Jane, Unlimited

  Jane grips the edge of her worktable, takes a jellyfish breath. Then, under her fingers, she discovers a carving of a gentle whale shark swimming with its babies. It runs along the edge in intricate detail. Ivy must’ve made this table. Ivy, Jane thinks, her mind clearing. Aunt Magnolia. Me.

  Why does Jane smell paint?

  Turning suddenly to the work she’s been doing, Jane finds a half-painted scene on her umbrella canopy. It looks like the dark brown and black books of the library, and a smudge that’s the beginnings of Octavian’s divan. This wasn’t the plan; this was supposed to be her self-defense umbrella. When did she get so off track?

  Jane slaps her paints closed. She needs air, she needs to open a window.

  At the wall, she discovers that one of the low panes of glass is designed to crank open. The joint is stiff, but, determined now, she uses her own tools to oil it. Applying all her strength, she manages to budge it slightly. A feeble current of cool air drifts in through the crack.

  Jane puts the self-defense umbrella-in-progress aside. It’s pulling too hard. It’s unnerving. She’ll repair and improve Lucy’s navy umbrella instead.

  The repair to the bent rib is a few minutes’ work. As for the embellishments—Lucy, Jane expects, will prefer something on the more quiet and tasteful end of the spectrum. Tiny, glimmering stars in a night sky, maybe—the most obvious approach when one’s tools are a navy canopy, glue, and glitter—or maybe something even plainer.

  Choosing a gore, Jane spreads an even stripe of glue across it. Simple lines, few in number. She’ll start with that, exercise restraint, and see where it leads.

  Some unknown length of time later, a noise in the house, like a yell, touches Jane. She misses a high note in the song she’s singing and the dissonance jars her out of a haze. It’s another Beatles tune, “She’s Leaving Home,” about a girl who runs away from home, abandoning her well-intentioned but repressive parents, leaving them to dwell in their own heartbreak and confusion. Jane wasn’t even aware of knowing the lyrics to that song. She’s changed the lyrics too. She’s replaced all the names and pronouns with “Charlotte,” as if all the people in the song—girl, mother, and father—are named Charlotte. “Charlotte’s leaving home, bye-bye.”

  Jane discovers that she’s moved away from Ivy’s table, though she doesn’t remember picking her supplies up and carrying them across the room. She seems to be working on the tarp on the floor, her legs crossed, her back bent and aching. She straightens herself, stretching her neck. Then she takes a look at what she’s done to Lucy’s umbrella and is horrified.

  The stripes she started with have become the bars of a prison cell. Behind the bars, a woman sits on a cot, one leg propped up, her head thrown back against the wall, eyes staring out, face grim. The whole scene is rich with shadows and depth, composed of various colors and thicknesses of glue and glitter, an impressive artistic feat considering the awkwardness of her media. The woman even wears an orange glitter jumpsuit. A book rests on her thigh.

  The smooth curve of her hair makes her look an awful lot like Lucy.

  Oh, hell, Jane thinks. How did that happen?

  Someone somewhere in the house is shouting, the sharp fury of a male voice somewhere near. Another male voice responds with a roar and Jane recognizes the tone of this argument; she’s heard these voices raised against each other before: Ravi and Octavian are at it again. Still holding Lucy’s jailbird umbrella open, Jane stumbles into her bedroom, becoming aware that Jasper is whimpering on the other side of the door, scratching to get in. How long has he been out there? Everyone in this house is unhappy. When Jane opens the door, Jasper surges in and runs circles around her, barking too loudly.

  Ignoring Jasper as best she can and still carrying the open umbrella, Jane moves down the corridor toward the shouting voices, which seem to be coming from somewhere between her rooms and the Venetian courtyard. “Aye, aye,” she says vaguely, almost tripping over Captain Polepants.

  The noisy room is Octavian’s bedroom. Octavian sits upright in an enormous, tall bed, tangled silk covers pulled to his waist, wearing a T-shirt that says “All You Need Is Love.” He’s rubbing his pale face wearily, squinting at the light from open curtains.

  Ivy stands at the foot of the bed next to Ravi, who is shouting and waving his arms around.

  “You don’t even care, Dad!” says Ravi. “You’re like a shell with nothing inside. You’re turning into a ghost. Soon you’ll be able to walk through the walls!”

  “That may be,” says Octavian through steeled teeth, “but I forbid you, positively forbid you, to rifle through the possessions of the staff members or the guests of this house in pursuit of the answers to your self-righteous questions.”

  Ivy’s got a small yellow daffodil behind one ear. Lucy St. George is just inside the door, her eyes wide and shocked and focused on Ravi. And Kiran leans against a wall with her arms crossed and an insolent expression on her face, like a mutinying twelve-year-old.

  Jane remains in the doorway, holding Lucy’s redecorated umbrella out into the corridor behind her, where the wet glue and glitter are less in danger of bashing into a doorframe and making a sparkly mess. Jasper is butting her calves, repeatedly, which is annoying.

  Ivy has noticed Jane’s arrival. She comes to her, pulling the daffodil from her hair and grinning. Ravi is still yelling at his father.

  “Hi Janie,” she says, taking in the loony dog, then the open umbrella. Next she glances at Jane’s other hand, which is when Jane realizes she’s carrying Winnie-the-Pooh, which she doesn’t remember picking up.

  “Look,” says Ivy, holding out the slightly crushed daffodil. “They’ve decorated the suits of armor with jonquils for the gala. Eight letters, with a j and a q.”

  “What?” says Jane, confused.

  “Jonquils?” says Ivy. “It’s a kind of yellow daffodil.”

  “Okay,” says Jane. “Thanks, but my hands are full. Why are Ravi and Octavian yelling?”

  Ivy looks a little deflated. “There’s a marble sculpture of a fish,” she says, “mounted on a wooden pedestal. It’s by a famous sculptor named Brancusi and it sits on a table in the receiving hall. Ravi just found the empty pedestal. The fish is gone. Someone broke the fish off the pedestal and took it away and Ravi doesn’t think his father’s upset enough about it.”

  “Oh,” Jane says, still not understanding.

  Now Ivy’s trying to get a closer look at the umbrella behind Jane. She squeezes past Jane into the corridor and Jane holds it out to her. She needs to know what Ivy sees when she looks at it.

  “Wait,” Ivy says. “Is that Lucy St. George on that umbrella?”

  “You think it looks like her?”

  “In jail?” Ivy says. “Did you draw a picture of Lucy in jail, using glitter?”

  “My fingers slipped.”

  “It’s an amazing glitter drawing,” Ivy says, wonder in her voice. “I mean, it’s extraordinary. But why did you draw her in jail?”

  “I don’t know,” Jane says. “I didn’t mean to.”

  Ivy’s peering into her face. “Janie, are you okay?” she says. “You seem kind of . . . disoriented.”

  Because Ivy has asked it, Jane realizes it’s true. “You know,” she says, “I’ve felt disoriented all day. Sort of like gnats are flitting around in front of my eyes.”

  Ivy reaches out and wraps a hand around Jane’s upper arm, on the jellyfish tentacles there. At Ivy’s touch, the corridor comes into sharp focus and the endless pressure in Jane’s ears drops away. Ivy smells like chlorine. Her hand is warm, her smile soft. “Oh,” Jane says, wondering how strange it would be to give Ivy a full-on hug. “Thank you. Jonquils. I get it. I’m sorry. This has been a really weird day.”

  Not letting go of her arm, Ivy tucks the daffodil behind Jane’s ear. It tickles. Jane flushes.

  “Do you think maybe you’re workin
g too hard?” Ivy says.

  “I don’t know,” Jane says. “There’s something in the air today.”

  “Well, be careful. Lucy’s in there,” Ivy says. “You don’t want her to see that umbrella.”

  “No,” Jane says, certain. “I didn’t mean it to turn out this way. I’m going to have to erase it somehow.”

  “Oh, man, do you have to?” Ivy says. “Because it’s an amazing umbrella. It’s just kind of . . . maybe not so nice to Lucy. I mean, do you think of her as a criminal?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Isn’t she even a private art investigator? Like, she puts people in jail herself?”

  “I feel awful about it,” Jane says.

  “Don’t. But maybe you should go put it back in your rooms before she sees it. Here, give it to me,” Ivy says, reaching for the handle of the umbrella.

  The moment Ivy lets go of Jane’s arm, confusion washes over her again.

  “Lucy’s coming,” Ivy says quietly. She tugs at the umbrella. “Here, give it to me. I’ll put it in your morning room.” She has to pry the umbrella from Jane’s fingers. With one more puzzled glance, she carries the umbrella away, down the corridor toward Jane’s rooms.

  Lucy St. George speaks behind Jane. “Excuse me.”

  “Sorry,” Jane says, moving out of the way.

  Lucy bumps against Jane as she passes into the corridor, her face blank and panicked.

  “What’s wrong?” asks Jane.

  “Nothing,” Lucy responds, rushing away.

  “Do you feel weird today?” Jane calls to her back. “I feel weird today.”

  Lucy halts her mad rush. She turns back to Jane with an expression of great and pale strain. Like Jane, she’s clutching her book in one hand.

  “Did you ever love someone,” Lucy says, “and know they love you, and you’re attracted to them, and you know they’re attracted to you, and so many things are exactly right, but it doesn’t matter, because the few things that are wrong are completely, totally fucked?”

  “Are you talking about Ravi?” Jane says.

  “I’ve made some unfortunate decisions,” Lucy says, then clutches her temples. “My head feels like it’s splitting open. Does yours?”

  “What do you mean, unfortunate decisions? Like Ravi?”

  “Oh,” Lucy says, “like a hundred things. Ravi is impossible. I can’t believe I’m talking to you about it. Never mind.”

  “Have you made criminal decisions?” Jane says, thinking about the umbrella.

  Lucy’s eyes widen. “Why on earth would you ask me that?”

  “Sorry,” Jane says, confused. “I don’t know where that came from. I just feel really weird today.”

  At that moment, Ravi pushes out of Octavian’s bedroom, putting a hot hand on either side of Jane’s waist and shifting her out of his way, not gently. He strides on down the hall toward his rooms at the corridor’s end, his face wet with tears. He doesn’t even glance at Lucy, who watches him go, folding the hard angles of herself up inside a disappointment she can’t hide.

  Lucy’s phone starts ringing, but she doesn’t react. She’s still staring after Ravi.

  “Your phone is ringing,” Jane says.

  “What? Oh,” Lucy says, patting her front pockets, her back pockets, then producing a phone. She walks away, toward the house’s center, saying, “Yeah, what is it, Dad?”

  Jane is left alone in Octavian’s doorway with the world’s most agitated dog. He’s gone back to head-butting Jane, as if he’s trying to knock himself unconscious against her shin.

  Inside the bedroom, Octavian and Kiran are having a stare-down.

  “Is this what it takes for you to visit your old dad?” says Octavian, passing a weary hand across his eyes. “Someone steals a sculpture?”

  “You haven’t exactly come looking for me, either, Dad,” says Kiran. “You know I’ve been home.”

  “Why would I push myself on you when I’m unwanted?”

  “If Charlotte came home after all this time away,” Kiran says, “you wouldn’t sit back waiting for her to come to you.”

  “That’s different,” says Octavian. “Charlotte left without any warning. I have no idea where she went, or why.”

  “If I left without any warning,” says Kiran, “you’d accuse me of being selfish and immature. When Charlotte does it, you mope, and smoke too much, and stop taking showers, and oversleep. You knew I was coming yesterday and you didn’t even stay awake.”

  “Kiran,” says Octavian. “Are you suggesting that I love my wife more than I love my daughter? That I wouldn’t be distraught with worry if you disappeared? Do you really believe that?”

  “I’m saying you need to snap out of it,” says Kiran, suddenly angry. “Since when do you sleep all day, or not care if a major piece of art is missing?”

  “So,” says Octavian, his voice rising too, “you’re mad at me because I’m depressed? Should I be mad at you because you’re depressed?”

  “Yes!” Kiran cries. “You should! You should be subjecting me to long, boring talks about how I need a job, and how you think I’ve chosen the wrong man and I’m ruining my life!”

  “You have chosen the wrong man!” says Octavian, almost shouting now. “You are ruining your life!”

  “Then tell me so!” Kiran cries. “Don’t just shuffle around in your slippers mooning after Charlotte and acting indifferent to everything else!”

  “I’m not indifferent!” says Octavian. “I’m just . . .” He stops, passing another hand over his eyes. “I’m tired.”

  “So go for a walk!” says Kiran. “Go for a swim! Go to New York and buy a painting! Of course you’re tired! You never do anything!”

  “I haven’t been able to think clearly,” Octavian says. “Not since Charlotte left.”

  “I understand you’re hurt, Dad!”

  “No,” says Octavian. “No! It’s not just that. It’s like she took some part of my brain with her when she left. I get confused, and I only want to be in the library. I get sleepy, and I lose track of time.”

  “That’s not normal, Dad,” says Kiran. “You should go to the city and see your doctor.”

  “I can’t leave.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course you can leave.”

  “Charlotte needs me, she wants me,” says Octavian.

  “Charlotte isn’t here.”

  “She’s close,” says Octavian. “If I stay here, and keep reaching, I can bring her back.”

  “Dad,” says Kiran. “You’re not making sense. Bring her back from where? The underworld? Like Orpheus and Eurydice? Charlotte left! She went away!”

  “She talks to me,” says Octavian. “She sings. She wants me to join her.”

  “Okay,” says Kiran sharply, “that’s it. You’re delusional. After the gala, Ravi and I are putting you on a boat and taking you to the doctor and you don’t get to have an opinion about it.”

  Jane is noticing something about the room, about the way the air seems buzzy and strange, as if there’s an extra energy to it. The buzziness is focused on Octavian. If the thing I’m sensing were visible, Jane thinks, Octavian would be blurry. As if he were existing partly in some other dimension.

  “I bet you almost disappear when you’re in the library,” Jane says out loud to Octavian.

  Kiran and Octavian both turn to stare at Jane, startled by her interruption. Below, Jasper nips Jane. Then he opens his mouth, clamps it around her calf, and bites, hard.

  “Ow!” cries Jane. The room comes sharply into focus again and the buzzing drops away. “Jasper! You sadist!” He’s punctured a hole in her black-and-white-striped jeans. She wants suddenly to go outside and get some air. She needs some air. It’s a desperate, pressing need.

  “I’m going for a walk,” Jane says to Kiran and Octavian. “Bye.”


  Jasper turns and sprints into the corridor, hopping in anxious excitement. Jane follows him.

  * * *

  Jasper leads Jane down the stairs. For once, he doesn’t try to trip her. In the receiving hall, he herds her around a woman who’s picking pieces of lilac and glass from the floor. Jane doesn’t even notice the woman at first, which upsets her, that she’s so out of it, she almost steps on another human being. Aunt Magnolia, she finds herself repeating. Aunt Magnolia, Aunt Magnolia.

  A framed photo on a side table catches her eye. It’s a portrait of a youngish blond woman with some other people and when Jane tries to go to it, Jasper herds her away with enthusiasm. The woman has a maniacal smile on her face. Jane knows it’s Charlotte. She cranes her neck to keep looking at it while Jasper shuffles her out the front door.

  The moment she passes into the outside world, she begins to come awake again. She feels the straining sunlight on her skin and hears the pounding sea, the pushing wind. The sounds are normal, natural; there’s no strange pressure on her ears. Standing in the front yard, buffeted by wind and light, she takes a deep, jellyfish breath. Aunt Magnolia.

  Jane thinks, suddenly, of the way her aunt died. Aunt Magnolia froze to death, in a blizzard. Hypothermia. Jane has learned, since then, from her doctor, some of the details of what it would have been like. Aunt Magnolia would have struggled with a mental fog like the one Jane has been experiencing today. An inability to remember things, to feel coherent and whole. She would have fought for clarity, but found it impossible, and finally given in to the fog. She would have had no choice.

  Aunt Magnolia? Why did you send me to this strange, strange house? Did you know it would make me feel this way? She looks up. Tu Reviens stretches before her, huge and cold, pockmarked with windows and unmatching stones. It makes her think of an old dragon with missing scales and multiple beady glass eyes, protecting its treasure. It feels . . . lonely, she thinks. And hungry.

  An instinct tells her that in future it might be wise to stay out of the library.

  Jasper’s forging a path across the front yard through grass up to his neck, aiming for the east side of the house, where Jane can just make out the edges of the garden. Jane follows, pushing herself through the soggy grass, taking slow breaths.