Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down (8 page)

The turning went
on for longer than he’d imagined it would, his mind starting to wander.  He was
tired and strung out from the aftermath of Ava’s reaction to his sculpture. 
Across from him, Oliver watched the motion of Ava’s fingers, body poised and
waiting. 

‘Wonder how long
this will—’

“Now,” Ava
whispered, her eyes blinking back open. 

Her voice had
changed and Cole jumped at the sound, feeling a cold tremor run the length of
his spine.  There was a strange canter to her words.  Like she was speaking
with an accent he’d never noticed before.  She looked sadder…
care-worn
. 
The sight of her pursed lips reminded him of something or someone he couldn’t
quite place.

‘Something from
a dream I once had...’ 

Cole cringed at
the thought.

“Okay, then...”
Oliver said, picking up the cup, and glancing down into the bottom. 

Cole could see
that more than half of the tea leaves now sat on the discarded napkin in the
saucer.  The interior of this cup was far more barren and sterile that her
first.  It looked like a faded map.

“This reading’s
definitely an old one.” Oliver began.  “It’s the end of a long journey... maybe
across the ocean.   I can see a group of people going out for a long, long
time... travelling so far that they can no longer see the shore of where they’d
left from.  See here?” 

He gestured to a
lump in the center. 

“Yeah?”

“I’d say that’s
a ship of some kind,” Oliver continued.  “An old, big-bellied one, maybe a
galleon.”  He frowned, squinting. “Actually, it’s not one boat, it’s two. 
There’s a second one there, in the distance… following from behind.  They’re
moving together, leaving one place, going to another.  Heading to another
land.  It’s a new beginning...”

Cole’s heart
shuddered against the walls of his chest, his breath becoming jagged; he felt
like he’d been running.

‘It’s not real!’

“Things had
gotten very bad in the place you left from, Ava.  People were fighting,” he
said, voice sad.  “Sickness… poverty…  The place you were headed was a
beginning.  You were starting a new life, but it wasn’t easy.  People were
being tested, their faith questioned.  You most of all...”

Ava gasped. 
Cole reached out, weaving his fingers into hers. He squeezed, then let go.  (He
didn’t know how to reassure her when he was fighting the terror, too.)

“But you
survived it... both of you, actually…” 

“Both?” Ava
asked.

“Yes, the two of
you.  Look, there’s Cole there too.” 

 The older man
gestured with his finger to a small shape of leaves, but the smudges looked
like nothing to Cole, so he simply sat back and listened.

‘Could be
anything,’
his mind prompted. 
‘Doesn’t mean a goddamn thing...’

He didn’t know
why the words bothered him so much.  Why he was getting more edgy by the
second.  The record had switched to a new song, the instrumental music slow and
melancholy.

“When the ship
begins to near this new land, there’s so much hope.   I can see you standing on
the deck of the ship, looking up at the birds.  See here, Ava?  Yes, that’s a
bird, and you’re watching it, knowing that you’re almost there…”  Oliver’s
words suddenly stopped, eyes widening.

“What?”

“It’s um…”

“Dad,
what?!”

Oliver’s chin
bobbed up, eyebrows furrowing in alarm. 

“Before you make
it ashore, there’s a storm, a terrible storm.  The two ships are torn to
pieces.  There are people in the water, screaming.  So much death… so many
dying.  Oh Ava, I’m sorry.”

“And Cole?”

“No, Cole’s
okay.  He’s swimming.  Wait!  You’re there too!  But something’s not right…” 
He lifted the cup closer, brows low over his eyes.  “You’re both there at the
end – I can see the two of you together … both of you on a beach but… but…”  He
frowned, eyes narrowing.  “Hold on… Yes, both of you made it to the shore.  The
storm’s ending, and you’ve made it to safe harbour.  I can see you, Ava… you’re
lying in the grass, looking up to the sky.  Cole’s beside you… the new land
surrounding you… swirling grasses and low rolling hills... And from above I can
see something that looks like a snake...”

‘The snake is a
river,’
Cole’s mind announced.  At the words – coming from someplace deep inside him –
his body began to quake.

“Yes... I can
see it now... not a snake exactly, but a river leading out to the ocean. You’re
laying a short ways from the shore, a field of grass all around you... a river
in the distance… the sea further on… and trees.  You and Cole are together, but
you’re staring upward… something’s not quite right...”

Oliver tipped
his head in concentration, his gaze back in the past.  Cole’s body was frozen
in place, his fingers clawing the edge of the table.  Heart thudding loudly in
his ears.

‘This can’t be
happening...’

Oliver’s voice
dropped back into its hypnotic rhythm, the words rippling like wind against
grass. 

“The sun is shining. 
It’s a beautiful place: the shore and the trees, and the river in the
distance.  There is so much beauty there, so much peace.  Cole is talking to
you and the wind is blowing... but you already know something…”  He frowned. 
“Ava, you know what’s happening to you.”

“What’s
happening?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

Cole could feel
something pulling at his awareness.  It was so close now he could feel the wind
on his cheek.  Knew the texture of the grass under his shoes.  Adrenaline
rushed through his veins, poising him for flight.

‘I’ve been
there!’
his mind screamed
.  ‘I’ve seen this!’
   His body rioted with the urge
to  run.  It was too much, and the denials from earlier only made this moment
all the worse for its intensity.

“You’re there,
just the two of you.  You love him, Ava... I can see that even here.” Oliver’s
voice roughened.  “Cole’s begging you to stay with him, but you can’t…” 

As Oliver spoke,
distress began to wrap tightly around Cole’s chest.   Oliver’s voice was no
longer soothing to him; the words leaving Cole more panicked with each passing
second. 

‘I know this
story...’
he realized. 
‘I know how it ends!’

“He wants this
new beginning… this new start for the two of you…”  Oliver glanced up, catching
Cole’s eyes, and with that, ice ran down his spine.  Oliver looked worried. 
“Ava, you’re just lying there… and you want to stay with Cole, but there’s
something wrong, you’re hurt… your body is… you’re…”

Oliver’s voice
broke, and he let out a sharp gasp.  Both Ava and Cole jumped at the sound.

“Please, Dad,”
Ava begged.  “I need to know.”

“Your body it’s…
it’s just
broken
, Ava.  You’re dying.  Cole’s there with you, talking to
you, and you want to stay with him, but you can’t.”

His words
stumble awkwardly to a stop, and he looked up at his daughter, eyes wide.

“I’m so sorry,
Kiddo.”

“I died after we
made it to the shore,” she answered him, her voice oddly calm. 

Cole pushed back
from the table, his screeching chair tipping over and banging on the floor.  He
was already on his feet when Ava jumped up.  Oliver dropped the cup from his
hand with a loud clatter, tea leaves scattering, words disappearing as Cole
began to yell. 

“No!” he
shouted.  “It can’t be that story!  That’s my DREAM!  Don’t you see?!  You’re
seeing my dream!”  He was yelling, his body wracked by the onslaught of pain. 
“The dream I had after Hanna died.  I was always being left behind... and it
was always Ava who LEFT ME!”

She was beside
him, her arms around him, holding him tight.

“It’s okay,” she
said, voice breaking, “I’m here now.”

They were
drinking tea again, this time out of coffee mugs; all the teacups for reading
were shoved roughly to the side.  Cole had his elbows against the table, his
body slumped forward. Next to him, Ava rubbed circles into his back, her arms
around him.  It had taken a full twenty minutes to get the story out of Cole in
any semblance of order, and Ava still wasn’t sure what to make of it.    

Cole dreamed of
her dying… had dreamed it endlessly for many years before he met her that day
last Fall outside the art history class.  He’d had the dream enough times to
describe it with uncanny detail.  Remembering her own dream in his own way. 
There was no peace in his version, only his absolute horror at her loss.  Ava
was more bothered by this than the fact that he’d recognized her painting, or
that he was in her past-life teacup at all.  It was Cole’s agony with her dying
that grieved her.  Even now, mug in hand, he was inconsolable.

‘No wonder he’s
afraid I’ll leave him.’

Across from
them, Oliver had a lit cigarette in his mouth, returning sense to the
incomprehensible events of tonight.  Narrow bands of smoke wove around him like
loosely coiled rope, winding around his hands and arms as he gestured.  Ava’s
father never smoked in the house...  never.  

Until tonight.

“It’s something
that already happened,” her father explained.  “It obviously is affecting you
both.  But it doesn’t mean that something like that’s going to happen again.  I
mean, why should it?”

He took a long
draw on the cigarette, and Ava knew she was not imagining the tremors in his
fingers.  This reading had really bothered him.

It worried her
too.

“What scares
me,” Cole muttered, “is that Kip Chambers dreamed of Ava too.”

“He dreamed of
my painting,” Ava corrected.  “Not me, exactly.”  It felt like a lie, but the
truth felt worse.

Oliver frowned.

“Who’s Kip?”

Ava fiddled with
her mug, weighing her words before laying them out.  Things were unbalanced
again and getting worse.  For just a moment, she flashed to sliding down the
steep decking of a boat. 
‘Another dream…?’

“He’s the other
guy you saw in my cup,” Ava answered nervously, “the one I had to make a clean
break with in order to get things cleared up.  The guy Cole has an issue with. 
He had these dreams – these nightmares – when he was a kid... and it seems
linked to me somehow.”

Oliver nodded,
tapping ash into the chipped saucer next to him.

“Ah, well, that
makes sense.  He’s probably from this other time too.  But I didn’t see him in
your cup at all.  Just saw Cole with you there at the end.”

“Maybe he was
one of the people who died in the storm,” Ava said quietly. This wasn’t making
her feel any better at all.

Oliver shrugged
and put the cigarette to his mouth again, lips pursed to hold it in place.

“Could be,” he
mumbled, “looks like a lot of people died in that storm.”  He paused for a long
moment as he drew the smoke into his lungs, and Ava knew what he was going to
say right before he said it.  “Even you died, Ava.”

Next to her,
Cole sat up.

“What the fuck
does that even mean!?” he snapped, fury under the surface of his pain. 

Oliver frowned,
leaning back and setting aside the cigarette.  He picked up Ava’s discarded
teacup and held it in the palms of his hands.  His lips tightened as he looked
into it.

“There’s a
figure here.  I’d say the figurehead on the prow of the boat.  It’s a woman – a
woman with wings instead of arms—”

“An angel,” Ava
interrupted.

Oliver nodded,
setting the cup down and steepling his fingers.

“What Ava saw
tonight at the show, the woman you carved, was an echo of that memory.  It
must’ve been something she saw – something that meant something to her,
something that scarred her – and after that she… she…” 

He left the word
unspoken, picking up the cigarette from the saucer with trembling fingers. 

“I’ve no idea
what it really means.  I don’t know anything for sure... but whatever happened,
it marked both of you.  You’re connected – the two of you – and you, and this…
this thing between you is still connected.  Still wrapped together.”  He
frowned, pointing at Cole with the burning end of his cigarette.  “Emily Bronte
wrote that
‘whatever our souls are made of – his and mine are the same.’
 
I think that’s what Ava is to you, and you to her.”  He sighed.  “Your past is
tangled together, and it’s affecting things here and now.”

Cole laughed
coldly.

“Look, I don’t
believe in any of this shit, alright?  I don’t know how you knew that about my
dreams... but I don’t believe in past lives.  When you’re dead, you’re dead.”

Ava watched as
her father took another lengthy drag on his cigarette.  His eyes were narrowed
and critical.  The atmosphere of conflict made Ava feel sick.