Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down (7 page)

Cole nodded,
trying to appear calm even though his body was jittery with unexpected nerves. 

‘I don’t believe
any of this,’
a voice inside him whined,
‘It’s not real.’
 

Ava reached out,
bridging the space between them.  The moment their hands touched, he felt more
settled. 

‘I’ll stay for
her…’ 

Around them, the
music played on, rollicking trumpets and a woman’s breathy voice, heavy bass
undertones wrapping them in sounds from another time.  Cole shifted uneasily
while next to him, Ava hummed along to the music.  He waited for Oliver to
return, his fingers tangled in hers. 

 ‘It’s a parlour
trick,’
he thought,
‘like palm-reading, or tarot cards, or horoscopes...  Lucky
guesses and gullible people.  Nothing else...”

Cole was still
running through an endless number of ways that this thing he didn’t believe in
wouldn’t work when Oliver came back, the warm cigarette smoke lingering in his
clothes like incense in a church.  Ava shuffled her chair closer to Cole’s,
dropping her gaze to the upside-down cup.  Her father rolled his long sleeves
up, as if ready to start some yard work.  Seeing him approach, Cole pulled his
cup and saucer back toward him, unwilling to be the first to go.

“Don’t touch
it!” Oliver said sharply, his tone surprisingly unlike the man Cole knew. 
“Just leave it where it is.”

Cole nodded,
putting his hands in his lap.  His body was growing tenser with each passing
second; the music and Ava’s reaction and the whole fucked-up scenario were
fighting with everything he knew to be true. 

‘Things don’t
work like this,’
his mind observed
.  ‘It doesn’t make sense...’

Oliver watched
him, his blue eyes dark like deep waters.  He seemed heavier than usual; his
light good humour was gone.  There was no more chatter about the weather or his
tour or random quotes, just pensive seriousness.

“Are you okay
with this?” he asked.  “You can leave if you want to, Cole.  No one’s making
you stay here.”

Ava lifted her
eyes, face drawn.

“Cole?”

“No, no, it’s
fine,” he mumbled.  “Really... I want to do this.”  His voice shook, but he
wanted it to be true.

Oliver reached
out for Ava’s cup a moment later, his attention falling onto her.

“Make a wish,”
he said, taking her hands in his.  “Then turn the cup clockwise three times.”

Ava closed her
eyes, her face becoming serious and focused.  After a few seconds, she turned
the cup once… twice… and a third time.

The breath
caught in Cole’s throat leaving him gaping like a fish out of water.

‘Not REAL!’

“When I read tea
leaves,” her father explained, “it’s like getting a shadow of something from
the future.  Nothing’s ever set.  It’s only ripples of what can be.  You know
what that means, right?”

 “You always
have a choice about it,” Cole answered tightly.

“Exactly,” the
older man said with a nod, then turned back to Ava.  “Alright,” he said, “let’s
begin.”

Cole watched as
he turned the cup over, his eyes drawn to the interior of the vessel and the
splotches of black leaves swirling up in a line from the bottom.  Cole wasn’t
sure what he expected – some kind of incantation, or for him to suddenly start
talking in Edgar Cayce’s voice – but instead it was very much how Oliver Brooks
always was.  They might as well have been in the coffee shop downtown, for all
that he had changed.  His tone was quiet and rough, same as always, and he
chuckled lightly as he picked up the cup.

“Well, you’ve
got your wish,” he said, shaking his head and trying not to smile, “but I don’t
know why you wasted a wish on it... I could’ve told you that’d happen anyhow. 
God, Ava, you just have to look at the two of you to know that—”

“Dad!” Ava
yelped, her cheeks flushing. 

Cole dropped his
chin, fighting down the urge to smile.  He wondered if she’d wished what he’d
hoped she’d wished… and imagining what it would mean for them both.  The noose
of panic loosened slightly, and he brought his attention back to the cup in
Oliver’s hands.

“Sorry,” Oliver
said, scratching his forehead.  For a moment, he grinned at Cole, then pulled
his eyes back to the cup.  “Alrighty then... let’s see... let’s see...  the
very bottom of the cup is happening right about now...” As he spoke, he
gestured with his baby finger, not touching the leaves, but pointing them out
as he went.  “... and it looks like you’ve made some big decisions lately. 
Things that’ll affect the rest of your life.”

“The National
Gallery,” Ava prompted, but her father lifted his hand, stilling her words.

“Don’t help,
please...  makes it harder...” he muttered, frowning.  “No... no... this is a
person.  Someone tall, with longish hair.  I can see you and Cole... and this
guy – pretty sure it’s a man – standing just off from the side of the two of
you.  Cole has no time for him.  See here?” 

He gestured
again to a splotch. 

“They have a
conflict... it’s you, Ava... you know him, somehow... but this guy here... this
other guy, not Cole, he’s got a whole different path leading off from him. You
might’ve gone that way, I think, maybe at a different time.  But in the last
few weeks you’ve decided something, severed those ties, made some decision that
had changed all that.  It’s unravelled it as a choice...  he’s going away now. 
That’s a good choice.  Everything after that point becomes clearer based on the
decision.  You and Cole here, see?”

Ava had already
told Cole about the meeting with Kip when she was shopping with Suzanne. 
Remembering it, the hair on Cole's arm prickled with apprehension.

‘Her dad
might’ve already known that...’
his mind hissed, but he couldn’t dispel
his rising  trepidation. 
‘But why would she tell him...?’

His thought went
no further; Oliver was talking again.  Cole’s heart was pounding harder with
every word.  It felt like the floor beneath him was moving, his balance
unsettled like a boat on the choppy sea.

“So as the cup
goes up, you can see it heading into the future.  The next year is very busy. 
There’s a trip coming up; I can see you snorkeling.”  He squinted, pulling the
cup nearer.  “The Caribbean maybe?  I’m not sure, but I see a sea turtle. 
Anyhow, there’re all sorts of family-related items too.  There’s a woman here –
looks like she’s a writer or something.” Oliver laughed. “The image here is of
a pile of books on a desk... maybe not a writer... perhaps a librarian?  But
anyhow, she becomes important to you, Ava... and to Cole too.  

“There’s an
older man there too – not me – but he’s important too.  There’s a symbol next
to him: it’s a flag.  He’s sort of a father figure, I’d say, but I think he has
something to do with Cole more than you... though there’s conflict there too. 
Good Lord, there’s a whole mess of it!   Just awfully muddy in this one part of
the cup... shadows around the two of them...  Cole and this man... so much
anger...”

For a moment,
Oliver stopped talking and looked at his daughter, voice growing serious.

“I don’t want
you worrying about it,” he said, “the conflict isn’t because of you, Ava. 
Don’t think that.  It’s just that there’ll be some moments when you need to
step in, and you should be ready for it.  It’s going to be a hell of a fight...
but I think you’re up to it.” 

He winked. 
Across from him, Cole’s eyes darted to his own upside-down cup, wondering what
Oliver would see in his future.

‘Cold
calling...’
his mind whispered, but the voice inside was less sure than before.

“You’ve got big
events coming next summer... graduation, of course: here’s a cap and placard...
but there’s also money in this cup: dragons and good fortune.” He chuckled. 
“God help me, but I think you might actually be able to support yourself on
this Arts degree.”  He laughed and Ava giggled, and then his voice settled back
into its regular pattern.

“There’s a show
at a gallery... and yes, it’s probably the National Gallery, but then I knew
that anyhow.”  He frowned, leaning closer. Cole found himself leaning in, too. 
“I want you to be watching for someone that night.  This sounds foolish, but
this image I’m getting is a mandarin orange – whatever that means – who knows,
could be nothing.  But there’s someone there, and he’s really, really
important, Ava.  Remember that.  For some reason, that’s the image I’m getting
with him.   An orange.”

Ava nodded.  In
the other room, the music had shifted to another song, low and plaintive.

“Whoever it is,
he’ll be a kind of mentor to you.  Next to him is a plane... and more dragons,
and a map of the far East... and that’s almost at the top of your cup.  Perhaps
a trip or a show... everything leading into the future... And more dragons...
everything just leading up and away from there.  There’s Cole there too.  He’s
standing next to you.  The two of you together.”

Oliver sighed
tiredly, turning the cup over and over again in the palm of his hand.  Cole let
out a relieved sigh, his hands unclenching.

“Now, we could
stop here,” her father said, “or we could go forward another year...” his voice
grew quiet.  “But I don’t want to do either.”

Next to Cole,
Ava straightened up in concern.

 “Why?” she
asked warily.

“Well, here’s
the thing,” he said, gesturing to the bottom of the cup.  “There’re all these
swirls in your teacup.  Things I’ve never seen before... like knots of rope or
seaweed... snarled... not troubles, per se, but some kind of links to you...
and they’re all coming from the very bottom of your cup.  All of them tethered
together.”

Oliver cleared
his throat, his fingers covering his mouth for a moment, brushing over his lips
distractedly. 

“I don’t know,
Ava,” Oliver muttered, “but I’d almost say that what happened to you tonight
with Cole’s sculpture had nothing to do with what’s going on with you right now
at all.”

“What do you
mean?” she asked, fear creeping into her words.

Cole glanced
into the cup, and sure enough, the bottom was a web of swirling lines... almost
like Ava’s painting of the snake and the coins.  These threads reached up from
the bottom, touching bits and parts of the other images. 

Entangling
them...

“If it’s okay
with you,” Oliver said, “I’d like to do a reading from your past, rather than
your future.”

“A reading from
my past?” Ava repeated.

Her father
nodded.

“If that’s all
right with you.”

Ava stared down
at the cup, chewing anxiously at her lower lip.  The music played on behind the
group of them, a single note pulsing for a long moment, a woman’s keening
voice. 

Decision made,
Ava looked up.

“Yes.”

Her father set
her cup upside-down on the napkin in her saucer.  He reached forward, putting
his fingers on either side of hers, holding her hands tightly.  Sad notes of
trombone and saxophone rose and fell like waves around them.  Cole's heart was
in his throat as he watched.  He had been pushed to the side.  Forgotten for a
moment.

‘Not sure I like
this...’

“There’s no
number of turns to this one,” Oliver explained, eyebrows pulled together in
concentration, “just go backward — counter-clockwise this time — as long as you
want to, Ava.  Let your mind wander if you can, and I’ll look if I can see
anything that’s coming up from there.”

‘Up from
where?!’ 

Ava nodded. 
Cole could see she was scared. His body was starting to twitch in
anticipation.  Ripples from the future he could almost wrap his head around,
but the past affecting the present made no sense whatsoever.  Tonight had
jumped from the realm of science fiction to complete fantasy.  He couldn’t
quite keep up with the script.  He reached up for the collar of his t-shirt,
tugging it away from his throat.  It felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“Will it work?”
Ava asked.

Oliver laughed,
his fingers still on hers.

“It didn’t
matter what’s in your cup,” he said, winking.  “It already happened, right?  So
there’s no point worrying about it.  Nothing to be scared of.”

Ava nodded
again.  The same feeling Cole’d had at the studio when he saw Ava’s painting of
the swirling clouds – fear and horror – was starting to mesh with his
apprehension.  For a moment, he considered just calling it a night and walking
out.  But then Ava set her fingers lightly on the edge of the upside-down cup
and began going backward, counter-clockwise.  Her eyelids fluttered, then
closed.  She almost looked asleep except for the endless turning of her
fingers.

Cole waited.

And waited.

And waited...