Charles De Lint - Memory and Dream

“The choice is yours,” he said. “There is nothing I or anyone else can do. Only you can make the decision and only you can send the spirit back.”

“Well, I’m glad we’re agreeing on that much, because if you think for one moment I’d—”

“But the time will come when you will remember this conversation—just as I did when my own mentor explained it to me—and you will do what is necessary.”

“This is not the kind of conversation I’m liable to forget,” Izzy told him.

“Good. Now, I think we should perhaps forgo work for the remainder of this morning. It might do you good to be away from the studio to think upon what was said here today.”

Izzy got up from the windowseat and regarded Rushkin cautiously. “I ... I’m taking my painting with me,” she said.

“That is your decision,” Rushkin replied, his voice still mild. “I won’t stop you. You forget that I have been through all of this before: the joy of the creation, the covenant with a spirit from beyond, the disbelief in the true existence of that same spirit; and then finally understanding the danger some of these creatures represent to myself; and to this world which I love so dearly. I have had to destroy certain pieces of my work, so that the monsters they called up would be sent back. Each time, it broke my heart.

The first time, I was almost too late and it was only by luck that the monster didn’t kill me before I cast it back into the beyond. I pray you will come to the proper realization before such a situation arises for you.”

“Sure,” Izzy said. “Whatever.”

“Please understand,” Rushkin said. “You are not at fault. No one can blame you for what your art brought across. It can happen to any of us, at any time. We have no control over the process. But we do have the ability, and the responsibility, to send these creatures back when we do inadvertently bring them over.”

Izzy nodded—not in agreement, just to let him know that she’d heard him. She collected her coat and knapsack and put them both on. The Spirit Is Strong was still tacky, but she carefully collected the painting from her easel all the same and walked with it to the door.

“Tomorrow will be business as usual,” Rushkin told her. “We won’t speak of these matters again until you are the one to bring them up.”

Izzy only nodded again. The way she was feeling at the moment, she wasn’t so sure she’d ever be back—at least not without a couple of big guys to help her collect her canvases and, while they were at it, protect her from the seriously crazy man that she was beginning to suspect Rushkin really was.

“Fine,” she said.

Rushkin gave her a sad smile as she opened the studio door to leave. “Be careful, Isabelle,” he said.

An eerie shiver went up Izzy’s spine as Rushkin’s words, echoing John’s earlier caution, went spinning through her mind. She looked at the small figure her mentor cut, still sitting there in the windowseat, and then down at the image she’d captured in the painting she held. Who to believe? Who did she need to be careful around? Well, John was mysterious, but he didn’t seem crazy. And Rushkin was the one who had beaten her.

“I ... I will,” she told him, then closed the door behind her and made her way down the stairs, trying not to bump the still-wet oil painting on anything as she made her retreat.

XIII

Izzy thought that John had stood her up when she first arrived at Perry’s Diner that evening. A pang of disappointment shot through her until she spotted him sitting in a booth at the back. When he raised a hand and gave her a lazy wave, she made her way down to where he was sitting. He was wearing a well-worn, flannel-lined jean jacket that she wasn’t sure would do him all that much good when it got colder, but it was better than the short sleeves he’d been wearing to date. And he certainly did look good in it.

“For a moment there, I didn’t think you’d come,” she said as she sat down across from him.

“I always keep my promises,” he told her. “My word’s the only currency I’ve got that’s of any real worth. I don’t spend it lightly.”

Izzy smiled. “Highly commendable, sir.”

“It’s just the truth,” he said, but he returned her smile.

Izzy slipped off her own jacket and bunched it up into a corner of the booth. When she turned back, John slid a ten-dollar bill across the table to her. “What’s this?” she asked.

“Your money. I ran into a bit of work after I left you this morning and made enough to buy the jacket without having to use what you’d lent me.”

“Good for you. Did you get a good deal on it?”

“Is eight dollars a good deal?”

“You’re kidding.”

John shook his head. “I went to that store on Lee Street you told me about.”

“I’d say it was a real bargain.”

When John shrugged, she wasn’t sure if he really didn’t care about money, or if he just didn’t want to talk about it. Probably a bit of both, she decided. “So what’ll we have?” she asked, opening her menu.

“Just black coffee for me,” John told her.

She eyed him over her lowered menu. “Look, if you haven’t got enough left over, I really don’t mind—”

“No, I’ve got the money. I had a late lunch, that’s all. I couldn’t eat if I wanted to.”

“Well, if you’re sure ...”

Izzy settled on the soup of the day—cream of cauliflower—and a side order of French fries. She also ordered a coffee, but she took hers with cream and sugar, adding John’s creamer along with her own to her mug since he wouldn’t be using it. Silence lay between them while they waited for Izzy’s meal to come, but it wasn’t anything like the comfortable silences she could share with Kathy or her other friends.

There was still too much of the unknown between them for her to feel completely at ease, and the fact that he bore such an uncanny resemblance to a painting she’d done before she’d met him continued to unnerve her.

“So you’re an Indian,” she said finally, to fill up the silence.

John smiled, amusement dancing in his dark eyes, and Izzy wished she’d never opened her mouth.

What an inane thing to say. Of course he was an Indian.

“I mean a Native American,” she corrected herself. When he continued to look amused, she added,

“Well, what do you call yourself?”

“Kickaha. It means ‘the people’ in our language. If I were to introduce myself to one of my own people I would say, I am Mizaun Kinnikinnik of the Mong tudem.”

“You told me your name was John.”

He shrugged. “John’s as good a name as any in this place.”

“Is ‘Mizaun’ the Kickaha name for John?”

“No. My name means Thistle in the Sweetgrass—I was a hard birth to my mother, but she told me I had cherubic features.”

But not anymore, Izzy thought. There was nothing of the pretty boy about his rugged good looks.

“And ‘Mong,’” she asked. “That’s your—what? Your totem?”

John shook his head. “Not exactly. In Kickaha tudem means clan, but I suppose it could also mean totem in the sense that you’re using the word. My clan is sacred to the loon.”

Izzy tried, but couldn’t suppress a giggle.

“I know,” John said, smiling with her. “Everyone believes that our totem should only be eagles and wolves and bears, but there’s good in all creatures and one can take pride in belonging to the clans looked over by the black duck or the frog as well. Or the loon.”

“It’s a beautiful bird, really,” Izzy said, remembering them from when she used to live on the farm on Wren Island. “And ‘Mong’ is a better name for it—it doesn’t sound quite so, you know, silly.”