Paint by Magic (20 page)

"So that's what I was doing up in your uncle's studio," I concluded. "Looking for the sketch so I can go home again. You guys want to help me find it?"

Homer just stood there, shaking his head. He looked sad, or sort of betrayed. "I thought you were my friend, Connor," he said. "But time travel? That's as made up as space travel. You're telling us to believe in fairy tales. Or saying that ... Luke Skywalker ... is real!"

"I'm not saying Luke Skywalker is real," I said. "I'm saying
magic
is real." So was space travel, actually, but I wasn't about to try telling them that.

Homer snorted. "Prove it!"

Betty looked at me intently. "
Can
you prove it? Prove you're from the future, I mean?"

I shrugged. It wasn't like I had an ID card or anything showing my birth date, and I didn't even have any money on me—except, of course, for the quarter Fitzgerald Cotton had given me. If only I had a coin from my own time, so I could show the year engraved on it—I fished in my pockets and came up with Doug's key chain. I tightened my fingers around the metal Death Star and drew it out to show them. The red light flashed in my hand. It didn't really prove anything, but they both stared down at it openmouthed.

"Look," Betty finally said. "Even if the magic is real, Uncle Fitz isn't a magician. He's just a painter. So how does he have the power to pull your mom to our time?"

"I don't know," I said slowly. "That's what I've been trying to find out."

Then Betty went up to her bedroom and came back down with the big book she'd borrowed from her uncle. She sat down and paged through till she came to the portrait of Francesca Rigoletti.

"The last name," she said slowly, running her finger over the text. "It must mean
something.
"

"And the lady looks like Pammie, too," added Homer, coming over to look at the book.

I moved closer to Betty on the couch so I could check out the picture again. It was eerie seeing the resemblance to Mom in the old portrait, and strange to see the name Rigoletti on the page. "My mom hasn't ever been to Italy, I'm pretty sure," I said. "But I know her ancestors came from there. My ancestors, I guess. Generations ago. What if—what if we're related to
this
Rigoletti in the picture? That would be a connection, wouldn't it?"

"A connection to this portrait, but not to Uncle Fitz," Betty pointed out. "If the magic was about an old connection to Italy, why wouldn't she be pulled back in time to when this portrait was painted or something?"

I didn't know, but I felt absolutely sure the connection between Mom and Francesca Rigoletti mattered.

I turned the page and stared down at the group of portraits the Magi Painters had painted of one another. As before, the portrait of Lorenzo da Padova stood out. The leering face was so unpleasant—and yet the text reported that he had been the most gifted of the group of artists. I studied his face a moment longer, then turned back to the page with Francesca Rigoletti's portrait and my heart started thumping harder. I read the text next to her portrait:
Francesca Rigoletti, 1479. Painted by Lorenzo da Padova, of the Magi School.
And, sure enough, down in the corner of the portrait, there was a tiny sketch of a smiling face.

I grew cold, as if the spring day had turned to winter. My lips felt stiff as I opened my mouth to speak. "What if it's him?" I said, and my voice came out sounding as hoarse as it had the day I'd arrived from my own time. "What if the paints in the paint box upstairs belonged to Lorenzo da Padova for sure, not just to any one of the Magi Painters?"

"And da Padova had used the same ones to paint Francesca Rigoletti," breathed Betty.

"And your uncle is related to Lorenzo da Padova. And my mother is somehow related to Francesca Rigoletti..."

My voice trailed off and I turned the page back to the portraits of the Magi School. Lorenzo da Padova sneered at me off the page. I felt shaken. The magic was older than I'd supposed, the evil deeper. The book said that Lorenzo da Padova had died in 1479—the same year he had painted Francesca Rigoletti—but I had a terrible feeling he was still, in some way, very much alive even now.

Betty leaned over the book and read aloud. "Listen to this! 'Da Padova's work was so impressive that he was sought after by princes. Yet there were rumors about him that never died away: that he had poisoned his family, that he had swindled his neighbors out of their fortunes, that he treated his models harshly, that he dabbled in black magic. Nothing was ever proven. Da Padova died at age twenty-nine, stabbed through the heart by an unknown assailant—possibly someone who wanted revenge. After the artist's death, his fellow Magi Painters kept his belongings because no family member came forth to claim them. His paintings were later sold to museums throughout Italy and the rest of the world.'"

"They kept his belongings!" I said, and it was as if a bell went off in my head, and I was remembering what Fitzgerald Cotton had said the day before, up in his studio, about paints getting old, growing sour. I'd felt then I was on the edge of understanding something important, but that something had eluded me. Now it was slowly coming clear.

"They sold Lorenzo da Padova's paintings to museums," I said softly, "but what did they do with his
stuff?
His painting stuff?"

The paints he used had some magical properties, I felt sure of it, as sure as I was of anything. I didn't know
how,
but somehow those paints were holding my mom captive. Whether Fitzgerald Cotton was an evil magician or just a painter who didn't know his own power, he was using paints that were capturing her soul. Mom's very life was at stake every time Fitzgerald Cotton lifted his brush to canvas. It wouldn't be enough just to steal the paint box, as I had thought.

"Those paints have to be gotten rid of for good," I said. "They have to be destroyed."

I heard a hissing sound from the corner of the room and craned my neck to see what was there.

Nothing.

Betty was nodding. "I think you're right." She bent over the book again. "And it says here that Francesca Rigoletti was Lorenzo da Padova's muse." She looked up, frowning.

"But that doesn't prove anything," Homer objected. "Our last name isn't da Padova!" He crossed his arms. "I don't want to be related to a creepy fellow like that."

"I'm not saying we're directly related—but it makes sense," Betty said quietly. "The name wouldn't be the same as ours because we have the name Cotton, after Grandpa. The Italian connection would be through Gramma. What matters is that there's a real connection—and somehow they're playing out the same story over again. Da Padova and his muse."

We all stared at one another. I felt a prickle on the back of my neck as though the unseen presence from the wardrobe had entered the room. The silence stretched across time.

Homer wrinkled his nose. "What's that awful smell?"

And when many weeks had passed ... the painter stood entranced before the work ... and crying with a loud voice, "This is indeed
Life
itself!" turned suddenly to regard his beloved:
—She was dead!

—E
DGAR
A
LLAN
P
OE,
"
The Oval Portrait
"

Padua, Italy. August 1479

The Smiler's thin lips twisted with pleasure. But when he peered around the canvas on his easel for another look at his model, his smile turned into a fierce frown. His muse had drooped on her brocade bench in the heat. He looked at her with distaste.

On the canvas she appeared bright and fresh, dewy in her eternal beauty and loveliness. In person, however, she looked anything but bright or fresh these days. She had grown irritatingly sallow and wan, also much thinner than when they'd begun. Her wracking cough had been a constant source of annoyance for weeks now, because it caused her to shudder, thus disturbing the pose. But a measured dose from the dagger's secret compartment—mixed into her wine to conceal the bitter taste—had brought blessed silence. Sometimes she drooped so alarmingly these days that even his sharp words or hard slap would not revive the pose, and he needed to take firmer measures, even going so far one day as to secure her into position with lengths of fabric, hoisting her into place. Sometimes she would not hold the rose properly—but he had finished that portion of the painting some weeks ago. Now he didn't need to use a flower anymore at all, but still he liked having her hold it.
Making
her hold it.

Bending her to his will.

Today her cousin was coming to convey her back to their home near Venice. Today he would have to pay her for her services—he hated to part with any of his gold, but models were not easy to come by anymore. And of course he did not want just any model. He wanted—no,
needed
—this particular beauty.

She should have been his from the start, of course.

He left his stool and pulled his money box from the shelf behind him. He counted out the gold ducats and laid them on the table. "You see them?" he asked the girl. "They are yours, as soon as we are done."

She did not answer him, but he had become used to that.

"As soon as we are done," he repeated. "Then you shall return to Venice with your good cousin. You will see your baby again. You will see your friends again." He often spoke this way to keep, her spirits high and to make her eyes sparkle. But they had not held a sparkle in many days now. It was most disagreeable.

Oh! The light was changing as the afternoon wore on, and he must keep working if he were to finish the last strokes before the cousin arrived. He did not care to be hurried! How dare any man try to hurry Lorenzo da Padova?

He listened for hoofbeats as he mixed a new batch of tempera. The paint must be perfectly smooth, the color deep and even. He unscrewed the cap of his dagger and sprinkled the poison liberally into the mixture, stirring it well. This extra ingredient was essential. He sifted goodly amounts of it into each bag of powdered pigment, but always liked to add just a touch more to the fresh paint. And now ...
Perfetto!

He heard shuffles outside the open windows as the servants went about their work. One of the servants broke into a snatch of song—but it was quickly stifled. All the servants should know quite well by now that he required silence—and solitude—for his work.

Meals were left punctually outside his studio door, covered by white linen to keep away the bugs and rats. Often he forgot to eat and was reminded only when his muse begged for sustenance. Eventually she had grown so quiet, days might pass when she did not speak at all.

These past few days, she'd eaten nothing. He frowned at her again over the top of the canvas. Yes, she'd become a wreck of a woman—a mere shadow of the Francesca Rigoletti who had first stepped through the studio door. It was most vexing.

But, no matter. The painting was the thing. The painting was what mattered! He gazed upon his work with the utmost satisfaction and pride.

Layer upon layer, colors mixed to perfection, their hues luminous on the canvas, their depth amazing even to him who mixed and applied them. A special magic came over him as he worked. This was his finest painting ever.

Hark! The sounds of hoofbeats and voices. A rider had entered the courtyard and was greeted by the servants. There came a knocking on the door. But he could not answer just yet—there was work still to be finished. The painting was not done!
Go away!
he thought but did not call out aloud.
Let me finish! You must not hurry the Master!

The knocking changed to pounding, and then the door to the chamber burst open. His manservant tried to close it again, speaking rapidly to the intruder that the artist must not be interrupted. But the man shoved him aside and strode into the room.

"Lorenzo da Padova?" cried the man who entered. "I am Giovanni Compianno, come for my cousin, the lady Francesca!"

Lorenzo could not answer, he was working so intently. Just this last little bit ... just this last little bit...

"Great God, man! What is this?" cried Giovanni Compianno, running across the studio to where his cousin sat lashed into position with a long, white scarf knotted tightly across her torso. "What madness is this?" He pulled out his knife and began sawing at the restraint.

Just this last little shadow on her delicate face, and—
Perfetto!
The painting needed only the signature. The signature of II Sorridente.

The model fell into her cousin's arms. "Is she dead, man? Have you killed her? By God, if she is—"

In the lower right-hand corner of the large canvas the little face of a smiling man took shape under Lorenzo da Padova's brush. The face was nearly hidden by the folds of Francesca's skirts in the painted shadows—but it was there.

Too late, Lorenzo looked up just as the raging man descended upon him, knife thrusting in vengeful fury. Too late to grab his own dagger, so sharp and ready, but tucked out of sight. Too late—

The Smiler fell to the stone floor. His blood spilled out into the shaft of late-afternoon sunlight. He struggled to speak. He cried out, "Death cannot hold me! I shall live on in my paint!" Then he fixed his eye on the canvas he knew in his heart was his very finest work—his masterpiece. And he whispered, "My muse ... my muse ... I shall paint you till the end of time!" even as he drew his last earthly breath.

Fitzgerald Cotton's booming voice calling from the studio came as a huge relief: "Where are you, you young hooligan? Connor? Get up here!"

I went up the stairs to the attic. Every step sent a stab of pain across my scraped back. Betty carried the book as she and Homer climbed behind me.

I told myself the important thing—the
only
thing—was to get my hands on that ancient paint box. Fitzgerald Cotton—or Lorenzo da Padova—had to be stopped from controlling my mom. So my scraped back stung—so what? The pain only made me braver.