Charles De Lint - Memory and Dream

The figure taking shape on the canvas was of a vengeful, red-haired angel. Working wet-in-wet as she was, Isabelle was eschewing detail for emotive power. The enormous wings that would rise up behind the figure were still only blocked in, and there was next to no definition in the figure itself, but the sword of justice held aloft by the angel was clearly defined and there was no mistaking the stern cast to her features.

“This is going to deal with Rushkin,” Isabelle told him.

“How?”

“Once I’ve brought her across, she’ll protect all of us. If Rushkin ever tries to hurt any of us again, she’ll deal with him.”

“It won’t work.”

Disappointment reared in Isabelle’s eyes. “Why not?”

“We can’t touch him,” John explained. “None of us that you brought across can. He’s a maker, and because of that we can’t harm him. I don’t know why, but that’s the way it is.”

“But when his numena came to Joli Coeur ...”

“They could never have made good on their threat to you,” John finished. “Because you’re also a maker. None of us can harm a maker.”

Isabelle shook her head. “No, he—the one calling himself Bitterweed—he wasn’t pretending when he grabbed me by the throat. If I hadn’t gone with him, he would’ve killed me.”

“He could kill me, or any of your friends,” John said, “but the threat he presented to you was good acting, nothing more.”

He could see Isabelle’s confidence visibly deflate.

“You didn’t know,” he said, trying to comfort her.

“I should have listened to you a long time ago,” she said. “I should have stopped bringing anyone else across when you first told me I should.”

John agreed with her, but all he said to her was “I only told you that you had to be responsible. You had to keep them out of danger.”

“But so long as Rushkin’s around, they will always be in danger. It would have been better to never have brought them across, than to let them all die. But I was too late.” Isabelle turned away. She stood there, looking at her angel of vengeance, arms wrapped protectively around her upper torso. “That’s the story of my life. I’m always too late when it matters.”

“It’s not too late for those of us who remain,” John told her.

Isabelle faced him once more. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Rushkin is the danger,” John said.

“I know that.”

“So what you have to do is eliminate the danger.”

“You mean ... kill him?”

John nodded.

“I don’t think I could do that.” An anguished look came over her features as she spoke. “I know he’s evil. I I ... I guess I even knew all along that it would come to this. But I just don’t think I can cold-bloodedly kill another human being.”

“He dies, or we do,” John said.

III

Where’s John?” Alan asked as he and his companions caught up to Cosette.

“He’s gone to kill Rushkin,” Cosette said. She gave them a shocked look and put her hands up over her mouth. “Uh-oh,” she muttered through her fingers. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”

“Rushkin?” Rolanda asked.

She looked understandably uneasy.

“Vincent Rushkin,” Alan explained. “The artist. He was Isabelle’s mentor back when we were all in university.”

“But what’s he got to do with anything?” Marisa asked.

Alan returned his attention to Cosette. “I guess that’s something our friend here’s going to have to explain.”

But Cosette was shaking her head. “I don’t have to explain anything. Just forget what I said.”

As she started to turn away, Alan caught her by the arm.

“We need some answers, Cosette,” he told her.

Her pale gaze held his for a long moment, and Alan found himself marveling at the strange mix of rose and grey that colored them. An impossible color, Alan thought. But then the whole situation was impossible. Except her arm was solid in his grip. There was no denying her physical presence, the reality of her standing here with them on the sidewalk.

“Why should I tell you anything?” Cosette asked at last.

“We want to help.”

“But why? What difference does any of this make to you?”

“Well, for one thing,” Rolanda said, obviously making an effort to keep her voice calm, “we don’t want to see you get mixed up in a murder.”

Murder. The word rang in Alan’s mind, and then he was remembering how his day had begun with the police suspecting him for having murdered Kathy’s mother.

“Did John kill Margaret Mully?” he asked.

Cosette gave him a confused look.

“Kathy’s mother,” Alan explained. “The one who was trying to stop us from publishing a new collection of Kathy’s stories.”

“That’s where it all started,” Cosette said. She pulled free from his grip. “If you hadn’t started Isabelle thinking about bringing us across again, I’ll bet Rushkin would never have come back. None of this would have happened.”

“I don’t understand,” Alan said.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Marisa murmured from beside him.

“You can’t keep me here, you know,” Cosette told them. “All I have to do is close my eyes and wish myself away and I’ll be standing in front of my painting again.”

Now it was Alan’s turn to look confused.

“That’s one of the things we can do,” Cosette went on. “We can just be back at our gateway with a thought.” Then she plucked at the sweater she was wearing. “And I can always be dressed just like I am in the painting. All I have to do is decide to do it.”

With that she closed her eyes, her brow furrowing. A moment later she was standing there in the street in front of them wearing only the white men’s dress shirt that Alan had first seen her in. The shirt hung open, just as it did in the painting. Lying at her feet were the clothes she’d been wearing a moment ago.

“Jesus,” he said.

Unself-consciously, Cosette picked up her jeans and put them on. She let the shirttails hang free, but she buttoned the shirt. The sweater went on over it, then she sat down on the curb and started to put on her shoes.

“Why are you telling us this?” Rolanda asked.

“Because I want to.”

She held up her palm—the one she’d cut with an Xacto blade in Rolanda’s office—and Rolanda shivered. Alan crouched down beside Cosette as she tied her laces.

“I don’t know what any of this means,” he said. “I just know that Isabelle’s caught up in it. I can feel that she’s in some sort of trouble and I want to help her.

“Do you love her?” Cosette asked.

“I ...” Alan felt suddenly uncomfortable. He glanced at Marisa before returning his attention to Cosette. When he spoke, his reply surprised him. “I did. I mean, I still do, but not in the same way as I once did. It’s complicated. I love her like a sister, I suppose. Or a friend.”

“Could you love me that way?”

“I don’t know,” Alan said. “I’d have to get to know you first.”

“That was fairly answered,” Cosette told him, suddenly grinning. “That’s how Rosalind would say it.

She’s much better with words that I could ever hope to be.”

“And she’s ... ?”

“You’d think of her as the reading woman.” Cosette gave Rolanda a knowing look. “You know.”

When Rolanda nodded, Alan realized they were talking about the other painting that hung in the Foundation’s offices, La Liseuse.

“We love each other,” Cosette said, “just like you love Isabelle.”

“ Is Isabelle in trouble?” Alan asked.

Cosette gave him a solemn nod. “But you could save her.”

“How?”