Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down (21 page)

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Walking back
from the bookshelf – which had been halfway reorganized in the attempt to
locate a single book – Nina handed Ava a novel.  It was by the same author as
the first. The image on the front was a woman standing with her back to an open
balustrade.  Josephine.  She was older in this painting, stronger.  There were
lines around her eyes and mouth, a weight to her figure.  She was worldly and a
little more weary.

The resemblance
to Nina was even more striking. 

“Here’s the
second in the series,” Nina said, “Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe.  It’s also a
very good read, though the first was my favourite... so full of hope. 
Josephine young and bright.”

She sighed,
settling down into a wing-back chair.

“Thanks,” Ava
said with a smile.  “This way I’ll have something to read on the flight back.” 

She was about to
say more when the buzz of an engine caught their attention. It was getting
louder as someone gunned the engine. 
‘Cole’s motorcycle.’  
Ava frowned
at the wall clock.  He was back early.

“Don’t they
usually go a bit longer?” Nina asked in concern.

Ava headed down
the wooden stairs, Nina was at her side, their footsteps a staccato beat.

“They were going
to talk about Angela today,” Ava said anxiously, catching Nina’s eyes.  “Cole
wanted to know what happened before she died.”

Nina’s hand
darted out to Ava’s wrist.

“Did Frank know
Cole was bringing it up today?  Did he offer to talk about what happened?”

Ava shrugged as
she heard Cole’s tread hit the front steps.

“I… I don’t
know.  I’m sorry.”

Nina stood
uncertainly on the stairs, her hand slowly rising to cover her throat.  Her
eyes dropped nervously.  Footsteps crossed the porch; Cole was just about to
reach the door.  Nina spun on her heel, jogging up the stairs, leaving Ava
staring after her.  The front door opened just as she disappeared around the
corner.  Ava turned to see Cole, his face haggard.

“Hey,” Ava said,
walking toward him.  “You’re back early.”

He nodded, but
said nothing.  As she reached his side, he pulled her forward, burying his face
against her hair and wrapping his arms around her.

“Cole?”  she
asked, rubbing his back.  “Is everything alright?”

Cole was
shaking; his whole body was alive with it.  He pulled back to see her, his
throat bobbing as he struggled to find words.

“I, um... I am
alright... or at least sort of...” He coughed, shaking his head like a dog
trying to free itself of water.  He looked shell-shocked.  “Dad kind of blew up
after I asked about what happened with my mom.  He’s still there with Marta...
God, Ava, I’ve never seen him so out of control.  Yelling and shouting… and…
and…”  Cole’s face crumpled. “...and crying, Ava… I’ve never seen him like
that.  Not ever.  Dad stayed with Marta.  They’re talking right now.”

“What was it? 
What set him off?” 

Ava asked,
knowing what secret had been unveiled.  The memory of Nina and her description
of another woman’s choices was pressing into the conversation like the voices
of children hidden in static.  Cole shook his head, scrubbing his hand over his
face, rubbing out wayward tears.

 “He admitted he
cheated on my mom before Hanna died...”  Cole’s voice dropped.  “With Nina.  What
Hanna told me was true.  Dad admitted to all of it.”

Ava pulled him
tighter, her face against his shirt, breathing him in.  He seemed calmer now
that he’d shared it.

“It’s over,” Ava
whispered.  “You know the truth now.”

Ava felt him
nod, his cheek brushing against her jaw as his hands dropped down to her waist.

“Yeah, I do.”

They didn’t
speak, just stood in the foyer, holding one another.  Cole broke the silence.

“I think it’s
time we went down to the beach and had ourselves a bonfire.”

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They sat on the
sand, the heavy dome of the night sky above, the ocean an audible, unseen
expanse beyond.  The house’s windows glowed faintly in the distance, sparks
from the fire shooting into the air like fireworks.  Among the embers were
remains of wooden frames; the pile of paintings and canvas was reduced to
ashes, Shay Brooks’s last remains pulled out to sea by the lapping waves. 

Cole and Ava
were warmed by the fire, his arm over her shoulders.   It was dark; they both
knew they should head back to get some supper, but neither wanted the moment to
end.  Every once in a while, one of them went to pick up more driftwood, adding
it to the blaze.  The beach was scattered with it and the bonfire burned long
into the night.

Cole stood up,
pulling in another branch, then settling once more.  Ava watched the frugal
movement of his limbs – spare and sharp, even in these simple actions – his
body in monochrome.  The shades of his skin were like the softened shadows and
light produced by a burin, capturing shapes but freed of colours. 

“You look like a
sculpture in this light,” Ava said with a smile.  “All beautiful and golden.”

Cole snorted.

“That seems a
little pretentious.”

She grinned,
sliding closer.  His arm dropped back over her shoulders, the flames rising
higher.

“No really...
you do,” she insisted.  “Like one of the Renaissance sculptures.  All perfect
musculature and Classical forms.”

She reached out,
running her finger along his jaw, following it down to his shoulder.  Cole
turned, raising an eyebrow.

“You’d better
not tell me I look like Donatello’s David,” he scoffed.

Ava leaned
forward, her lips teasingly brushing his before pulling back to answer.

“Not a chance,”
she laughed.  “The sculptor that really gets me off is—”

“Me?”

Her grin
widened.

“Besides you,
smart-ass, would be Bernini.”

Cole’s
expression darkened wickedly.

“Oka-ay…?”

“What?” Ava
asked.

Cole laughed.

“Let’s just say,
I know Bernini’s work, all right?”

“What…?” Ava’s
eyebrows rose in confusion.

Cole smirked.

“Nothing.”

Her lips pursed.

“No, seriously
now – you do look like a Bernini in this light, the way you were frowning.” 
She sat up, arms crossing her chest in frustration.  “You know, Bernini’s
sculpture of David with the slingshot.”

Cole chuckled,
his arm wrapping tighter, his mouth brushing her ear.

“Oh I know that
one, all right, but that’s not the one I was thinking about….”

He moved in,
pushing Ava against the sand, rolling in to cover her, his warmth a sudden
weight on her skin.  He dropped his mouth to her neck, suckling his way to her
collarbone.  Ava gasped, eyes drifting and then slowly closing.

“Which
sculpture,” she panted, “were you thinking of?”

Cole’s answer
was muffled against her skin.

“The Ecstasy of
St. Theresa…”

‘Where am I…?’
  Ava’s mind
asked in concern. 

She hadn’t gone
anywhere.  She just suddenly
was
… and she didn’t know how it had
happened.

Ava eyed her
surroundings with concern.  She was standing in a bustling shipyard, her thin
grey cloak soaked with mud.  There were people everywhere. 
‘Too many
people,’
her mind hissed as they shoved and jostled her.  She lifted her
gaze to the ship's tall masts overhead.  Ava caught sight of a single bird
wheeling in the sky, as a thought began pushing at the edge of her awareness.

‘I know this
place…’

Something about
it that rang to her... that’s what her father Oliver would have said... some
resonance that echoed with her own.  Her eyes focused, looking further into the
press of the crowds, the unwashed children, the threadbare clothing of adults,
the toothless grins of the elderly.  Sharp thrusts of distant buildings angled
into the bright sky:
‘azure blue,’
she thought,
‘mixed with a touch
of white.’
 

A smile pulled
up her lips as the pieces fell into place
... ‘It’s the colours,’
 her
mind whispered.  She’d painted this before.  With an odd prescience, Ava
realized she knew exactly how to mix the pigments to match the variegated tones
in the darkened structures surrounding her.  A base of Titanium white lit from
within by Raw Sienna for the broad planes of the sooty buildings, a hint of
Davy’s green for the moss on the lintels, the shadows blended in tones of Delft
blue and Burnt Umber. 

Under her cloak,
her hands itched to try it.

She turned in a
circle, watching the people moving around her.  There were people packing two
boats, as she knew they would be.  (She’d seen this play out a hundred times
before.)  Everything was familiar.  The way that the dim alleys reflected the
opposite spectrum: purple bands under the golden light.

‘Where am I
going?’
Ava’s
mind wondered.  Her answer wasn’t ready anymore.

A man pushed
through to her side.
‘Jon’s returned…’  
her mind announced, and then
the screen of people parted, revealing the spare, sharp motions of the person striding
forward. She could imagine him gathering wood the same way.

She stared in
shock.  It wasn’t Jon, as she’d expected, it was Cole.

‘No, not
Cole...’
a
voice inside her corrected. That wasn’t his name; not here, not now.  She knew
that much.  This was Thomas
– ‘her Thomas’
  - and they were going to be
married today by the captain.    They hadn’t had time to post the banns, and it
seemed improper to ask Jon to do the ceremony… not after what had happened. 
They’d marry here on the wharf and leave the next day.

“Ava!” Thomas
shouted, “the governess has agreed to give us her berth.  I’ve got us
passage!” 

“Passage?”

He reached out
for her hand and she put her fingers into his, confusion rising
.   ‘Something’s
changed.’
  She flashed to another time.  Cole and Kip fighting in an
alley.  Ava frowned; she couldn’t place that either.  Thomas watched her in
concern.  Ava’s eyes scuttled warily from the boats to the sky and then to him.
Around them, the wind rose and swirled, lifting pieces of her strangely-long hair.  

“Sorry,” she
said shakily.  “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“Passage,” he
repeated, “to the Americas.”  His smile faltered.  “The woman I mentioned… the
governess – Miss Brown – she’s agreed to give us her berth, and she’ll stay
with the children she’s travelling with.  It’s what I asked you about last
night.”

“Oh,” she
whispered.  “That’s right.” 

Her chest was
tight; the noise around her loud and confusing.
‘What’s going on here?!’
 
her mind screamed.  She realized now why she knew this place.  She’d been here
before. 
‘I’ve painted this before…’
But everything had changed.

“Ava,” Thomas
said, stepping closer, his voice dropping low.  “Is... is everything all
right?” 

“I don’t
know...”

The noise and
the light and the crowds were smothering her.  Everything was different.  She
didn’t know what was happening.  Hadn’t seen this part before.

“Ava, tell me
honestly,” Thomas whispered, his other hand coming up to hers, “are you having
second thoughts?  It’s not too late.  I could take you back home to your
mother.  Do you…?”

He left the rest
of the question unspoken.

Ava lifted her
gaze to the ships’ masts, the buildings darkened with soot, and the glittering
sea in the distance.  They were all the same... but something had shifted
inside her, leaving her trembling.  She could imagine a voice – her father’s –
speaking words he’d never said in life.

‘It’s a shadow
of something that’s coming from the future... Nothing’s ever set.  It’s only
ripples of what can be. You always have a choice.’

She smiled at the
thought.

“Everything is
fine, Thomas,” she answered.  “I was just thinking on things.”

He grinned
lopsidedly, more certain now, the wrinkle between his brows smoothing out.  He
lifted her hands between them, pressing a kiss against her knuckles, his face
fervent like when he’d kissed her on the dock.  He lowered her hands, but
didn’t release them.

“Tell me, love,
what were you thinking?”

“Of the
beginning of a journey…”

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Ava woke with a
start in the oily darkness of the guest suite bedroom, her body warm under the
heavy coverlet, warmer still where Cole's chest was pressed tightly against her
back.  He was awake, Ava realized.  His lips and teeth moved against her neck
and shoulder, urging her impatiently to awaken.