Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down

by Stone, Danika

  Nina was adamant and no one was willing to argue. Cole and Ava were staying the night, no questions asked.

  Under her instruction, the group gathered in the den next to the stone fireplace, surrounded by the warm glow of candles set around the room. There was stilted silence between Frank and Cole, so Nina told stories about her childhood and her many years as a journalist. She was happy and lighthearted; the atmosphere was easy as heavy drops of rain snapped against the windowpanes. Her words eventually slowed and then stopped, the roaring rain filling the room with dull static.

  The lightning was blinding when it hit, and for an hour, flashes came in quick succession, leaving bright after-shapes that slowly faded from view. Torrents of rain fell in heavy sheets, leaving the room reverberating with a buzzing sound that crackled in its sheer intensity. The four of them were together, secluded by the noise. Wrapped in the vibration of it.

  Nina and Frank sat on one couch. She was tucked under his shoulder, watching receding flashes of lightning on the water while he stroked her arm. Frank’s gaze was soft and hazy, his attention lost in the distant storm, a pensive look painting his brow.

  Cole and Ava sat across from them, nestled together on the second couch. Ava lay partially-reclined across Cole’s lap, his fingers combing her hair. During the heaviest part of the squall, she asked him about living here as a child... about what it was like to see these storms.

  His words were muffled from Frank and Nina. He recounted the memories in a hushed tone, starting with his childhood fears of lightning and the angry ocean storms... later switching to happier tales of learning to sail with his grandparents, and then finally... inevitably.... to Hanna. By this time, the sound of the rain had faded, hiding but no longer obscuring his words. Ava lay in his arms, the two of them focused solely on each other. For the first time in many years inside this room, Cole’s laughter was genuine and happy. He told her one story after the other, reliving the details of his sister’s life and their years together, ending finally with cliff-diving that long-ago summer.

  “God, Ava, you just should’ve seen her. No fear, though she should’ve known better!” Cole chuckled, but there was truth in his words. “If Dad had known, he would’ve killed us, but Hanna was determined to do it... wanted to say that she had.” Cole laughed. “I think it actually had more to do with her showing off for all her friends than anything else, but damn if Hanna wasn’t single-minded about the idea.”

  Cole was grinning ruefully. Their eyes were on one another, everyone else forgotten.

  “I was down at the bottom of the cliff,” he continued, “floating in the water, waiting for her to jump. There are rocks there – like I said, Dad had warned us... threatened us really...” Cole shook his head, “...but we were there anyhow. Two stupid kids pulling the dumbest stunt we could’ve pulled. I remember Hanna jumping off the cliff and me just waiting there terrified. So scared shitless you can’t imagine. But she asked me not to tell him, and so I didn’t. I thought she could…” His voice broke. “Thought she could do anything.”

  Ava put a hand against his cheek, smiling sadly.

  “She sounds like a pretty amazing sister.”

  Cole nodded. There was a slight lull, the rain fading until it was only a steady hum in the air.

  “She really was,” he said mournfully. “You can’t imagine what Hanna was like. Everyone loved her, and she just did everything full tilt. Present in the moment.” Cole paused, his expression soft. “I’ve never known anyone so… so... alive like that…”

  From on the other couch, Frank Thomas cleared his throat, the sound pulling everyone’s eyes to him.

  “I have,” he said quietly. “I see that same quality in you, Cole.”

  Chapter 6: The Student Show

  Ava wore a form-fitting dress from a consignment shop and a new pair of high heels. She’d done her eyes with winged liner and her hair in a retro Marcel wave. The ensemble left her feeling adult and sophisticated. Even her father did a double take as she walked out of her bedroom. He was coming to the show tonight, though Frank and Nina wouldn’t be attending until later in the semester, as Frank had come down with the flu.

  Chim and Suzanne were at the university gallery when Ava and her father arrived. Oliver walked up to Marcus, and Ava did a slow circle, wondering where Cole might be. As she finished the turn, she got her answer. He was watching her from the side of the room. Ava smirked as she took in his apparel: he was dressed in faded blue jeans, a wrinkled black t-shirt, and a motorcycle jacket. He walked across the room, eyes never leaving hers.

  “Really dressed up tonight, Cole,” she said, raising an eyebrow as he reached her side. “Classy...”

  He laughed, taking her arm and pulling her closer.

  “There’s no point, baby,” he answered. “I don’t clean up half as nice as you do and besides,” he said, dropping his eyes down her body in that way that made her heart pound, “I kind of like the idea that you’re slumming it by being here with me.”

  She giggled and he draped his arm over her shoulder.

  “You look amazing,” he whispered as they wove their way through the crowd. “Almost makes me wonder if you’d look better in or out of that dress. You think I might find out later?”

  Ava led them over to Chim and Suzanne and her father.

  “Only one way to find out,” she said lightly. “You’ve got to test your theory.”

  The gallery was a series of rooms, each one packed with people. With parents and students along with the invited guests from the art community, it was hard to move. Chim’s large piece, featuring a repeating portrait of Nelson Mandela overlaid with carefully rendered commercial images – a dust-buster, an ab-roller and a Big Mac, to name just a few – dominated the wall near the front entrance. Ava grinned as they approached; there was a growing group gathered around the image. Two unfamiliar suited men were there. One was scribbling notes into a small coil-bound book, the other muttering into his cell phone. They were clearly not parents or students or teachers.

  ‘Art dealers looking for the talent,’ her mind announced. ‘Marcus Baldwin is definitely going somewhere as an artist.’

  Ava put her arm around Cole's waist. Her father was talking to Suzanne about her own artwork, which involved creating containers to house random household objects. There was a velvet-lined, form-fitted box enclosing a hair dryer; sitting next to it, a silk-covered sphere for holding a bar of soap. The mundane contained within the extravagant. Oliver found it fascinating.

  Ava leaned into Cole, her lips brushing the curve of his ear.

  “I want to see your sculpture of me,” she said, smiling. “I never did see it finished.”

  Cole nodded, leading her to the back of the gallery.

  “It’s back this way…”

  : : : : : : : : : :

  Cole had helped the curators position the piece back in December, and he’d seen it again tonight when he’d first arrived. Ava’s painting The Snake and the Coins was nearby, and there was something inexplicable about the painting which seemed recognizable, like it was meant to be a companion piece to his sculpture of the woman.

  He’d stood in front of her painting for a long time. It still bothered him, though he honestly couldn’t explain why. The image was a blend of gold and blue and green, painted in swirls and speckles, thickly impasto in some areas, faint washes in other. In a purely aesthetic sense, it was absolutely beautiful. The word ‘ethereal’ came to mind when Cole looked at it, but there was another part of his reaction that left his hands in fists, heart pounding.

  The image was like a photograph he thought he should be well-acquainted with, but which was obscured in some way. He stared at it when he’d first arrived, unsure why the colours in particular held such anguish... it was like a glimpse of a half-remembered dream, something he was sure he would recall if he just gave himself time enough. It was there on the tip of his tongue, even now.

  Up ahead Professor Wilkins stood, a glass of wine in hand. He
nodded to Cole and Ava as they stepped around him, finally reaching the small alcove where Cole’s artwork had been placed. Cole knew the shape of the statue better than he knew his own hands, so he watched Ava’s face for her reaction. People – the red-haired guy from Cole’s studio class, Giulia Cezzano and a friend of Ava’s – moved past them like currents of water, and suddenly they were in front of it.

  Ava’s expression rippled in shock, and she pulled back, face aghast, her hand tearing away from Cole.

  It wasn’t exactly her, of course. The trouble with carving the arms prevented it... but when Ava had suggested just carving what the stone wanted to be, things had become much easier. Now Cole wondered if that had been a terrible mistake.

  His sculpture was a nude woman standing upright, leaning forward. Like Henry Moore’s work, it was suggestive and simple, rather than explicitly rendered. The woman’s face – wearing Ava’s features – stared forward, her legs tangled together, her torso thrust forward. That’s where the similarity ended. The figure had no arms. Instead, two wings emerged from her shoulders, pulling back and away, poised in flight. It looked like a roughly sculpted image of a primitive deity or, perhaps, Cole thought wistfully, like the figurehead of an old ship.

  “No!” Ava gasped, taking a shaky step backward, ankle twisting. She spun, pushing away from Cole and walking almost headlong into Chim and Suzanne.

  “Ava, you okay...?” Marcus asked, looking to Cole for an answer.

  Beside Chim, Ava’s father stepped forward, his own face concerned. Her growing panic was tangible.

  “No,” she cried, knocking into people in her rush to get away. “No, I’m not okay! I need to go, Chim. I need to GO!”

  Cole followed, making it to her side as she struggled through the throng of people.

  “Ava?”

  She didn’t answer, just shoved past a laughing couple, stumbling again. Cole put his hand on her elbow, but he didn’t hold her back. Her reaction – almost exactly her reaction when she’d seen the Francis Bacon painting in class that day – terrified him. Instead, he moved along with her, trying to get people out of her way as she lunged for the door like a trapped bird in a too-small cage.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Cole,” she sobbed, “I can’t... I just... I need to get out...”

  Her chest heaved with panicked gasps, her body trembling. Cole kept pace with her as she sprinted down the hallway toward the exit door, heels clattering. His hand on her arm steadied her as they ran. Behind them, the gallery doors opened, a murmur of voice rising like the surf and then falling once more. Behind them, Cole heard Oliver calling, but they didn’t slow down.

  Ava was determined to get out, and Cole wasn’t letting her go alone.

  She slammed her hand against the exit release and stumbled onto the icy steps. Cole caught her elbow and righted her against the bracing cold. Ava leaned forward, heaving in ragged pants as if she was about to vomit. Cole slipped off his jacket, draping it over her shoulders before worriedly easing her down beside him. There was something very wrong.

  ‘This time I caused it…’

  Next to him, Ava chattered almost inaudibly under her breath, tears running down her cheeks.

  “...and it came down on me,” she hissed, voice panicked, “the angel… it came down across my back. Dragged me down into the water… couldn’t breathe... couldn’t escape it...”

  Cole frowned, catching bits and pieces of her words, his arms wrapping tight around her as she continued.

  “Ava, it’s okay,” he whispered, wishing that he’d never created the sculpture, that he’d bashed it to pieces the day his anger was out of control.

  “It’s a warning,” she cried, face crumpling. “Don’t you see it, Cole?” She turned to him, her hands going to his chest, fisting in his lapels. “I can’t get away from it. It doesn’t matter what I want! It’s the same as that painting… the Bacon one. It’s the angel of death. It’s a warning for me!”

  The hair on the back of Cole’s scalp crawled, adrenaline surging to match Ava’s terror. Suddenly the almost-memory Cole felt from her painting seemed to press against his awareness, wanting out. He recognized it now... There was something to do with death. Something he knew but didn’t want to remember.

  ‘Something I dreamed…’

  Behind him, the door squealed open. Oliver stepped out, his face cut deep with worry.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  On the step, Ava continued mumbling.

  “...seen in before… remember that… I was in the water… and the angel was there…”

  “I don’t know,” Cole admitted. “She just saw the sculpture I made and… and…”

  “What sculpture?” he asked, dropping next to Ava.

  “The statue... the woman with wings, not arms,” Cole admitted.

  “The statue of Nike?” Oliver asked, “I saw that one.”

  Cole nodded. Ava huddled on the step, voice slowly disappearing.

  “This happened to Ava once before with—”

  “The Bacon painting,” Oliver answered for him. “Yes, she told me about that.”

  Oliver put his arm around her back next to Cole’s, the two men on either side of her as her panic slowly waned. A few minutes later, she was breathing hard, her sobs buffeted by their nearness.

  “It’s okay, Kiddo,” Oliver muttered. “You’re not alone. I’m here.” He glanced up, meeting Cole’s eyes over the top of her bowed head. “Cole’s here too.”

  She sniffled loudly, glancing up at her father, then turning to Cole. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her lashes wetly spiked.

  “Uh... sorry,” she rasped, rubbing her face and leaving a smear of eyeliner across her temple. “I don’t know why... I just...” She took a shaky breath, rubbing her face again.

  “It’s okay,” Cole answered, voice anguished. “I’m sorry, Ava. I never knew.”

  She nodded, icy fingers reaching out to take Cole’s hand. Oliver leaned in to place a kiss on her forehead. When he pulled back, he gave her a sad smile.

  “I think it’s time the three of us had some tea.”

  Chapter 7: Three Chipped Cups

  They sat in the kitchen of Ava and Oliver’s apartment, a steaming kettle, sitting on the counter. Three cups of tea were laid before them on the table. Oliver’s process was always the same: one quarter teaspoon of Darjeeling loose tea topped with boiling water. It had to be drunk black... no cream or honey to muddy his reading. The cups he used were thrift store specials, with the requisite curved-base bottom to let him read up through the passage of time. The cup was turned clockwise three times for the first cup, the next year stretching up the sides of the vessel to the rim. The cup was then tapped out onto a napkin, three turns more, the next cup holding the hints of the year after and beyond.

  Ripples reaching backward from the future...

  There were only three teacups in total – all of them chipped – though there were four saucers on the shelf. They had a pattern of green and russet leaves. They were vaguely Japanese in design, the porcelain fine enough that light passed through the narrowed edge of the rim. They were remnants of an old woman’s treasure-trove, likely from a wedding trousseau predating the first World War, now damaged and worn through endless use. The veins on their aged surface were a web of grey against the pale blush of forgotten youth.

  Oliver pushed a steaming cup toward Cole, his face gentle and persuasive. Ava knew this routine, but Cole felt like he’d stumbled into some arcane Templar practise, his sense of ease disappearing the moment the cups were pulled from the shelf.

  “Drink up,” Ava’s father said, head tipping to the side as his daughter’s often did.

  It unnerved Cole, the similarity between their two faces – one young, one mature – tonight more than ever. But he didn’t want to be the one to fracture this strange calm after Ava’s panic, so he picked up his cup and drank. The hot liquid scalded his mouth and burned his throat on the way down, leaving him tast
ing ashes and nothing else. Oliver prattled on about the warm weather, and his hope for more snow. He was only here until the end of February, when the orchestra’s next tour was starting, and he wanted to enjoy the winter before living in the perpetual half-light of late night performances and hotel existence. Cole nodded and drank again, waiting nervously as the three of them slowly emptied their cups of tea, his body pulsing in anticipation.

  ‘This isn’t real,’ a voice inside him hissed, fingers trembling on the handle of the cup. ‘It’s not possible.’

  Beside him, Ava blew on her tea leaves; they lifted and swayed under the surface like seaweed. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, curls dishevelled and loose, making her look all the younger for the elegant dress she still wore. Cole blinked and the dress looked grey rather than black, but then perhaps it was just the light in the kitchen. She was beautiful tonight. He longed to hold her and make this thing – whatever had happened! – okay again, but he was afraid he would scare her off. Ava had been abnormally quiet since the gallery, keeping her gaze averted. She’d been shaken by tonight’s events, and he had been, too.

  ‘This won’t work,’ the voice inside him chided. He stared down at the black leaves swirling under the amber liquid. ‘It can’t work.’

  They sipped and Oliver talked. Outside the sound of the traffic dulled as the hour grew late. It was almost a surprise when Cole found his teacup empty. He looked up to find Oliver watching him, a paper napkin in hand.

  “Place this on your saucer,” he advised. Cole did as asked, and Ava’s father motioned to the cup. “Now set the empty cup upside down on the napkin. Let it drain, but don’t touch it. I’ll be right back.”

  He stood up from the table, wandering into the living room. With unsteady hands, Cole turned the cup upside down as Ava did the same. Oliver’s cup was wiped clean, the leaves in a wadded napkin to the side.

  “Why not your Dad’s?” Cole asked, pointing to it.