Omorphi (58 page)

Jake gave him a mildly approving look. “Hope that gets us to where we want to be.”

“Now that you’re here, I promised Rob that I’d help him put Christy’s cabin back together, so I’m going to take off.”

“No problem. I have it under control.”

Suddenly the door swung in and hit the back of Jake’s heels. “Sorry,” he said as he stepped out of the way. Jerry wheeled himself through the door followed by none other than Stephen. “We’re here to party!” Jerry pointed to the pile of apple juice cartons in his lap.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Michael said softly.

“Don’t go there,” Stephen teased.

Jake shook Stephen’s hand. “How did you manage to break out of prison?”

“Didn’t have to. It was kind of a weird twist of fate. Lisa came by to warn me about Jason and tell me what was going on, and my dad saw today’s paper. He’s worried not only about me, but about all of us, so Lisa talked to him for a while, and he let me come see Jerry.”

“He’s seen the light?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but he doesn’t want any of us to get hurt.”

“It’s a start.” Michael high-fived him.

Michael stayed for a carton of apple juice, kissed Christy good-bye, and promised he’d see him later.

M
ICHAEL
piled Christy’s books and a week’s worth of homework on the kitchen island in Christy’s cabin. He couldn’t help but think Christy had looked at him a little strangely when he’d left the hospital. Almost as if Christy knew something he didn’t know, and it bothered Michael. “I can’t believe you got the cabin fixed so fast.”

Rob positioned the last of the living room furniture. “Fortunately, there are companies that specialize in repairing fire and smoke damage, and the insurance company approved the claim quickly. What’s all that?”

“I collected Christy’s homework for this week.”

“That was very nice of you.”

“What about his paintings and his clothes?”

“Thanks to you, the fire was put out before much smoke could accumulate. I’m hoping everything is okay. Let’s get his clothes from the other cabin.”

Michael stared at the six six-foot-long garment racks stuffed with brightly colored, elegant, and expensive clothing.
Women’s
clothing. There were enough clothes for ten people in five of the racks, yet only one meager rack held clothing for a guy.

Rob pushed a heavy rack forward. “From the look on your face, I’d say that you haven’t ever been inside Christy’s closet.”

Michael shook his head. “How big is the closet?”

“As big as the bathroom is.”

“Wow.”

“Sophia gives him everything she can from her shoots.”

“The clothes must be worth a fortune.”

“They are.”

Michael fingered a red silk chenille sleeve. “He can’t wear any of this anywhere.”

Rob’s eyes creased with a smile. “He’s hoping that one day he can.”

An uncomfortable feeling settled over Michael as he helped maneuver the rack to the door. “Can I ask a question?”

“About Christy?”

“Yeah. Does he…. Is he trans?”

“Are you asking if he wants to transition to female?”

“Yes.”

Rob smiled again. “That’s a question for him.”

“Do you know the answer?”

“Yes.”

Anger pricked Michael’s spine. “But you won’t tell me?”

They hauled the rack down the walk and paused at the steps to Christy’s cabin. “Why don’t you ask me if any of our family members want to transition?”

“What you said.”

“One, and it isn’t Christy.”

“So he just likes to dress.” It was a statement, not a question.

Rob gripped the end of the rack. “Ready? Lift.”

They hoisted the rack into Christy’s cabin with shared grunts. “He said Sophia put makeup on him once, and he felt beautiful like her. He said it made him feel free of the ugliness that he was.”

Rob paused in pulling the rack toward the closet, and Michael peered around the garments and met sympathetic eyes. “How did you respond?” Rob asked.

“I told him I saw nothing but beauty in him, and he said that was unbelievable. He thought no one would ever care for him and didn’t think he could ever tell anyone about dressing.”

“He’s lucky to have you, Michael. I wish the two of you the very best.”

Subject closed
by Rob once again.

“T
HAT
’
S
cool,” Michael said as he watched Rob use a pulley system to raise several canvases to the loft.

“It was originally intended for furniture, but I modified it and added the gated platform so we could keep the paintings upright as we raised and lowered them.” Rob lifted the canvases from the platform and leaned them against the wall in the loft.

“Do you want me to set them on the easels?”

Rob lowered the empty platform. “That’d be great. I’m going down to load the platform again.”

Michael removed the heavy drop cloth from the first set of canvases and was surprised to find their list of “all things Christy” on top of the pile. He smiled as he set it on an easel, pleased there didn’t appear to be any smoke damage at all. He looked around for a pen or pencil and couldn’t find one. He needed to remember to write the words “strong” and “survivor” on the list before he left.

He spent the next ten minutes placing each ocean painting carefully on an easel. He bunched another empty drop cloth and threw it in a corner before moving on to the next group of canvases. He removed the cloth carefully, bunched it, and threw it in the corner with the others. He turned the top canvas over and nearly dropped it. It took a few seconds for it to register that it was a painting of
him
. Him, sitting on the couch, nude, and, if memory served, it was when he’d struggled to process what Christy told him about his scars. He held a curved hand to his chest. No, to his heart, as if what Christy told him had wounded him personally. It had, and Christy had captured the pained, empathetic expression on his face perfectly, as if he had read Michael’s mind. Then again, he knew he was rather transparent, never having been one to hide his emotions. There was a small notation in script in the lower right corner of the canvas.
A la Learning by Heart, Nikolaus Gyzis, c.1883
. He would look that up on the net as soon as he got home.

He looked through the group of canvases and found every painting to be of him. When he came to one of him nude in the gym shower, he recognized it from Christy’s charcoal drawing and tried to look at it objectively. It still made his cheeks burn with embarrassment but, damn, it had been a weirdly cool moment. And the painting…. Michael shook his head in wonderment at the detail. Rob had called Christy’s work exceptional. It was far beyond that. It was magnificent. He nervously wondered if Rob had seen them as he set the paintings against the wall and re-covered them with the cloth.
Awkward.

The next pile was of various scenery sketches, not yet painted. He set those against the wall and re-covered them with the cloth.

“Here comes another pile, Michael!” Rob called from below.

“Send ’em up!” Michael took hold of the pulley rope, guided the platform over the loft railing, and lifted the paintings from the makeshift rig. “How many more?”

“Three more groups. Are you doing okay up there?”

“It’s all good. Send ’em up.”

Michael uncovered the next group of paintings and threw the cloth aside. He lifted the first one and tried to make sense of it. Abstract… not… well….
Oh my God
. The canvas slipped from his hands, and he collapsed to his knees.

“Are you okay, Michael?” Rob called from below.

Michael’s hands shook as he righted the painting and tried to look away. He couldn’t. It was like a bad car accident. All you could do was keep spinning until you hit something. He desperately wanted to turn away, but he couldn’t. After a long, unsteady moment, only his need to see the other paintings allowed him to set it aside. After looking through all of them, he felt faint and put his head between his knees.
Holy Mother of God. No wonder he didn’t want me to see these.

“Michael? Are you all right?”

He knew Rob was near, but his voiced sounded muffled and far away, as if Michael were under water. “Ah, yeah. Sorry. I’m, ah, I’m okay.”

Rob knelt next to him and saw the paintings. “Michael, I’m sorry. I thought Christy had shared these with you.”

Michael shook his head and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands before pointing a finger a little aimlessly. “Can you….” Michael had to take a deep breath before he could ask the question. “Can you read Greek?”

“I’ve learned a little over the past year.”

“What… what does that say?”

Rob lifted the canvas and tried to make out the words. “I pulled and the walls pushed me. My burned and… something… body….”

Though not accurate, Michael recognized it almost instantly. “‘I shrank back but the closing walls pressed me resistlessly onward. At length for my seared and writhing body there was no longer an inch of foothold on the firm floor of the prison. I struggled no more, but the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long, and final scream of despair.’”

“It’s a quote?”

Michael nodded into his hands. “‘The Pit and the Pendulum,’ Edgar Allan Poe.” In fact, every picture looked rather like one of Harry Clarke or Arthur Rackham’s illustrations for Poe. He looked at the paintings one by one.

“The one with the altar, it looks like an illustration from Poe’s ‘The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.’ This one”—he pointed to the next—“looks like something from Poe’s ‘The Telltale Heart.’ Christy’s heart is beating, but he’s already dead, dismembered, and buried beneath the floor.” He set the paintings aside.

“This one, the monster carrying Christy’s limp body, looks like a picture from Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.’” He set it aside. “This one, where he’s buried alive, looks like Poe’s ‘A Premature Burial.’

“This one looks like an image he created from Poe’s ‘The City in the Sea.’ It’s a poem about Death ruling the city.” Michael quoted the poem. “‘The waves now have a redder glow, the hours are breathing faint and low.’ The red waves are a sign of hell or the Devil coming.” He continued the poem. “‘And when, amid no earthly moans, down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, shall do it reverence.’”

He studied the last painting in the pile and didn’t recognize it as anything Poe. It was a desertscape covered in hands, sand slipping through the fingers of every hand. The surrealistic style wasn’t the only thing unique about it. The glittery-gold sand that showered the painting held him rapt. Then it came to him. “It’s from Poe’s ‘A Dream Within a Dream.’ The poem is about confusion and watching everything important slip away. ‘Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?’ Christy wouldn’t have known to paint the sand gold unless he knew that the reference to golden sand refers to the discovery of gold in California in 1848.”

“I had no idea he correlated his art to anything.”

Michael mustered his strength and threw back the cloth that covered the next stack of macabre paintings. The first one he recognized instantly. The image was of a nude, filthy, starved, and bound woman with Christy’s face. “Harry Clarke’s
Nightmares in Decay
. Not only is Christy a serious Poe fan, but he also likes Harry Clarke’s illustrations for Poe.”

He flipped to the next painting and swore angrily as he lifted it. Christy on his knees being forced. He flipped to the next one. Christy tied down, being forced. The next one was Christy beaten and licking blood from the floor. The next one was Christy begging for food from nude older men while they ate at a banquet table filled with steaming hot food. The next one….
No way, no way, no way! No way! God, how freakin’ sick!
Gorge rose so fast in his throat he only had time enough to hand the painting to Rob and turn his head to vomit into the pile of cloth in the corner.

“
Madre de Dios
,” Rob said under his breath.

When his stomach ceased roiling, Michael sat back on his haunches and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. “Now we know what happened to his neck.”

Rob carefully placed the painting facing the wall. “Let’s leave the others covered.”

“We’re still missing four ocean paintings.”

“Christy will find them and put them where he wants them.”

“You haven’t seen all of them, have you?”

“No. He’s shown me very few. The positive aspect, if there is one, is that he appears to be working through the cognitive behavioral therapy on his own. I only wish he’d allow me to help him.”

“He said he worked with you today.”

Rob nodded. “He did, but he’s still very selective in what he tells me. I’m hoping he’ll open up over time.”

“He, ah, he wrote me a note last week. More like a three-page letter. He compares himself to Ivan the Terrible and wonders why he didn’t turn out like him.”

Rob only nodded.

“Why do you think Christy isn’t crazy?”

Now Rob shook his head. “Resiliency, strength, and a fierce determination not to succumb. I can only guess, Michael. Most people couldn’t have withstood what he went through.”

Michael wiped his mouth again and stood. “Do you think he’ll lose it later?”

“I can’t say that he won’t have latent feelings and reactions but, from everything I’ve seen, he’s doing a hell of a good job grounding himself, thanks in no small part to you.”

“He gave Mr. Santini permission to speak with his aunt. Maybe we can find out if Christy and Sophia are brother and sister.”

“What do you think prompted him to give Nero permission to speak with her?”

“The article in today’s paper. Mr. Santini said he needed to speak to her to make sure they were safe from Jason.”

Rob frowned, obviously displeased over the article. “Good for him.”

“Do you need me to help you with anything else?”

“No, thank you. I’ll straighten the rest of the paintings.”