Ishizu let out the breath she had been holding in as she leaned against the door, waiting for that tawdry, wholly unnecessary blush to leave her face.
Who was that man?
She didn't have much time to ruminate, however; she patted her clothing into place and entered the drawing room, where Serenity Crawford, the mayor's oldest daughter, and the young widow Mai Valentine, who seemed to have let herself in (of course she did, thought Ishizu sardonically), were sitting at the small dining table by the window, giggling for all the world like a pair of children at some precious inside joke. Serenity's charcoal and paper were left lying on the windowsill, utterly forgotten, as the young girl laughed softly, delicately into her hands, her face a rosy pink, no doubt from the unnecessary likely lewdness of whatever Mai had just told her.
Upon seeing Ishizu's entrance, Serenity immediately blushed a brighter red, no doubt embarrassed at letting her drawing lesson go undone thus far. Oh dear…
Mai merely smiled at Ishizu gaily, her eyebrows perfectly arched, the picture of merriment and joie de vivre.
"Ah, Serenity, I'm afraid our little chat is over, since our dear Miss Grumpy herself has arrived in the flesh," quipped Mai, adjusting herself in the old rocking chair with a flourish. "But if you have any questions about anything, you know you can always ask," she continued with a fluttering wink, her meaning completely clear.
Serenity, ever the meek, modest young girl of sixteen, blushed again, an unholy rouge settling on her cheeks, her forehead. Mai… come on now, don't tell her of all people…
Ishizu rolled her eyes, slipping her shoes off and placing them beneath the window. She removed her wire-rimmed glasses and placed them on the windowsill. "Yes, yes, Miss Grumpy is here to end the fun times and subject poor Serenity Crawford to an hour of ghastly drawing practice."
This half-joking, half-serious back-and-forth between them—this was the dance they did nearly every week when Serenity had her drawing lesson.
Besides, Mrs. Crawford will have my head if I let this prurient conversation continue much longer…
She reached for the momentarily forgotten sketchpad and black stick of charcoal, shaking her head slightly to herself, trying to hide the small smile on her face that being around the irrepressible Mai Valentine always seemed to bring.
"So, Serenity, have you done your hand and foot sketches yet this evening?" Ishizu raised an eyebrow at the young girl, noting with a small mite of righteous annoyance at Serenity's rapidly paling face. In the tradition of how Domenico Ghirlandaio had taught Michelangelo, Ishizu required that each and every drawing lesson would commence with the student drawing each hand and each foot from life with both hands, to practice drawing from life quickly and accurately.
Serenity reached for the pad of paper and charcoal, face ashen. "Not yet, Miss Ishtar," she said quietly, placing the drawing tools on the table and reaching down to untie her bootlaces. Her chestnut hair fell in front of her face, obscuring the wobbly lower lip, the full eyes that nearly threatened to spill over.
She sighed to herself as she fumbled with the charcoal. Could she get anything right? Between the scolding from Ishizu and the endless demands of her mother and father, it hardly seemed that way.
Ishizu sighed gently and patted Serenity on the shoulder encouragingly. "It's all right, dear. You know I don't blame you—it's this interloper who's clearly at fault here," she said drily, casting a sharp glance at Mai, who was now smoking a cigarette and looking for all the world like a matinee idol, all blonde glamorous and slightly too-much for ordinary eyes.
"Who—me?" Mai asked, in mock outrage, the smoke leaving her nose in an elegant coil. "Why, I'll have you know that I merely stopped by to make sure Serenity got into the house safely since you were late, Miss Ishtar." Her tone was mocking and well-meaning, but now it was Ishizu's turn to blush.
It was not my fault that I was a bit late—there was that crowd in the square… not to mention that strange man from earlier…
Ishizu nodded quietly, accepting that she had lost this round, as Serenity giggled gently to herself, enjoying, as always, the charming repartee between these two women who had become so dear to her over the past several months.
While Serenity did not gain much pleasure from her everyday life, one of the few things that brought her joy was being able to sit in the Ishtar parlor and sketch, and learn about the wonderful stories about art throughout the ages that Ishizu would occasionally tell. Days of olden Europe, when the monks made their miniature devotional works locked away in their cloisters; or sun-beaten, sweltering Egypt, where the pharaohs would seal themselves away in beautiful sarcophagi; even now, how the true artists lived in Parisian garrets, showing at elegant salons… it was all so lovely, so different from the stuffiness, the endless monotony of living in Domino Town, and she enjoyed these single nights each week immensely.
She held the charcoal stick in her right hand dutifully, pressing it to the paper in her careful, deliberate fashion, trying to capture the feel, the look, the soft, fleshy quality of her left hand as it sat on the table, as Ishizu took the seat next to Mai and buried her face in her hands in a combination of mortification and exhaustion.
"Working later than usual tonight in the studio?" asked Mai, reaching out a soothing hand to the back of Ishizu's neck.
"Yes… hard day. I lost track of time… Were you waiting here long with her?" Ishizu's head felt inexorably heavy, her eyelids weighed down like a mess of oil paint chips.
"Don't worry about it, Ishizu," said Mai cheerfully, her tone round and generous. "Besides, we had fun, didn't we, kiddo?" She looked meaningfully at Serenity, who gasped a bit but was rather firmly lost in trying to recreate that one tough vein on the back of her hand.
Ishizu lifted her head from her hands and looked carefully at her friend. "Mai," she began slowly, trying to keep her voice measured and quiet, "a man with a suitcase followed me home tonight."
Mai quirked an eyebrow and exhaled a perfect smoke ring, her lips curling into a smile. Aha… Has Ishizu finally found someone in this town to catch her eye? It was only a matter of time…
"Who?" The word could hardly have been more loaded, as Mai looked positively gleeful at this prospect.
Ishizu widened her eyes, knowing she ought to have expected her friend's quickly stoked interest. "I never saw him before, Mai…"
Mai tossed her golden hair over one shoulder and leaned forward, eyes boring into Ishizu's. "Did he say anything?"
Ishizu blushed, remembering how handsome the stranger had been—his dark hair, blue eyes, classically handsome features… "He tried," she replied tartly.
Oh, did he ever. "I'll only be in town a short while," my foot. Did he think that would get me to run to his arms? No matter how handsome he might be… how arrogant.
It left a bad taste in her mouth—not to mention how he, a strange man, had followed her home in the dark.
"Did you say anything?" Mai was practically on the edge of her seat. Despite the unsavory rumors surrounding Ishizu and her acquisition of Mr. Shadi's art collection (which hardly concerned Mai, as she was the target of a fair few untrue rumors herself in this narrow-minded, stubborn town), she'd never known her friend to be particularly enthralled with the men in town—or women, for that matter—on the whole.
Ishizu had always seemed too single-minded, too focused on her painting and teaching and managing the art collection to attempt to get involved with anyone. Surely no man in Domino Town was her equal, Mai allowed, but that did not mean that Ishizu had to abstain… Yet Ishizu had rarely spoken of any men at all to Mai, despite the latter's not infrequent teasing and urging. Certainly, Ishizu had never brought up a man without prompting, let alone blushed over him in Mai's company.
Mai cast a glance to the window, sure the sky was falling.
Ishizu blushed still harder, the twin emotions of curiosity about the man and disgust at his uncouth behavior warring inside her head, all tense and stirring, tearing into one another like bloodied, weary wrestlers. "Of course not, Mai."
"Did you at least find out what this man wanted?" Mai asked, rolling her eyes at her friend's reluctance with this sort of thing.
Here Ishizu's usually demure, placid smile gave way to a nearly toothy grin as she found herself chuckling. "I know what he wanted, Mai." The strange man with the suitcase made that abundantly clear.
"Oh?"
Do I ever. "You'll find it in Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights," murmured Ishizu wryly, rising to her feet from her chair and walking over to observe Serenity's progress, leaving a rather confused Mai hanging on those last cryptic words. The young girl had finished her thinly rendered drawings of her hands, all veiny and rather quite expressive, and had begun sketching her delicate pale feet, holding one foot out in front of her. Her forehead was scrunched up in concentration as she held the thin black reed out before her, attempting to measure the distance between her toes accurately.
Ishizu noted her hard work, her dedication to the work of the moment, with a small feeling of delight that bloomed in her chest. "Serenity, dear, would you like to move along?"
Serenity lowered her foot, looked up at Ishizu, and nodded solemnly. "Yes, Miss Ishtar—if you think I'm ready…" Her voice betrayed her rising excitement. Will I get to draw nude studies again? Perhaps copy a pastoral scene? A still life? Her hands nearly shook with anticipation.
Ishizu swallowed hard, remembering Mrs. Crawford's unpleasant interruption of her own studio work earlier that day, her cruel, cold outburst at the nature of Serenity's carefully wrought nude practice drawings, how she had crumpled up what must have been hours of hard work.
… The tall, imperious woman's angry warning about letting Serenity continue to take drawing lessons with her…
She walked over to the cabinet by the window and studied the miniature sculptures she kept to sketch from—small bronze and brass Christian statuette, clay nude torsos, a few abstracted glass pieces—and withdrew a particularly pious-looking figure of the aged Virgin Mary, a reproduction of a sixteenth-century Italian original somewhere far away, all heavily-cloaked and wrinkle-faced… exactly what Mrs. Crawford would like to see her daughter drawing. Something innocent. Something like this.
Ishizu could not take much pleasure in the irony of the town pariah, thought to have made her way through seduction and tricks, owning a sculpture of the purest of the pure. She sighed, feeling rather like a martyr, as she carried the statuette over to the table and set it before Serenity, whose eyelids began to droop with disappointment at the sight.
"You'll be working on a fabric study tonight," began Ishizu, trying to inject some much-needed excitement into her voice at the sight of her wilting student. "I'd like you to copy this sculpture, and while you do, I'd like you to also take a few notes for me, so that I can gauge your intellectual progress in thinking about art. How has the artist used the Virgin's drapery to express her inner turmoil? What do you suppose has just occurred when this image was created? What kind of stylistic details can you notice that could help you place this statuette in time?"
Serenity nodded gravely and opened her pad of drawing paper to a fresh cream-colored page. Were my nude studies not good enough last time? She resolved to practice them at home with more dedication than she had the previous week—perhaps if she attained enough skill, Miss Ishtar would find a way to help her sketch from a live nude? The thought made her nose pink.
Ishizu watched Serenity get to work on this task, tackling it as dutifully and with as much purpose as she approached drawing her hands, her feet, a vase of flowers, even nude figures without a reference… the lump in her throat returned. Serenity Crawford really was a delight to have, despite the meddling of her intolerable mother in more areas of her life—and Ishizu's life, for that matter—that really seemed necessary.
She sat back down beside Mai, who had watched the proceedings with a keen eye. "The Garden of Earthly Delights, huh? Well, excuse me for living, Miss Ishtar, but I'm not familiar with that one."
That's just the problem—no one, no adult, at least, in this… this blasted town has any true interest or knowledge in the fine arts, or even literature… most people don't care about anything beyond their damned gossip networks or petty Domino Town politics.
In fact, if Mrs. Crawford even knew of the painting's existence, she'd no doubt have my head on a platter. Ishizu returned, a bit more curtly than she needed to, "well, neither has anyone else in this town…"
Mai stubbed out her cigarette lazily and lit another, her voice rising in a challenge. "Well, you don't need to be affronted by my lack of knowledge of the subject… I mean, I know they're not exactly your cup of tea, and frankly, not many of them are mine, either, but just because the citizens of Domino Town can't tell a Goya from... from a Fra Angelico doesn't mean that they've all got this… this low mentality that you think they do…" There she goes again—god, I love you, Ishizu, dear, but you're a damned snob sometimes.
Ishizu's cheeks flamed at having been accurately and precisely called out by her rather astute friend. She found herself blustering rather rudely, she thought, "now, Mai, as long as Mr. Shadi entrusted the art collection to me, not to the town, but for the purpose of improving the town's cultural level, I cannot help but be concerned that none of the ladies of Domino Town will acknowledge me, let alone take my counsel or my advice."
This old topic again—the subject of what must have been a dozen back-and-forth conversations between Mai and her, each growing increasingly heated. While Mai was not particularly loved by the women in town, they at least tolerated her better than they did Ishizu, whom they viewed as having stolen something—the art collection—from their greedy coffers. While Ishizu was isolated in her studio and in her home, teaching students and attempting to care for Marik, Mai enjoyed her work as a City Hall secretary and the attentions of nearly all the eligible single (and married) men in town since her husband, god rest him, had passed, and was at least an agreeable enough personality that many could not find it in their heart of hearts to hate her.
Ishizu Ishtar, on the other hand, with her cold, quiet demeanor, her strange profession as an artist of all things, and her wholly troublesome younger brother, was the real enemy of the ladies of Domino Town, and they made sure she knew of it.
Mai cocked her head and tried to make her voice as gentle as possible. "Well, dear, not saying I agree with them, but they're married. And, well, I'm not married anymore, but I was, and thus they tolerate me. When a woman's married, and you're not, she doesn't see any need to take your advice. Even if you can, oh, I don't know, quote the writings of Leonardo da Vinci, or something, and all those highfalutin artists of yours—"
Ishizu gritted her teeth, knowing that Mai was ultimately right, as she so often was…
"Anyway, now, back to this man with the suitcase of yours…" Mai said, a flirtatious edge in her voice, as she took another languorous drag of her cigarette.
Ishizu flushed despite her best efforts. "You have a terrible habit of changing every subject, Mai…" She leaned back in her chair and hugged her knees to her chest, feeling in that moment oddly exposed and vulnerable, an odd, loopy excitement, mingled with fear curling around and inside her.
The man with the suitcase…
"I'm just saying, honey—this man with the suitcase may be your very last chance…" giggled Mai, covering her mouth in a show of false demureness.
Ishizu rolled her eyes. "Do you not think I have any standards where men are concerned, Mai? My goodness…"
"Well, if you sit around waiting for some knight-artist impresario in shining armor to come whisk you away on his perfect horse, far away from Domino Town into the land of purest love and capital-A Art, then you're going to be waiting a long time, dear…" Mai's tone was part scolding, part humoring of what she viewed as Ishizu's most wistful and unrealistic romantic fantasy.
Ishizu gritted her teeth. "I'm not…"
Yet she had to admit to herself that as far as fantasies went, that didn't sound half bad…
She knows me far too well.
Serenity piped up from the other end of the dining room table. "I think I'd like to take a bit of a break, Miss Ishtar… may I get a drink of water from the backyard pump?"
He's not home… maybe I'll catch him outside? Despite her timidity in such matters, Serenity felt a tiny flicker of warmth in her chest.
Ishizu nodded and rose to her feet. "Of course you may." She walked over to examine Serenity's careful drawings and accompanying stylistic and thematic notes, as she had assigned.
The young girl bowed her head in thanks and walked rather quickly out of the parlor, a skip in her step, into the kitchen, and out of the back door into the yard.
Mai followed her uncharacteristically hasty movements as she exited the house, a knowing smile gracing her reddened lips.
Serenity squinted as the darkness of the night temporarily blinded her, and stumbled a bit on her way to the pump. She reached for the metal cup that hung by the pump and cranked the wooden apparatus a few times, allowing cold, clear water to stream into the cup.
Is he not coming home?
She closed her eyes and tried to stop her heart from beating so quickly as she took a sip of the water, allowing the fresh night air to soak through her skin and rejuvenate her, cool her fluttering and anticipation a bit, if possible…
Suddenly, out of the darkness, the backyard gate creaked open and into the yard trudged the blond, moody, shaggy seventeen-year-old form of Marik Ishtar.
His hair was tied back into a messy tuft under his well-worn cap, his suspenders were thrown off his shoulders, his shirt was grimy about the collar and sleeves, his boots had holes above the big toes, and his eyes were downcast, his face utterly set into its grim expression.
She'd known him here and there growing up as the irrepressible blond-haired boy trailing towards the back of each class they'd had together. Nowadays he barely showed up, let alone study for exams and the like. Once his parents had died while his big sister had been gone at college, Serenity had noticed his change in moods, how he was despondent and lifeless one day, then wild and seemingly carefree, almost dangerous in his charisma the next.
Still...
To Serenity Crawford, however, he was perfect—just the way he was.
"He-hello, Marik…" she whispered thickly towards the figure of the boy, who merely raised his head to acknowledge her presence in his yard. He brushed past her like a ghost, threw open the back door, and drifted into the kitchen. Serenity swallowed the last of the water and followed him inside, stomach churning at her own shyness around him, heart hammering through her chest at his nearness.
Serenity Crawford did truly take much joy from her drawing lessons with Miss Ishtar. Yet, if she was completely honest with herself, the potential at catching a glimpse of the pale-haired, lavender-eyed boy each week was a much felt bonus.
"Hello, Marik!" called out Mai cheerily as Marik walked quietly, sullenly, through the parlor and towards the staircase towards the upper level.
Ishizu looked up from Serenity's work and, despite her brother's despondent look, couldn't help but smile at him. "Hello, Marik," she murmured, reaching out her arms for him, not caring how dirty and unwashed he always seemed to be these days. He's on a low today...
Marik sniffled in response and allowed her to embrace him, standing in the center of the parlor rather passively. His hands hung down uselessly by his sides, chest heavy from something he could not name. His eyes flickered over the room, adjusting to the warm lamp lighting, the familiar chintzy comforts of home.
His eyes settled onto Serenity—her peachy face with her oddly reddened cheeks, those baleful eyes and long, silky hair, that fine embroidered dress and her slender feet… everything with her all sweet and innocent, no knowledge of the kind of misery and darkness that haunted his days and kept him awake at nights… no use in thinking of such a thing.
He cast his eyes down to the floor, sure he had been caught admiring what he, a useless troublemaker, could never hope to hold in his hand.
Serenity took a deep breath, sure she looked like a lovesick fool, and approached him shyly. "Marik?"
Marik looked up from the floor sharply, meeting her eyes and making her nearly convulse. His eyes are so pretty… such a pretty lavender color…
Such a sad face… I wish I could make him smile…
Mai smiled rather broadly, fighting a raucous laugh as Serenity twisted her hands together and asked, "Marik, would you like to go to the soda shop with me tomorrow afternoon?"
You could have knocked Ishizu over with a feather. Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head, her jaw lingering somewhere near the floor.
She likes Marik?
She likes Marik.
Oh dear. Mrs. Crawford will have me drawn and quartered for this…
Without a reply, Marik turned on his heel and ran up the stairs to his room, the door slamming shut behind him with utter finality.
Serenity blushed, the red color and heat feeling like a cruel punishment for her forthrightness, her foolish, girlish hopes…
"I- I see."
Ishizu's eyes widened in horror at Serenity's downcast look. Even Mai looked thoroughly rattled at the coldness, the pointed absence, rather, of Marik's response.
Oh dear. Oh dear… She doesn't know that he's not… not well…
"Marik, that wasn't polite…" Her words trailed after him uselessly.
Serenity tried not to let the tears well up behind her eyes, her body positively shaking in the uncomfortably heated grip of humiliation and rejection, her stomach feeling uselessly nauseated as Ishizu took her hand gently. Mai rose from her seat, crossed to where the pair of women stood, and squeezed Serenity's shoulder in a rather motherly way.
"Serenity…" Ishizu pulled the girl close to her as Serenity tried desperately not to cry.
"We just need to be patient with Marik, understand?" Ishizu struggled not to let the long-dormant emotions, the worry she carried because of Marik's moods, his humors, his tendency to get in trouble, overwhelm her, come out through her eyes even as Serenity sobbed drily into Ishizu's neck.
"I don't understand… I mean, I've known him since before... before... and he never says anything to me…" Serenity choked back, inhaling Ishizu's comforting scent of paint and charcoal. "I say goodnight to him in my evening prayers and everything…"
Ishizu closed her eyes wearily, feeling sympathetic pang for Serenity's plight running through her all icy and sharp, as Mai walked back towards her seat.
"Well, dears, this is where I have to head on home," the blonde widow said slowly, measuredly, throwing on her coat with something less than her characteristic flourish. Mai Valentine, as a rule, was not particularly comfortable with emotionally compromising moments, and this one, with Serenity all about to bawl her eyes out over the sad, sad Ishtar boy, certainly qualified as such.
She excused herself from the house as Serenity struggled to let go of Ishizu, her face all streaked red and splotchy from holding in tears.
"Don't cry, Serenity," mumbled Ishizu, not exactly sure where and how to proceed in this most delicate of matters. "If not Marik, then perhaps someone else in the future." God, I hope so. There's nothing worse for her, for us, if Serenity were to really, truly like Marik.
"Never—I'll end up an old maid like you…" The words escaped her lips, cruelly so, before she could stop them.
Ishizu merely bowed her head, biting her lip to stop herself from retorting most inappropriately, with anger and vitriol and frustration towards the stupid statement from her beloved pupil—with anger towards this whole damned mess of a situation.
Is that how she sees me? An old maid?
I suppose it's better than how her mother sees me…
"My goodness, I'm sorry, Miss Ishtar…" Serenity tried to stop from shaking as she sat down in her seat before the charcoal and drawing paper. Now she'll hate me for sure… Miss Ishtar…
She looked back up at her teacher, willing everything to just go back to normal, to quietude and strokes of pencil or pen on paper. The things that kept both of them content "May I continue with the sketch of the Virgin Mary, Miss Ishtar?"
Ishizu took a deep breath, then walked over to where Serenity sat trembling, knees knocking together, awaiting the worst. "I think we should try something else tonight, dear."
Serenity's eyes widened and she interlaced her fingers together, her breath coming in shallowly. "What do you mean, Miss Ishtar?"
Ishizu pulled her chair to sit next to hers and placed a comforting hand upon her pupil's, a kernel of an idea working itself round and round in her head and pleasing her the more she turned it about. "You said that you say goodnight to Marik in your prayers, yes? And it seems like you really, truly like him?"
Serenity flushed a most delicate shade of pink.
That was all the response Ishizu needed. She rose suddenly, walked over to a chest of drawers by the door to the kitchen, and withdrew a wooden box of Faber's drawing pencils—the nicest kind that Ishizu rarely allowed herself to use, let alone her students.
As Serenity's eyes grew ever more round with anticipation and confusion, Ishizu placed the pencils into Serenity's lap with a gentle, genuine smile towards the young girl.
Damn all this. Damn Mrs. Crawford and her cruel judgment of me; damn her and the way she stifles poor Serenity's skill, her happiness.
"Draw how you feel."
As Serenity dutifully approached the task with a burgeoning, almost radiant smile on her face, pleased at being given the privilege to use such lovely colors, Ishizu looked out the window into that blanketing night, feeling more than a little muddled.
Did she feel wistful? Did she miss having that feeling inside of her, that one that Serenity Crawford held close to her own heart, allowing it to light her up like a candle-that feeling of being in love?
"I say goodnight to him in my evening prayers and everything..."
Ishizu closed her eyes and attuned her breath to the measured skritch-scratch of Serenity's pencils on the paper, enjoying the way the night wind brushed its fingertips on the windowpane.
I should do the same. Perhaps allow myself to say goodnight to-to my "someone."
That white knight in shining armor, all genteel and art-loving, as Mai had teased her-a harmless fantasy at best.
After all, she had the art collection to manage and curate, the student to teach, the paintings to create, her brother to look after, and the townsfolk to grapple with. The last thing Ishizu Ishtar needed was some sort of foolhardy romantic entanglement, white knight or no white knight.
Yet...
... Why, oh why did her thoughts turn to what Mai had said earlier, despite her best efforts to write him off for following her, to the man with the suitcase, his face handsome and strange in the deep blue night?
What was it she felt?
A mixture of confusion, fear, curiosity, and... something else?