“I wanted to ask her to come stay with us on the island for a little while. I know she’s happy in the city, but apparently she’s become such a hermit of late that I’ve been worrying about her.”
“Maybe she’s met another gargoyle. Kathy’s always saying that some of them wake up once the sun sets and they go wandering. She even wrote a story about it.”
“I hope that’s all it is,” Rosalind said. “She’s such an innocent—like Paddyjack is. I’d hate for her to have gotten in with the wrong crowd.” Izzy had to smile. “You sound like a mother.”
“I feel like a mother sometimes,” Rosalind said, returning Izzy’s smile, “but I don’t mind. I like feeling needed. Useful. And speaking of which,” she added, rising to her feet, “I should finish the rest of my errands.”
“Well, if I hear from her, I’ll tell her you were looking for her,” Izzy said.
Rosalind smiled her thanks and wandered off down the street, her features creased with uncharacteristic worry lines. Izzy closed her eyes and pictured My Darling ‘Goyle, the painting through which the gargoyle had crossed over. Where had Rothwindle gone? she wondered.
XIX
November 1978
“You’ve got quite the collector interested in your work,” Albina told Izzy a few weeks after the Crowsea Touchstones show had closed.
Once Izzy had gotten past the flurry of excitement and work that had gone into the opening of the Newford Children’s Foundation, the rest of the summer and early autumn had proceeded at a perfect, lazy pace for her. She painted in her studio, with Annie for company as often as not, and went out sketching on location, visited with or was visited by Rushkin and Tom Downs and her other friends, and spent all sorts of time with Kathy when Kathy wasn’t busy writing. The two of them often spent evenings at the Foundation, sorting clothes and doing the behindthe-scenes work so that the counselors could concentrate on their clients. The only thing lacking in Izzy’s life was a romantic relationship, but even that wasn’t enough to spoil the sense of peace that had settled over her. So many of her friends were single that it didn’t seem odd for her to be that way as well. They filled up the holes in each other’s lives and managed to pretend, most of the time, that they didn’t need anything else.
That the Crowsea Touchstones show had done so well simply seemed to fit into the natural progression of positive events that made up this particular year of her life. Kathy would tease her about it sometimes, but it wasn’t so much that she was becoming blase about her success as that she wasn’t really paying attention to it. So when Albina brought up the idea of a serious collector of her work, Izzy couldn’t quite seem to muster up much more than an idle curiosity in the subject.
“How so?” she asked after taking a long sip of the tea that Albina had brought along on her visit to the Kelly Street studio.
The two of them were sitting in one of the disused rooms in the old factory building that the various tenants used as sitting rooms because their studios, like Izzy’s, were usually too much of a mess. The windows here gave out upon a long view of alleys and backyards, with office complexes rising up behind them in the distance. Albina poured herself another cup of tea from her thermos before she replied.
“Well, he’s been buying one or two of your works from every show—and they’re always the most expensive ones.”
“Don’t tell me,” Izzy said. “Let me guess. He’s a doctor, right?”
Albina shook her head. “A lawyer, actually, although I think he’s buying the work for a client, so maybe you’re right. It could be a doctor.”
But Izzy wasn’t listening to her anymore. A deep stillness had settled inside her at the word lawyer.
“What ... what’s his name?” she asked in a voice gone soft.
Albina smiled, unaware of the change in Izzy. “Richard Silva,” she said. “Of Olson, Silva and Chizmar Associates. You asked me about them before and I couldn’t remember the name, but I’ve cashed so many checks with their name on it by this point that I’d be hard put to forget it now.”
The stillness deepened inside Izzy.
“And the paintings he bought?” she asked.
Her worst fears were realized as Albina began to name the pieces. Each title was of a painting of one of her numena. All of John’s old accusations came flooding back into her mind and she had nothing to say in her own defense.
How could you? she wanted to scream at Albina. How could you let him buy them all? No wonder Rushkin hadn’t been worried about her having her own studio and working elsewhere; he’d found another way of acquiring her numena. But the words remained stillborn because she realized that Albina wouldn’t know what she was talking about. There was no way Albina could screen all buyers to make certain they weren’t Rushkin. All Izzy could do was stop offering them for sale, or stop painting them altogether.
The pain deepened inside her when she realized that one of those paintings had been My Darling
‘Goyle. Oh, Rothwindle. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have betrayed the gargoyle like this? No wonder John would have nothing to do with her. She was just as irresponsible as he’d warned her not to be.
“Is something wrong?” Albina asked, finally picking up on Izzy’s change of mood.
Izzy looked at her, but there was nothing she could say.
“No, I’m just feeling moody. I think I’m premenstrual,” she added, by way of explanation.
“There’s something to be said for menopause,” Albina told her. “It’s the one aspect of growing old that I don’t regret.”
Izzy found a polite smile, but it never reached her eyes. All she wanted now was to be alone with her grief and her anger. The latter was directed as much at herself as it was at Rushkin. How could she have let herself fall under his sway again when she knew, she knew he was not to be trusted?
It seemed to take forever before Albina finally left to go back to the gallery.
XX
It’s not your fault,” Kathy said when Izzy told her that evening. “You couldn’t have known.”
It was what Izzy wanted to hear, but she knew it wasn’t true. She sat at the kitchen table, hugging her bunched-up jacket to her chest, and looked across the table at Kathy through a shimmering gauze of tears.
“But that’s just it,” she said, mournfully. “I did know. I should have realized that Rushkin was a real danger to my numena and that he wouldn’t give up so easily. John warned me about it and I saw Rushkin kill my winged cat. I saw him try to kill Paddyjack.”
“I thought you’d told me you’d dreamed that.”
“I did,” Izzy said. “But no matter how much I want to pretend it didn’t happen, I know it was a real dream—like looking at a movie of something that was actually happening, except I was in it at the same time.”
Kathy reached across the table and took one of Izzy’s hands in both of her own.
“I just feel so sick,” Izzy went on. “When I think of how nice he’s been, how much I’ve been enjoying his company, and all along he was feeding on my numena behind my back ....”
“Wait a minute,” Kathy said. “Is this still Rushkin we’re talking about?” Izzy nodded.
“But I thought you weren’t seeing him anymore.”
“I wasn’t planning to. It’s just, oh, I don’t know. I kind of fell back into a relationship with him. I’d stop by his studio, he’d stop by mine. It was all so harmless and friendly. I was learning so much ....”
“It still wasn’t your fault,” Kathy said. “You don’t have any control over what Rushkin does.”