She put the gun back, showed him her empty hands, then pulled him to her and hugged him. At first he was stiff against her—still afraid—but after a little he relaxed.
“What is it, darling?” she asked him, sotto voce. Then, using Roland’s phrase without even realizing it: “What fashes thee?”
He pulled away from her and pointed dead north. For a moment she still didn’t understand, and then she saw the orange lights dancing and darting. She judged they were at least five miles away, and she could hardly believe she hadn’t seen them before.
Still speaking low, so as not to wake Roland, she said: “They’re nothing but foo-lights, sugar—they can’t hurt you. Roland calls em hobs. They’re like St. Elmo’s fire, or something.”
But he had no idea of what St. Elmo’s fire was; she could see that in his uncertain gaze. She settled again for telling him they couldn’t hurt him, and indeed, this was the closest the hobs had ever come. Even as she looked back at them, they began to dance away, and soon most of them were gone. Perhaps she had thought them away. Once she would have scoffed at such an idea, but no longer.
Patrick began to relax.
“Why don’t you go back to sleep, honey? You need to take your rest.” And she needed to take hers, but she dreaded it. Soon she would wake Roland, and sleep, and the dream would come. The ghosts of Jake and Eddie would look at her, more frantic than ever. Wanting her to know something she didn’t, couldn’t know.
Patrick shook his head.
“Not sleepy yet?”
He shook his head again.
“Well then, why don’t you draw awhile?” Drawing always relaxed him.
Patrick smiled and nodded and went at once to Ho Fat for his current pad, walking in big exaggerated sneak-steps so as not to wake Roland. It made her smile. Patrick was always willing to draw; she guessed that one of the things that kept him alive in the basement of Dandelo’s hut had been knowing that every now and then the rotten old fuck would give him a pad and one of the pencils. He was as much an addict as Eddie had been at his worst, she reflected, only Patrick’s dope was a narrow line of graphite.
He sat down and began to draw. Susannah resumed her watch, but soon felt a queer tingling all over her body, as if she were the one being watched. She thought of Mordred again, and then smiled (which hurt; with the sore growing fat again, it always did now). Not Mordred; Patrick. Patrick was watching her.
Patrick was drawing her.
She sat still for nearly twenty minutes, and then curiosity overcame her. For Patrick, twenty minutes would be long enough to do the Mona Lisa, and maybe St. Paul’s Basilica in the background for good measure. That tingling sense was so queer, almost not a mental thing at all but something physical.
She went to him, but Patrick at first held the pad against his chest with unaccustomed shyness. But he wanted her to look; that was in his eyes. It was almost a love-look, but she thought it was the drawn Susannah he’d fallen in love with.
“Come on, honeybunch,” she said, and put a hand on the pad. But she would not tug it away from him, not even if he wanted her to. He was the artist; let it be wholly his decision whether or not to show his work. “Please?”
He held the pad against him a moment longer. Then—shyly, not looking at her—he held it out. She took it, and looked down at herself. For a moment she could hardly breathe, it was that good. The wide eyes. The high cheekbones, which her father had called “those jewels of Ethiopia.” The full lips, which Eddie had so loved to kiss. It was her, it was her to the very life… but it was also more than her. She would never have thought love could shine with such perfect nakedness from the lines made with a pencil, but here that love was, oh say true, say so true; love of the boy for the woman who had saved him, who had pulled him from the dark hole where he otherwise would surely have died. Love for her as a mother, love for her as a woman.
“Patrick, it’s wonderful!” she said.
He looked at her anxiously. Doubtfully. Really? his eyes asked her, and she realized that only he—the poor needy Patrick inside, who had lived with this ability all his life and so took it for granted—could doubt the simple beauty of what he had done. Drawing made him happy; this much he’d always known. That his pictures could make others happy… that idea would take some getting used to. She wondered again how long Dandelo had had him, and how the mean old thing had come by Patrick in the first place. She supposed she’d never know. Meantime, it seemed very important to convince him of his own worth.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, it is wonderful. You’re a fine artist, Patrick. Looking at this makes me feel good.”
This time he forgot to hold his teeth together. And that smile, tongueless or not, was so wonderful she could have eaten it up. It made her fears and anxieties seem small and silly.
“May I keep it?”
Patrick nodded eagerly. He made a tearing motion with one hand, then pointed at her. Yes! Tear it off! Take it! Keep it!
She started to do so, then paused. His love (and his pencil) had made her beautiful. The only thing to spoil that beauty was the black splotch beside her mouth. She turned the drawing toward him, tapped the sore on it, then touched it on her own face. And winced. Even the lightest touch hurt. “This is the only damned thing,” she said.
He shrugged, raising his open hands to his shoulders, and she had to laugh. She did it softly so as not to wake Roland, but yes, she did have to laugh. A line from some old movie had occurred to her: I paint what I see.
Only this wasn’t paint, and it suddenly occurred to her that he could take care of the rotten, ugly, painful thing. As it existed on paper, at least.
Then she’ll be my twin, she thought affectionately. My better half; my pretty twin sis—
And suddenly she understood—
Everything? Understood everything?
Yes, she would think much later. Not in any coherent fashion that could be written down—if a + b = c, then c—b = a and c—a = b—but yes, she understood everything. Intuited everything. No wonder the dream-Eddie and dream-Jake had been impatient with her; it was so obvious.
Patrick, drawing her.
Nor was this the first time she had been drawn.
Roland had drawn her to his world… with magic.
Eddie had drawn her to himself with love.
As had Jake.
Dear God, had she been here so long and been through so much without knowing what ka-tet was, what it meant? Ka-tet was family.
Ka-tet was love.
To draw is to make a picture with a pencil, or maybe charcoal.
To draw is also to fascinate, to compel, and to bring forward. To bring one out of one’s self.
The drawers were where Detta went to fulfill herself.
Patrick, that tongueless boy genius, pent up in the wilderness. Pent up in the drawers. And now? Now?
Now he my forspecial, thought Susanna/Odetta/Detta, and reached into her pocket for the glass jar, knowing exactly what she was going to do and why she was going to do it.
When she handed back the pad without tearing off the sheet that now held her image, Patrick looked badly disappointed.
“Nar, nar,” said she (and in the voice of many). “Only there’s something I’d have you do before I take it for my pretty, for my precious, for my ever, to keep and know how I was at this where, at this when.”
She held out one of the pink rubber pieces, understanding now why Dandelo had cut them off. For he’d had his reasons.
Patrick took what she offered and turned it over between his fingers, frowning, as if he had never seen such a thing before. Susannah was sure he had, but how many years ago? How close might he have come to disposing of his tormentor, once and for all? And why hadn’t Dandelo just killed him then?