Page 79 of The Dead Come to Stay
Arthur nodded, approaching it. “For Christmas—our last Christmas. He’d only just been diagnosed, but I’ve opened it before.” He picked up the doll with careful hands. Layer by layer, he dismantled the dolls until all were standing in a line upon the mantel. Gwilym put Hans on the sofa and picked up the last doll.
“This one isn’t original,” he said, pulling a jewelry magnifier out of his vest pocket. “Antiques are my line of work—eh—whenI’m working. It’s got the wrong color of red. Also...” He gave it a slight shake. “The last nesting doll in a series is supposed to be solid.”
Jo took the doll from Gwilym.
“If it’s hollow, then it opens,” she said, turning it in the light. When angled just so against the windows, a faint line appeared. “There’s a seam! Look.”
Now it was Arthur’s turn, but Jo noticed his hands were trembling.
“Sorry, I—You think there’s something inside? He didn’t say. Why wouldn’t he say?” Arthur tried twisting the doll to no avail.
“He wasn’t ready to say,” Chen said quietly. “Give it here, pet. Welshman, you say it’s a reproduction?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good.” Chen dropped the doll on the floor and crushed it with her heel. Arthur gave a little cry—Jo may have squeaked—and both dogs lost their tiny little minds. But Chen merely leaned down, long fingers scooping up something among the fragments.
“For you,” she said to Arthur with a flourish. A tiny pieceof paper, no bigger than a cookie fortune. It said “Arthur and Ægle”.
“That’s Aiden’s handwriting,” Arthur said, his face suddenly ashy. “The Laing—it’s an art gallery. It’s the first place we went together after meeting at Chen’s art exhibit.”
“Who is Ægle?” Gwilym asked.
Jo’s brain spit up a volley of factoids; Ægleas one of the Greek nymphs of evening, Ægleand her sisters as daughters of Zeus, or of Hesperus, or—
“An Etruscan queen—in a long-form poem by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, about King Arthur,” Arthur explained. “I took Aiden to see the paintingKingArthur and Queen Aegle in the Happy Valley.”
Jo’s eyes strayed back to Evelyn’s portrait. Aiden had used a painting—to point to another painting—and to remind Arthur of their first date. This wasn’t an end. It was the beginning.
“Can we go see it now?” Jo asked.
Arthur looked uncertain, but Chen picked up her umbrella cane and pointed to the door.
“Oh yes, child.Rightnow,” she said.
***
The Laing looked like a warehouse married to a church. Their little party stood in a room with arched ceilings and deep blue walls, lost in the faraway snow of distant Alps. “John Martin, oil on canvas, 1849.” It had been painted only five years before the artist’s death, an alien landscape of crag and tower and cliff under a thumbnail moon and endless expanse of night. In the foreground stood two tiny figures, King Arthur and Queen Ægle. The museum label included a part of the poem, and Arthur read it aloud:
“Still, hand in hand, they range the lulled isle,
Air knows no breeze, scarce sighing to their sighs.”
“It’s my favorite painting,” Arthur explained, a gentle blush forming at his cheeks. “Andnotjust because it’s also my name. This is the Happy Valley, a mythic place in the Alps where everyone is safe from the changes of the ancient world. But Arthur doesn’t stay there; he chooses change—and everything that comes with it.”
“Including death,” Chen added.
“Yes. But life first.” Arthur clasped his hands behind his back, his clear eyes wandering over the painting. “Traditions don’t make us safe, and staying the same doesn’t keep us from dying.” Beside him, Chen lay her jeweled hand against her heart.
“Speaking truth,” she whispered—and Jo felt an internal contraction, as though her heart were turning inside out. Arthur and Chen were the brave ones; Aiden knew that, was trying to tell them so. He wanted to change, but didn’t know how, and started the journey too late.
“Arthur?” Jo asked. “That day. Standing here. Do you remember what happened next?”
“It was a very long time ago,” he said. Because everyone said that—but memory existed outside of time. Memorysupersededtime, squashed it, lengthened it, chunked it, pulled it like taffy. Jo grasped both of Arthur’s hands and squeezed hard.
“Close your eyes. Quick, just do it. In your brain is a map; you just need to follow it. Aiden bought Chen’s painting. You invited him to see your favorite painting,the one that mattered most to you. Now—” she turned him toward the painting again “—look at Arthur and Ægle and tell us about the day.”
Arthur let out a long breath. He was close now, almost close enough to set off alarms—his vision enveloped in layers of oil and varnish.
