“A swan,” Cal said. “A black swan. A perplexing addition to the scene, until you realize it’s also a signature.”
Ben stepped back and looked at the mosaic again. In the slanted winter light, the ripple of gray mountains lined up behind the beast like waves approaching the shore. A swan?
“Joseph Swann, age sixteen, begged hospitality from the brothers at St. Michael’s soon after his family’s railroad went bankrupt,” Cal said.
“Why?” Ben couldn’t imagine what would bring a Protestant heir to a Catholic monastery.
“Family troubles of some sort. His older brother had passed away, and the two of them had apparently been very close. He remained at the priory until he matriculated at Harvard. After graduation, he moved to New York, where he became an artist quite in demand among the city’s gilded class. He returned here later in his career, creating the mosaic as a gift to the priory.”
Ben moved closer to the mosaic. His eyes ran along the contours of the land, and a knot began to tighten in his chest.
“It certainly is something, isn’t it? Perhaps there’s another novel in his story. Perhaps a sequel to your tale of troubled Swanns?”
Ben hardly heard him. A chill slid down his neck as he traced the lines Joseph Swann had crafted to form the unbroken ranges of distant mountains. He squinted at the way he had articulated the slow slope of the land that fell into the valley beyond the dragon. The way he had placed a single great tree in the mural’s foreground.
Ben agreed with Father Cal that Joseph Swann had possessed rare talent. He had captured the vista perfectly. Ben knew this because he woke up to that precise view every morning.
24
In the car, Ben attempted conversation with Charlie. He asked him questions about his day, about his vocabulary words, about the owl pellet his class had found in the forest. He asked his son questions because that’s what he was supposed to do. Charlie answered them for the same reason. For the most part, Charlie stared out his window as intensely as Ben stared ahead.
The first time Ben had seen the mosaic in the monks’ garden, he’d assumed it depicted the valley upon which the priory perched. It made sense that the artist would portray the brothers as St. Michael, their patron, combating the dragon. But the view Joseph Swann had perfectly captured was of Swannhaven’s valley as seen from the Crofts. The infernal creature that he’d given such power rose from where the village stood, poised to strike out at the Drop.
As he drove down the empty county road, Ben imagined a giant beast galloping alongside the Escape, just beyond the tree line.
The light had faded. The clouds were stygian streaks above them. It had been getting dark early, but Ben must have spoken with Father Cal longer than he’d realized. He could see the outline of the Crofts up on the Drop. Caroline would be in the kitchen now, but Ben couldn’t see that side of the house from here. The unlit towers and soaring roofs looked black against the purpling sky.
Ben felt a grip on his shoulder: Charlie had grabbed him. He looked forward and saw a figure standing in the road. Ben slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel. The car screamed to a stop when they were abreast of the person in the road.
“You okay?” he asked Charlie.
“Yes.”
“Stay here.” Ben got out of the car.
The figure hadn’t moved from its position in the middle of the road, but in the dusk it seemed to have turned to them. In the flash of the headlights, Ben had thought he saw a woman, but he wasn’t sure.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Ma’am?” He walked around the car to where the figure still stood. He was sure it was a woman now; a breeze had caught the wisps of her white hair.
Ben came alongside her. She wore a breezy housedress that was too thin for the cold day, and she still hadn’t acknowledged him.
“Do you need help?” he asked. It was only then that he realized it was Mrs. White. He hadn’t seen her in a few weeks. In the past her hair had been tied tight behind her head, but now it billowed around her like white flames.
Her mouth moved, but Ben couldn’t hear what she was saying. Finally, he reached out to touch her shoulder and saw her face clearly for the first time. He wanted to let go, but instead his grip on her shoulder tightened. She had wide almond eyes and a face that had grown gaunt enough to erase her wrinkles. For a second she looked so much like his grandmother that he couldn’t breathe.
“Get your hands off her.” A man’s voice came from the woods.
Ben pulled his arm back. He heard footsteps along the side of the road, and soon he saw the man attached to them. He was about Ben’s height and in his sixties, powerfully built. A shotgun was slung across his chest.
“You’re going to scare her,” the man said.
“She was standing in the middle of the road,” Ben said.
“All right now, Mama?” the man asked the old woman. “Wandered away, didn’t you?” The man slid his shotgun so that it hung across his back and gently picked the woman up in his arms. The man looked strong, but from the ease with which he did this, it was clear Mrs. White was nothing but skin and bones.
“It was a miracle I didn’t hit her,” Ben said.
“I’d kill you,” the man said. He said it evenly enough for Ben to believe him.
Ben knew enough to back down from a confrontation with an upset stranger, but he had his son in the car, and now he was angry, too. He stalked back to his car door. “If you’re so attached to your mother, keep her from walking in the middle of the road in the dark. Not everyone’s going to stop.”
He got into the Escape, slammed the door, and took the road as fast as it would let him. He watched the figures in his rearview until they melted into the dark.
“Sorry about that,” he told Charlie after he’d calmed down. He slowed the car to the limit.