—then promptly pasted a slap ’cross her face. “Stupidni woman! You said you’d stay away from him! Now your selfishness, your lust…” Silva’s teeth flashed, ferocity. “Walk away. Let him be. Raise that spawn in your belly without him like you promised you would!”
Natasha’s gaze raced back to where Elayna held her cheek, eyes full and glistening. “But—”
“This is about more than just you!”
Natasha’s tombstone reappeared beside Silva.
“I too see the future,” Silva’s eyes also became shiny. “Except not like him. He’s blinded by what he feels for you, so he doesn’t see my child, my beloved, hurt by your lust. By your selfishness.” She clutched the top of the tombstone. “You knock poison dominos over with your greed, Elayna. And I told you so! Now stay true!”
“Natasha?”
The Shadows sucked themselves back into the portrait, and when Natasha turned, Jessalyn was smiling, albeit quizzically. “You’re so intense,” she said. “To my artist’s eye, that must mean you’ve picked a favorite.”
She glanced back at the portraits and her belly hit her shoes. There, dangling from Elayna’s pinkie, Jessalyn had painted a stiletto, the stiletto, the one she always saw buried in Blue Eyes’ chest. But it’s symbolic! The thought careened wildly. Isn’t it? Just symbolic?
“Natasha?” Jessalyn prompted.
“I….” She rapidly assessed the other paintings, surprised when one didarrest her; an Asian woman, delicate curvature of eyes set within a porcelain face. She had her hands cupped like Natasha’s did when she called forth her Shadows, a ball of light floating atop her curved palms. “Her,” Natasha pointed and knew, beyond a doubt, that the woman in the portrait was psychic.
Jessalyn beamed, one of her rarely real smiles. “Why?” she queried, soft.
“Because…” she’s my sister. “She makes me feel…” Normal. “…at peace.”
“Ha!” Jessalyn shot a fist in the air. “See, Robbie? I knew someone would love her! Natasha, I met her in Vancouver and she—”
“—was reading tea leaves and tarot cards on the street,” Rob broke in, dry.
“Really?” Natasha laughed, spontaneous. Her painted sister hid—in plain sight—behind fakery and props? It was something Silva would have done. “And did she tell you your future?”
“I don’t know.” Jessalyn grinned, impish. “What she told me hasn’t happened—yet.”
Rob made a scoffing sound. Jessalyn shooed him off. “She said: ‘Your family is about to get bigger. Much bigger’.”
Owen Brophy laughed, the sound surprising Natasha; she’d forgotten he was there. “Sounds like maybe we all better leave early tonight, eh, Old Man?” He jabbed a playful elbow at Rob, who blushed like a schoolboy. Natasha watched them.
The Knight Crawler was not sleeping with Heart Face. It was plainer than any Shadows she’d ever seen. He loved Rob. Relief swept through her and landed in her knees, weakening them as she gazed at sweet Blue Eyes. Your friend is true.
‘Stay true.’
“It was all hokum, Jessie,” Rob said.
Again his wife brushed him off—though her expression was more bemused than belief. “She described what she could do, called it ‘Calling in the Light’.” She put this in air quotes. “Her portrait is my idea of what she described.”
Calling in the Light. The opposite of calling forth Shadows—a better sort of opposite. Natasha stared at the Asian psychic. “How much?” she asked, impulsive she knew, but Jakob could loan her the money if this canvas was more than she could afford.
“Oh…” Again Jessalyn’s expression was genuine—but this time a grimace, not a smile. “The Painted Ladies sell as a collection, Natasha. And I’ve already had a bid from a gallery.” She looked apologetic.
“But…” Natasha’s shoulders drooped, and when Sabrina’s voice carried from the kitchen—“Soup’s on!”—disappointment kept tugging her gaze back to her Asian sister. ‘Calling in The Light’. There was a lesson there, and somehow it reminded her of what Baba used to say whenever Jakob would scoff at Natasha’s Shadows, how they were limited by only showing the past: “Ah, but the past, my Beloveds, the past is all we can really rely on for truth. For the future…the future changes shape just like wine poured from flask to glass. A shifted breeze, a kinder or harsher tone…anything can alter it.”
Including whether one called for Shadows or Light? Natasha regarded her tombstone as the others walked through it, unaware. “Show light,” she mouthed.
The stone flickered, dates becoming smudgy, indistinct.
Relief made her heart pound. She glanced up, focused on the Knight Crawler’s broad back. “Show Light,” she whispered again, and at once his Shadow turned, faced her.
“I can help you,” it said.
She recoiled.
—But…you’re all broken—
For his image held a peony in one hand yet a cleaver in the other. A hypodermic was stabbed in the crook of one arm.
Still, his Shadow glanced down, flicked all these things off as if they were trivial. “So are you,” he said then, and jutted his chin back at her.
Natasha looked down, startled to see that her limbs were all mottled by bruises from rocks. That her skin dripped scarlet from being painted with a red brush.
“Maybe we can help each other,” said Brophy’s Shadow, then turned, melted into his body, walked away from her.
©bonnie randall 2005