by Brian Hodge
"No strings, Dana. I swear."
"You can't take your father out of here."
"Watch me."
"Don't do it, Denny." And now she looked him dead in the eye, repeating: "You don't know what you're asking."
"I don't think you know what you're turning down."
"Yes, I do. Is that what you want to hear? I can give you that. I'd love to leave here. I'd love to go live with you and your father. But trust me, I can't leave. And neither can your father."
It was absurd. It roused what small capacity he preserved of the warrior man. Do not tell me what I cannot do. An old woman like Ariel Leppa couldn't hold anything over him the way she seemed to with everyone else in this odd household. More than that, he was uplifted by Dana's bold assertion that she would love to accept his offer. That alone was reason enough not to argue, not to risk poisoning the sentiment. It wasn't the thought of a relationship with him that was holding Dana in check. She had opened up to him that much in order to stress some other imperative. But what?
"Trust me," she said again. "Leave your father here. He'll be all right, if you leave him here."
Chapter 28
Painters preferred the north light. Ariel had read that somewhere. Painters and surgeons from the days when operations were performed by candlelight favored the "cool, clear light of the north." Sixteenth-century studios and operating theaters had skylights oriented to the north. Ariel's studio window was pointed north, and she stood there in the weathered frame high up on the third story, where a year ago she had contemplated suicide, feeling cosmic and apocalyptic.
But there was no cool and clear light out there now. Out there in the darkness was the cistern, and in it her child—a copy of her child. If Amber lived till dawn, then that version of her could surrender the paint as her petition to go on living. And if she didn't make it—if, for instance, that ghastly spidery spawn of her own artistic endeavors caught her at the bottom of the hole—well, what was a mother to do?
A mother.
Not the right term. At risk of profaning the sacred, Ariel had to be honest about her role. She was Amber's creator in every sense of the term. The implication beyond biology was intriguing. Could a mortal act of genuine creation compare with a divine act? She would have to think that over, come to a conclusion once and forever. Up until this point she had been timid about using her powers, and that was natural because she was a good person, one who had no intention of usurping higher prerogative. But, in fact, what was the difference between the mortal and the divine? She painted, and it was her design, her rendering, her will that controlled the outcome. Of course, the paint was procreative in some organic and palpable way, but it was still just paint. An inert thing by itself. The way it was used, on the other hand, could be … well, godlike.
She had to be ruthlessly honest about this because it would be just as bad to be too humble as too vain. It wasn't a sin to maximize what you had, as in the parable of the talents. You could make the argument that something had created the red dust that went into the paint, and you could reason that the creator of the red dust was therefore the ultimate god, but Ariel had mixed the paint and shaped the images, and how could that not be the heart of it? Was it a universe of overt creative acts that included her in its pantheon of creators, or was the universe just a single creative act from which all else derived?
Downstairs in a bedroom a perfect facsimile of Amber slept. So far she had obeyed to the letter, following her predecessor twin to find where the stolen paint was and even taking the initiative of trapping the disobedient Amber before coming back to report to her mother-creator that the missing paint was in the cistern. A little better than Eve had done, wouldn't you say?
When dawn raked its fingernails through the canopy of night to the east Ariel got her cane, and it was only fear that she might encroach on the hours of the hunter spider that made her wait a little longer. Light spread like surf up a Plutonian shore, and when it touched the far horizon she glided through the house where her creations slept, dreaming dreams of the immortality that was hers to bestow. She was the cynosure of all hope, all morality, all judgment for those things she had made. Within that sphere, she need answer no one.
She opened the door to Amber's room without knocking and found her sitting upright in the middle of the big bed, rocking. In the diluted light of dawn, the dresser and the oak bedposts were black, the walls and the sheets white. And something of this contrast extended to Amber in a way that was faintly shocking to Ariel. Her daughter's face and cotton nightshirt were white, but her hands were black. Jet-black trailed up her wrists as though she were wearing ragged velvet gloves.
It looked like blood, except for the fact that nothing transferred to the white sheets, and mud wouldn't have dried in such thin rivulets on her forearms. But as she opened her mouth to speak, Ariel grasped something else: the rocking, the lack of focus, the steady gaze at the wall opposite the bed—a few hours ago she had spoken to her anointed one, and there had been none of this obvious trauma. This was not the Amber she had recently created.
"Thank God you got out of that old cistern," she said smoothly. The fact that her clever little girl had escaped should have infuriated Ariel, but instead she smiled calmly. "Amber? I couldn't come for you in the dark—you know that. I can't imagine how you made it back here, but it would have been suicidal for me to go out there in the dark. Of course, I want the paint returned—that's a matter of survival for all of us—but I've been fretting over you all night."
No reaction, no expression, just a little girl in ebony gloves, rocking, staring. What was the black stain on her skin?
"Amber? Where is she?"
"In the cellar," came back abruptly.
"The cellar?"
Suddenly the child's face turned, and her eyes lit up with awareness, and she looked squarely at her mother and spoke with just a hint of tremor. "Here's the way it is. If you paint me again, then I'll paint too. I'll paint spiders and snakes, and I'll let them loose in the house. If you do anything else to me, you won't ever get your paint back. It will just be there where someone else will find it. And I wrote a note, so whoever finds it will know where it came from and what it can do."
As abruptly as she had turned, Amber faced back to the wall and resumed rocking.
Outrage sizzled like a lit fuse in the high-ceiling room, but it was a long fuse. Time was on her side, Ariel decided. She stood up, walked slowly to the door.
"How dangerous," she said. "How very, very dangerous."
But the rocking continued.
Ariel went straight to the cellars, where she found the blackened canvas, and that snuffed out her rage with cold fear. She scratched at the black coating, searching for confirmation that this was indeed one of her paintings. But of course it had to be. There were the familiar corrugated fasteners and copper staples she used on frames. This was the newer Amber … painted out of existence with – what, black ink, shoe polish?
She thundered up the steps, breathing hard but driven to assess the damage to her security. She reached the studio electrified, fumbling with her key. Wheezing, shaking, she unlocked and threw open the door.
Everything had looked in order a few minutes ago, and it still looked in order, but that must be a lie, because she had just held one of her sacred paintings in her own two hands down in the cellar, so someone had been in here. Someone had access. She rifled through the stacks of frames against the wall, one after another: Ruta … Paavo … Molly
… Dana … Helen … Marjorie … Beverly … Thomas … Kraft—even the younger sketch of herself waiting to be painted in. But NOT Amber! Not Amber One. Not Amber Two. Both missing.
She sat down hard on the floor. It was over. The little menace had her, could expose her at will. She felt like an old hag again. White-faced, bloodless, suddenly facing the merciless fate of all fallen deities. But why hadn't Amber said something about possessing her own portrait? Why threaten with just the paint and not mention that her mother co
uld no longer change the painting? And why was she worried about another Amber being created—why hadn't she just taken her portrait and the paint and run away?
Of course, this was a little girl reborn into a world she had not seen for more than thirty years. Running away would be daunting. But then again, this was tempestuous Amber, indomitable flesh of her indomitable flesh, climber of roofs, painter of monsters, who ventured out at night with stolen goods—very little truly daunted her. Then what could one conclude except that Amber didn't know her own portrait was missing? Obviously she had come into possession of her rival’s and used it to destroy her, but not her own.
My, my.
Another thief in the house. Who? They had gotten into the studio without breaking in. A key? Ariel didn't think this was possible. She must have left the door unlocked briefly. So it had to be someone relatively mobile (Molly? Dana?). Or someone opportunistically close at hand (Thomas?). Or with a reckless hate for her (Kraft?). She would search each room. Put the fear of God in them. Find the answers to all her questions. But first she would do another contingency portrait, like the one she had done of herself.
This one from a newer photo—Amber at eleven. Unfinished for the moment, because it was done only with pigments that were not mixed with the dust of creation. This one her warrior. This one her gladiator who would defeat the younger, smaller Amber anytime in order to live. Anytime Ariel wanted to go over it properly with the proper paint.
Behold, Amber Three.
Chapter 29
A warm, breathing twin of herself had lain on the bed a few hours before, and Amber had painted her out, made her disappear, sent her … where? What was death like? Everyone in the house knew except her and her mother. And Mr. Bryce.
So why did she feel like the other Amber was still here? It was incredibly real and spooky, almost like they were together on the mattress, touching knee to knee, face to face, eyeball to eyeball, her twin staring goggle-eyed into her brain and her soul. The only thing missing was breath in her face. But even that was sort of there, because she felt air moving against her skin, only it was ice-cold.
When her mother had come in, something had prickled at the base of Amber’s neck and squeezed her throat slightly all the way up behind her ears, as if her insubstantial twin were suddenly trying to smother her. It had made her keep her eyes open, watchful that her mother wasn't orchestrating something she had created with her magic paints.
Amber was figuring things out. She had gotten rid of her competition, but it wasn't going to end there. Her mother was saying nice things, fake things about how she had wanted to save her from the cistern, and Amber had to let her know that she couldn't be fooled anymore. She hadn't planned to say those things about painting spiders and snakes if another Amber came along; they just came out. Then her mother went away.
And now she couldn't stop rocking.
Rocking kept the world in balance, like a swing, like a teeter-totter. Stop rocking and you fell or slid or tipped over. When the door opened again she stopped rocking.
Mrs. Armitage came in first and then Mrs. Novicki. The rest of them, Mr. Seppanen and his wife, Miss Hoverstein and Mrs. Swanson, stayed just outside the doorway. Her mother had made them older and they were slower now, but she didn't like the way they stood there holding their arms out a little like a game of Red Rover, where kids tried to block you from running past. She had felt bad for them—Mrs. Seppanen with her mouth shrunk up like that, and Miss Hoverstein all hunched over, and Mrs. Swanson so tiny that she could have been one of the twelve Taron pygmies waiting to die that Miss Hoverstein talked about—but now they looked threatening.
"We want you to come with us, Amber," Mrs. Armitage said, moving to one side of the bed. (Red Rover Red Rover, let AMBER come over!)
Mrs. Novicki moved to the other side, mumbling an apology, and Amber jumped off the foot of the mattress, almost into Mr. Seppanen's arms as he blocked the doorway. She dodged back, squealing with fear. Mrs. Armitage's plump fingers flexed, catching the sleeve of her nightshirt for a moment. The room was too small. She couldn't get away, so with both hands she grabbed one of the bedposts and squeezed until her fingers were white. But then as they closed in from three sides, she jumped back onto the mattress and jounced to the other end.
The window there was closed but not locked, and she took hold of the handles and yanked as hard as she could because it was always swollen shut this time of year. She only had a couple of seconds, and if she didn't get it up the first time, there wouldn't be a second. So she put everything into it, shrugging as she lifted and pushing with her legs, but her feet sank down into the mattress and the frame barely slid up on the gray metal tracks. Then dry fingers closed around her ankles and a heavy hand clamped over her shoulder.
"We're sorry, Amber"—Miss Hoverstein's swollen shoulder blades forced her head into her neck and made her voice strained—"but we've got to make sure you don't interfere."
"Interfere with what?" she whimpered.
"With what we've got to do. You know we can't go on like this."
Amber had no idea what they were talking about. "I promise I won't interfere! I'll just stay in my room."
"She's your mother. We can't take that chance, child."
"When we're done, we'll let you out of the cellar," Mrs. Novicki assured her.
They were all in the room now, and a half-dozen hands were pulling her off the bed. The air had that mad quality of a humming beehive. They were going to attack her mother, she realized. They were going to try and take over New Eden.
"She's got your pictures," Amber said between ragged breaths. "She'll kill you!"
The momentary hush told her this was very much on their minds, but it was only a second before Miss Hoverstein conceded with resignation, "That would be acceptable. It's living like this"—she waved her hand at the stooped and hoary company—"that we have to stop. Your mother can make us suffer anything any time she wants."
Amber's feet barely touched the floor as they lifted her toward the door.
"I won't interfere, honest, I won't!" she begged, but into the corridor went the eerily infirm cortege, bumbling along through the house to the top of the cellar stairs. "I could help. You need me. Mom's just gonna lock herself in her studio and do whatever she wants to your pictures!"
They were like some slow machine that couldn't stop running, a sump pump with a stuck switch gurgling dry air or a car dieseling on with a dead ignition. The reason they wouldn't listen to her wasn't just because she was a kid and they were old; Amber thought, it was because they were practically zombies while she had been alive when she was painted for the first time.
Someone threw the light switch and the vague glow from the storage room rose halfway up the stairs. Amber was edged onto the dark top step. Dry fingers slid off her arms like limp fronds a moment before the door firmly closed. She saw the ghostly white ceramic handle twist, heard the lock snap.
Tears burned hotly in her eyes as her captors shuffled away, but she fought them down. It wouldn't be so bad, she thought. Being locked down here while a battle raged wouldn't be so bad. Then – because she still didn’t know that Ariel no longer had her painting – she thought what if her mother painted her out along with the rest of them? Her mother didn't know she was locked in the cellars. She might assume she was part of the rebellion. The others might be willing to die, but she wasn't! She had to get out of here, had to tell her mother she wasn't part of it. Or else she had to become part of it and make sure they won. Because if they didn't win, she would lose with them.
She jiggled the white handle. Banged on the door. It would take an axe to get through the oak. She had once seen her father tear down a shed with a wrecking bar and a sledgehammer, but if those tools existed anymore they were probably in the machine shed. Skating her hand along the wall, she descended through the storage room looking for anything she could use to beat down the door.
When she snapped on the light in the laundry, the two tunnels at the fa
r end seemed to leap toward her. The old stories of passageways and collapsed sections were vague in her memory. Somewhere within that clutter the secrets lay buried. Maybe she could find a path this time, she thought. But she wouldn't go in without a light. If a spider could come up through the plumbing into the bathtub, then there could be lots of them down here, so she wouldn't go feeling in the dark.
Back for the candles and matches in the cupboards she went. She tried not to look at the dried black shoe polish all over the floor as she lit a pair of sputtering wicks.
Returning through the double-back passageway, she went straight to the tunnel on the right. But she got only as far as the furnace when she saw all the debris: shelves and crates and barrel staves and broken, gluey, green glass mixed with a slope of dirt and stones and … red straw.
It could have just looked red because of the light, she thought.
Holding both candles in her left hand, she picked up a wisp of straw and held it close to the flames. The vividness of the color brought back the vividness of the scarecrow lurching into the barn that day and the fire that she had made happen. The red straw could have been here since before the fire in the barn, of course, but she had an eerie feeling that something was watching from just beyond the collapse. There could be undamaged tunnels on the other side of the debris. No telling how big they were or what might be in there.
She started to back away, moving the wicks side to side, trying to keep them from making blind spots in her field of vision, but a couple of steps brought her up hard against the furnace. She raised the candles to reassure herself that she had caused the metallic thrum. And as she did so, the light revealed the old ductwork that wound round itself like ghostly robotic limbs, heading off to every room in the house. She and her friends—back when she had friends—had hollered through them sometimes. Room to room they went, pretending the ducts were telephones or microphones or that they themselves were gods making booming pronouncements from on high.