Roses and Rot (25 page)

But without her reflections, the girl felt unseen. And so she sat, very small and very still, in the corner of a room, watching as she disappeared from all the mirrors in it. Watching as she disappeared.

Once upon a time, there was a reflection who finally broke free of her mirrors. Perhaps that story ended with a happily ever after.

Perhaps.

Perhaps the only happily ever after is to survive to tell the story.

I sat next to the window in the train, a silver snake winding its way through the dingy white that was late January in the Northeast. Stark skeletons of trees and near-untouched woods alternated with parking lots and industrial equipment as the train churned on.

Evan had a gallery show in New York. Someone from Drowned Meadow had been at Melete and seen the carousel he had made. The gallery had been established a hundred years ago, and only three other artists had ever had their premiere solo show there, he told me.

“This is it, Imogen—it’s beginning. Everything I’ve worked for. Will you come down? I want you to see it.”

I said I would, of course; borrowed Ariel’s leather pants to wear to the opening, packed an overnight bag, and got on a train.

It crossed a bridge, concrete and rusting metal, the water moving sluggishly beneath. Nothing at all like the fantasies of bridges guarding the Mourning River’s clear, dark waters. This was a bridge connected to a city, not to a fairy tale.

I watched the other people on the train. Men and women in dark suits, arranging their faces in expressions of seriousness as they checked the screens of electronic devices. A teenage girl with tiny braids dyed the entire spectrum of the rainbow and glitter on her eyelids danced in her seat to whatever music she heard through her headphones. A harried young woman—older sister or nanny,
I thought—tried to keep two boys from menacing the rest of the passengers with their superhero action figures, and was told “You can’t put Batman in time-out!” It seemed a valid point.

The other passengers seemed strange to me, almost unreal, all so far removed from the bubble of art I had been living in for the past few months. I wondered what they would sacrifice to have a different life, what they would trade seven years for. There’s always a shinier office, a bigger promotion, a more prestigious title. Ambition and talent dress themselves up in all sorts of clothes—a dancer’s pointe shoes, a doctor’s white coat, a CEO’s Louboutins.

The train rumbled through the city, and the car filled with reminders to take all children and belongings with you when you disembarked. People clutched bags, shrugged back into coats, arranged faces into the careful blank stare best suited to negotiating the crowds of New York City, a place where the Fae could gallop through Times Square and only the tourists would blink.

The train pulled into the stench and grime and chaos of Penn Station. There would be a car, Evan had said, sent by the gallery to bring me to the hotel. “They’re hinting at offering an exclusive contract, not just one show, but long-term, so they’re trying to impress me, and I’m fine with letting them.” On the way to the exit, I stopped.

There was a girl dancing. Her skin was dark, rich against the red fabric that she wore, tank and pants and wrapped around her head. She turned fouettés as if her pointe shoe was nailed to the floor, as the boy sitting next to her tore through a cello rendition of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

Entertain us.

I watched until the song finished, then dropped a couple of dollars in the open cello case. They were already moving into the next song,
but she caught my eye, and nodded slightly. I wondered again—what would they trade, if offered the chance? Or maybe being there, New York Penn Station, getting paid for their art, was itself a piece of a dream that had come true.

The car was waiting, and I slid into the lush quiet of it, already a different world from the stink and closeness of the train station, from the snaking line of business travelers and tourists waiting for cabs, hoping to snag one before the threatened rain became actual.

The car stopped in front of an elegant building a few blocks from the New York Public Library. “You’re already checked in, miss. Key and room number are inside this folder, and my card if you find you want to go anywhere or you need anything. I’ll be back to pick you up for the opening later this evening. You’re a guest of Drowned Meadow while you’re here, and I’m pleased to be at your service.”

They really were trying to woo Evan. For a mad moment, I wanted to ask for something truly outrageous—the address of an underground nightclub, or the most expensive drink in the city, delivered to me in under an hour. A couture gown and shoes that would outsparkle Cinderella’s. Something magic. But then I recovered myself, tipped the driver, and walked through the hotel’s discreetly opened front doors.

As a gallery, Drowned Meadow went for tradition and subtlety. No polished concrete, no exposed ductwork, no hot-and-cold-running beautiful people passing drinks and ornate food. Instead, it was all dark wood and burgundy accents, precise lighting and plushness. Quiet, restrained, and, like a vampire, confident in its own power and immortality.

I was brought straight to Evan when I arrived. He kissed me once, hard. “Let me show you the sculptures.”

There wasn’t the space to set them up in the full carousel, so they were scattered through the different rooms of the gallery. A couple of new pieces, too—birds in flight, a phoenix rising. “Some of them have already sold.” Evan’s eyes glittered, his color high.

“Congratulations,” I said, watching the people who angled themselves away from the art to watch the artist walk through. Sharp-cut suits and architectural dresses, all high-shine polish, their eyes almost as hungry as the Fae in Faerie. “Though, if your commission was from Gavin, how can the work be sold?”

“A percentage goes to Melete, and of course, the publicity is very good for them. He said it helped maintain the balance of things, with my being elsewhere.”

I nodded as if all freelance work had magical elements that needed negotiating. “Well, Drowned Meadow has certainly done a gorgeous job with the presentation. You’ll sign with them?” It seemed a logical choice. The gallery had turned the building into a stage, illuminating Evan’s work. The people in attendance reeked of influence.

“Maybe. I have other options. People have been calling and setting up meetings. Even if I do sign here, I might be able to leverage something.”

“Must be nice to be so wanted.” I smiled.

“It is.”

A woman cut across our path, her dress pleated and gathered at the precise angles of origami folds. “Evan, you said that if the dragon sold, you wanted to meet the buyer.”

“Excuse me, Imogen.” He kissed my cheek and walked away, the woman walking just in front of him as they passed through the gallery, a herald announcing a king.

“It’s not just him they’re wooing, you know.”

“Excuse me?” I didn’t turn from the sculpture to see who was speaking.

“This. The excess. The success. It’s not just for him. He’s already theirs. They’re trying to impress you, too.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You do. Because it was me in your shoes, say about twenty-eight years ago.”

I did turn then, and I recognized him. The man who had designed the museum that people were still arguing over. Thomas Greene. Helena’s father. Not in a suit, but in the artist’s uniform of expensive black T-shirt and jeans. He wore his charisma casually, the lines in his face and silver at his temples adding interest. Helena had his smile.

“But how?” My hand went to my throat, closing around words I couldn’t speak.

“Pronouns, darling. They can refer to a gallery and its minions just as easily as”—he reached out, traced his finger under the chain around my neck, the dangling hourglass—“something else.

“So, are you this year’s girl?”

“I’m sorry. I hadn’t realized you’d gotten divorced again.”

He grinned. “A palpable hit! But you know that’s not what I meant.”

I knew. “Maybe. Maybe it’s someone else. Like, I don’t know, your daughter.”

“Now if that one was supposed to wound, you need to take better aim. Why should I be anything but happy for Helena if she gets an opportunity to have this?” He turned slowly, taking in the room, all its secrets, all its power.

“I didn’t think you cared about her, one way or the other.”

Thomas looked at me, then shook his head. “Come on. Let’s walk
over to the bar and get drinks, so we can stand in the corner while you tell me what a monster I am. That way you’ll have something to throw in my face later if you decide you’re right after we talk.”

He was not at all what I had expected, so I walked with him to the bar. “Vodka gimlet, please.”

After we had our drinks, we tucked ourselves into velvet slipper chairs in a semiprivate corner, where we could still watch the people pass through, preening, and where they paid us precisely the kind of sideways-glanced attention Thomas had said they would. Close enough to watch, enough distance to make clear that they didn’t dare to eavesdrop.

“So. You want the whole story of how I’m awful and selfish and abandoned my daughter.”

“Can’t hardly wait,” I said over the rim of my glass.

“Things being what they were,” he began, “I didn’t know Helena even existed until she was almost seven, and a letter from Janet showed up in my mailbox. I never wanted to be anyone’s dad, and I wanted it even less, then. I was the hot new thing, and it wasn’t only my art people wanted to collect. I’m not going to lie to you and say I didn’t love it, didn’t take full advantage.

“But while I may be selfish, I’m not a complete asshole, and I knew being born wasn’t the kid’s fault. So I wrote back to Janet, told her she could have custody, I’d pay support, pay for college—hell, I’d pay for a pony if the kid wanted one, all that kind of stuff—and Helena could decide if she wanted to know me or not.”

I took a long sip of my drink, holding the tart lime against the inside of my mouth. “None of that sounds even remotely like what I’ve heard.” Though I wondered, now, how much of that past Janet had changed to fit with her made-up narrative. Hard to tell someone their father is under a curse if he’s just sent them a pony.

“I’d be shocked if it did. After I wrote, I heard nothing. Months went by. Enough months that I noticed, and wondered if maybe something happened to the kid. Janet wasn’t answering my calls, and the only address I had for her was Melete, so I went there.

“And found out she’d rewritten the entire story.” Thomas passed his hand over his eyes. “She went on and on about our perfect love and how—” His face twisted as he was forced to swallow the words he almost spoke. “How we were interfered with, by Tania, who was . . . you know.”

I nodded.

“Janet continued that way. She knew I’d come back once the curse was broken, all this stuff. And she was calm about it, like it was perfectly sane, like we really had some kind of love for the ages that was magicked away from us.

“I tried to explain that I didn’t love her, I never had, that we were friends who’d had a great time together, but that I didn’t want to be with her like that. That I was just there for the kid, to try and do right by her.”

As we spoke, glasses were raised in salute to Thomas from across the room, kisses blown. He didn’t react. I wondered if he was immune to everyone’s desire for a piece of him after all this time, or if his focus was part of his charm:
All these people want me, and I want only you.

“Another drink?” he asked.

“Please.”

On his way to and from the bar he said hellos, kissed cheeks, strode through the social hierarchy. Heads turned in my direction as he walked back. I fought not to fidget under the smiles, the whispers.

He handed me the fresh glass and continued.

“Janet wouldn’t have any of it. If I didn’t want to be with her, I
couldn’t see the kid. She wouldn’t budge. Wouldn’t even step out of the doorway and let me into the house.

“So I opened the accounts that I said I would, left the passbooks on Janet’s doorstep the next day, and got out of there. I hoped that maybe if I left and stayed gone, Janet would get her head on straight.”

“You left Helena there. With Janet. Who hasn’t changed, by the way. She’s still convinced that the two of you have some great thwarted love.

“If anything,” I said, “she made it worse, telling Helena that the only way you could be saved is if she went”—I paused, considered— “where you did, for the same reason.”

Thomas finished his martini. “Helena knows that’s not how it works, right? I mean, if she wants it for herself, good on her, and I hope she gets it. But even if that were true, I wouldn’t ask anyone to go there for me. You get what you get because being there isn’t a relaxing vacation.”

“She knows now,” I said. “She didn’t before. It might do her some good to hear from you.”

“Can I have your phone?”

I handed it to him, and he programmed in his information. “Still her choice, I’m not going to force myself into her life, but if there’s anything I can do, she should get in touch. I mean that.” For a second, he looked uncertain. Not the smooth, professional flirt. Just someone who hoped for something he didn’t know how to ask for.