Charles De Lint - Memory and Dream

Izzy couldn’t help but return the numena’s smile, it was so infectious. “But why do you keep us all here?” Annie went on. “We’ll soon crowd you out if you keep painting as much as you do.”

“For safety,” Izzy explained. “So no one will hurt you.”

“But who would hurt us?”

“John told me Rushkin would,” Izzy said, and then went on to relate the dream she’d had the night after she’d broken up with John. Rushkin with his crossbow, hunting her numena through a snowstorm so similar to the one that howled outside the studio’s windows tonight. The death of the winged cat, how Paddyjack would have died if not for John’s intervention.

“You must have felt so awful,” Annie said when Izzy was done.

Izzy nodded. “And I don’t ever want that to happen to any of you again. That’s why I have to keep you hidden.”

“We’re very good at hiding ourselves,” Annie assured her. “Nobody can see us unless we want them to.”

“I mean your paintings. I have to keep the paintings safe.”

“But Rushkin’s gone,” Annie said. “He’s left the city.”

“I know. But he came to my last show. He sent me a critique of it.”

Annie’s eyebrows rose quizzically. “That sounds more helpful than dangerous. Are you sure it was Rushkin you saw with the crossbow?”

Izzy nodded.

“But it was in a dream.”

“Well, yes.”

“So how can you be sure it really was Rushkin?” Annie asked. “I mean, people dream the oddest things, don’t they, and then when they wake up they realize none of it was real.”

“But the ribbons were still there when I woke up and two of the paintings were ruined.”

“It still doesn’t mean it had to be Rushkin.”

“But, John said—”

“I like John,” Annie said, interrupting. “We all do. And we’re certainly harmed if something happens to our gateway paintings, but I’m not so sure we can be positive that Rushkin is the threat. John doesn’t like the man, period, so he’s liable to think the worst of him for no other reason than that he doesn’t like him.” 2

“I don’t think John would do something like that.”

“I’m not saying he’d do it deliberately. But I know he was jealous of all the time you spent with Rushkin. And besides that, I know he took a dislike to Rushkin right from the first. Paddyjack’s told me and he knows John better than any of us.”

“Still,” Izzy said. “I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

“No one’s going to hurt our paintings if you put them in a show,” Annie said. “The gallery would have some sort of security, would it?”

“Yes, but what if Rushkin buys them? He’s certainly got the money.”

“Just tell the woman in the shop not to sell any to him,” Annie said.

Or to his lawyers, Izzy thought. But she still felt uneasy about the whole idea.

“What difference does it make to you if I put the paintings in a show or not?” she asked.

Annie shrugged. “It’s starting to feel crowded in here. We’re each connected to our gateway painting, you see. No matter where we are, all we have to do is think of our painting and we can return to it.” She smiled. “Sometimes it gets pretty busy in here. We like to be near our paintings, but we don’t necessarily want to hang around with each other, if you know what I mean. And besides,” she added, waving an arm about the studio, “this work you hide away deserves a bigger audience than us and the few friends you have over to the studio.”

By the time Izzy and Annie left the coach house, each to go her own way, Izzy didn’t know what to think anymore. When she told Kathy about the numena’s visit, Kathy just looked smug.

“You see?” she said. “I told you they weren’t your responsibility—not in the way you think they are.”

“But if their paintings are damaged, they die. I’m responsible for keeping those paintings safe.”

Kathy shrugged. “God knows I don’t wish any of them harm, or think they should be put into any sort of danger, but I agree with your Annie. That work deserves a larger audience. And if Rushkin’s not the threat—”

“Whoever it is,” Izzy said, breaking in, “is still out there.”

“My advice is to talk to more of your numena before you make any hard-and-fast decisions for them,” Kathy said. “Let them decide for themselves—just like they did when they crossed over.”

“If I can ever track any of them down,” Izzy said.

But Annie’s visit seemed to have done something to help overcome the shyness of the other numena as well. Two days later Izzy unlocked the studio door to find her lioness numena, Grace, lying on the recamier, reading a magazine. Grace was so tall and gorgeous, and carried herself with such regal assurance, that Izzy felt completely intimidated in her presence.

“I think I see what you mean,” Izzy told Annie when the other numena reappeared in the studio that evening. “I mean, Grace wasn’t mean or anything, but I couldn’t help but feel so ... small around her.

And I don’t just mean in height.”

Annie laughed. “Oh, she’s a piece of work all right.”

“She told me pretty much the same stuff you did,” Izzy went on, “you know, about it getting to be too crowded in here for everyone.”

“I don’t think Grace likes any room that has another woman in it.”

“She told me you don’t like her because you think she stole away this guy you were interested in.”

“I wasn’t interested in him,” Annie protested; then she sighed. “Well, not a lot. But you see what I mean. We’re just like you. We come in all different sizes and shapes of personalities and some of them just don’t mesh.”

Izzy nodded. “But I’d still be worried if anything happened to any of you.”

“Then take it on a one-by-one basis,” Annie said. “The ones who want to go out into the world—their paintings can go into your shows. The others would stay here.”

That made the most sense of anything Izzy had heard yet.

“How about you?” she asked. “Would you want to go?”

Annie shrugged. “I don’t mind either way. If my painting was to go anywhere, I’d like it to be to a library because I do so like to read. But I wouldn’t want to be too far from you. I love seeing how the paintings come to life.” She smiled. “Now, that’s the real magic.”

“What was it like in the before?” Izzy asked. “I’ve talked to John about it, but he wasn’t exactly forthcoming.”

“That’s because we don’t really know. I’ve talked to lots of the others about it, but no one can really remember much. It’s like our lives only really began when we stepped across.” She grinned at Izzy’s disappointed look. “But I can tell you what it’s like for us here,” she added.

So that night, while Izzy worked on a new painting, Annie perched on a stool beside her and they chatted away to each other for hours. Later in the evening another of Izzy’s numena arrived, the gargoyle Rothwindle, and the three of them gossiped away the rest of the night, getting to know each other better.

As the days went by, all of Izzy’s numena came to visit at one point or another. Some came more than once, others just to meet her before they carried on with their own lives. The only exceptions were John Sweetgrass and Paddyjack. John’s absence Izzy understood, and pretended it didn’t bother her at all. But she dearly wanted to meet Paddyjack—as much because he was one of the first numena she’d brought across as to ask him about that winter’s night a year ago.

“He’s too scared to come to this place,” Rothwindle explained one afternoon. “He says this is the house of the dark man who has no soul.”

Annie sniffed. “Sounds like he’s parroting John, if you ask me.”