Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down (6 page)

“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.”

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 tasting 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. 

Ava answered
without looking up.

“Because it’s
bad luck to read your own future,” she said, staring at the underside of her
cup.  “Dad will read other people’s tea leaves, but never his own…  It scares
him.”

Cole nodded,
swallowing hard.  It scared him too!  Behind them in the living room, Oliver 
shrugged on his grey coat as he stepped toward the stereo, turning on a vinyl
record.  The speakers snapped and popped before an old big bad tune began to
play, hollow with the passage of time.   It was a scratchy, faded live
recording from many years ago.  There was something about it that set Cole’s
teeth on edge, as if too many other things were going on in this room.  Oliver
grabbed a crumpled package of cigarettes from the side table, jogging down to
the foyer and heading outside.

“Back in a
minute,” he called as the door closed behind him.

There was only
the sound of the disembodied music from the other room.  Cole stared through
the kitchen doorway, weighing the desire to leave against the need to stay. 
‘Ava
needs me…’
  He turned back, surprised to catch her staring at him.  She
gave him a weak smile.

“What he sees,
Cole, it’s only an option,” she said, answering his unspoken fears.  “Anything
can be changed.  You should know that before he starts.  It’s not a certainty
or a sentence.  It’s a… a… hint of what could be.  Remember that.”