CHAPTER ELEVEN
I re-turned to the flat a lit-tle af-ter mid-night.
Af-ter wit-ness-ing how un-steady my foot-ing was on the climb back through the stage trap-door, Or-lagh chap-er-oned me to the front door of Aber-nathy. Cam-pus was mostly quiet but for the oc-ca-sional slam-ming door or pop of laugh-ter. There was the scent of woodsmoke and some-thing earthy on the breeze. Some-where nearby, a vi-o-lin played.
“How do you feel?” asked Or-lagh, a car-ing hand on the back of my el-bow. The ma-ter-nal touch only made me crave more—a hug, a hair stroke, a sooth-ing word in my ear. I hated how des-per-ate and young the crav-ings felt.
“Cold,” I an-swered hon-es-tly. I was frozen to the bone, and now that the adren-a-line of the sit-u-a-tion had worn off, the pain in my rib had in-ten-si-fied.
We stopped out-side Aber-nathy, the white-gold light of the en-trance hall spilling out of the glass-fronted dou-ble doors and onto the pave-ment. It il-lu-mi-nated ev-ery curve of Or-lagh’s body, made her auburn hair shine like bur-nished bronze, and even in my dazed and dis-ori-ented state I was mes-mer-ized by her.
“I mean in your-self,” she said. “Do you feel any dif-fer-ent?”
“I do. But I can’t re-ally ar-tic-u-late it.”
It was as though my body had laid down roots some-where other than where I stood. A gnaw-ing tug to-ward the lake, and the gallery that lay be-neath.
There had been no more pain dur-ing the paint-ing ses-sion it-self, other than the vague dis-com-fort of sit-ting on the same chaise longue for hours on end. I had been sur-prised how lit-tle time it took for the Masked Painter to bring me to life on the can-vas—part of me had been ex-pect-ing mul-ti-ple ses-sions, or to be there un-til the small hours of Mon-day morn-ing. But the artist’s hand had glided over the paint-ing with such ur-gency that my form had taken shape al-most im-me-di-ately, and the rest of the night was spent fill-ing in my ev-ery de-tail with a brush the size of an eye-lash.
The whole thing made me un-easy. I’d re-searched be-fore-hand how long an oil por-trait should take, and the in-ter-net had told me dozens and dozens of hours were com-mon. And yet when the Masked Painter had showed me the fi-nal por-trait … it was as though he’d spent ev-ery wak-ing mo-ment of his life so far on that one piece. It was, sim-ply put, ex-quis-ite. And it writhed with that same ten-sion as my mother’s por-trait, as though my painted form were some-how sen-tient. To have breathed such life into a can-vas in a mat-ter of hours …
What-ever power the Masked Painter pos-sessed was un-godly.
“I just hope you find the peace you de-serve,” said Or-lagh. She gave my el-bow a fi-nal squeeze.
“Thank you.” I dimly reg-is-tered that she was still wear-ing only the pur-ple gown, and the night air was bit-ten with au-tumn chill. “Aren’t you cold?”
“Heav-ens, no.” She laughed air-ily. “I was warm on the night I had my por-trait painted.”
The state-ment jarred in-side me, a feel-ing of a missed step, a jolt of semi-re-al-iza-tion, but I was too sapped to ex-am-ine it more closely. To look at the words head-on, and truly ab-sorb their mean-ing.
Or maybe I was just afraid to.
“Get some rest,” Or-lagh said. “You have classes bright and early. Bonne nuit, ma chérie.”
The atrium in-side Aber-nathy felt warm on my skin, but the sen-sa-tion didn’t re-ally pen-e-trate any fur-ther. I’d have a long, hot shower when I got to my room, I rea-soned. Or would I eat first? I would prob-a-bly eat first. My stom-ach gnawed at me, and I thought long-in-gly of the pack of cook-ies in Catalina’s cup-board. I was sure she wouldn’t mind me de-vour-ing them if I re-placed them to-mor-row.
The lift to the third floor was out of or-der, but the prom-ise of sugar—the rush of ela-tion at fi-nally be-ing able to en-joy it guilt-free—pro-pelled me up the stairs.
I had just reached the first mez-za-nine stair-well when I heard the en-trance doors open and close be-low me, then the sound of hushed fe-male voices and soft foot-steps floated up to where I stood ob-scured from view.
“So why did you get in-volved with Dr-ever?” said the first.
Maisie. Which would mean the other was …
“I wasn’t in-volved with him,” hissed Davina. “At least not in the way you think. There was a prob-lem with my stu-dent loan, and I couldn’t af-ford the rent on stu-dent ac-com-mo-da-tion un-til next month. Dr-ever found me sleep-ing in my car dur-ing the first week and said I could crash on his couch. He lives in town.”
My stom-ach dropped. She was in-no-cent?
“So there was noth-ing ro-man-tic be-tween you two?” asked Maisie in an ex-cited chat-ter. I could prac-ti-cally hear her bounc-ing on her heels.
“Nope. Al-though I did try it on with him af-ter a few nights.”
“Why?”
“I got bored, okay? I could tell he wasn’t in-ter-ested, and I like a chal-lenge.”
A beat. “Did any-thing hap-pen?”
“Nah.” An in-cred-u-lous scoff. “He turned me away. Then the next day—the one your bitch room-mate cap-tured on cam-era—he said he was go-ing to talk to the ac-com-mo-da-tion of-fice and ex-plain my sit-u-a-tion. Make sure I got a roof over my head at least. So I kissed him on the cheek, partly in grat-i-tude, and partly be-cause … yeah. I like the chal-lenge.”
“So why did Dr-ever give in to the black-mail?”
“Be-cause he hardly looked in-no-cent, did he? I don’t know if there are cam-eras on his street, but if there was an in-ves-ti-ga-tion they’d surely show me com-ing and go-ing from his flat. Cou-pled with the cheek-kiss photo, there’s no way any-one would be-lieve we weren’t fuck-ing.”
“Shit,” Maisie stage-whis-pered. “Don’t you feel bad for Dr-ever?”
I could prac-ti-cally hear the glare Davina was un-doubt-edly lev-el-ling at Maisie. “Do I feel sorry for an old priv-i-leged white dude who’s never wanted for any-thing a day in his life?”
This seemed like an ab-surd over-sim-pli-fi-ca-tion of priv-i-lege to me, but Davina seemed to wear her I-sleep-in-my-car sit-u-a-tion like a coat of ar-mor. Some-thing de-signed to keep scru-tiny bounc-ing off her, to shield her when she was in the wrong. In any case, the guilt waned ever so slightly. Dr-ever might be clean-handed, but Davina was cer-tainly not be-yond re-proach. She had been ac-tively try-ing to se-duce him, even though he’d said no. She was a preda-tor.
Maisie’s voice hitched up an oc-tave. “Oh no, I didn’t mean—”
“What-ever.” Davina made a deroga-tory snort noise.
“Still, what a mess. No won-der you hate Penny.”
Af-ter a few beats, Davina said. “Don’t worry. She’ll get what’s com-ing to her.”
“Does Dr-ever know it was her?”
“Not yet. I’m wait-ing for the right mo-ment to tell him. You have to play your cards at the right time, you know? Same with Penny’s re-venge. It’s all very well hav-ing pocket aces, but they be-come a lot more pow-er-ful if a third ap-pears in the river.”
“You play poker?”
“Nah, I just know a lot of things about a lot of things. Any-way, I have to go. I’m meet-ing some-one.”
“This late? Is it Dr-ever?”
The near-plead-ing in Maisie’s tone made me squirm. How could her pride al-low her to beg for gos-sip scraps like that?
She had the air of some-one who’d some-how be-friended the pop-u-lar girl and would do any-thing to keep their fa-vor. She was worse than a gos-sip, I re-al-ized. She was a so-cial climber. I just didn’t un-der-stand what her ul-ti-mate aim was. Was she loyal to Davina now? Or was she just col-lect-ing ru-mors and se-crets to use as cur-rency?
“Bye, Maisie.” Davina’s tone was pure dis-missal.
I slipped the shoes off my feet and hur-ried up the re-main-ing steps as silently as I could, heart pound-ing in my chest.
My nerves churned as I ran over their con-ver-sa-tion in my head.
What would hap-pen when Dr-ever found out I’d been the one to black-mail him? Would he drop me from the pro-duc-tion too? Or would he just keep a hate-ful dis-tance?
I slipped into the flat as silently as I could. The place was quiet—Catalina’s bed-room door was shut, so she was likely asleep, while Fraser was out on yet an-other pub crawl. The kitchen was dark but for a sin-gle pool of light over the stove.
Even the knowl-edge that Maisie was about to en-ter the flat be-hind me wasn’t enough to curb the over-whelm-ing hunger that pro-pelled me to the cup-board over the ket-tle.
Catalina had been to the shop that day, and there were now sev-eral pack-ets of dif-fer-ent kinds of cook-ies and bis-cuits, as well as tins of soup and pack-ets of crack-ers, dried noo-dle nests and cans of chick-peas, boxes of gra-nola and jars of peanut but-ter, a bag of honey-roasted cashews and a fully stocked wooden rack of herbs and spices en-graved with the word coci-nar. I tore into the first packet of cus-tard creams like a ra-bid thing, shov-ing them into my mouth whole and chew-ing a min-i-mal amount be-fore swal-low-ing and re-peat-ing.
The front door opened and closed, fol-lowed by Maisie’s bed-room door, which was near-est the kitchen. The sounds barely reg-is-tered.
I made it through a whole packet of bis-cuits, but it still hadn’t touched the edges of my rav-en-ous hunger. It took twenty min-utes to feel full, I vaguely re-called from a mag-a-zine ar-ti-cle on in-ter-mit-tent fast-ing. So I kept eat-ing.
Tug-ging open the ring-pull, I held up a can of mine-strone soup and drank it cold. I tore into the packet of crack-ers and wolfed them down too, as well as sev-eral hand-fuls of the cashews, crunch-ing through them with feral de-ter-mi-na-tion. I dimly reg-is-tered a sense of guilt at de-vour-ing so much food that wasn’t mine, but I’d set my alarm early and re-place ev-ery-thing to-mor-row morn-ing be-fore Catalina woke up. The on-cam-pus shop didn’t open un-til eight, but I could drive to the twenty-four hour su-per-store on the out-skirts.
I would dou-ble up on ev-ery-thing, and keep it for my-self. I would roll up and down the aisles with reck-less aban-don, scoop-ing things into my trol-ley that I’d only dreamed of eat-ing for years. I felt giddy at the thought. A soar-ing feel-ing in my chest.
As I ate, though, a sense of shame seemed to study me from the cor-ner of the room. A pair of sear-ing eyes watch-ing from the shad-ows. And I won-dered, then, what my mother would think if she could see me now. Would she be dis-gusted at my glut-tony? Would she be an-noyed that I’d un-cov-ered her se-cret—and snatched the same gift for my-self? Would she be jeal-ous, even, that I had my whole ca-reer, my whole life ahead of me?
Once I’d fin-ished ev-ery-thing in the cup-board, I turned to the kitchen sink and drank straight from the tap, rivulets of cold wa-ter slick-ing down my chin and onto my black silk dress. Then I hauled my-self up onto a barstool, breath-less, and waited for the food to hit my stom-ach. I waited to feel full for the first time since I was four-teen.
Twenty min-utes, thirty, forty. Tired-ness tugged at my eyes, but still the fist of hunger re-mained just be-low my ribs. I shiv-ered un-con-trol-lably, cold still gnaw-ing at my bones. The wound in my side stung afresh.
With an-other dis-turbed fit of ag-i-ta-tion, I yanked open Fraser’s cup-board, think-ing maybe I just needed more food, but found only a sin-gle tin of beans and a torn packet of ra-men. Still sit-ting in the al-most-dark, I crunched through the ra-men, then ate the beans cold, with a tea-spoon, feel-ing en-tirely un-hinged. Un-teth-ered from the world in some fun-da-men-tal way.
It took an hour for the dread to fi-nally sink in. For me to piece to-gether ev-ery-thing that had been right in front of me, but which des-per-a-tion had con-vinced me to ig-nore:
Aren’t you cold?
Heav-ens, no. I was warm on the night I had my por-trait painted.
Hor-ri-ble un-der-stand-ing crept up on me like a dark ink stain.
Two nights ago in Or-lagh’s of-fice:
The sub-jects, in the real world, are pre-served ex-actly as they were the day the paint-ing was com-pleted.
Grip-ping the edge of the counter, I fought the urge to vomit.
She had told me. She had told me. I just hadn’t lis-tened. I had heard only what I wanted to hear.
Had I just doomed my-self to a life-time of dizzy-ing hunger?
Of pain in my ribs and cold in my bones?