I had no interest in what I was doing. I barely had the will to do what had to be done. To make myself do something, I did what I could do without thinking. I selected papers to match those that I’d be replacing. I copied the smudges and tea stains. I bent and creased the sheets to resemble the way the students had bent and creased them. When I’d finished all of that, I admitted to myself that I didn’t feel like doing any more. I set the prepared sheets aside, on the table where I usually put the finished work, in the same order as the originals. I told myself that I’d get to them later, and that it wouldn’t take long to go through them and add the drawings.
Then I turned to the work I wanted to do.
I spread the students’ drawings on the studio floor and began looking for the dark-haired girl. Because I knew what to look for now, I found her quickly. When I had enough information to work with, I went to the easel and began recording what I’d found. I understood the way she held her arms now, folding them in front of her, bringing her hands to her shoulders as if she were hugging herself. The studio could be chilly, I knew, so she might have been hugging herself for warmth, or she might have suffered a sudden rush of modesty. It was around her eyes that I made the most progress. I hadn’t realized, before, how deep and dark they were.
I stood there, staring at the drawing, admiring the work I’d done, admiring the girl I had discovered. Looking into her eyes, it was easy to imagine that she was looking right at me. Easy to imagine. Had I gone too far? Were the girls right? Had I gone much too far? Had the first step, weeks before, been a step too far? Could this girl be nothing more than a figment of my imagination? Could my imagination be that good? Was this a portrait of a real girl or just a drawing of my mind’s eye’s apple?
I held the drawing closer, and I was amazed at the way she seemed to glow with a rosy ripeness like an apple’s red. It took a while for me to realize that everything in the studio glowed that way. The studio was full of a soft red light, as if the sun were setting. I turned to the windows and saw that the sky was red. I ran from the studio, out the front door, in the direction of the red glow in the sky, until I reached the Nevsky mansion. I stopped in front of the mansion, breathing hard. The stone shell was silhouetted against the red glow. The Nevsky mansion was burning!
I ran back to the Glynns’ house, threw the door open and called out, “The Nevsky mansion is on fire!” Andy, Rosetta, Margot, and Martha came running at once. We grabbed our coats and rushed to the mansion. We stood there, gaping, astonished.
“This is the way it must have looked,” said Andy.
“Yes,” said Rosetta. “Just like this.”
“It’s like those stories you always hear,” said Margot.
“I’ll never forget the night the Nevsky mansion burned,” said Martha, in a singsong voice.
“It’s not burning, is it?” I said.
“No,” said Andy, “but something is, farther away, somewhere downtown.”
[to be continued]
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