Chapter Seven
Why skyward? Why up? Why are humans constantly striving for taller, loftier, higher? Do they feel they can reach heaven by elevator?
One would think having a direct connection with Spirit would give me all the answers on how to reach heaven.
Instead, my connection leaves me with doubt and skepticism on what to expect in the afterlife.
If all it is are garbled attempts to reach those still living, I want no part of that.
I don’t even want to connect with the living now.
At least, this is what I tell myself.
Spirit wraps me in the sensation of a hug as I think this. It is comforting, but this false embrace makes me feel more alone than ever.
I realize—almost too late—that I am eerily close to Washington Square Park. To the Asch Building. My soul singes at its edges, thinking of that place. Nope. I walk six blocks out of my way to avoid the searing pain that block brings forth.
At last, the Woolworth spire comes into view. The setting sun casts creeping shadows across the building, the raw steel flexing, climbing the orange and pink clouds.
I love New York. New York doesn’t always love me. It looks good and big and prosperous, but the prosperity doesn’t always trickle my way.
“Snuff!” I call down yet another alley. I’ve been looking for the mangy fleabag for close to an hour.
How pathetic, that the only thing keeping me from hightailing it to relative safety on the other side of the city is dragging along my petulant stray cat.
I’m lucky that rat-faced pastor and his urchins haven’t heard my calls and followed me here with their fists and their fury.
Their condemnations and their damnations.
But I’m not about to leave this cat behind.
I leave too many things behind. That cat is my only friend. My only family. “Snuff!”
That stray don’t know his name!
You tink dat smelly cat will come to you without food, anyhows?
“Mew!”
I tilt my head.
“Mew!”
A tail, flipping around a corner.
I give chase.
“Snuff!”
The bastard cat dashes ahead, under flower and fish stands, through the shadows and slush beneath the elevated train, past a dinging cable car, behind a laundry cart.
“Snuff!”
That sneak. All I catch is a small, teasing mew, a twitch of sarcastic whisker when I close in.
I follow and twist and cuss until I realize it’s dark and cold and I’m in a part of the city I don’t recognize. A bend of lantern light passes and dies. I shiver.
I never know what causes my shivers. Cold or evil? Could be either.
“Snuff?”
A tin can clatters and I jump. Across the way, a fellow huddles over a barrel fire. He is surrounded by paintings propped against cold brick, standing in gutters. Snuff is there, winding around his feet, purring. The two-timing scoundrel cheat.
I cross the street and pick up Snuff, who scowls at me for ruining his fun game of chase. “I believe you have met my cat, the dirtbag.”
The fire tosses heavy shadows up onto this fellow, carving his face into a skull. The fellow isn’t really a fellow—it’s a boy, maybe thirteen years old. He’s skinny and dirty with long hair and tattered clothes and oh! His eyes.
His deep brown eyes can see things mine can’t.
I know this because my ears can hear things his can’t.
Look at the paintings.
In the dim, leaping light of shadow and fire, I see it.
Me. In a painting.
With Pax.
Me, Pax, and this young boy.
My breath steals away. There is no mistaking my wild brown curls, my dimpled chin, my blue eyes. Pax’s silver-green eyes, iridescent like a sleek fish. Even here, in this painting, I am pulled to his spirit. Magnetized. It is a very unwelcome sensation.
There are others in the painting, too. Some dressed elegantly, some dressed as entertainers.
The setting is a party in a penthouse, and art and statues crowd the background.
It’s a soiree. Nice clothes, shiny gems, lots of people and food, a string quartet in the corner.
And visible out of the window in this painting: the skeleton fingers of the Woolworth Building.
Based on that, I know the timeframe of this painting is the near future, or thereabouts.
Without a doubt, the three people in the foreground are me, Pax Princip, and this dark-eyed boy. Pax is a painter. Did he create this?
I narrow my gaze on the boy. “Did you paint this? Or did someone else?”
He pauses, then points to himself. His reluctance to take ownership makes me think he’s telling the truth.
I swallow. “Do you… see this?”
He pauses and reaches toward me. He pets Snuff, still snuggled in my arms. He nods.
“Does this occur a lot? Do you see things and paint them? Before they…?”
Happen.
Nods.
I study the painting closer. The signature in the corner reads Nirav.
I tap the canvas. It is taut and springy under my fingertip. “Your name—Nirav?”
He nods.
“How does it work for you, Nirav? Your… gifts?”
Nirav lowers his eyes. I understand this; it is his grain of rice. But then he sets his jaw and points to the cat.
“Snuff? The… cat tells you?”
He shrugs, then shakes his head no. What does that mean?
There are crumpled tubes of paint and makeshift easels and tins of chalky water all around us.
Other paintings: a sinking ship, a burning building.
The back of my neck prickles. Dark knowledge, this one has.
Such detailed visions of despair and grief.
A small sleeping pallet rests in a nearby crook of stairs. “Do you have family, Nirav?”
Nirav doesn’t answer this question. He crams his fists farther into the pockets of his ratty jacket.
I glance around at each canvas, but this is the only one that features my face. Mine and Pax’s, who I met just days ago.
“Nirav, will you come with me?”
Nods.