Then the pictures started to shift. Less darkness, more bright colors, more landscape, and then a nearly perfect replica of the Slattery house, this time with yellow shutters and climbing vines of blossoming lilacs. And then there were children. Unlike the more devastating paintings, these warm ones never showed faces. In these paintings, the children were playing, dancing, a boy and girl running down lanes and through fields. If there was a sound track to this part of the mural, it would be laughter.
Then, as Ellie reached the farthest wall from the entry, there was nothing but color, blacks and reds and oranges and . . . fire . . . It was a fire, and in the fire was a man’s face. It wasn’t like the fire-man was burning; it was more like the fire-man was the fire and his scream was sorrow at what he had destroyed. Around this mass of color and soot and pain was a blackened landscape of a burned-out world, nothing but rubble.
It took a moment for Ellie to move again. She knew Caleb was an artist, but this . . . She couldn’t tell if this was genius or insanity. How many hours had he spent making this basement his masterpiece? More important—in which direction did the pictures go? Did his artistic progression start at the fiery inferno and transform into the deep, moving, poignant art that made a statement about social injustice? Or was it the other way around—starting with the mind of an artist full of potential and then descending, as many geniuses did, into madness?
“He’s amazing, right?” Collin whispered as though they were looking at his brother’s artwork in a gallery rather than in the devastated basement of an abandoned supermarket.
“Yeah, it’s stunning.” Ellie wanted to be sarcastic but couldn’t, not about this. She was willing to give space to the idea that Caleb was some kind of artistic savant, but she quickly changed the subject back to her main concern, the well-being of her father. “Where is he?”
“Close, close.” Collin gave Ellie’s shoulder a quick rub that made her understand that he hadn’t noticed she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring. Then he followed the perimeter of the basement, skirting the giant puddle of stagnant water and climbing over a large chunk of concrete to shout Caleb’s name into the blackness beyond the walls of art.
“Shhh!” Ellie flinched, sure that the right vibration could make everything come tumbling down on top of them. Collin waved her off and called again. He must’ve heard something, because after a sizable pause, he came running back. When he reached her, Collin stood close enough that she thought he might put his arm around her waist. Thankfully, he didn’t touch her again, but that was the least of her worries as soon as she saw Caleb emerging from the darkness.
He walked slowly from a doorway she hadn’t noticed at first, nursing his right arm and holding it to his side. If Ellie hadn’t known that he was recovering from not only a gunshot wound but also a backroom patch job, she wouldn’t have thought much of it. He was dressed in fresh clothes, a dark gray tee shirt with a crisp flannel unbuttoned over it. Ellie recognized it as one that Collin wore last fall along with a dark blue pair of jeans that Caleb’s frail frame swam in. Other than that, he looked a lot like the Caleb she’d gotten used to seeing in the back of every family event, nearly a piece of furniture or a light fixture that you came to expect and only missed when he wasn’t there. His face did look pale and drawn. He probably had a lot of blood loss if the amount of residue in the bathroom was an indicator. In fact, it was likely that even if Collin had managed to treat the wound effectively, Caleb still needed a blood transfusion.
But even with Caleb’s appearance, she couldn’t see her father anywhere in the basement.
“Collin, where’s my dad?” she asked, panicking.
Collin didn’t respond, but Caleb did.
“He’s sleeping.” Caleb pointed at the dark doorway he’d emerged from. “Don’t worry, he’s fine. Let’s let him sleep until it’s time to leave.”
“Hell no!” Ellie said, and rushed across the room, aware of Collin’s hand trying to stop her but slipping off.
“Ellie! Stop!” Collin shouted, rushing after her, but Caleb put up one hand, halting his brother’s pursuit. Then, as Ellie brushed past him, about to enter the doorway he was blocking, Caleb got his hand around her upper arm, his grip tighter than she would’ve expected for someone who looked so frail.
“Ellie, he is resting.” He was calm but firm, and the strength in his voice made her hesitate. His eyes were the color of prairie grass that filled all the empty spaces in Broadlands. They were also calm in a way she hadn’t expected. This man was the artist who painted the moving portraits by the entrance of the basement, definitely not the creator of the burning man on the opposite wall. It was that calm, steady gaze that made her stop. “You and I need to talk.”
“Let me go first,” she said, looking at her arm where his hand held tight and then back up at Caleb’s prairie-grass eyes. “Then we can talk.”
He nodded and released his fingers one at a time. Ellie stretched her arm, sure that she would have another bruise. So many bruises in one day, but the only injury she worried about was the permanent kind, the kind that was internal and would never fade and eventually heal. Losing her sister. Losing her father. Those were the pains she couldn’t ever fully heal from.
“Thanks for hearing me out,” Caleb said, still calm but this time with a quick rub of his injured arm. “I don’t exactly have anywhere to sit.” He glanced around the room as though waiting for a living room set to appear out of nowhere.
“I don’t care about sitting, Caleb. Do your talking, give me my dad, and let me get out of here. Better yet, add ‘turn yourself in to the police’ to the end of that list and my life would be complete.” At that, she moved herself out of range just in case she decided it was time to retrieve her father and he tried another grabbing maneuver to stop her.
Caleb sighed and shuffled over to a large chunk of what used to be the ceiling. He sat down carefully, adjusting his whole body into several different positions before settling. Ellie refused to sit. She preferred to keep her options open when facing a man who had just committed armed robbery.
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions and I will answer all of them, but first I want to tell you a story,” Caleb began, bending his arm so it rested limply on his lap.
“The only story I’m interested in hearing is what happened to my sister. You want to tell me that?” She was being rude and demanding, but she didn’t know if there was a Miss Manners column for this particular experience.
Ellie could hear Collin’s annoyed sigh in the background. Just like she knew his personalized ringtone, she knew what that sigh meant without looking. He wanted her to shut up and listen. Well, he’d never say it that way, but it was exactly what he meant. Ellie couldn’t let herself care about Collin’s wants anymore.