Part 4

          I sleep for days.  Not the full twenty-four hours of each one, but it's really the only remotely productive activity I can manage for the next two or three days.  I actually call in sick to work, I feel so miserable.  It seems I never got around to buying myself a thermometer (and I'm certainly not going to bother going out to buy one right now), but I feel feverish and chilled, congested and coughing, nauseous enough that it's just as well I don't have the energy to make myself more than toast and cereal.  I'm immobilized by that low-level ache that settles into your bones and saps all traces of energy from you.  I dream, and often it's of the Masons, but it's a jumbled blur of bad feelings.  I don't remember the details by the time I'm fully awake, just have that lingering troubled feeling you get from nightmares.
          The first few days back on my feet are still a little shaky, by the time I get home from work, all I'm able to do is eat a little dinner and go back to sleep.  I don't have the energy to draw, or even much will to look at any of them.  I almost forget entirely about the letter I tucked into my sketchbook, though I have taken the book out of my bag to make sure there's no lingering dampness from my brief time in the rain.  (Clearly, I should splurge on a bag that's a little more waterproof next time.)

          And then another dream.  No, not a dream?  I don't know.  It was as clear in places as any of my visits to the Masons' time have been, but blurred around the edges - though everything's been a little fuzzy, dream or not, since this illness knocked me out.
          I wake up, and again I'm not in my bed, but on the ground in the woods.  I sit up, but don't stand, my body feels so heavy and sluggish still.  It takes my eyes awhile to adjust, and it feels fuzzy, the way that a dream does, though it could just be illness-induced grogginess.  There's a hellish glow off in the distance - the fire, again?  It must be, it's in the right direction, though it's brighter than it was last time, the whole house must ablaze now.  I've never been back on the same day before - but then, if there's any rhyme or reason to what time I land in, I clearly haven't discerned the pattern yet.
          There's a brushing sound nearby, a rustle, and a twig softly cracks.  I remain as still as I can.  Hardly any moonlight makes it through the dense canopy overhead (the fire was in the summer, the leaves are all out in full in this untouched forest), and the light from the fire doesn't do much more than vaguely outline objects where they face it.  I can see so little, I'm certain I can't be seen myself.  I continue to listen, and hear more rustling, and I'm just beginning to think that it's far too little noise to be made by anything as large as a person, when I hear a man's voice.  And then another.
          "So."
          "Mm."
          "You're leaving, then?"
          "Yes."
          "And no trace of your presence remains?"
          "Of course not.  It's all been burned.  Everything of importance was in the library, and the tower has just collapsed. Tutto è andato."
          "Your family?"
          A derisive snort.  "They made it out, the boy was quick to react.  And I think she expected it, the two of them managed to take quite a small fortune with them."
          "She'll think this was all revenge for her infidelity?"
          "Precisely.  No-one shall ask any further questions.  I made certain I was seen in the library before starting it, and none saw me leave.  There shall be no inquiries, nor persons to follow me."
          "You're certain none saw you leave?  I heard voices near the tower as you left it."
          "It was only the girl and... and the other girl, the one who materializes from nowhere, some other time, but she did not remain long.  One inexplicable vision from the child will discredit any other stories she may tell, I am hardly concerned."
          A pause, and it sounds as though one of the men starts to move off, but when the other doesn't follow, the first stops.
          "I shall not be going with you."
          Another pause.  "S'il vous plaît. It does not matter to me."
          "I shall visit you in the winter, perhaps."
          "You know where I shall be."
          One set of footsteps (or, rather, twig-crunchings) moves on, nearing the spot in which I sit motionless, hardly daring breathe.  And he does seem to pause not far from me, I can make out the shadow of his form, but the low light makes it difficult to judge distance.  He is still a long moment, as if looking around.  Back at the burning mansion?  Or at his companion?  Or sensing me, and trying to determine who overheard the conversation?  Whatever it was, he moves on, and away into the depths of the woods.
          The fire burns on.  The other man must be watching it, I hear a light snap or rustle every few minutes, but no real motion.  He stands there as the sky grows light, first with the reflection of the lurid flames, and then with the approaching dawn.  It lightens just enough that I think I can see his figure in the distance, between the trees and underbrush.  Long and graceful, motionless as a statue, leaning with his back against a tree.  He faces the house, and watches in silence.  The flames are lower now, their glow fainter after their long night's effort.  The smell of the smoke hangs heavy in the air - the light morning breeze only serves to spread its pungrant ashen death further among the trees, too heavy and mean to be pushed so easily aside.
          I may not be able to make out his face, but there's no question in my mind that it's Meres who stands there, and Azal who walked away.  I recognized their voices at once, but even if I hadn't, I couldn't mistake that distant silhouette that grows clearer every moment.  "This is our garden..."  I have heard no sound from him in all the minutes? hours? that have passed since Mr. Mason left, not a cry, an accussation, a recrimination, a sob.  But my heart is breaking, and I can't look away from him, standing at a distance, as the place he built from love, for love, with love, turns to ashes before his eyes.
          "Longa est vita, amor aeternus est."

          I sleep through my alarm the next morning.  I'm late to work, and when I do get there, it's all I can do to keep my eyes open.  I feel like I haven't slept at all.  Maybe I didn't?  I drink another cup of coffee, pop some more cold medication, and fight my way through the day.  When home again, I fall asleep, and if I dream, it's gone by the time I wake.
          Another few days go by, and I've weaned myself off the tissue box for long enough periods that I can work on a few drawings.  They're taking over more space in my little apartment almost by the day - half a dozen are finished (I think), with another dozen in varying degrees of progress.  The first few I started are looser, in charcoal and pastels, larger impressions of the garden, the rooms, the figures.  But the ones I've started in the last couple of weeks are smaller, tighter compositions, in more detailed pencil and conté - the folds of Evelyn's dress beneath her hands as she writes in the sketchbook, Jacob's bright smile beneath damp curls, Evelyn's doll resting among the dogwood blossoms.  I want so badly to capture the library and its glorious ceiling, but find it pretty daunting - even more so, now that I've recovered the photos I took of it, and seen the mastery of the fresco work.
          Today, though, I've gone back to the pastels, and my hands are ablaze with colored dust, as I draw a dark silhouette against the flames.  I'm finding fire is awfully hard to draw without looking cartoonish, so it's good engrossing work, with piles of reference images printed out all around me.  The colors are actually less varied than I'd expected, but with so much subtlety, it would be easier if I could add in blues and greens, but I can't, it's all in red, orange, white, black, and a million shades between them.  Yet as I trace the outlines of Mr. Mason - Azal - it's not really him I'm thinking of.  But I can't yet bring myself to try the image that's haunting my mind, I don't know how to capture the dismay and despair in that staring motionless form in the shadows, leaning against a tree for support.
          "Someone send a runner through the weather that I'm under, for the feeling that I lost today..."  I'm fading in and out of listening to the music blasting through my headphones, hearing some lines, some songs, but not all of them, my mind in another place as I swirl my fingers through the vibrant dust on the page below me.  Need to add more white, the highlights should glow brighter here... and here, the silhouette shouldn't be quite so dark along this edge, the light of the fire should catch a few highlights on his face, his chest... I don't know how he was dressed, or how he stood there without them catching fire. Why didn't the fire spread to the woods so close to it?  Azal didn't sound injured, but he was in the room as it burned.  And Meres... how was he so calm, why hadn't he tried to stop his brother - no, "brother" - from starting it in the first place?
          "Afraid of the house, stay the night with the sinners..."
          I freeze, unsettled once again by the seeming aptness of the lyrics that strike my ears.  I don't believe in coincidence quite the way I used to.