by Alma Katsu
“I will prove to her that she can trust me.”
“That alone may take an eternity.”
“I will wait,” Adair insisted with palpable determination.
“You must also accept that there is nothing you can do to make Lanny love you. Love comes from within. A woman’s love is an amazing and humbling thing. You’ve seen it in Lanny: her love is fierce. But she has to choose you, Adair.”
“She will. I know you doubt this, but she loved me once, a little.” Adair wasn’t sure if he said this to reassure Jonathan or himself. “That time with Lanore . . . was the closest I have ever felt to being loved,” he said. The recollection of that feeling made him momentarily happy, though at the same time he wished he might burst into flames and burn to ash to be spared this humiliation.
“Yes. That’s the power of our Lanny: she can love the unlovable. I speak from experience,” Jonathan said.
“So tell me: how do I get her to give me another chance?”
Jonathan smiled ruefully. “This will be the tricky part. You must show her that you’re worthy of her. If you want her to love you, you must be the sort of man she could love. For Lanny, it’s not like you’d have to become a saint. There is that temper of yours, though: you’d have to do something about that. But the one thing Lanny demands is fidelity. She must come first in your heart.”
Adair frowned. “She’s known me to have other lovers and has even been with them as well.”
“You weren’t asking her to love you then, were you? If you wish for her to make you the epicenter of her world, you must do the same.”
Adair ticked over Jonathan’s words, captured in his head. Fidelity, trust, sacrifice. “This change is no small thing,” he said finally.
“No, but it will make you a better man.”
“But how will I find her?”
“You have the answer. It’s inside you,” Jonathan said simply. “I think if you search your heart, you’ll find it.”
Adair’s temper flared. “Don’t speak in riddles. If you know what I must do, tell me plainly.”
“I’ve told you all I know. And you feel the truth in it, don’t you?” Jonathan continued. “You’ve always had the power to find her; it’s been with you all this time. You’ve only had to wish for it.”
“Wish for it?” As unlikely as this sounded, Adair felt a stirring in his heart that made him think it might be true.
“I’ve told you everything I know. And I am taking you at your word, Adair, that you will do her no harm. You would do well to remember that. Mark my words.”
Adair placed a hand over the spot where his heart should be. “I promise you: I will do her no harm.”
TWENTY-TWO
At least Jonathan’s words gave Adair hope, though he wasn’t sure how he was going to track Lanore down, let alone win her affections once he’d found her. She could be anywhere in the world. He wondered if his subconscious might be aware of her on some level and, if so, if there was a way to access it. The technique of projection came to mind, and he wondered if this altered state might lead him to the answer he sought. In all his years behind the wall, he’d tried to do it many times and failed. He had heard stories of Adepts who could project their consciousness out of their bodies, freeing them to roam far corners of the world, even other planes of existence, or so it was claimed. If he remembered correctly, practitioners often relied on external help—such as drinking a potion, or taking hallucinogens, or conjuring up visions in a soothsayer’s bowl—to get any results. Adair had managed to attain deep meditation only during his imprisonment, but never the experience of completely freeing his consciousness. Yet Jonathan had said that the power to find Lanore was inside him, which made him think that he’d needed nothing more than his own mind to free himself all along.
To tap into his inner self, it was generally best to find a place of total stillness, like a monk retreating to a cave to pursue enlightenment. He could cheat on the darkness—it was impossible to block out all light given the surplus of windows in this house—but the walls needed to be able to dampen all sound and even block the movement of air, if possible. According to the stories he’d heard, waking in the middle of a projection was dangerous. Your consciousness could end up trapped in some netherland. The old practitioners would have a trusted attendant standing by who could be summoned by a predetermined signal—the ringing of a bell or a series of claps—in case the subject became disoriented coming out of his trancelike state. Although he had neither sealed chamber nor trustworthy attendant, Adair would not be deterred.
He decided to try right away, without hallucinogens or sooth-sayer’s bowl. If he failed, he could consult his books and try again, but he was impatient, his curiosity piqued by Jonathan’s words. He locked the door to his bedroom and lay still on his bed.
It was hard to quiet his mind after the talk with Jonathan. His thoughts wanted to race ahead. Adair concentrated on his breathing, clearing his mind, sinking further and further into pure thought. Deeper he went, until he left his body behind, until he felt he had no corporeal boundaries at all. He felt as though he had thinned and become dispersed like a cloud of gas or a spray of foam carried on the tides. He tried not to notice his surroundings in this abstract world, as it might distract him and break the trance. As it turned out, he needn’t have worried, because he seemed suspended in a pale gray mist, and he gave over to being a shapeless creature, drifting contentedly.
A tug stopped his drifting and he fell like a leaf from a tree, settling gently to earth. He could tell he was in a different place by the feel of the air, its temperature and sensation on his skin. He opened his eyes, wondering where he’d ended up and if he’d found the right place.
He was in a city. That much was clear from his surroundings, a row of impressive three-story town houses that stood shoulder to shoulder, smothering the street in shadow. It was a quiet street, the kind of place where neighbors might watch what went on from behind their curtains. Whether this was a fabrication of his mind, the manifestation of a vivid dream, or a real city, like New York or London, he couldn’t tell. He tried to ignore his uncertainty and remain present in the moment.
Another gentle tug guided Adair toward the building directly in front of him. Five stone steps led to a front door with a large glass windowpane encased in an ironwork frame of delicate arabesques behind which the occupant could see without being seen. He knew right away that it was Lanore’s house. When Adair placed his hand on the doorknob, he was amazed to feel her presence in the metal. Touching the doorknob was like touching her hand.
Inside, he detected a scent that he associated with Lanore, her musk making a part of his brain fire excitedly, re-creating the feeling of being in her presence. She felt so real, so present, that he expected her to walk around a corner or to hear her voice carry down the staircase, and when neither happened, he felt his loneliness more profoundly than before. Coming here, where he could feel her presence again, proved to him that he had changed—he was now susceptible to loneliness and sadness. He didn’t like this change; it hinted of weakness and impairment. It’s Lanny’s fault; she’s crippled me, he thought. His anger flared once but died as quickly as it came. This new inhibition on his rage, at least where Lanore was concerned, still confounded him, like walking into a wall where there’d always been a door.
Love. It had corrupted him.
A quick intake of breath, like a snowflake pushed by the breeze, and he was in the front hall. It was hushed, like a funeral parlor. A large pedestal table stood on a priceless oriental rug, under a chandelier fit for a ballroom. On the table, there was a pile of unopened letters, the return address on all of them a lawyer in Boston. So many letters, and she had ignored them all. As Jude had explained when they’d puzzled through the miracle of Adair’s release, the city most likely had sought to notify her of its intention to raze the mansion to make way for a highway. That notification was undoubtedly contained in these letters, which she’d studiously ignored. Adair w
ondered if, on some level, Lanore had suspected what they were about and might have wanted to see him freed, even if she could not bring herself to do so by her own hand. He felt a brief stirring of hope that his cause was not entirely lost.
The room he wanted to see first was Lanore’s bedroom, saving the less intimate rooms of the house for later. He only had to wish it and he was there instantly, in a room dimmed by heavy curtains with walls painted the color of forest mushrooms. Her bed was an antique, Swedish, made up with silk sheets and its pillows still dented where her head had last rested. The sight of the bed saddened him, to be here in this place among her things, inhaling her smell. Adair stood with his gaze fixed on the indentation on the pillow made by her delicate head and felt the immensity of the task ahead of him. Proving his love as well as his worthiness to Lanore would take time—an abundance of time—the one thing they had in common.
On one nightstand was a collection of stray objects: an ancient Chinese teacup holding three loose pearls; a small book, slightly bigger than a woman’s hand, Madame Bovary, a first edition from 1856; a handmade paper rose. On the other nightstand was evidence that another person—a man—shared the bed with her: a pair of drugstore reading glasses; a plastic dispenser of dental floss; a jar of liniment; a magazine with glossy pictures of men playing various field sports. Adair put a hand to that side of the bed, then staggered to sit as a surge of jealousy overcame him.
He went to one of the dressing rooms, the one that was obviously hers. Empty hangers and gaps along the clothes rod suggested that she had packed for a trip. He fingered wispy panels of fabric hanging from padded hangers, delicate pieces made of silk and lace, the touch of such feminine fabrics exciting him. He held one of her blouses to his nose: no trace of perfume, but there was her scent again. He rubbed his face in the garment, wishing he were a hound, able to track her down by smell alone. Her scent settled on his tongue and it was as though he could taste her, taste the tang of the skin of her inner thighs, the dewy undersides of her breasts. He felt the urge to wrap an item of Lanore’s clothing around his member and stroke himself, but he released the blouse and willed the moment to pass.
Down the hall, Adair found storage rooms that had been half emptied of treasure, judging by a list left on a shelf cataloging the shipping dates of various items. He picked through the things that were left, examining each item as he came upon it: a pair of lush silver beaux arts serving utensils made to resemble looping lilies; a primitive-looking saber in a horsehide sheath; a crown fitted for a child’s head. A stack of old photographs on a shelf. He didn’t recognize the people in most of them, but then he stopped at one, a crumbling, faded image of a posed group from the turn of the last century, everyone heavily dressed as though for a skating party. He recognized her right away, even though she was nearly buried under a great fur hat and coat, a cocky expression on her upturned face, daring in her eyes. When had this picture been taken, and who were the other people? He had missed so much of her life, he realized with a pang of regret.
Downstairs, he found a desk in the corner of a room where it appeared Lanore tended to her correspondence. Adair pulled the drawers open one at a time and found nothing but stationery and postage stamps. Then, in the bottom drawer under an ancient dictionary, he found photographs of Jonathan. Jonathan in bed, his face half buried in a pillow, dark hair falling across a stubbled cheek; Jonathan driving an automobile and smiling lovingly at the photographer in the passenger seat; Jonathan, the picture of good health and with an expression of utter contentment on his face, taken days before Lanore would end his life.
Up until now he’d found no written documentation of her life, the bits of information that might lead him to her, but he finally discovered a small trove in a tiny cabinet tucked beneath the desk. It was locked, but he pried the door back with his hands, then pulled out files and began flicking through the papers. How strange to see the complexity of a person’s life summarized in stacks of documents like this. Of course, for Adair, the record of his life was lost many times over, but he’d trained himself over the centuries to travel light. Unsentimental about most things, he preferred to remain a mystery.
He started by reading through her letters, reaching into opened envelopes, unfolding stationery and greedily skimming through the words contained therein, but was disappointed when it was mostly business correspondence. No invitations to parties or salons. No handwritten cards from friends, no gossip of the antics of guests at dinner the night before. A few bank statements, a letter from a government office seeking additional payments of some kind. A few notices for another woman, Annette Blanchard—perhaps her last pseudonym. . . . He noted the name to give to Pendleton.
Next, he fetched the fat stack of unopened letters in the hall. They were all from a lawyer in Boston, the earliest one sent to Lanny years ago. Adair read each letter in chronological order and came to understand the miracle of his release. It was as Jude had guessed: the state had sought to raze the mansion to make way for a highway project, and the entire neighborhood was to be destroyed. When she did not reply, the lawyer was unable to protect Lanore’s interests. By doing nothing, she had ensured Adair’s release.
At first he thought her a fool. How could the clever Lanore be so careless with such an important matter? Unless . . . he wondered if something else had been at play: her subconscious desire. He’d seen it before, after all: at a successful night at the gaming tables, a man might suddenly start making tactical choices that put him out of the game. Or during a siege, a noble made a decision that gave the opponent a means to sneak into the fortress. Perhaps seized by fatalism, Lanny had allowed her house to be destroyed in order to force a resolution. Perhaps she was exhausted by having a sword of Damocles hanging over her and wished for it to be over.
He pulled another letter from its envelope: it was an invitation to speak at a museum a year ago on the subject of ancient Chinese teacups, of all things. Adair puzzled at the oddity of her choice area of expertise; what in the world could’ve transpired to make Lanore an expert on such an arcane topic? It implied that she’d been to China, and not on a casual vacation. It was entirely possible that she’d lived a lifetime there, and for a moment Adair was struck by the realization that the woman he sought had been replaced by a woman with two hundred years of experiences of which he knew nothing. Very likely, Lanore had become a woman who had, in some small way, made amends that might ameliorate the terrible things she’d done earlier in her life, such as shutting him up in the wall.
As he shifted through the letters, Adair was suddenly struck that there was no mention of men. One false name, Emily Bessender, appeared everywhere, but there was no Mr. Bessender in the correspondence, nothing to explain the unnamed male presence in her bedroom—or of any other man, for that matter. This struck Adair as odd behavior for Lanore. He flipped letters over, looking for a name scrawled on the backs, a name doodled absently in the corners. Nothing.
He leaned back on the couch and stared at the stacks of correspondence on the coffee table, where he’d smoothed out folded papers and tried to put them in some sort of order, unsuccessfully. They were the letters of a woman who was foreign to him and were, frankly, disappointing. Where were the passionate love letters? The unreadable scrawl of a man driven to madness by her beauty, her fickleness, her games? Where were the pledges of undying love and promises of long days of lovemaking, of time spent only in each other’s company? Had Lanore forsaken love once Jonathan had left her? It didn’t seem possible. Adair scrambled to find an explanation for her inscrutable behavior and, finding none, pushed the stacks of paper to the floor in frustration.
He stood back and tried to recall what Jude was always saying to him: Everything is done electronically. Adair searched the house until he found a laptop in one of the storage rooms. It was clunkier than Jude’s machines, and once the computer had come to life, Adair looked at the dates of the files and found that the records were several years old. There was information of value, drafts of
letters and copies of documents, but not much that would help him now.
He went back to the bedroom and rifled through drawers for the man’s belongings in hopes of finding identification or some clue as to his identity. All of his clothing and toiletries were new, as though he’d come from nowhere, as though he had no past and Lanore had created him from the elements like a golem.
Finally, Adair found what he was looking for: a few pieces of documentation kept in the drawer that held his socks. An official-looking letter with the seal of the French republic . . . a copy of a visa request. Adair squinted at the name on the paper: Lucas Findley. The back of his mind itched. He had heard it before in conjunction with Lanore. . . . Yes, when he was in the town of St. Andrew. The rustics in the restaurant had given him this name, too: the doctor who had helped Lanore escape. Of course, Adair thought, of course she would keep him around—and wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him earlier, why he hadn’t given this name to Pendleton. . . . Maybe he really had lost his focus after his imprisonment. There could be any number of possible explanations for where she was, what she was doing, and who she was with, but the name Lucas Findley seemed right to him.
He felt more nameless anxiety as he walked through the house wondering what he might’ve missed, pacing circles around the first floor and coming to a stop in a back hall, in front of a framed charcoal portrait of a man. A long second passed before he realized it was the drawing he’d commissioned of Jonathan. Lanore had taken it from the mansion. Even from the smudged image on the page, Jonathan’s outlandish beauty taunted Adair, his insufferably handsome face jolting him like a poke in the eye. The portrait had been done shortly after Jonathan joined the household, his arrogance and petulance captured to perfection by the artist. And yet, for all of Jonathan’s weaknesses, Lanore had chosen him—chosen to endure his ill treatment of her over accepting Adair’s love.