Chapter 20 Memory Fishing
MEMORY FISHING
ALICE
My brush swipes over the amber-white highlights I’ve mixed on my palette. My wrist flicks, dotting the points in Harley’s hair that glint under porchlight. It’s a halo that casts his frame in an angelic glow.
I step back a few paces, as if I were someone staring at the canvas on a wall at the gallery. My head tilts. My brows pinch and lips purse.
It’s nearly there.
My gaze trails down my painted figure; contrasted to his in cool shadows, my skirt drapes off my frame and is swallowed by darkness in the corner. It’s my favorite part of the piece. It makes me ask why.
Are those shadows representing ghosts that drag me down? Or is the white-haired angel lifting me up? Can it be both at the same time—being torn in two?
That’s the core of it. The midnight silken guilt. The warm amber hope. The ghosts of the past, always dancing in step with me; the visions of a future, loosely wrapped in the palm of my hand.
His palm, my hand.
Ryan’s ghost, Harley’s breath.
Contrasts in spades, pulling me apart.
It’s nearly there.
Every time I step back from the piece, my eyes stray back to Harley’s face. The way he looks at me. It’s distracting.
I drop my brush on my palette, dust my hand off on a spare rag, and then do something crazy. Well, not crazy crazy, but something my college professors who fell in love with my semi-realistic style would probably cringe at.
I smear Harley’s otherworldly face. My fingers play with the tacky paint; the pale tones spread out, a blur in the night scene. You can still see his features, but they’re hazy, as if in motion.
Snagging my paint rag, I step back again. The stained washcloth fibers scrape across my fingerprints and under my nails.
Now, when I look at the painting, my eyes go to the center first: my face.
I follow the line created by painting-me’s gaze, tilted away from Harley’s as if looking into his eyes was too much to bear.
It marks a diagonal across the canvas, along the vibrant blue of my skirt swishing between Harley’s legs.
I swoop along the hem to the bottom left, into the darkness—the shadows, the guilt cloying at my edges.
Up I’m lead, along the curve of my body, to his hand which grips my waist. I hook around, back through the center of the painting, now focused on Harley’s blurred visage.
I trail around his halo of light—the hope, the maybe, the what if—the curve near the top of the canvas—and then I slide down his other arm, where our palms connect.
So sweet. So gentle. So hesitant. And yet, the way our fingers lace together—my pinky hooking around his pointer—betrays a longing to fully weave together.
It’s a small detail; one I hope an attentive eye finds.
And then I’m back to me.
A perfect loop: my mind; my thoughts; my feelings. My averted gaze. My temptation. My avoidance. My inability to fully detach. My yearning.
Circular.
Yeah, this one is done.
I’ll touch up some of the details after the paint settles, but it’s good to go onto the drying rack for now.
The fwick of Harley turning a book page beyond my easel pulls me back to reality.
I toss my paint rag on the worktable and join him in his lounging. This part of my studio has become a nest of sorts, with two beanbag chairs and a pile of blankets and throw pillows amassed in the corner for him to use whenever he wants.
Harley reads. I paint. It’s nice, existing with someone.
No pressure to be anything. No need to fill the air with mindless words.
If we chat, we chat. If we don’t, we don’t.
I used to do the same thing with Ryan, except he was a video game fanatic, and instead of the steady sound of pages turning, I would listen to the sporadic clack of his custom keyboard.
Fuck. I’m going to have to paint this too, aren’t I?
The through line of this collection becomes clearer every day. I don’t want to say it out loud, though. Just in case I jinx it.
Harley snaps his book shut and curls towards me, cheek smushed against the bean bag chair. “You done for the day?”
“Yeah,” I say, then shift so I can stare at the ceiling. The mounted fan whirs, blades moving so fast they almost look motionless. I have a question for Harley, but I don’t know how he’s going to react. “Ori’s helping me train with Jessa.”
“I heard. I also heard you’re a little prodigy with a wooden sword.”
“Ugh, stop schmoozing me,” I scoff, but it has no bite to it.
I smack his chest, and his resulting smile is bright titanium white.
Pure and genuine, there’s no trickery in the split of his lips.
“Jessa has rose tinted glasses. It’s only been four days.
” I drag my hand to my belly and play with the ties of my shorts.
“Anyway, things are awkward. I can gather it has something to do with us as kids and me leaving Arcadia. But I don’t remember that, and you and Jessa have kept your mouths annoyingly shut about it. ”
Harley’s smile fades, and he almost looks… sad. “That’s because we don’t know the whole story.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Harley sits up, bracing his forearm on the mushy nest of pillows and blankets.
“Alice, when we say you left, what we mean is you disappeared. One moment, we were all running around in the woods, and the next you were gone. Ori followed you. He came back alone, promising you’d be back soon—that we should wait for you in the Meadow.
But the portal he said you guys found was closed by the time we made it there. We never saw you again.”
I suck my bottom lip into my mouth and tug at the skin with my teeth, considering my next words carefully as I curl towards him.
“I want to remember,” I say.
“Okay.”
“But I haven’t remembered anything else since I was last in Arcadia,” I continue.
“Okay…” Harley’s face twitches, and he adjusts his glasses with his middle finger.
“Do you think we could go? Visit, that is?” I ask. “Maybe it will help me remember. The magic or whatever.”
A tepid grimace crawls across his face. “I don’t know if that’s a great idea.”
My fingers find his hand, and I hook my pointer around his pinky, linking us together. “Please, Harley?”
He sucks in a stuttered breath, as if he’s shocked to hear his name whispered so sweetly.
“Okay,” he rasps.
“Okay?”
“Okay.” Harley nods like a bobble head. “Yeah, we can go. I have tomorrow afternoon off. There are a few places I can take you that should be safe.”
“That was far too easy. I only said please once. You didn’t even try to negotiate terms of a trade,” I say.
He shrugs one shoulder. “I’m not a hard person to convince.”
“Clearly.”
“Especially when it comes to pleasing the women in my life.”
A beat passes between us; it’s palpable, thick.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“You’re welcome, Alice,” he says without skipping a beat. He groans as he rolls out of the nest and hops up on two feet. “Now, can I get an early peek at the finished product?”
This time, I walk through the tree in the park as if it’s air.
I glare at the flowers in the Meadow, which are annoyingly quiet as Harley pulls me towards a path across the field.
“Why do they ignore me?” I ask, dragging my feet. “I’m not insane, right? They did talk before?”
“Yeah, they talk alright,” Harley grumbles. His hand clenches mine, and my stomach does a little flip. “But they probably won’t gossip around you anymore.”
“Because?”
“They know who you are now. And anyone not explicitly fighting against Maven and Enzo’s occupation won’t want to be associated with you.”
I shake my head. “I’m not even going to pretend to understand the politics that keep flowers from gossiping.”
Harley’s laugh is a colorful sound, as if canary yellow and tangerine swirled together. It has me picking up my pace to walk side-by-side with him rather than a step behind, and I keep my hand curled in his, allowing myself to lean into his arm.
“I don’t blame you,” he says, and I catch him smiling down at me from my periphery. “It does sound ridiculous when you put it like that.”
A sneak glance away from the root-speared path reveals Harley’s tinting cheeks. It’s all nervous wonder shining in his expression, as if he’s embarrassed by his delight or worried I’ll judge him.
As if I could be anything other than excited by his attention.
I huff it in brief moments between brushstrokes and inkblots. Before sips of coffee and while books are shelved. I hoard it like inspiration, covet it like summer sun.
Before I know it, we’re stopped at the dead end of a winding path. Tied around two pegs staked in the dirt is a rope ladder that extends up. And up. And up. It breaks through the canopy of trees and disappears into a thick layer of clouds.
“Alright, you first,” he says, letting go of my hand.
“What?” I squeak.
His lips quirk in a subdued smirk. He adjusts his backpack and grabs onto the ladder with one hand. Motioning with the other, he says, “Up you go.”
My gaze flicks from him to the ladder to the cloud it leads into. “Where does that go?”
“Somewhere awesome,” he says, cryptically. “You first, and then I’ll follow.”
“How high does it go? Is it some kind of treehouse?”
“Alice, you won’t believe it until you see it. Trust me. Climb the ladder.”
“I’m not afraid of heights or anything,” I say, slowly shuffling towards the frayed rope and wooden slats that look like they could easily snap under my weight. “But this doesn’t seem particularly safe. Considering there’s no end in sight.”
“You won’t fall if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No,” I drawl. “No, I wouldn’t be afraid of falling.”
“Uhuh.” Harley’s tongue pokes his cheek. “Well, you can’t fall, even if you wanted to. It’s spelled to make you have three points of contact once you’re past the first rung.”