Page 2 of Memories of the Lost

She stopped in front of it, hair dripping on her shoulders.

It was of a little house in a nest of trees and bushes, with a porch and two figures without faces, and a pale cat licking a paw. The colorssizzled, blazed, those improbable pinks, the saturated lime and lemon. The figures wore turquoise.

Tillie didn’t move, captured entirely by the scene, and even as she stood there, she didn’t know what was so mesmerizing. It felt like a place she should know, and if she could just focus, she’d bring it in. The cat, licking a paw. The two girls.

A sound like a train filled her ears. Her chest was tight. Improbably, she felt tears running down her face, and could not seem to move away.

In his hotel room across the street, Liam Redfern had been staring through his window at the rain, feeling marooned and homesick for his own house, where his things were arranged the way he liked them and he could make himself a proper cup of tea. He’d drink that cup sitting in his favorite chair that looked out over a rocky cliff to the bay, where sailboats decorated the horizon. He hadn’t been there in nearly five months, and he was very tired of life on the road.

It wasn’t so much that he missed the room, the tea, that particular mug his mother had brought him from one of the Renaissance fairs where she sold her honey and soaps. He missed the simple routines of his life there, the simple beauties he’d chosen to be calming, such as his garden that he tended himself when he was home. He missed the meditation space and the kitchen where he cooked simple, good food.

The tangle of emotion, weariness mixed with longing mixed with resistance, was a warning that had grown more insistent over the past couple of weeks. He needed to talk with Krish about it, and sooner rather than later.

Below, he saw a woman hurrying through the rain, carrying a yellow umbrella. It was unexpectedly bright in the dark evening. He saw it tilt, and then realized that the umbrella was shielding a homeless woman and her cart of belongings. The woman with the umbrella helped her up and gave her the umbrella. Then she dashed away, entering thegallery below his windows. He’d noticed the gallery this morning, the window displaying abstracts in a palette of blues and greens that made Liam think of the sea. Now he was intrigued by the woman who’d left behind her umbrella.

A prompt rose, clear and strong.Go meet her.

A lesser voice argued that he might be recognized. Another said he should stay in and work on a new group of meditations they wanted to release in the near future.Theybeing his business team, not Liam himself.

Which had become part of the problem.

He could see the woman pause by the door. She wore green stockings, and her hair tumbled down her back, dark as enchantment.

He grabbed his coat.

Tillie had no idea how long she stood mesmerized in front of the painting.

A hand touched her elbow lightly. “Are you all right?”

Jerking away from the stranger, Tillie slapped tears off her face, embarrassed.

The man raised his hands, palms out. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She blinked. For the second time in two minutes, she felt swamped by visuals. The man’s face was straight from a Renaissance painting, with a high brow and eyes as clear as an angel’s. The hair was pure surfer, sun-bleached blond, too long. The throat and hands showed the same long exposure to sun. But they were a long way from either Italy or surfing.

“Are you the artist?” Tillie managed, pointing to the wall.

“No. I’m not a painter, I’m afraid.” The accent was from New Zealand. Maybe South Africa.

She looked back to the painting and walked up close to read the card:Shiloh. Forest #21. The colors blared, commanded her attention,and the buzzing started again, so loud, as if she were hearing some real thing that came from the world of the painting, something she couldn’t identify. Birds? Insects?

She swayed.

“Steady,” the man said, arm around her waist. This time she didn’t protest. “Let’s find you a chair, shall we?”

She allowed herself to be settled on a plastic chair near the coat check, out of the way.

“Breathe,” he said. “I’ll fetch you some water.”

“Thanks.” The noise in her head subsided as she took long breaths in, let them out. A part of her wanted to march right back and stare at the painting again, but she might fall flat on her face the next go-round.

Before the man came back, Jon appeared. He was her oldest friend from art school—a delicately beautiful dark-brown man with luminous eyes and the most elegant hands she’d ever seen. He’d fled a tiny town somewhere in Oklahoma and never looked back. They’d been roommates for years, sharing a terrifyingly cold space that was big enough for both to paint, with corners for sleeping and the bare bones of a kitchen while they tried to make their way.

He said now, “Tillie, baby! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” She waved a hand, dismissing the weirdness.Don’t look at the painting. Don’t look at the painting.“Maybe I’m coming down with something.”

“Do you want something? Some—”