Breakfast. When had I last enjoyed a meal? I had no interest in one now. The Great Undoing felt so near to me, like one of the blankets about my shoulders. I threw off the quilt, but still the pain remained, as did my promise. I would tell Elias, my Elias, the next time I saw him. And I would apologise for my behaviour in the tower, for placing him in an awkward position.
The horses stopped, and Izzy hopped out. “Can you stand, Clarita?”
“Of course I can . . . stand.” Legs wobbled, and I eased myself over the edge, clutching my diary. “So this commune is a rubbish heap, is it?”
“Rubbish?” One of the men chuckled, and pulled the horse and cart away. “Very organised and useful rubbish, which means it isn’t rubbish at all.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” his friend said. “Let’s say you stacked banana peels in a neat pile. It would be organised and useful in that nobody would slip, but still its nature is rubbish.”
“No, its nature is then art.”
“Art isn’t rubbish.”
“But it can be made from rubbish.”
The argument soon disappeared from earshot as they walked horses toward a distant stable. “Let me show you around,” Izzy said, and took my hand. Together we wandered past a heap of wood, as well as a rusted VW tipped on its side. To the left, a classic silver Porsche, Vermont plates, its interior moulded and ripped beyond repair. And everywhere, shapes. Things.
Sculptures.
Like the garden Jakob had showed me in Minneapolis, huge undefinable sculptures rose from the lawn, presumably complete, absolutely nonsensical. Hunks of metal, and gnarled, rotted wood. Giant obelisks and children’s upside-down play sets. A car-sized egg sprouted great fins separated by dinosaur egg-shaped spheres. Abstract sculptures set to enormous scale, bordering on the bizarre.
Except the Porsche.
“So much junk.”
“So much art,” Izzy said quietly. “My parents’ home was filled with pieces like this. So I suggest that until you develop an eye for it, you keep your trap shut. We’re guests.”
“Welcome.” A lady with a Great Dane at her side strode quickly up to us. “And you are Clara. Or Clarita.”
I nodded. “I think so.”
“I’m Julie. Just first names here. I oversee the Salem Art Works. You need to understand that it is not our practice to accept projects without applications, but when we saw Elias’s undertaking, we were quite pleased to provide space and materials.”
“Where is he?”
“That was a stipulation made. You, specifically, are not to be told. The property is large, and no doubt you will see him, but while he works, he said that you would cover his share of the communal —”
“No, that’s not acceptable. I need to talk to him, and that requires seeing him, which I will be —”
“As I was saying . . .” Julie bent down and stroked her dog. “You will carry his communal load. Cooking. Cleaning. Working. Is this agreeable to you?”
“Blast! I may as well go back to London.”
Julie stiffened. “I’ll tell Elias that he needs to leave by nightfall.”
Izzy grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. “You know what might help you — and take this as a suggestion — think of somebody other than yourself for, oh, a few seconds. And if that’s too great a challenge for your self-absorbed brain, remember that this might help soften your future discussion with Elias. And if that doesn’t work, remember that I own a guitar!”
“Shut it! This is what I did my whole life! This is what I ran from!” I hissed.
“Again, the liar.” Izzy turned to Julie. “She’ll do it.”
“Very well, Clara Clarita.” Julie rose. “I’ll lead you to your platform. You’ll be sharing a tent with our newest resident artist.”
I pointed at Izzy. “We will have words.”
I followed Julie to a series of wooden platforms, raised three feet off the ground and placed in a circle surrounding a red fire truck — which hopefully was more art than function. A tent stood on each platform, some fronted by lawn furniture, others lonely and small. Julie led me to a spacious tent. I climbed onto the platform and peeked inside. A girl, slightly older than I, relaxed in a bean bag chair.
Julie appeared at my side, pointing to each of us in turn. “Clara Clarita, Serene. I’ll meet you by the visitor center in two hours.”
My bag rested beside a mattress on the floor, and I collapsed onto the cushion.
“She isn’t bad.” Serene grinned. “She’s just seen it all. She wants to get the best out of us.”
I rolled onto my back. “Well then, what brings you to this freak show?”
She frowned and chuckled. “Same thing that brings us all. The hope for some inspiration. A few months to focus on glass work.” She shifted. “And you?”
I yawned. “I was guiding a boy with two identities bent on finding the evil Keeper before the Keeper’s efforts destroyed the kingdom of Salem. The queen is dead, I seduced the boy, and now the Great Undoing is coming out in bits, and I need to know how it ends and whether I’ve mucked it up with the boy. Until then, I’m here in a crazy world of hippies.”
Serene thought about this.
“So what’s your medium?”
“Excuse me?”
“Glass, pottery, wood, iron, the forge?”
I sat up. “You have a forge?”
“Yeah. In the blacksmith shop. Near the glass works area.”
Time to meet Hephaestus.
I didn’t meet him that day.
Instead, I hauled shards of glass to the glassworks, metal chunks to the iron works, moulds from the sand barn to the oven, and clay pieces to the kiln. Then I started on dinner, the only meal that brought the entire community together in the square.
I would show my Elias a new humility. Yes, it was a pain, but he would see how I had changed. He would see, and then he would love me too, and maybe I wouldn’t need to go into the past, as we would live in the future, maybe together. Maybe for a while.
I worked the barbecue beneath the makeshift tent. Chickens were roasting. And I made three salads as side dishes, using the final offerings from the communal garden. This would be my finest meal.
Slowly, mouths from across the property appeared, eagerly grabbing my creation. No Elias. One chicken was soon devoured, and my best salad vanished along with the scalloped potatoes. No Elias.
And then, Elias.
He was grimy from forehead to foot, but not his hands. They were clean and spotless. I stood directly behind the barbecue, positioning myself as he approached. He walked slow and smooth, without the erect posture of the Other One. My Elias. We would meet, but maybe a different we. I held my breath as he reached for a plate, reached for a drumstick, and moved on.
No words passed between us. No glances. He sat down among a group of ten young people, and they laughed, and joked, late into the night.
I watched them from a small table in the distance. I poked my food around my plate, but did not eat.
Family. Elias was once again among family. His voice rang clear and joyful, and with every contented note, I sank deeper. I was losing precious time with Elias — the clear one, the gentle one . . . the one who needed to hear me say I’m sorry.
Family. I smashed my plate on the table and ran to my tent. “Better still be here. Better still be . . . here.” I yanked out my laptop, threw open the top, and typed in my web address.
Dad: When did you destroy one you love? Have you done this recently? Clara? Clara.
I stared at my dad’s response and typed.
Me: I seem to do this to everyone I meet. “Come on. Be there.”
Dad: You must be my daughter.
I breathed deeply.
Me: I can’t come home yet.
Me: Dad?
Dad: It was a lot to ask. Can you tell me about him?
Me: Well, he’s American.
Dad: I like him already. Do I get a name?
Me: Um. Elias.
Dad: Is
he good to you?
Me: At least half the time.
Dad: Where are you now?
Me: New York.
Dad: Where will you go next?
Me: I’m just following stars and myths and . . . I’ve slipped from reality. I don’t know where I’m going. In search of a Keeper. A Lightkeeper.
Dad: You say you’ve slipped. How far?
Me: Do you remember when you read me Alice in Wonderland? Either Wonderland or the Matrix. I’m not quite sure.
Dad: You worry me. Will you slip so far that I can’t follow? Will you come home?
The question didn’t feel so heavy, and as Serene entered the tent, I feigned sleep and thought on. Home.
Serene soon slept soundly, her gentle breathing the only sound.
Almost the only sound.
A sharp laugh and then distant voices. Voices and drums and a flute. I crawled out of my tent and wandered back toward the commons area, where we had eaten, from where I fled.
Smoke billowed and flames crackled, visible high above the rise of the visitor center. I snuck around the building, and froze.
Fifteen, maybe twenty people danced on the concrete floor in front of a roaring bonfire. Another set flailed around the circle. A gypsy gathering, the music was simple and hypnotic.
“Where are we?” I asked.
Then I saw him. With her. Elias and Izzy held hands and ringed the blaze, their faces alight with light and laughter and each other. I stared, shivering, from a distant shadow, rubbing my own arms, warming my own body.
He was happy. He was more than happy; he was alive. He high-fived others in his furious dance, his awkward, disgusting, glorious dance. Izzy stroked his neck and threw herself into his arms, and then they disappeared around the dark side of the moon, only to reappear again linked to others.
“So this is it, Elias. You’ve found your home.”
And I wanted to hate and I wanted to rage. I wanted to feel the burn of abandonment and the sting of betrayal, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t hate either one of them.
I laughed.
Not a joyful laugh, a releasing laugh. Tears streamed down, and I crumpled back against the building. I had lost. I had lost Elias to a homeless vagabond who should be at Harvard. For the first time since I left London, I had nothing.
My hands fell to my sides, and I stared up at the sky and the stars that shone brighter than I thought possible.
I turned my back on the one I loved. I needed to be alone. Away from the party. Away from wild and abandoned and warm. I strode a determined path straight toward a cut that led up the nearby mountain.
And I climbed. There was no weaving. All was up. The grade was steep and the path was covered with leaves. I slid often to my knees, scrambling ever higher on all fours. An hour later, I still climbed. The air was thinner, my breathing heavier, but there would be no stopping. I would follow this path, my path to its conclusion.
Then, there it was.
Trees gave way, and a small clearing leveled off. In front of me, one bench. Before it, an eight-foot cross. Was it sculpture? Was it spiritual? It didn’t matter; it was in my way.
I gathered my breath and lowered myself onto the seat. Far below me, I could see the flicker of the fire. I could still imagine the sound of their voices, their drums.
Elias’s smile.
I turned toward the task at hand.
“Well, here is the problem. You seem to have abandoned me as well, God. At least in the smaller version of you that I stole, you are present and hanging on it.”
There should have been a breeze. Something. But this place was still and heavy. Like the underground tunnels, it felt occupied, somehow.
“But I didn’t climb this path for nothing. My goal was to be alone, but since you intruded at the end of my road, shall we begin?” I cleared my throat. “Cross, you have lost your God. Now I shall tell you what I have lost. Elias, for one, and after no small expense of time and effort.”
I paused, my eyes stinging. Fortunately, I was done crying.
I wasn’t done crying.
I buried my face in my hands. “I lost him to Izzy.”
I sniffed. “Do you know her? You may want to pay attention to that one, though I think her perhaps one of my better mates. I also lost Mum. I would think you saw that; it was in the papers. She gave nothing to me and I returned the favour.
“My sibs. Most certainly gone as well.” I peeked over my shoulder. I could no longer see the fire. “And I think my purpose.
“Finally, I have lost the truth. I had a good grip on it, until apparently a mentally ill mentalist turned up with portions I hadn’t been aware could exist. Without the Elias I used so well, I will now never discover if he saw all of the Great Undoing.
“What remains?” I shook my head. “Rather unexpectedly, I still have a father. He wants me back in London. He wants me . . . at least now he does, but he doesn’t know. Nobody but the mentalist knows. Well, maybe you know.”
Guilt. Suffocating and constant; my decade-long companion. I waited for the crushing. The thought of Little T’s last day was often the moment when it arrived to torment me. Whenever memories wandered the wasteland of the Great Undoing, I shared a path with my cruelest mate.
Maybe my bench was too small or the climb too steep. Maybe the hill too remote. Guilt was silent. I even tossed him some breadcrumbs and thought of Elias’s drawings, of the shadow child Izzy saw. Still nothing.
What was it about this place that could absorb every loss and hold guilt at arm’s length?
I rose. “I’m, um, going to go back down. I may return.” My hand caressed the bench. “Don’t let anyone take my seat.”
The walk down was arduous, and my legs felt like lead weights. I fell from trunk to trunk, slowly working down the mountain until finally I emerged by an oversized iron hippo just as the sun hinted an arrival.
I quietly walked to my tent, and re-entered, my mind unusually quiet, and began to hum.
Days fell into rhythms, rhythms that calmed me. Quieted me.
I rose at six, and though breakfast was an on-your-own affair, all week I made sure that there was sausage, bacon, and rolls waiting for any artist who wanted a fine English breakfast. It was only at mealtime that I saw Elias. He came, ate, broke my heart, and left.
I could have spoken. An older version of me would have. But it felt right to wait. I cleaned and hauled and prepared the next two meals, always fading from sight as the groups gathered. There was a small table behind the main building, and that was where I ate after, alone, smiling at the jokes I heard, aching at Elias’s laughter. At the small miracle of his being, ever since we arrived, the Elias I loved, only to now be the Elias I could not experience.
But always there was the night. The night was mine. Sometimes to the music of the fife, other times in silence, I climbed a mountain and sat before a Godless cross, my visits lengthening.
My easy rapport with the non-god surprised me, but never frightened me, and each morning I returned to my tent for a few hours of sleep, a bit less certain of my future, a bit less needing to know.
“You always eat alone?”
Serene plunked down at my dinner table. Night was falling, and I could hardly see her face.
“Yes,” I said.
“You don’t like people?”
I laughed. “I do . . . You said you came to get away. For inspiration. Turns out maybe I did too.”
“Your friend. Elias. He’s the talk of the compound.”
“How so?”
Serene shook her head. “He’s been given the shed.”
I set down my fork. “I’m not certain what that means.”
“The shed.” Serene gestured beyond Barn 1. “Behind the sand barn. It’s the only private workspace. I don’t know what he’s doing in there. I see him at the blacksmith’s. Sometimes at the glassworks. I’ve watched him pour forms and reinforce metal and shape panels. He’s talented.”
I nodded. “He is.” I looked off. “Is
that Izzy with him most times?”
Serene shrugged. “Yeah.”
I closed my eyes. “That’s all right. So you don’t know how long they’re planning on staying?”
“Well, actually I do. Tomorrow, there’s a big deal in the commons. Elias is going to be showing what he’s created. The best art, probably his, finds a place on the grounds, and after that, artists usually go on their way.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do.” Serene rose and paused. “And now you can do something about it.” She winked and disappeared into the night.
I did not climb the mountain that evening.
“Psst! Where you been?”
My shoulders shook, and Elias’s face appeared through my blurred vision.
“I’ve been sitting on that bench for two hours.”
“What bench?” I asked, propping myself on an elbow.
He pointed up. “The one way up there.”
My fingers fidgeted, and then my body followed suit. “How do you know about that?”
Elias pulled me from the tent into the moonlight. My shorts and halter top did little to warm me.
He stared. “Wow, you really look good.”
I scrunched and threw back my hair. “You don’t need to pretend, Elias. I know. I’ve seen. I’m almost genuinely happy for you and Izzy.” I shivered. “But it’s cold, and I’m not dressed, so tell me how you know about my little trips and then get some sleep. I hear you have quite the show tomorrow.”
“Your trips. Yeah, well, about that. I’ve, uh, I’ve followed you. And that show —”
“Followed me? You’ve lurked behind me?” I paused. “Listened to me?”
He kicked at the ground. “Maybe.”
I grabbed his T-shirt. “Those words, my private words, were most definitely not meant for these ears!” I twisted his right lobe until he winced.
He massaged his ear. “Some of them sounded like maybe they were. I just wanted to be where you were.”
I took a deep breath. “So how many times were you there? Once? Twice?”
He stepped back. “All week.”
“All week. All blasted week. Why not just steal my diary and read it cover to cover?”