Scott Nicholson - The Manor

"What's the matter, Princess?" Paul asked. "You've gone pale."

"Shouldn't have had that second glass of wine."

"How am I ever going to turn you into a party girl if you can't hold your liquor better than that? The night is young."

"Yeah, but I feel a hundred years old."

Paul patted Adam's knee. "You stay here and rest your ancient bones, then. I'm going to get my camera."

"And probably sneak a few hits off a joint?"

Paul gave that irresistible, mischievous grin. "Makes me creative. And all the rest."

"Save some for me."

"You haven't changed a bit, no matter what they say." Paul looked around leaned forward and kissed Adam on the cheek. "Like the lady said it's going to be a night to remember."

Adam watched as Paul crossed the widow's walk and slipped through the trapdoor. Lilith and the dough-faced cook were setting up a buffet table. The Abramovs had returned their instruments to their cases and now stood near the railing, talking to the Mediterranean woman, Zainab. Smoke drifted from the four chimneys, rising above the trees that surrounded the manor.

Adam hunched into his chair, shivering. He wouldn't mind a fire right now. Fall was dying and winter was coming on. Cold and gray and suffocating. Too bad this night couldn't last forever.

Sweat poured from Mason like blood from a shotgun wound, his muscles screaming as he ran the fluter under the slope that would be one of Korban's cheeks. He rammed his gouge down across the wooden shoulders with his left hand. He had never carved with both hands at the same time before, but anything was possible now. The wood seemed to peel away as if shucking itself. They were in a hurry, both he and his statue.

The voice came from the bust again, the voice that had been urging him onward, driving Mason into a frenzy of chiseling and chopping and planing. It had scared him at first, but now the voice was just that of another instructor, albeit the most demanding one Mason had ever worked under.

This was the most demanding of critics.

The tunnel was waiting if he failed.

The dark crib and the rats and his mama with the squeaky voice and long gray tail.

"More off the shoulder, you fool," said the bust.

Mason looked at the bust, at Korban, his creation, his first masterpiece. The lantern on the table threw the left side of the bust into shadow.

The wooden lips moved again. "Hurry. They're waiting."

"Who?" Mason's syllable was a whisper. The air of the basement was charged with an eerie static. The hairs on the backs of his hands tingled. Flames roared up the central chimney on the other side of the stone wall.

"Get on with it, sculptor."

"I need to rest."

"You'll have plenty of time to rest later."

Mason laid his tools on the table, wiped his brow, sagged to the concrete floor in exhaustion. Then he saw Korban's painting of the manor, the one someone must have altered while Mason wasn't around. Because the figures were clearly visible, dabbed in thick strokes of oil. The woman with the bouquet had moved into the foreground, beyond the railing, and her position had changed, her arms spread, eyes wide. She was falling.

And Mason didn't care what Anna said, all that nonsense about the woman being Anna's mother, because that was Anna's face and those were Anna's eyes and the woman wore that mysterious half smile that no other woman in the world could pull off.

"Ah," the bust said. "So it's the woman you want, after all. Precious Anna."

"What about her?" Mason was far past the point of doubting his sanity. Some artists claimed their work spoke to them, so maybe hearing Korban's voice wasn't unusual. But the dividing line, the step from mere genius into certifiable tortured soul, occurred when you started talking back to the object in question.

"You can have her, once you finish me. I've already promised you fame. And I always keep my promises."

Mason's response was to take his bull point from the table. He lifted his mallet, bent his elbow to test its weight. He thought about spinning and driving the thick iron point between Korban's eyes. A blow from the mallet would split the bust in half. But how could you kill something that was already dead?

The statue quivered before him, the rough-hewn limbs flexing. Grain split along one forearm, and the block of head tilted, a small knothole parting in the place where Mason had planned to carve the mouth.

"Finish me," moaned the knothole.

Mason dropped his hammer and stepped back, sweat and sawdust and fear stinging his eyes. The wooden arms reached for him, flecks of curled oak falling from the blunt hands. Mason stumbled against the table, knocking over the bust. He looked down and saw the eyes looking up at him. It was the same cold glare as in Korban's portrait upstairs. Too perfectly the same.

"What about Anna?" Mason said.

"I promise you two will be together. We'll all be one big happy family."

That made sense, as much sense as Mama watching from the tunnel, and probably a drunken and mean-eyed version of Dad as well. Just like old times, with rats in the walls and darkness all around and Dad passed out on the floor. So if he could drag Anna in there with him, the darkness might be a little more bearable. Korban always kept his promises. How could you not trust those wise and wonderful eyes?

Mason picked up the hatchet. The critics had spoken. More off the left. Finish it. Make it perfect. Big dream image brought to life. Create.

Wood.

Flesh.

Heart.

Dream.

Anna felt as if she were back in one of her dreams, those that had filled her nights in the past year. As she had so many times before, in that lost land of sleep, she approached the manor from the forest. The house's hulking form rose between the trees that surrounded it like guardian beasts. The windows were eyes, glaring and cold even with the light of a dozen fires behind them. The chimneys spouted a breath of ephemeral transition, matter into energy, substance into heat. The front door whispered a soft welcome, the darkness inside promising peace.

But this waking dream had features beyond all those previous ones, as if a seventh sense had been added to her other six. The grass was thick under her shoes and glittering frost clung to the skin of the earth. The sky was bright on both the eastern and western horizons, painted with lavender and maroon by some large and ragged brush. The wind had settled like a sigh, and autumn's surrender hung in the cool air. The manor waited. Ephram Korban waited.

Is this where I belong? Anna thought. Am I really coming home?

Sylva said that Anna was fuel. That Korban would consume her, use her, leave her soul as ashes.

What did it matter? Let her love and hate and anger and pride flow out into the house. Into Ephram Korban. No one else wanted it.

She laughed, giddy as she crossed the porch, the raw static energy of the house flowing over her body, warming her, making her feel wonderful. Coining home. Home is where the heart is.

Miss Mamie was waiting. She opened the door and stepped aside, sweeping her arm out in welcome. "Ephram said you'd come."

Anna felt drunk. Even her pain was ebbing, the fires of cancer dying down inside her. She would offer everything. Korban could have her pain, her loneliness, her feeling of never having belonged. Bon appetit.

Yes, she had come home. This place had opened her soul, had allowed her to see ghosts. Given her what she wanted. She could die happy here.

"You're looking lovely this evening, Anna," Miss Mamie said to her. The words sounded as if they had come from far away. The fire roared and crackled at the end of the foyer. Anna looked at the portrait of Korban above the fireplace. Grandfather. With eyes so bright and loving.