Nora Robets - Key of Light

Flynn sprinted after him. And stepped into his office.

"If I'm going to do a decent job covering the foliage festival, then I need the front page of the Weekender section and a sidebar on the related events." Rhoda folded her arms, her posture combative. "Tim's interview with Clown Guy should go on page two."

There was a vague ringing in his ears, and a cup of coffee in his hand. Flynn stared at Rhoda's irritated face. He could smell the coffee, and the White Shoulders fragrance that Rhoda habitually wore. Behind him, his scanner squawked and Moe snored like a steam engine.

"This is bullshit."

"You've got no business using that kind of language with me," Rhoda snapped.

"No, this is bullshit. I'm not here. Neither are you."

"It's about time I got treated with a little respect around here. You're only running this paper because your mother wanted to keep you from making a fool of yourself in New York. Big-city reporter, my butt. You're a smalltime, small-town guy. Always have been, always will be."

"Kiss my ass," Flynn invited and threw the coffee, cup and all, in her face.

She let out one short scream, and he was back in the mist.

Shaken, he rounded once again toward the sound of Moe's barking.

Through that rolling mist, he saw Dana on her knees with her arms flung around Moe's neck.

"Oh, God, thank God. Flynn!" She sprang up, wrapped herself around him as she had the dog. "I can't find them. I can't find them. I was here, then I wasn't, now I am." Hysteria pitched and rocked in her voice. "We were together, right over there, then we weren't."

"Stop. Stop." He yanked her back, shook her. "Breathe."

"Sorry. I'm sorry." She shuddered, then scrubbed her hands over her face. "I was at work, but I wasn't. I couldn't have been. It was like being in a daze, going through the motions and not being able to pinpoint what was wrong. Then I heard Moe barking. I heard him barking, and I remembered. We were here. Then I was back, standing here in this—whatever the hell this is— and I couldn't find them."

She fought for calm. "The key. Malory said the key's here. I think she must be right."

"Go. Get outside. Wait for me in the car."

She breathed deep, shuddered again. "I'm freaked, but I'm not leaving them here. Or you either. Jesus, Flynn, your mouth's bleeding."

He swiped the back of his hand over it. "It's nothing. Okay, we stick together." He took her hand, linked fingers.

They heard it at the same time, the hammering of fists on wood. With Moe once again in the lead, they rushed through the room.

Zoe stood at the attic door, beating on it. "Over here!" She called out. "She's up there, I know she's up there, but I can't get through."

"Get back," Flynn ordered.

"You're all right?" Dana gripped her arm. "Are you hurt?"

"No. I was home, Dana. Puttering around the kitchen with the radio on. Wondering what to fix for dinner. My God, how long? How long were we separated? How long has she been up there alone?"

She was afraid. It helped to admit it, accept it. To know that she was more afraid than she'd ever been in her life, and to realize she was determined not to give in.

The warmth was already being eaten away as the light took on that harsh blue hue. Fingers of mist crawled along the exposed beams on the ceiling, down the unfinished walls, along the dusty floor.

Through it, she could see the pale white vapor of her own breath. Real, she reminded herself. That was real, a sign of life. Proof of her own humanity.

The attic was a long, wide room with two stingy windows at either end and the ceiling rising to a narrow pitch. But she recognized it. In her dream there had been skylights and generous windows. Her paintings had been stacked against walls done in soft cream. The floor had been clean of dust, and speckled with a cheerful rainbow of paint drops and splatters.

The air had carried a summer warmth and the scent of turpentine.

It was dank now, and cold. Rather than canvases, cardboard boxes were stacked against the walls. Old chairs and lamps and the debris of other lives were stored there. But she could see— oh, so clearly see—how it could have been.

As she imagined it, it began to form.

Warm, washed with light, alive with color. There, on her worktable with her brushes and palette knives, was the little white vase filled with the pink snapdragons she'd picked from her own garden that morning.

She remembered going out after Flynn had left for work, remembered picking those sweet and tender flowers to keep her company while she worked.

Worked in her studio, she thought dreamily, where the blank canvas waited. And she knew, oh, yes, she knew how to fill it.

She walked to the canvas waiting on an easel, picked up her palette, and began to mix her paints.

Sun streamed through her windows. Several were open for the practical purpose of crossventilation, and for the simple pleasure of feeling the breeze. Music pumped passionately out of the stereo. What she intended to paint today required passion.

She could already see it in her mind, feel the power of it gathering in her like a storm.

She raised her brush, swirled it in color for the first stroke.

Her heart lifted. The magnitude of the joy was almost unbearable. She might burst from it if she didn't transfer it onto canvas.

The image was burned in her mind, like a scene etched on glass. With stroke after stroke, color blended on color, she began to bring it to life.

"You know this was always my deepest dream." She spoke conversationally as she worked. "For as long as I can remember I wanted to paint. To have the talent, the vision, the skill to be an important artist."

"Now you have it." She switched brushes, glancing at Kane before she faced the canvas again. "Yes, I do."

"You were wise, making the right choice in the end. A shopkeeper?" He laughed, dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. "Where is the power in that? Where is the glory in selling what others have created when you can create yourself? You can be and have whatever you choose here."

"Yes, I understand. You've shown me the way." She slid him a coy look. "What else can I have?"

"You want the man?" Kane shrugged elegantly. "He's bound to you here, a slave to love."

"And if I'd chosen otherwise?"

"Men are capricious creatures. How could you ever be sure of him? Now, you paint your world as you do that canvas. As you wish."

"Fame? Fortune?"

His lip curled. "So it is with mortals always. Love, they say, is what matters more than even life. But it's wealth and it's glory that they really crave. Take it all, then."

"And you, what will you take?"

"I have already taken it."

She nodded, switched brushes. "You'll have to excuse me. I need to concentrate."

She painted in the warm bath of sunlight while the music soared.

Flynn hit the door with his shoulder, then gripped the knob and prepared to ram it again. The knob turned smoothly in his hand.

Zoe gave him a jittery smile. "I must've loosened it for you."

"Stay down here."

"Save your breath," Dana advised and pushed up behind him.

The light seemed to pulse now, thicker and somehow animate. Moe's growling became wet snarls.

Flynn saw Malory, standing at the far end of the attic. Relief was like a hammer blow to his heart.

"Malory! Thank God." He leaped forward, and hit the solid wall of mist.

"It's some sort of barrier." He spoke frantically now as he pushed and slammed against it. "She's trapped in there."

"I think we're trapped out here." Zoe pressed her hands against the mist. "She doesn't hear us."

"We have to make her hear us." Dana looked around for something to batter against the wall. "She must be somewhere else, in her head, the way we were. We have to make her hear us so she'll snap out of it."

Moe went wild, leaping up to tear and bite at the wall of mist. His barks echoed like gunshots, and still Malory stood like a statue, her back to them.

"There has to be another way." Zoe dropped to her knees, pressed her fingers along the mist. "It's freezing. You can see her trembling from the cold. We have to get her out ."

"Malory!" Helpless rage had Flynn pummeling the wall until his hands bled. "I'm not going to let this happen. You have to hear me. I love you. Damn it, Malory, I love you. You listen to me."

"Wait!" Dana gripped his shoulder. "She moved. I saw her move. Keep talking to her, Flynn. Just keep talking to her."

Struggling for calm, he pressed his forehead to the wall. "I love you, Malory. You've got to give us a chance to see where we can go with it. I need you with me, so either come out or let me in."

Malory pursed her lips at the image taking shape on canvas. "Did you hear something?" she asked absently.

"There's nothing." Kane smiled at the three mortals on the other side of the mist. "Nothing at all. What are you painting there?"

"Uh-uh-uh." She wagged a playful finger at him. "I'm temperamental. I don't like anyone looking at my work until it's done. My world," she reminded him and daubed on color. "My rules."

He gave a single, elegant shrug. "As you wish."

"Oh, don't pout. I'm nearly done." She worked quickly now, all but willing the image from her mind onto the canvas. It was, she thought, her masterpiece. Nothing she'd ever done would be so important.

"Art isn't just in the eye of the beholder," she said. "But in that, in the artist, in the subject, in the purpose, and in those who see."