Charles De Lint - Memory and Dream

Isabelle would paint the fairy and she’d do the good deeds and then the fairy would make her real, very and truly real, just the way Rolanda had promised.

Casette brightened up at the thought of that. She kicked her heels against the wall she was sitting on and tried to think of just what sort of good deeds would be required. Rosalind would know. And so would Solemn John. But she didn’t want to ask them. She wanted to do this on her own, to show everyone that she, too, could be clever and wise. She grinned to think of the looks of surprise that they’d wear when they realized that she had a red crow beating its wings inside her. They would look at her and know that she was filled with red blood and dreams and then she would tell them how they could become real, too, and everyone would have to remark on just how clever she really was, even Solemn John, and then ...

Her thoughts trailed off as an uneasy prickling sensation crept up the back of her neck. Someone, she realized, was watching her. Which was impossible because she hadn’t chosen to be seen. But the feeling wouldn’t go away.

She looked about herself, pretending a disinterest that she didn’t really feel, her gaze traveling from one end of the street to the other. When she finally did notice the girl leaning by the door of a shop across the street, she couldn’t figure out how she could ever have missed spotting her straightaway since she seemed more like a black-and-white cutout that had been propped up in the doorway than a real person: alabaster skin, short black hair, midnight eyes ringed with dark smudges, black lipstick. Black leather vest, black jeans torn at the knees, black motorcycle boots. There was no color to her at all.

How can she see me when I don’t want to be seen? Cosette wondered. But she already knew. The black-and-white girl must have crossed over from the before just as she had herself. Someone had brought her over. Only who? Not Isabelle. There was only one other person Cosette could think of and she didn’t like the idea of that at all.

At that moment, the girl smiled, but it wasn’t so much a pleasant expression as spiteful—feral and hungry. When she saw that she had Cosette’s attention, the black-and-white girl slowly drew a finger across her throat. Then she pushed herself away from the doorway and sauntered off down the street.

Cosette sat frozen on her perch on the wall, unable to do anything but watch her go.

I’m not scared of her, she lied to herself. I’m not scared at all.

But she was unable to stop shivering. Long after the stranger had disappeared from sight, all she could do was hug her knees and wish she were back on the island, or in Solemn John’s company, or anywhere at all that might be safe. She remembered what Rosalind had said to her just before she left the island.

Promise me you’ll be careful. Promise me you won’t let that dark man find you.

That promise had been easy to make but, she realized unhappily, probably impossible to keep.

She knew she should go looking for Solemn John, right now, but she didn’t seem able to move. All she could feel was the feral look in the black-and-white girl’s eyes and wonder how many more just like her had been brought across from the before.

VII

Rushkin has put a piece of himself inside you.

Isabelle thought about that as she locked up her studio and slowly made her way down the two flights of stairs that would take her out into the central court on the ground floor of Joli Coeur. John had that much right, but she wasn’t sure if he understood the many levels that simple statement held for her.

Her love/ hate relationship with Rushkin was far more complex than she could begin to explain—even to herself. At the same time as she dreaded a new encounter with her old mentor, a part of her still couldn’t hate him.

She didn’t know who she’d be today if she had never met him on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral all those years ago. The abstract expressionism that was so much a part of her work since the fire still owed a debt to all she’d learned from Rushkin. His techniques, his views on art, the ability to call up the numena ... they all lived on inside her, along with an affection for him that she knew was as perverse as it was irrefutable. She understood he was a monster, but he had saved her from a life of prosaic ignorance, both as an artist and a person. Without the fire that he had woken in her, she might have put her art aside long ago and be working in some office right now. It had happened to so many of her contemporaries from university days; how could she be so certain it wouldn’t have happened to her? Rushkin had found the butterfly confused into thinking it was a moth and nurtured it so that instead of being drawn to the flame, she had become the flame. For that, for everything he had done for her, how could she not be grateful toward him?

She pushed open the door that led out of the stairwell and stepped out into the bustle of the courtyard. How could she explain any of this to John when she didn’t understand it herself? John would simply

She paused in the doorway, gaze caught by a familiar figure crossing the courtyard toward her. It was as though she had conjured him up by thinking about him, but she knew that this time that wasn’t the case. His returning to her now gave her a new sense of hope. This was what she wanted from John, she realized as she waited for him to reach her. She didn’t want a confrontation. She didn’t just want him to show up only because she had called him to her, but because he wanted to come.

It wasn’t until it was too late to retreat, until he was right upon her, that she noticed that the braided cloth bracelet he’d been wearing only minutes ago was no longer on his wrist. The doppelganger looked so much like her own John that for long moments all she could do was stare at him. She was struck with the same immobilizing shock as when she’d first seen her John’s face and realized that he was an exact double of the figure she’d painted in The Spirit Is Strong.

The courtyard’s crowded, she told herself. He can’t hurt me with all these people around. Maybe he doesn’t even want to hurt me.

Neither thought brought her any comfort as she looked into the dark wells of his eyes and saw not her John’s gentle warmth, but a feral quality and promise of cruelty that the man she knew couldn’t even have mustered in anger.

“Who ... who are you?” she asked.

“A friend.”

The voice was John’s, too, soft-spoken and firm. But the eyes mocked her, giving up the lie that his looks and voice so easily disguised.

“No,” Isabelle said, shaking her head. “You’re no friend of mine.”

“So quick to judge.”

Isabelle looked for help, but no one was paying any attention to their exchange. And what would it look like to an outsider anyway? John’s double hadn’t attacked her. He’d made no menacing gesture.

There was nothing in what he’d said that could be found threatening in the least. There was only the feral glitter in his eyes.

“Please,” she said. “Just leave me alone.”

“Too late for that, ma belle Izzy.”

Isabelle flinched at the sound of Kathy’s endearment falling so readily from his lips.

“What do you want from me?”

“A piece of your soul. That’s all. One small piece of your soul.”

The way he smiled did more to disassociate him from her John than had the missing bracelet, or the darkness that waited in his eyes. It was a hungry smile and gave his entire features an inhuman cast.

“Who brought you across?” she asked. But she knew. There was no one else it could have been but Rushkin.

“What does it matter? I’m here now to collect the debt.”