The Riverhouse (37 page)

Shane caught her this time, pulled her back to him. He cupped her face in his hands, tilting her head back, making her look into his eyes.

“What do you see?” he asked.

She looked. She shook her head slightly in his hands. “I don’t… I see…”

Shane kissed her this time. It was a longer kiss, but softer. He’d been longing to do that for weeks, probably even from the moment he’d first met her, on the day she had arrived to pick up the matte painting. Slowly, she wrapped her arms around him again, clinging to him. When their lips parted this time, she was smiling slightly. She touched her forehead against his.

“What do you see now?” he asked.

“I don’t know what I
see
,” she replied, her smile turning to a grin. “But what I
feel
is a randy man pressed up against me.”

Shane grinned back at her. “Actions speak louder than words, I guess.”

She laughed with delight, and then stepped away from him, turning on the spot in a small, happy pirouette. “So what do we do now?”

Shane shook his head. “We finish our walk home, I guess. I’m getting hungry.”

“Oh, you’re hungry all right,” she teased good-naturedly. Suddenly, she pranced away from Shane, out onto the dirt of the house’s foundation.

The grin evaporated from Shane’s face as Christiana jumped into the middle of that dead, gray space, raising her hands like a girl waiting to be picked up by her daddy. She let out a girlish whoop of joy, and suddenly, noiselessly, lightning flickered over the river, illuminating the day like a flashbulb. It flashed on the trees bordering the yard, on the brown face of the river, on Christiana herself, standing in the middle of the Riverhouse’s foundation with her arms raised over her head.

To Shane’s horror, the lightning also illuminated the Riverhouse itself. It surrounded Christiana, ghostly but complete, right down to the furniture. And worst of all, revealed in that flash, standing directly behind Christiana, was Marlena. She seemed unnaturally tall, her face pale and severe, filled with hate, her hands raised into hooks, looking down at the living young woman in front of her.

Shane gasped and leaped forward, filling his lungs to shout a warning, but a moment later the flash—and the awful vision—was gone, leaving only its after-image burning greenly on Shane’s retinas.

Christiana stood alone in the gray dirt, arms still raised. She hadn’t seen the ghostly house, or the malignant specter standing over her. She hadn’t even noticed Shane’s startled response. He exhaled harshly, shakily, and she turned to look at him, her eyes still smiling. She looked beautiful in the stormlight. Beautiful and naked, somehow. Vulnerable.

What have I done
, Shane thought, fleetingly, a little hopelessly.
Oh God, what have I done?

Whatever it was, it was too late now. He’d been thinking about it only a minute earlier, hadn’t he? He could no longer stop himself from falling in love with Christiana than he could stop the course of the river that flowed even now behind her. The kiss had done it. There was no turning back now, even if he wanted to. And he didn’t.

But I can protect her,
he told himself, composing his face, straightening his back, forcing himself to smile back at her.
I can keep her safe. She’s not a rabbit on my lap. She’s the woman I am falling in love with. I can watch over her. Marlena… Marlena…

But that was where his thoughts stopped. He couldn’t go on, because he just didn’t know what she, Marlena, was planning, or what she was capable of. Christiana was the gorgeous canyon vista, but Marlena was the fog; secretive, silent, and capricious. There was just too much he didn’t know about her, too much she wasn’t telling him.

But Shane could find out, if he really wanted to. His smile hardened at the edges, turned brittle and determined. He
could
find out. Whether she wanted him to or not.

“What is it?” Christiana asked, coming back toward Shane, reaching to touch his hand.

He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing I can’t handle. Come on. Let’s go back before the storm gets here.”

Lightning flickered again, and this time a grumble of distant thunder followed, rolling across the sky like a freight of cannonballs. Shane walked with Christiana down the porch steps, across the yard, past the front loader, and into the darkening stormlight.

When they got back to the cottage, the wind was picking up, switching violently, like the tail of a stalking cat. Shane walked around to the side yard to close the shed doors before the wind caught them and pulled them off their old hinges. Above him, he could see the candle burning in the circular window, almost hidden behind the swaying branches of the magnolia. It beckoned him, teased him, but this time he ignored it. He had a feeling that his love affair with the muse was very nearly over.

Worse, he was pretty sure that she knew it, too.

Chapter Sixteen

That Friday, while Christiana was at work, Shane went for another bike ride into Bastion Falls. He wore an old green backpack, empty except for a scattering of ancient beach sand, a ticket stub from a Bonnie Rait concert, circa nineteen ninety-seven, and a twenty dollar bill stuffed into the front zipper pocket.

The day was cool, but bright with a hard diamond sun. It had been raining off and on all week, and the weather guys on KMOX were starting to talk potential flood in the coming few weeks. Shane’s cottage would be fine if that happened, as high as it was on the bluff, but it wouldn’t hurt to stock up on some groceries anyway, just in case the Valley Road got washed over. Maybe he’d take the truck down to the IGA this weekend. Maybe he’d even take Christiana with him. He’d enjoy introducing her to Brian, and maybe even old Earl Kirchenbauer over at Denny Acres.

He smiled to himself. It was funny, because he knew he was acting a little like a teenager with a new girlfriend, wanting to tour the mall with her on his arm, showing her off to all of his friends and rivals. It was silly, but he decided to give himself a pass. After all, he hadn’t had many chances to do that when he was in high school.

And Christiana
was
attractive. Earl would probably flirt with her. He was just that kind of old man. Shane could imagine it, the little twinkle in Earl’s eye, the knowing smile, the obvious double entendres. It would probably be Earl’s way of stamping his approval on her. And then, on the way home, he and Christiana would chuckle about it. It would become a memory, the sort of thing they’d talk fondly about years later:
remember old Earl at Denny Acres? Remember the way he looked you up and down? Good old Earl…

But that was for later. Shane wouldn’t be stopping in to see Earl or Brian today. For now, he had a different errand in mind.

At the end of the city’s short main street was an old Revco drugstore. Shane parked his bike in the rack out front, clipped on the chain, and walked inside. It was cooler inside than outside, as if nobody had remembered to turn off the AC when summer had gotten over. Muzak wafted from hidden speakers, competing with the sound of a whining toddler hidden in one of the aisles.

“But I
waaant
it,” the voice droned. “Pleeeeze?”

“I didn’t bring enough money, Kyle. Come on, now.”

Kyle ramped up his pleas, inching toward full-fledged tantrum status. Shane sympathized with the mother, but only a little. He had the minor luxury of believing that, if he’d had kids, they’d never have had tantrums in drugstores. He knew it was a foolish thing to think, but it was better than the thought that followed. He tried to shut it off, but it was too late.
If that was my son,
the voice in his head said wistfully,
I’d buy him whatever he wanted. Whatever stupid little plastic trinket he had his eye on. Why? As a thank you present. Thanks son, I’d say, thanks just for being alive. Thanks for not being dead, tiger. You wanna go get some ice cream?

Shane wandered the aisles and finally found what he was looking for. Rows of pens and markers were hung on hooks. Shane passed these, scanning them idly, and stopped near the end of the aisle. He reached and plucked a small box off its metal hook. Big Crayons, the label on the front read, spelled with letters contrived to look like they’d been drawn by a child. The B was backwards. There were only eight of them, but Shane thought they would do. They were very nearly perfect, in fact. Below the racks of crayons and poster paints was a shelf crammed with notepads and sketchbooks. He squatted and picked one of them up. The front showed a drawing of fish and a mermaid, rendered in bright, primary colors. Above the picture, written in fat, balloon-like letters, were the words DOODLE BOOK. The paper inside was cheap, mere newsprint, gray and grainy. Shane nodded to himself and pressed his lips together.

On the way out, he picked up a Coke from the cooler by the registers.

“Gonna do some drawing?” the old woman manning the checkout counter said, swiping the notebook and crayons over her scanner. She was joking, of course.

“Indeed I am,” he replied, grinning. She probably thought he was joking as well.

He drank the Coke while sitting on a bench in front of the store. Traffic tooled by sporadically on main street, mostly pickup trucks and minivans. When the can was empty, Shane belched on the back of his hand, tossed the can into a brown garbage bin by the front doors, unlocked his bike, and wheeled it out to the street. A minute later, he pedaled through the single stoplight on the corner by the IGA. He turned left and picked up speed, heading toward the open floodgates at the end of town. Those gates would probably have to be closed in the coming few weeks, he thought idly, looking up as he passed through them. It wouldn’t matter to him, of course. He’d be high and dry in the cottage, his cupboards stocked, maybe even with Christiana there, flooded in, forced to stay over. He was fairly sure she wouldn’t mind. Thinking that, he stood on the pedals, pushing forward, wanting to get back as soon as he could. He had things to do before she came over that night.

In the backpack, Shane’s new notebook and crayons rocked back and forth, the crayons knocking hollowly in their box. Shane heard them as he pedaled. To him, it almost sounded like they were anxious.

Like they were waiting impatiently to be let out.

He parked the bike in the shed and closed the doors. He’d intended to go into the cottage, but for some reason he found himself walking around to the back patio. The stone floor was covered with leaves again, forming a thick carpet that crunched under his feet, releasing a dark, October scent. Shane pulled back one of the deck chairs and plopped onto it, slipping the backpack from his shoulders.

He stopped for a moment. His heart was thudding hard in his chest, so much so that his head sang and his spit tasted weird, like old pennies. The air seemed to have changed around him, become thick and electric, expectant. He looked around, without really knowing why. Tom the cat was watching him from a sunny spot on the low stone wall, his eyes half-lidded, bored.

“How you doing, buddy?” Shane said, a little too loudly. It sounded stupid and pathetic. Tom didn’t blink.

It was crazy, what he was about to do. It had seemed perfectly sane and rational when he’d been planning it, thinking about the best way to do it. Even when he’d been buying the crayons and paper, it had seemed merely curious, like an experiment. Now, in the hard diamond light of the afternoon sun, it seemed more than simply irrational, it felt outright dangerous. It felt like he was getting ready to do the mental equivalent of sticking his finger into a light socket.

The art was, after all, a kind of conduit. That had become obvious. It had started with the Riverhouse painting. He’d tapped into something, or something had tapped into him, and the result was that he’d been granted a chance to step through the canvas, into the story behind the pictures. Shane had suspected that he could control the conduit if he really wanted to. He was that kind of artist. He was good at going down to the well all by himself, dipping out what he needed, completely bypassing the muse. Maybe he could control that conduit, manipulate it, possibly even use it to unearth Marlena’s secrets.

He’d first tried it with his latest painting, the last installment in the Insanity Stairs series, the one he’d already dubbed “the Sleepwalker”. He’d deliberately approached it with the intention of making it his own, of guiding the paint on the canvas, teasing it into showing him what he wanted to know. The result, however, had been mildly disastrous.

He’d stayed up late the previous Wednesday, trying to force the picture to reveal itself, trying to dip out the answers to his questions about Marlena, but no matter how hard he tried, nothing came. It was almost as if the painting was fighting him, insisting on its own story. Eventually, Shane had grown frustrated, giving up in the small hours of the morning, exhausted and stupidly angry.

The next day he’d gone up to the studio and found his paints strewn all over the floor and one of his brushes broken in half. Worst of all, the new painting had been tipped off its easel. It lay crookedly against his stool, one side of the wooden frame broken. Marlena had apparently been there, and had not been pleased with what she’d seen.

Wearily, Shane had gathered up the scattered paint tubes, tossed the broken brush into the trash, and then set about replacing the broken piece of the painting’s frame. In the corner, Marlena’s portrait looked down at the letter in her hands, stricken and miserable. Shane found himself glancing back at the portrait while he worked, each time expecting Marlena’s painted eyes to be raised, glaring at him, smoldering with pained rage. Each time, however, her eyes remained just as he’d painted them, looking down, pointedly reading the letter:
Dear M.

The problem, Shane had begun to suspect, was the medium. Both Marlena and Wilhelm had been artists. They’d both had very different styles, according to the few samples Shane had seen online, but for both of them, their primary medium had been oils. That was why Shane couldn’t control the conduit when he was painting. The medium was too close to Marlena, too wedded to her. It may be that this last painting
would
tell him the secrets he needed to know, but it would only do so in its own time. He couldn’t control it, couldn’t make it give him just what he wanted, when he wanted it. It was like trying to water a garden with a fire hose.

Unfortunately, Shane didn’t think he could wait for the painting to tell him its secrets, not with Christiana there more often than not, living under the potentially malevolent shadow of Marlena. But maybe he could try something else, something more simple and basic, as far from oils as possible.

He had just finished fixing the wooden frame of “the Sleepwalker” and was replacing it on the easel when something on the floor caught his eye. It had rolled over into the corner by the stairs, knocked aside during Marlena’s tantrum of the night before. It was a white wax pencil, mostly used up. That was when Shane had gotten the idea to try crayons. As soon as he’d thought it, it had seemed like just the thing. How many adult artists used crayons as their medium? None, of course. There was more to it than that, but Shane didn’t know what it was. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he had a plan, and he was fairly confident that it would work.

He’d waited until he’d known that Christiana would be gone. She was at work, and wouldn’t be back to the cottage until that evening. He had at least two hours. He looked down at the backpack on his lap.

“I’m just going to draw some pictures,” he said aloud, unzipping the backpack. “Nothing crazy about that, is there, Tom old boy?”

Tom pushed himself upright, stretched, and yawned luxuriously. He began to give himself a bath.

“Lotta help you are,” Shane said, and pulled the crayons and notebook out of the backpack’s pouch. He slipped open the lid of the box of crayons and dumped all eight of them out onto his lap. He picked up the black one, turned it over in his hands. It was indeed big and chunky. Still, something about it didn’t feel quite right.

“Just going to draw me some pictures,” he muttered, looking down at the black crayon, and then the rest of the colors on his lap. Idly, he jammed his fingernail under the paper label of the black crayon, tearing it. He began to pull it away, stripping the paper from the waxy black cylinder. “Just going down to the well with my bucket. Just going to dip out some art. Nothing crazy about that. I’ve been doing the same thing for almost ten years.”

When the paper was stripped entirely off the black crayon, Shane held it in the palm of his hand. It felt exactly right, now. Of course it did. They might have had crayons in the forties, but they probably wouldn’t have had printed labels on them. Why that should matter Shane didn’t know, but he was beyond worrying about such things now. He was sailing into uncharted waters, dipping deeper into the well of creativity than he ever had before. If the muse saw, she would be unhappy with him, but Shane had to take that risk. There were things he needed to know. Things she was hiding from him.

He wrapped his fist around the black crayon, the way a kid might hold a spoon. With his other hand, he swept back the gaily colored cover of the sketch pad. The paper beneath was dirty gray, cheap and thin, speckled with black flecks. Shane drew a deep breath, inexplicably afraid to touch the crayon to that ugly, gray blankness. He felt like he was about to touch a copper wire to a battery, one whose voltage was uncertain and potentially deadly. His hand shook slightly.

“Just going to draw me some pictures,” he muttered again. Nearby, unseen and forgotten, Tom the cat watched, his green eyes bright, alert, no longer bored.

Slowly, Shane lowered the crayon. The shadow of his hand darkened on the gray paper. He felt its cool, cheap surface with the heel of his fist, pressed down, bringing the crayon closer, closer.

The crayon touched the paper, made first a dimple, and then a mark. And with that mark, everything changed. The world retreated and Shane felt a preternatural calm descend over him. This was
right.
The crayons, the cheap newsprint, even the hard light of the diamond sun, casting his shadow over the paper, it was all exactly right.