Читать книгу Fox River - Emilie Richards - Страница 6

Like their counterparts in Great Britain, the great farms and estates of Virginia were often given names. Ashbourne was one such, a large, distinctive house and three hundred acres made up of serpentine hills and rock-strewn creeks. The Blue Ridge Mountains were more than shadows touching the land; they were a presence that anchored it and coaxed the hills into craggier peaks and wider hollows. Maisy never ceased to be amazed at Ashbourne’s natural beauty or the twist of fate that had brought her here as the young bride of Harry Ashbourne, master of the Mosby Hunt.

Harry was gone now, dead for nearly twenty-five years. Ashbourne lived on, holding its breath, she thought, for Harry’s daughter Julia to reclaim it and restore it to its former glory.

The main house at Ashbourne was a gracefully wrought Greek Revival dwelling of antique cherry-colored brick and Doric columns. Symmetrical wings—two-story where the main house was three—gently embraced the wide rear veranda and flagstone terrace. In Harry’s day the gardens of hollies and mountain laurels, Persian lilacs and wisteria, had been perfectly manicured, never elaborate, but as classic and tasteful as the house itself.

Over the years the gardens had weathered. Ancient maples, mimosas and hickories had fallen to lightning or drought; the boxwood maze that Harry had planted during Maisy’s pregnancy had grown into an impenetrable hedge obstructing movement and sight until a landscaper had removed it. Over the years the meticulous borders of bulbs and perennials had naturalized into a raucous meadow that ate away at grass and shrubs, spreading farther out of bounds each season.

Maisy preferred the garden that way. The house was empty now, and the black-eyed Susans, corn poppies and spikes of chicory and Virginia bluebells warmed and softened its aging exterior. Neither the house nor the gardens had fallen to rack and ruin. She made certain all the necessary maintenance was done. Jake did much of it, a man as handy as he was good-natured. But the property was simply biding its time until Harry’s daughter decided what should be done about it.

Maisy and Jake lived in the caretaker’s cottage, a blue stone fairy-tale dwelling that was the oldest building on the property. The cottage perched on the edge of deep woods where foxes and groundhogs snuggled into comfortable dens and owls kept vigil on the loneliest nights.

The cottage was two-story, with a wide center hallway and cozy rooms that huddled without rhyme or reason, one on top of the other. The furnace and the plumbing groaned and clattered, and the wind whistled through cracks between window frames and ledges. Maisy and Jake were in agreement that the house’s idiosyncrasies were as much a part of its charm as its slate roof or multitude of fireplaces.

The sky was already growing dark by the time Maisy returned from her visit to the Gandy Willson Clinic. Inky cloud layers lapped one over the other, shutting out what sunset there might have been and boding poorly for a starry night. She often darted outside two or three times each evening to glimpse the heavenly show. She made excuses, of course, although Jake was certainly on to her. She fed the barn cats, three aging tortoiseshells named Winken, Blinken and Nod. Sometimes she claimed to check gates for the farmer who rented Ashbourne’s prime pasture land to graze long-horned, shaggy Highland cattle. No excuse was too flimsy if it kept her on the run.

She traversed the wide driveway and pulled the pickup into its space beside the barn, taking a moment to stretch once she was on the ground. Every muscle was kinked, both from sitting still and the lack of functioning shock absorbers. She vowed, as she did every time she drove Jake’s truck, that she would have it hauled away the very next time he turned his back. She had her eye on a lipstick-red Ford Ranger sitting in a lot in Leesburg, and in her imagination, it beeped a siren song every time she passed.

As she’d expected, she found Jake in the barn. There were several on the property. The one that Harry had used to stable his world-renowned hunters was at the other side of the estate, empty of horses now and filled with artists and craftsmen to whom Maisy rented the space as a working gallery.

This barn was the original, smaller, built from hand-hewn chestnut logs and good honest sweat. Jake used it as his repair shop. There was nothing Jake couldn’t take apart and put back together so that it ran the way it was intended. People from all over Loudoun and Fauquier counties brought him toasters and lawnmowers, motor scooters and attic fans. Mostly they were people like Jake himself, who believed that everything deserved a shot at a miracle cure, people who were wealthy enough to buy new goods but maintained a love affair with the past.

When she arrived, Jake was bent over his workbench. Winken crouched at the end, lazily swatting Jake’s elbow every time it swung into range. The three felines were right at home in the barn. Like so much that Jake repaired here, they had been somebody else’s idea of trash. Maisy had found them one winter morning as they tried to claw their way out of a paper bag in the Middleburg Safeway parking lot, tiny mewling fluffballs that she’d fed religiously every two hours with a doll’s bottle, despite a serious allergy to cat dander and a craving for an uninterrupted night of sleep. Now, years later, they kept the barn free of mice and Jake company. Cats, she’d discovered, were serious advocates of quid pro quo.

“I’m back.”

Jake turned to greet her. When he was absorbed in his work he forgot his surroundings. He had the power of concentration she lacked, so much that she often teased that a burglar could steal everything in the barn, including the cobwebs, while he was working on a project.

He wiped his hands on a rag before he came over to kiss her cheek. “Did you see her?”

“Yes, I did. But not without a fight.” She knew he wouldn’t ask what she’d learned. He would wait for whatever information she wanted to reveal. She glanced over his shoulder. Blinken had joined her sister, and the two were investigating Jake’s latest project. “Work going well?”

“Liz Schaeffer brought me a mantel clock that’s been in her family for three generations. Ticking fifty beats to the minute.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I’ll have to see if I can find a new part, but most likely.” He swallowed her in his arms, as if he knew she needed his warmth. “I made chili for dinner. And corn bread’s ready to go in the oven.”

“You’re too good to me.” She relaxed against him, looking up at a face that was growing increasingly lined with age. Jake had never been a handsome man, but he had always been distinguished, well before the age the adjective usually applied. His hair was snow-white, but still as thick and curly as it had been the first time she saw him—and still, as then, a little too long. His eyes were the brown of chinquapins, eyes that promised patience but of late showed a certain fatigue, as well. Sometimes she was afraid that he was simply and finally growing tired of her.

“Let me put things away and I’ll be in to finish the meal.”

She moved away in a flurry of guilt. “Don’t be silly. I’ll put the corn bread in the oven and make a salad.” She paused. “Do we have lettuce?”

He smiled a little. “Uh-huh. I shopped yesterday.”

“Where was I?”

“Holed up in your study.”

“Oh…”

“I like to shop, Maisy. I always see somebody I know. I do more business between the carrots and eggplant than I do on the telephone. Go make a salad.”

She made it to the doorway before she turned. “Would you mind if Julia and Callie came to live with us?”

He looked up from his workbench. “Was that Julia’s idea?”

“I made the offer.” She paused. “I pushed a little.”

“Like a steamroller on autopilot.”

“She shouldn’t be there, Jake. You know that place. She’s miserable.”

“You know Julia and Callie are welcome here.”

“Was I wrong to push?”

“You’re a good mother. You always do what you think is best.”

She knew the dangers of acting on instinct, yet she was pleased at his support. “I’m going back tomorrow.”

“Bard won’t be happy if you interfere.”

She stepped outside and peered up at the sky, now a seamless stretch of polished pewter. The temperature was dropping, and she shivered. Autumn was exercising its muscle. Maisy decided that after dinner she would ask Jake to make a small fire in the living room, then she would tell him in detail everything that Julia had said.

She wondered, as she did too often now, if he would find the recounting of her day too tedious to warrant his full attention.

Julia knew Bard would visit after dinner, not because his schedule was predictable but because he needed to see for himself that everything at the clinic was under control. In the early days of their marriage, that quality had reassured her. She was married to a man who had answers for everything, and for a while, at least, she had been glad to let him have answers for her.

She felt a vague twinge of guilt, as she always did when she had disloyal thoughts about Bard, the man who had stood beside her at the worst moment of her life. Bard could be overbearing, but he could also be strong and reassuring.

In some ways Bard was the product of another era. He was older than she, almost twelve years older, but it was more outlook than age that separated them. Bard would have felt at home in King Arthur’s court, a knight happiest slaying dragons. But Bard would never be a Lancelot. He wasn’t motivated by religious fervor and rarely by romance. Dragons would fall simply because they stood in his path.

At seven o’clock Julia found her way to the dresser where her comb and brush were kept. Her black hair was shoulder-length and straight, easy enough to manage, even when she couldn’t see it. She brushed it now, smoothing it straight back from the widow’s peak that made it difficult to part.

She didn’t bother with cosmetics, afraid that lipstick poorly applied was worse than none at all. Earlier she had changed into wool slacks and a twin set because her room was cooler than she liked. Maisy always insisted she’d feel warmer if she gained weight, but Julia doubted she was destined to add pounds at this particular juncture of her life. The clinic food was exactly what she’d expected, low-fat and bland—garnishes of portobello mushrooms and arugula notwithstanding.

She was just buttoning her sweater when a gentle rap on the door was followed by Karen’s voice. “It’s chilly in here. Would you like a fire tonight? Dr. Jeffers has given permission.”

She supposed permission was necessary. After any time at Gandy Willson, even a patient in her right mind would want to throw herself into the flames.

“You’re smiling,” Karen said.

She realized it was true. “It’s the thought of a fire,” she lied. “What a nice idea.”

She fumbled her way across the room and sat on a chair by the bed, listening as Karen brought in logs. The sounds were all familiar, as was the burst of sulphur when the match was lit.

“Just a tiny one,” Karen said. “Nothing more than kindling. But it will warm you. We’re having trouble with the heat in this wing.”

Julia thanked her, then sat listening as the wood began to crackle.

In the hospital, immediately after the accident, she had found it impossible to measure time. Without visual clues, one moment still seemed much like the next. The sun or the moon could be sending rays through her window and she wouldn’t know. The overhead lights could be on or off, the news on her neighbor’s television set could be either the morning or evening edition.

Little by little she’d learned new cues to guide her. The buzzing of the fluorescent lamp in the corner when light was needed in the evening, or the scent of disinfectant when the hallway was mopped each morning. The cues were different here, but just as predictable.

She had also learned that time passed more slowly than she realized. Without the constant distractions of a normal life, each second seemed to merge in slow motion with the next. She had never understood Einstein’s theories of time and space, but she thought, perhaps, she was beginning to.

After she was sure she’d been sitting for at least a day, she heard Bard’s perfunctory knock. He always rapped twice, with jackhammer precision. Then he threw open the door and strode purposefully across the floor to kiss her cheek.

Tonight was no different. He was at her side before she could even tell him to come in. She smelled the Calvin Klein aftershave she had helped Callie pick out last Christmas, felt the rasp of his cheek against hers.

“You look tired.” He had already straightened and moved away. She could tell by his voice.

“Sitting still all day will do that to you,” she said.

“You need the rest. That’s why you’re here.”

She was here to keep from embarrassing him. She suspected that not one of their mutual friends knew exactly what had happened to her, and she wondered what story he was telling. “I would get more rest at home. I could find my way around. Get a little exercise. I’d feel more like sleeping.”

“We’ve been over and over this, Julia.”

The forced patience in his voice annoyed her. “You’ve been over and over this, Bard. I’ve had very little to say about it.”

“I understand your sessions with Dr. Jeffers aren’t going well.”

“If you mean that I haven’t miraculously regained my eyesight, then yes. They haven’t gone well.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

She could feel her frustration growing. “Bard, stop talking to me like I’m Callie’s age, please. I’m blind, not eight. Exactly what did you mean?”

“Dr. Jeffers says you’re not cooperating. That you’re resistant to treatment.”

“I am resistant to spilling my guts so he’ll have something to write on his notepad.”

“How do you know he writes anything?”

“I can hear the scratching of his pen. I have four senses left.”

“Why are you resisting his help?”

“He isn’t offering help. He’s a Peeping Tom in disguise. He wants to see into every corner of my life, and I don’t see any reason to let him.”

“You’d prefer a guide dog?”

She clamped her lips shut. As he barreled through his days, Bard had developed a theory that life was an endless set of simple decisions, for or against. Accordingly, he had boiled down Julia’s recovery. Either she let Dr. Jeffers cure her or she remained blind. He didn’t have the inclination to consider the matter further.

“I guess that means no.” He sounded farther away, as if he’d taken up her favorite spot at the window.

“What do you see?” she asked. “I’d like to know what’s out there, so I can imagine it when I’m standing there.”

For the first time he sounded annoyed. “That sounds like you’re making plans to live with this.”

“It’s a simple, nonthreatening question.”

“I see exactly what you’d expect. Trees, flower beds, lawn. A slice of the parking lot. Hills in the distance.”

“Thanks.”

“I hear Maisy came to visit today. Against orders.”

His voice was louder, so she imagined he was facing her now. She pictured him leaning against the windowsill, long legs crossed at the ankles, elbows resting comfortably, long fingers laced as he waited for her answer. She remembered the first time she had really noticed Lombard Warwick.

She had known Bard forever. The town of Ridge’s Race—nothing much more than a gas station, post office and scenic white frame grocery store—was named for an annual point-to-point race that extended between two soaring ridges on either side of town. It was also the address of dozens of million-dollar farms and estates, including Ashbourne and Millcreek Farm, which was Bard’s family home. Ridge’s Race had a mayor and town council, churches along three of the four roads that intersected at the western edge of town, and a community as tightly knit as a New England fishing village.

Because of the difference in their ages, she and Bard had never attended school together. Even if they’d been born in the same year, their educational paths wouldn’t have crossed. Bard was destined for the same residential military school his father had attended. Julia, the product of an egalitarian mother who believed class segregation was nearly as harmful as racial segregation, was destined for the local public schools.

They hadn’t attended church together, either. There was a plaque listing generations of Warwicks on the wall at St. Albans, the Episcopal church where the most powerful people in Ridge’s Race convened on Sunday morning. There were Ashbournes on the plaque, as well, and Julia had been christened there, a squalling infant held firmly in the strong arms of the father who had died when she was only four. But for as long as Julia could remember, on the rare occasions when Maisy took her to church, Maisy drove into Leesburg or Fairfax and chose congregations and religions at random.

Even without common churches or schools, Bard had been a presence in Julia’s life. Millcreek Farm was just down the road. As a little girl she had seen him pass by on sleek Thoroughbreds or in one of a series of expensive sports cars. She had seen him in town, discussed weather and local politics while waiting in line at the post office, watched him shop for bourbon and bridles in Middleburg. Until she was twenty he had been a local fixture, like miles of four-rail fencing and Sundowner horse trailers.

Then one day, when her whole world lay in pieces at her feet, she had finally taken a good look at Lombard Warwick, sought-after bachelor, son of Brady Warwick and Grace Lombard, heir to Millcreek Farm, graduate of Yale law school, owner of champion hunters in a region filled with exquisite Thoroughbreds.

She thought now that Bard had been at his peak that year. He’d been thirty-one and appallingly handsome. His dark hair hadn’t yet been touched by gray; his green eyes had been clear and untroubled. He had a long, elegant jaw shadowed by a jet-black beard, and hatchet-sharp cheekbones that defined a face as confident as it was aristocratic. He had a way of looking at a female that had taught more women about their sexuality than Mama’s muddled lectures or high school health class.

She hadn’t fallen in love with him, but she had been drawn to his strength and self-assurance, something nearly as powerful that had, in the end, changed her life.

Today Bard had much of the same physical appeal. He was heavier, following in the footsteps of his father, who had seriously taxed the county’s sturdiest quarter horses. So far the extra pounds merely made Bard more a man to be reckoned with. He was tall and big-boned, and he carried himself with military bearing. He was rarely challenged and even more rarely beaten in any endeavor.

The other changes were subtler. The eyes were still untroubled, but troubling. The silver at his temples was attractive, but misleading. Age hadn’t brought with it serenity. He was intelligent, but not necessarily insightful, able to bide his time but never, never patient.

Now was no exception. “Julia, I’m waiting to hear why Maisy was here. This new push to go home…that wouldn’t happen to have come from her, would it?”

“Is it suddenly necessary to report all conversations with my mother?”

“I don’t want her upsetting you.”

His voice had risen a tone. She could visualize him tugging at an earlobe, the one visible vice he allowed himself when he was angry.

“Bard, you’re upsetting me.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re trying to run my life.”

“Dr. Jeffers thinks she’ll set back your recovery. This is Maisy we’re talking about. I’m surprised she was able to find her way here, that she didn’t end up on some side road sorting autumn leaves by size and color.”

She was torn between outrage and a vision of Maisy doing exactly that. “She loves me. And she’s worried.”

His voice softened. “We’re all worried, sugar. And that’s why I want you well as soon as possible.”

“I don’t want to stay here. I can see a therapist privately. We can hire someone to help me. It would be enormously less expensive than keeping me here.”

“But not as beneficial.”

She knew it was time to remove the kid gloves. She straightened a little, carefully turning her head until she was certain she was looking at him. “You don’t want me at home because you’re embarrassed. You don’t want anyone to know that a wife of yours has gone off the deep end and manufactured her own personal handicap.”

“You’re completely forgetting about Callie. Do you think it’s good for her to see her mother like this? She’s upset enough as it is. She doesn’t need a daily dose of you walking into walls and tripping over doorways.”

Her frustration blazed into full-blown anger. “What’s the sudden concern for Callie, Bard? Most of the time you don’t think twice about her.”

“I’ll assume that’s coming directly from your mother, too.”

“It’s coming directly from me.”

“I don’t fawn over Callie. That certainly doesn’t mean I don’t care about her.”

“I said you don’t think twice about her. Callie is my job. I make the decisions. I give the attention.”

“And because it’s been your job, Callie expects you to be well and able to take care of her.”

“She needs me with her, whether I can see or not. Children imagine the worst if the grown-ups in their lives aren’t honest.”

“I’ve reassured her.”

“Are you spending time with her? Have you taken her out to eat? Taken her to a movie? Helped with her homework?”

“I have a job. I’m doing what I can.”

Bard’s job had never been a source of tension before, because Julia had always been home to fill in the gaps. He was a real estate attorney for Virginia Vistas, one of the area’s largest development firms. When he wasn’t closing and negotiating deals, he worked with the developers both as an attorney and a private investor. He had a gift for knowing when to buy and sell God’s green earth that made the substantial holdings he’d inherited from his wealthy parents a mere line or two in his financial portfolio.

“Are you spending any time with her?” she asked. “She loves to ride with you. Have you taken her riding?”

“The last time she rode with one of her parents wasn’t exactly a roaring success.”

“More reason. She needs to see that my accident was a fluke.”

“I’m doing what I can.”

“She needs more.”

“Then you’ll need to get better quickly, won’t you? Callie’s welfare should be an incentive.”

“You can be a bastard, can’t you?”

He was silent. Without visual cues, she could only imagine the expression on his face. But the possible range wasn’t pretty.

“I’ll take her riding this weekend,” he said at last.

It was a concession, but not much of one, since today was only Monday. “Bard, nothing that’s happened to me is under my conscious control. And it may not go away quickly. If it doesn’t, I have no intention of staying at Gandy Willson just because you want me out of sight.”

“I’d like you to stop saying that. You need to stay here to get well.”

“You can catch Callie before she goes to bed. Please go home and read her a story for me.”

He was silent a moment. “All right. But I’ll let her read to me. She needs practice.”

It was an old argument. Callie had a form of dyslexia that made reading a struggle. Bard believed if the little girl just read out loud enough, her disabilities would disappear. No matter how much she hated it or how much it upset her.

“Will you read to her instead, please?” Julia asked. “She can practice reading when everything else is back to normal.”

“You want me to spend time with her, but you want to tell me exactly how to spend it.”

“If you spent more time with her, I wouldn’t have to tell you.”

When he spoke, he was standing directly in front of her. She hadn’t even heard him move. “If it will make you feel better, I’ll read to her. But will you stop fighting everything and everyone and concentrate on seeing again?”

She didn’t repeat that all the concentration in the world wasn’t going to bring back her eyesight. She recognized a compromise when she heard one. “I’ll do whatever it takes,” she promised.

“That’s my girl.” He bent and kissed her, not on the cheek but full on the lips.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“That would be wonderful.” His voice was husky. “I hope you will see me tomorrow.”

“Me, too.”

“I’m flying down to Richmond early in the morning, and I won’t be by until after dinner. Sleep well.”

That was a promise she couldn’t make. “You, too.”

He closed the door gently enough, but moments later it still resounded. She was left with an assortment of feelings.

She had never dealt well with her own emotions. Only rarely had she understood what fed the creative well inside her or sealed it completely. She had found it best not to tamper. Painting or drawing, even sculpting—something she’d only done infrequently—had become her outlet. Perhaps she didn’t understand anything better when she’d finished, but she felt better. And that was good enough.

Now a desire to sketch seized her with a force that almost took away her breath. She got to her feet and felt her way around the room until she came to the desk. She slid her fingers underneath, feeling for a drawer. She was rewarded with what felt like a wooden knob, and when she grasped it, she felt the drawer sliding toward her. When it was open, she poked her fingers inside and felt for paper or a pen, but the only thing residing there was what felt like a slender telephone book, despite the fact that her room had no telephone.

To prevent theft, Bard had taken her purse. At the time she hadn’t thought that he was also taking pens and memo pad, her only means of drawing. Why would she have? How odd to think that a blind woman would want to draw something she couldn’t see.

Yet she did. With such an intensity, such a hunger, that she felt, for a moment, that she might starve if she couldn’t.

Before she could think what to do, Karen knocked and entered. “I saw your husband leave. Will you need help getting ready for bed, Mrs. Warwick?”

She wanted to weep with relief. “Karen, this probably sounds ridiculous. But I’m an artist, and even though I can’t see, I need to draw. I don’t need anything fancy. Just a notepad, if you have one. A pencil or two, even a pen. Would that be too much trouble?”

Karen didn’t answer for a moment, just long enough to let Julia know she wasn’t thinking about where she might find supplies.

“Mrs. Warwick, the thing is, Dr. Jeffers has forbidden it. He ordered the nursing staff not to provide you with art supplies.”

Julia still didn’t understand. “What possible reason could he have for that? Is he afraid I’ll slit my throat with a pencil?”

“I think…I think he believes it’s an escape from reality. That he wants you to face your problems directly.”

Julia drew a startled breath.

Karen hurried on. “Do you want me to call him at home? I could tell him what you’ve asked and see if I can get permission. He might want to come and talk to you about it himself.”

Julia slashed her hand through the air to cut her off. She knew what Dr. Jeffers would say. He was locked firmly in the psychiatric past, when psychoanalysis was the only therapy worth mentioning.

“I’m so sorry,” Karen said. “I don’t agree with him. But if I helped you…”

“I’ll get myself ready for bed.”

“I really am sorry.”

Julia didn’t trust herself to answer.

“I’ll just scatter the wood. The fire’s almost out anyway.”

Julia stood stiffly and waited until Karen closed the door. Anger was now a boiling cauldron inside her. Rarely had she felt so unfairly treated. At this, the most frightening moment of her life, she was locked away among strangers she couldn’t see, the prisoner of outdated therapies and psychiatric whims.

She had never been a rebel. In all areas of her life, her choices were usually fueled by concern for others. Even as an artist, she had never rocked the boat. She painted traditional portraits and landscapes. At William and Mary she had been the despair of art professors who had praised her talent and urged her to break free of convention.

She wanted to break free now. She had followed all the rules, and look what had happened to her. Her own body had betrayed her.

She took a deep breath to calm herself, but it was like a gust of wind fueling glowing embers. From the other side of the room she heard a faint pop from the fireplace. She wondered what was left of the fire Karen had made. The nurse had scattered the logs. Nothing more than kindling, she’d called them. There might not be anything now except coals.

Or there might be a stick or two, partially burned and black as charcoal. She abandoned the idea immediately, but it formed again, a foolish, dangerous rebellion that could burn down the clinic. At the very least she would never have another fire in her room, no matter how cold the weather.

She made her way to the fireplace and placed her palms against the opening. It was glass, as she’d expected from the noises Karen had made opening and closing it. She found the handles to pull it apart and was rewarded with a screech as the panels parted. She knelt on the hearth and held her palms against the opening. The heat was minimal. The fire must have been small, just as Karen had said.

She knew she might get singed, but she didn’t care. She lowered her hands and felt along the seam between the tile hearth and brick lining. At first she was unsuccessful, but as she inched forward, she felt a piece of wood that was cool to the touch. She investigated it carefully with her fingertips. It seemed to be about two inches in diameter, more kindling than log. She gripped it in her right hand and inched her left along its length. It grew hotter as she progressed, until she drew scorched fingertips back in alarm.

She guessed that the tip was still glowing. She lifted the stick higher and gently ground the tip against the floor of the fireplace for a moment. Then she inched her hand along its length again. She repeated the ritual several times until she was finally satisfied. She lifted it higher and waved it in front of her face. The kindling was barely smoking now, not actively alight, and most likely well on its way to becoming ash.

What did it matter if she was imagining what this makeshift charcoal pencil could do? She couldn’t see the result. It was the motion that mattered, the translation of the visions in her mind.

She stood and realized she was trembling with excitement. How much of it was the thrill of the mutineer and how much the thrill of the artist? She didn’t know or care. She was about to transform an unthinkable situation.

She chose the widest stretch of wall, one without pictures or shelves to block her movements. She stood an arm’s length away and wondered what color the wall was painted. She wished that she had asked Karen or Bard. She imagined it as white and realized it didn’t matter, since she would never see what she was about to draw, except in her own mind.

And she doubted that Dr. Jeffers would hold showings.

She spoke out loud. “I’m just glad it’s not wallpaper.”

She took another deep breath, and the glowing embers of her imagination burst into flame.