Alicia’s meanness in leaving that journal behind. Mary discovered an entirely different woman from the one she’d known in the pages of that journal. Much of what Mary read was Alicia’s fantasies. But not all of it. Not enough of it.
“You don’t understand,” Kathy had said when Isabelle complained to her about the story. “She didn’t have any other way to tell the truth. Mary would never have listened to her. None of what she read should have come to her as a surprise. It only did because she wasn’t paying attention. Because she’d already defined the boundaries of who Alicia was and anything that didn’t fit inside them had to be discarded. The reason Alicia left was because Mary wasn’t in love with her anymore; she was in love with who Alicia had been.”
Was that the case with Kathy’s journal? Isabelle couldn’t help but wonder. Had the clues all been there in the years they were living together, but she’d been like Mary, unwilling to change her definition of who she thought Kathy was? Had the story been Kathy’s way of trying to tell her to pay more attention?
No, she told herself. That kind of speculation wasn’t dealing with unfinished business. That was poking around in the past. If she kept it up she really would become invisible. Maybe she already was ....
Isabelle looked across the room to where Paddyjack and the journal still lay on the window seat.
The only thing she was doing at the moment was driving herself crazy. She needed to talk to someone about it. To her surprise, the first person she thought of was Alan. She didn’t know what else was in the journal, but she knew she had to show it to him, uncomfortable as sharing parts of it would make her feel.
If nothing else, he had to know who Margaret Mully really was. If it was true. If it wasn’t just Kathy changing the world to suit herself—changing it so that it wouldn’t change her.
She collected the journal and stuck it in her shoulder bag. But before Alan got to see it, he had to make a promise, she decided as she prepared to leave the studio. He had to promise that what lay in its pages remained between them. She didn’t want to read about Kathy’s life in a newspaper, or hear about the journal being a forthcoming book from his East Street Press.
Isabelle checked to make sure she had her keys with her, then opened the door to the studio. The door swung open, but she remained rooted where she stood, staring out into the hall. Standing there waiting for her was another piece of her past. Dark-haired and darker-eyed, dressed in the same white T-shirt and jeans as always, the same silver feather earring hanging from his left earlobe, the same broad handsome features that she knew so well. John Sweetgrass. The only difference was the bracelet of braided ribbons he wore on his right wrist, more frayed than her own, the colors more faded. Almost a ghost of the bracelet she’d made—as his reappearance in her life was like that of a ghost.
Who was it that had said it took two to make a haunting? Christy Riddell, she supposed. Or Jilly.
The one to haunt, the other to be haunted. It was the story of her life.
“Izzy,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”
She didn’t want there to be a distance in her eyes. She didn’t want to hold him at length the way she felt she must. She wanted to hold him close, to tell him she was sorry for that night all those years ago.
But all she could do was remember what Jilly had told her. She couldn’t see the meanness in his eyes that July had seen, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there, hidden behind the mild gaze his dark eyes turned to her.
“Which John are you?” was all she could ask.
Something dark sped across his features. She wasn’t sure if it was hurt or anger.
“What makes you think there’s more than one of me?” he asked. “What makes you think there isn’t?”
John sighed. “Maybe my coming here was a mistake.”
He started to turn away, but Isabelle called him back. He hesitated. When he finally looked at her, Isabelle couldn’t bear the sadness in his eyes. He fingered the bracelet she’d woven all those years ago, but he didn’t speak.
“Why did you come, John?” she asked.
“Not to fight with you.”
“But not to make up either, or we’d have had this conversation a long time ago.”
John nodded. “That decision was yours to make. You sent me away.”
“I was scared. I didn’t know what I was doing. I dreamed of you that night. You and Paddyjack.”
“And you left us these,” John said, holding up the wrist enclosed by the cloth bracelet. “But it was already too late. You sent me away, Izzy, but I had to go as well. It was never going to be the same between us, not with you thinking you’d created me.”
“But I did. The painting—”
“Brought me across. You brought all of us across. But that doesn’t mean you made us. In the before, in our own world, we already were.”
Isabelle didn’t want to get into a repeat of that argument. “So why are you here today?” she asked.
“To warn you. It’s starting again.”
“You mean my paintings.”
John nodded.
“But I haven’t even begun the first one.”
“Doesn’t matter. The veil that lies between my world and yours is already trembling in anticipation.”
“Is it so wrong, bringing you across?” Isabelle asked. “I know what I’m doing. This time I’ll be responsible. I won’t let any of you be hurt again.”
John regarded her steadily for a long moment. Isabelle tried, but she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes.
“Rushkin’s back as well,” he said finally. “And this time he’s not alone.”
“The other John,” Isabelle said.
“What do you mean?”
Isabelle told him what had happened at Jilly’s apartment this morning. “He might look like me,” John said, “but he’s not.”
“So Rushkin made—brought him across?”
John shrugged. “That’s something you’ll have to ask him when you see him.”
“I don’t want to see him—not ever again.”
“Then why are you here? Why are you so set on bringing more of us across? Surely you knew it would call him to you.”
Isabelle nodded. “I’m doing it for Kathy.” She told him about the book Alan had planned, the children’s Art Court. And then she asked him, “How did you survive, John? The Spirit Is Strong was destroyed in the fire. I thought you couldn’t live if your painting had been destroyed.”
“My painting wasn’t destroyed.”
Isabelle looked for the lie, but it wasn’t there. Not in his features, not in his eyes, not so she could read it. Of course it wouldn’t be, she thought. This was John and the one thing he didn’t do was lie.
She’d ignored that truth once, but she wouldn’t do it again.
“You and Paddyjack,” she said softly. “Did I imagine all those deaths, then? Did any of the paintings bum?”
“We survived,” John said, “but the others weren’t so fortunate.”
“How? Who rescued you?”
John shook his head. “That’s not important right now. What you have to think about is what you’re going to do when Rushkin comes for you again.”
“I’ll kill him before I let him hurt anybody again.”
“Will you?”
Isabelle wanted to make it a promise, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know what the hold was that her old mentor had always had on her, but it was still there.
“I don’t know,” she said softly.
“We bless you for bringing us across,” John told her, “but our lives are in your hands.”
“I know.”
“You’re the only one who can stand up to him in this world.”
“Will he still be so strong?”
“Stronger.”
“Then what can I do?”