Part 11 (1/2)

”An eternity,” she said. ”In the . . . the outside world it's different. There I can sit in front of the canvas for as long as I like. Because I know that in an hour, a day, even a week, I'll be able to begin. But here I don't know how long I've thought about it. It's like a plant,” she tried to explain. ”It needs time to grow. How can anything grow without time?” Her voice was pleading, desperate.

”There's still time,” McNeely said. ”We're just not as aware of it. The stars are always there, even when the sun's s.h.i.+ning.”

”I never realized before how much I always depended on time,” she went on, ignoring his remark. ”Even though I've never been a slave of the clock-never had to be-I just always counted on day following night following day again. I could tell the time I needed to by the way shadows lengthened through the windows. And now ...” She gestured about her. ”Everything's in shadow. And they never shorten, never lengthen. Everything's always the same.”

Her shoulders slumped. ”Please, forgive me. I think I'm very drunk.”

McNeely indicated a small pile of drawing paper. ”Are these your sketches?” She nodded dully. ”May I?” Receiving no response, he picked them up and carefully thumbed through them. ”These are good,” he said. ”Excellent. Why've you put off oils?”

”Nothing comes. I did all the sketches a short time after we arrived here. They came easily enough. But now . . .” She shrugged. ”It's like something's holding me back.”

”Nothing's holding you back but you,” said McNeely. ”And often that's enough.” He looked around the room, hoping to find a topic of interest that would change the subject. He found it in what he took to be a Maxfield Parrish print hanging in one of the darker corners. ”Now, there,” he said, lightening his tone, ”is a Parrish I've never seen before. G.o.d, I love his work, especially the thirties landscapes. Do you like him?”

She looked up, her eyes slightly glazed. ”Yes, I do. The earlier work.”

McNeely walked into the far corner to see the picture more closely. As he examined it, he frowned. ”Have you looked at this?” he said. ”Really looked at it?”

”Just from a few feet,” she answered. ”Why?”

He reached out, gingerly took it from the wall, and carried it over to her. ”At first I thought it was a print,” he said, ”because it was gla.s.sed. But look. It's an original oil.”

He was delighted at her response. It was the most animated she'd been for a long time. ”My G.o.d, you're right-look at it, it is!”

”They probably had it behind gla.s.s because it was up here. Prey to bouncing b.a.l.l.s and sticky fingers and all, McNeely conjectured.

”All these years,” said Gabrielle, ”stored away where no one can see it.”

Together they gazed at it for a long time. It depicted a young boy by the mouth of a cave, from which came thin tendrils of fog shaped like wizened hands. The boy's face bore a look of expectation mixed with fear, as if he had known that the fog would be there, but was uncertain of how to deal with it.

”What is it from?” Gabrielle finally asked.

”I'm not sure. The boy's dressed like an Arab, so it could be Ali Baba, but I don't recall those ghostly hands in the cave.”

”It's like Pandora's Box,” she said dreamily, ”as if he's opened the door and let out all the evils into the world.”

”If that's the case, he doesn't look too upset about it.”

”And the colors . . . aren't the colors beautiful. . . .”

Chapter Seven.

Seth c.u.mmings laughed. It was a deep laugh that started low in his gut and bubbled up out of him, filling the small gym with its jubilance. He'd been there for hours-he was sure it had been that long-and now, after exercising all that time with no pauses for rest, he lay on the weight bench with only a light patina of sweat coating his frame.

Every plate in the gym was on the bar, five hundred pounds of iron. And Seth c.u.mmings could still laugh as he pressed it at arm's length, holding it over his chest as easily as if it were empty.

Instead of putting it in the rest, he sat up, muscles still tensed, and brought it down to clean position. Then he set it on the floor and touched the muscles of his arms and chest. They felt like steel. There was no give at all when he pressed them. His skin seemed like no more than a thick coat of paint on a tank.

The Master was giving him his strength.

Gabrielle Neville was almost sober. She sat at the kitchen table sipping scalding coffee, breathing heavily, watching George McNeely watching her.

”I never drink that much,” she said apologetically.

McNeely smiled, pouring himself another cup. ”In that case, your tolerance is doubly remarkable. Half the bottle would have put most longsh.o.r.emen flat on their backs.”

”I behaved like an a.s.s.”

”Some good came out of it. We found a hidden Parrish, eh?”

She nodded, smiling. ”It's been hiding too long. I think we'll donate it to the Brandywine Museum.” Her face grew solemn as she added, ”If David agrees.” She looked up at McNeely suddenly. ”George,” she said, if I wanted out of here-or wanted to get David out before he ... before something terrible happens, what would you do?”

McNeely took a slow sip of coffee. ”Do you mean would I put my key in the lock?” he asked, his hand going involuntarily to his throat, where the cool metal hung.

”Yes. And lose the money.” There was life in her eyes again. The dulling liquor had almost vanished.

”I don't know. If I was convinced there was a good reason to, I suppose I would.”

”And lose the money?” she repeated insistently.

”I didn't come here for the money,” McNeely said calmly. ”It would be nice, but I don't need it.”

”Why did you come?”

He laughed self-disparagingly. ”I suppose the same reason your husband did. Curiosity at first, then to see if there was really anything here. If there was-” He stopped.

”If there was what?”

He'd been about to say, ”If there was a battle to fight,” but he realized how absurd, how little-boy-looking-for-fun it would seem to Gabrielle Neville. So instead, he said, ”If there were really ghosts.”

”Would you like there to be?”

He thought for a moment before answering. ”I think so. I think we'd all like to believe there's something after death. Thomas Hardy said he'd give ten years of his life to see an actual ghost. It would be a small price to pay for a guarantee of immortality.” He shook his head and a strange look came into his eyes. ”But then sometimes I think that this life should be enough.”

”You said before,” said Gabrielle, ”that you haven't seen anything here so far. But what do you believe?”

McNeely stared into his coffee cup as into a black pool, waiting to see what rose from its depths. ”I think ... I do believe that something's here. I wouldn't have stayed otherwise. I don't pretend to know what it is. It may be only random energy of some sort, but I believe there is something. ”

Gabrielle noticed how far away his eyes seemed.

”It's like when I was alone in the jungle,” he went on. ”Even on the days when the wind is still, when the birds are all hushed or dead or sleeping, there's still the feeling that something is there, and you turn to see what that movement was in the corner of your eye, and there's nothing. But you know that if you'd been just a little faster, just whipped your head around a flash sooner, you'd have seen what was near you.” He paused. ”It's like that here, only it's not in the corners of your eyes you sense it, but in the corners of your mind.

”And you think. And you concentrate. But whatever it was that stole into your thoughts is gone, and it's just the shadow you remember, and you're not even sure if you remember that.”

He sighed sadly. It was such an empty, despairing sound that she wanted to hold him. ”I know what you mean,” she said. ”I felt like that when I talked so horribly to David. There was something else in my mind beside me. Maybe the thoughts were mine, the ones that we all store deep down away, the thoughts that we couldn't conceive of having if we heard them aloud. But I know it wasn't me that turned them into words. It couldn't have been. There was something else inside me.” Her mouth twisted with disgust. ”It was like being violated-worse than rape. But I don't know what it was. I don't have the haziest idea. Like you said, just a shadow. And I can't even remember its shape.” She looked at McNeely, and he could see the strident lines of near panic marring her features. ”What can you do? How can you fight something you can't see or hear?”