Alan’s Crowsea Review never had to go beyond the borders of Lower Crowsea itself to find its contributors, but it grew rapidly from a student effort into one of the more respected literary magazines in the country. It seemed only natural for him to use his East Street Press as an imprint of books as well. He tested the waters with a novella by Tama Jostyn called Wintering and Dust, Dreams and Little Love Letters, a collection of Kristiana’s poems, before he did my collection of short stories. The first two did reasonably well for books published by a regional press, selling out their modest print runs within six months of publication. Then came The Angels of My First Death and everything changed.
I made so much money off the paperback sales and subsequent foreign rights, movie options and the like that it was criminal. I could’ve lived high on the hog, but instead I kept the apartment on Waterhouse Street and channeled my money into setting up the Newford Children’s Foundation.
I don’t mention this to toot my horn. Truth is, if I had a choice between being remembered forever and the Foundation, the Foundation would always come first. I believe in what I write—I can’t not write—but once I saw the serious money I could make by writing, the act of writing became subservient to the Foundation, existing to keep the Foundation solvent as much as for my own need to tell stories.
They both promote the same message: children are people and they have rights; don’t abuse those rights.
They both strive to educate the public. But the Foundation will always be more important because it’s actually helping those in need. I’d’ve given anything for the option to become a ward of the Foundation when I was a kid myself.
* *
Tomorrow I’m off to Wren Island to stay with Izzy. I’m so excited. I’ve packed and repacked my bags three times already. I was hoping to finish off that new story before I went, but I can’t seem to concentrate on it. Maybe I should just write, “And then they all died. The End.” And leave it at that. It wouldn’t be any worse than what I’ve written so far. But who knows? Maybe being with Izzy again will make the whole thing come alive for me. Stranger things have happened in her company, that’s for sure.
* *
I’m having the best time I’ve had in ages. Izzy’s been after me for years to move onto the island with her and I’ll tell you, if it could always be like today, I’d do it in a flash. But it gets harder and harder for me to be in her company and not just blurt out that I love her. That I want to be her lover. I don’t think she’s exactly homophobic, but I do know that the thought of same-sex sex makes her feel very uncomfortable.
I can remember walking past a cafe on Lee Street with her once and we saw two women necking in a darkened corner of the outside patio.
“God,” Izzy said. “Why do they have to do that in public?”
“Heterosexuals do it in public.”
“Yeah, but that’s normal. I couldn’t ever imagine kissing another woman like that.”
I didn’t say anything. Truth is, I’m not so sure that I’m actually a lesbian myself. I’m not attracted to men, but I’m not attracted to women either. It’s just Izzy I want.
* *
I like the work that Izzy’s been doing for the past few years, but I miss the earlier paintings. Or maybe it’s that I miss the numena.
Izzy used to say that they came from a place where all was story—that’s all they remember, she told me: that there were stories. But we’re all made of stories—you, me, everybody. The ones you can see and the hidden stories we keep secret inside—like my love for Izzy. When they finally put us underground, the stories are what will go on. Not forever, perhaps, but for a time. It’s a kind of immortality, I suppose, bounded by limits, it’s true, but then so’s everything.
It didn’t work that way for her numena, though. Even when they were brought over to this world through Izzy’s art, they lived in secret, in their own hidden world. Izzy could find them—or they found her. I could see them, because I knew where to look. I suppose other people saw them from time to time as well, but it wouldn’t be quite real for them. I thought it’d be different. I thought their existence would change the world, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve been wrong about something, and I doubt it’ll be the last. It just never hurt so much before. The cost was never so high.
When the farmhouse burned, the numena died, and their stories died with them. Only Izzy remembered them, and me.
And Rushkin, I suppose, wherever he might be.
Angels And Monsters
Friend, when I am dead,
Make a cup of the clay I become,
And if you remember, drink from it.
Should your lips cling to the cup,
It will be but my earthly kiss.
—Traditional Mexican folk song
I
Newford, September 1992
For Isabelle, the act of unwrapping the painting of Paddyjack was like that moment in a fairy tale when the crow, sitting on the fencepost, or the spoon one held in one’s hand, suddenly begins to speak, its advice, however confusing, still calculated to restore order, or at least balance. In the world of fairy tales, what was strange was also invariably trustworthy. One quickly learned to depend upon the old beggar woman, the hungry bird, the grateful fox.
So she fully expected the figure in the painting to speak to her, or for its numena to appear at her window, tapping his long twiggy fingers against the glass pane, requesting entry. She remembered a winter’s night, a fire escape festooned with ribbons, the tip-tappa-tappa-tip of wooden fingers on a wooden forearm, three bracelets that she’d woven from those ribbons, one of which lay at the bottom of her purse, the cloth frayed, the colors faded, the other two vanished into memory, or dream. But the painting kept its own counsel and the only sound she heard was the repeated knock at the door of her studio.
It took her another long moment to register what the sound was before she cleared her head with a quick shake. Laying down the painting, she went to the door to find Jilly standing out in the hall, worry clouding her normally cheerful features.
“I was about to give up,” she said. “I’ve been knocking for ages.”
“I’m sorry. I was ... thinking.”
Remembering. Wishing she could reclaim what was gone. Regretting that the world would no longer allow her even that small touch of magic. But perhaps when she began the paintings to illustrate Kathy’s stories, perhaps when she once again breached the bathers that lay between the world of her numena and her own ...
“Isabelle?”
She blinked, returning her attention to her visitor.
“You went all vague on me,” Jilly said. “Are you sure you’re all right?” Isabelle nodded and stepped aside to let Jilly in. “I’m fine—a little distracted, that’s all.”
“Well, I’ve had the weirdest thing happen to me,” Jilly said. She paused in the middle of the room to look around. The studio looked exactly the way it had when they’d left it last night, still furnished in unpacked boxes and suitcases, sacks and bags, all heaped up in various piles.
“I just got back from running a few errands,” Isabelle explained.
“This is why I don’t ever move,” Jilly said. “It’s way too much like work. I don’t know how Christy can stand to do it almost every year—especially with all those books.”