Tag Archive: young adult fiction
In the Company of Angels, Episode 3.1 – The Gallery
Jill walked down the sidewalk, noting the numbers on the buildings as she passed. It was the morning after Sam disappeared from her house. She had explained to her mother, quite truthfully, that Sam had left just after the howling had started outside. Her uncle Chris checked the yard, but by then the din had ceased and he could find no evidence of any intruders. So, the adults had all returned to the dining room and eaten dessert. About a half hour later, at Evie’s insistence, Jill had called Sam. He was back at home and was fine, but he did not offer any additional explanation other than to tell her the address of Mr. Luke’s studio.
That was where she was now headed.
When she reached the 200 block, she noticed that most of the buildings appeared to be industrial, with plenty of trucks pulling up to loading docks and lots of traffic coming and going. Number 220 was just ahead. It was a large three-story brick warehouse with a simple metal and mirrored-glass door in the front. A few windows, also mirrored, were visible on the second and third floors. The sign on the door matched Mr. Luke’s business card. It read:
Lucas Lester
Artist & Illustrator
Jill stepped up to the door and pressed the button on the intercom. For quite a while there was no answer, so she pressed it again. Then an odd but strangely sweet metallic voice finally spoke to her through the speaker.
“May I help you?”
“This is Jill Jonsson. I’m here to see Mr. Luke. Sam Deckard gave me this address.”
There was a long silence, and then she heard a loud buzz and a click as the lock on the door was released. “Come upstairs please,” said the metallic voice.
Jill opened the door and stepped inside. The entrance area was a small, unadorned room. A heavy plain metal door that apparently connected with the ground floor of the warehouse was just to the right, and a flight of stairs leading upward was to the left. Directly in front of her, the entire wall was mirrored, and she could see herself in the reflection. She climbed the two short flights of stairs to the upper floor and found herself standing before another mirrored-glass door, similar to the one on the street. She realized that this mirror must be the one-way type; through it she saw various splotches of light and some movement. She knocked, and a shadowy figure approached. The door swung wide and Luke Lester stood in the doorway, dressed now in coveralls that were spattered with every imaginable color of paint..
“Ah! Jane! It’s so good to of you to have come!”
“Uh…it’s Jill, Mr. Luke. Jill Jonsson.”
“Oh, yes, yes indeed. Silly me! I am so terrible with names! Please forgive me? May I take your coat?”
“Yes, thanks,” said Jill. She handed her coat to Mr. Luke, who took it and carefully hung it on a hanger, and then upon a very ornate cast iron coat rack by the door. Beside the coat rack was an umbrella stand fashioned of dark-glazed ceramic with golden dragons painted along the rim the floor was covered with some beautiful but faded oriental rugs. These were only by the door through which she had entered; the rest of the floor was hardwood, and, Jill noted, could definitely use a good sweeping.
But the room itself was less a room than an enormous platform, with carved wooden railings along three sides, and some sort of dark scaffolding barely visible beyond the rails, though what the scaffolding was, and what it held, Jill couldn’t see well enough to say. Whatever the structures were intended for, they appeared to reach not only to the floor below them, but all the way to the ceiling of what would have been the third floor of the warehouse.
Upon the platform itself, there were a few chairs and a large desk near the door, jumbles of standing suits of armor, weapons, racks of clothing, and dozens of easels set up randomly. Each of these held a painting, or in some cases several small paintings together. Many of the easels had coat racks next to them, on and around which were piled cloaks, or hats, or gloves, or boots, or other items that Jill didn’t recognized.
The wall behind her and parts of the platform were partitioned off by heavy purple curtains, and some of the spaces around the platform were surrounded by the curtains, Jill could see bright lights and easels with partially finished paintings within these enclosures. All of the windows that she had seen from the street below appeared to have been heavily curtained, and the only light in the warehouse came from flood lamps scattered throughout the platform. The effect of all of the jumble and clutter of the place reminded Jill, somehow, of a film studio filled with props for movie-making, and she could even imagine that the walls might be covered with thick velvet to absorb the outdoor sound.
For there was no sound within the warehouse; that is, other than the gentle humming of electric lighting. That wasn’t quite true though, Jill realized, because now and again she thought she heard fluttering coming from the dim spaces beyond the carved railings; she wondered whether birds had become lost within the building, or had perhaps found ways in and out of the warehouse and had made nests for themselves in the rafters.
All of these thoughts flooded through Jill’s mind as Mr. Luke fussed with her coat, but in reality only a few seconds had passed.
“There we are then. Welcome to my studio!” Mr. Luke said, sweeping his hand grandly toward the easels and artifacts before them. “What do you think of it?”
“Well…” said Jill. “I suppose I don’t really know what to think! I’ve never seen a place quite like this! But that’s not quite true, now that I think about it, because I did once see a live performance of a play at the Fox Theatre, and when we went backstage afterwards to meet some of the actors, I remember the prop rooms and makeup rooms and the storage areas. They reminded me of this, somehow.”
“Ah! Yes, I suppose there may well be some similarities. We do often find that we need props for the work we do here. But, what play was it that you saw? And who took you, your mother?”
“Well, it wasn’t a play really; it was an opera. It was Hansel and Gretel.” Jill paused for a moment and her voice became muted, “that was just before…before my father….”
“Oh, Jill! You’re here!” It was Sam. Jill had not heard him come in. She assumed that he must have been behind some of the curtains.
“Ah, Samuel! Yes, Jill has just arrived. Thank you for instructing her on how to find us!” said Mr. Luke.
Sam came up to Jill, grinning.
“Alright Sam, maybe now you can start to explain exactly what happened last night? And how you managed to get out of a bathroom that had no windows and no door other than the one I closed behind you?”
Sam looked up at Mr. Luke, who nodded.
“OK, look Jill, there’s a lot we’ll both need to explain to you, and it might be easier for all of us if we sat down and took it one step at a time. Before we start, would you like something to drink or to eat? Some tea maybe? This may take us a while….”
“Well, sure, that’s what I’m here for. And, yes, I’d love some tea.”
“Great, let’s sit here by the desk. Mr. Luke will look after the tea things.”
While Sam was talking, Mr. Luke had stepped toward the railings. Jill heard the fluttering again, but Mr. Luke returned a few moments later holding a tray with a tea kettle, cups, saucers, and a poppy seed cake. There were three small plates, napkins, a pitcher of cream, and a sugar bowl. In addition, there was a plate with what looked like slices of salmon, and steam was rising from the teapot. Jill recognized the combination; she had been to England with her mother just the previous year, and when they were there they had often dined on such fare at tea rooms in the Cotswalds.
“This is lovely!” she exclaimed. “I never would have expected such a nice welcome! Mr. Luke, this reminds me of an English tea. Have you ever been to England?”
Sam snickered involuntarily.
“Samuel! Be polite!” said Mr. Luke. “Jess here can’t possibly know about my upbringing! But, yes, Jess…”
“It’s Jill!”
“I’m sorry, yes Jill, I have spent quite a few years of my life in Europe, and in England in particular. I studied some years in Oxford, as well as in Rome. My mentor, Azarias, resides in London yet, and we are in constant contact. But, I’m so happy that you like the tea! Polly will be very pleased.”
“Polly?”
“She’s our…well…how would you describe Polly, Samuel?”
“Um, well, she’s not like anyone you’ve ever met; takes a bit of getting used to, that’s for sure…” said Sam.
“I meant her role in our…um…organization.”
“Oh, that! Yes, well, Jill, Polly is part housekeeper, part secretary, part computer, part filing system, and part hostess, all rolled up into one. We call her the Keeper; what she does most and best is to mind The Gallery.”
“The Gallery?” asked Jill. “Is that what you call your warehouse here, Mr. Luke?”
“Well, yes,” said Mr. Luke. “It is, partially, a warehouse, but it’s more a combination of studio, gallery, and library. We have several million paintings and sketches housed here, and these are maintained and organized in those shelves you can just see past the railings.”
“Several million?”
“Yes indeed! You’ll come to understand once we’ve explained. Samuel, would you bring out your sapphire?”
Sam stood up and drew from his pocket the very pendant and chain that Jill had found at her house the day before. He held it up to the light and Jill could see once more how beautiful the jewel was as it caught shards of light from the flood lamps around them.
“Samuel tells me that you found this when he left it at your house. Many thanks for returning it to him, by the way! You cannot know how dangerous it might have been if someone else had discovered it by mistake!”
“Dangerous?! What do you mean dangerous?! exclaimed Jill.
In the Company of Angels, Episode 2.1 – Rusty’s Big Adventure
Clasping the pendant in her hand, Jill once again stepped quietly down the hallway toward the library. As she approached the doorway, the sounds of the flute ceased. Jill hesitated, but then she took a deep breath, stepped forward, and once more peered inside the room.
Nobody was there.
The room was just as she, Mr. Luke, and Sam had left it. Sunlight continued to stream in through the window, like before, but something struck her as odd this time. There also appeared to be light coming from other sources. She stepped into the library, puzzled. What was different?
Then it dawned on her. All of her paintings — of the Shire, of the Narnian woods, of Beauty and the Beast and all the rest — they were all glowing gently. It was almost as if they were being lit from behind, and there was a slight bluish light around the edges of each one. She stepped up to her favorite picture, the one of the Piper. There was the little boy, still sitting on the ground with his flute. The ethereal figures still flitted around him. But the colors: they were so brilliant! The sky, the trees, the rocks and the water: they all appeared real enough to reach out and touch….
Without even thinking about it, Jill stretched her fingers out to the surface of the framed print. But instead of feeling the cool smooth hardness of the glass, her hand moved into the picture. She could see it right there, reaching past where the print should have been and into some space beyond the wall of the room. She was so startled that she gasped and pulled her hand back. Involuntarily, her hold on the pendant slipped, and the chain and gem clattered to the floor.
Jill stooped to picked up the jewel, and then she put it into her frock along with the business card that Mr. Luke had given her. She looked at the painting once more. The extraordinary light had faded away; now, when she reached out to it, she felt the glass of the frame just where she knew it must be.
Jill clenched her eyes shut and rubbed them. Then she looked at the painting again. No, it was just her painting, appearing as it always had.
At that moment, Hazel rubbed up against her legs; he had returned from under the living room couch, whence he had scrambled when Luke and Sam first came into the kitchen. Jill gasped and nearly jumped out of her skin, but then she caught her breath and waited a moment for her heart to stop racing.
“What do you think, Hazel? Am I going crazy?” She reached down and scratched the cat’s ears. Hazel purred loudly and flexed his front claws.
It was at this point that Jill’s mother, Evie, returned home, so Jill put away her thoughts about the paintings and the earlier events of the morning, focusing instead on helping her mother bring in the groceries and straighten up the house. They were having guests over that evening for supper: her aunt and uncle, Cathy and Chris, and their two children, Rusty and Kate. Jill rather liked Kate, but Rusty was several years younger than the two girls, and Jill couldn’t sometimes help but think of him as a bit of a pest.
Nevertheless, supper went fine, and afterward, while the adults were chatting around the dinner table, the two girls excused themselves to go to the library; Rusty soon followed.
The cousins had been in Jill’s library many times, and Kate had a special fondness for it. She and Jill settled down in an overstuffed chair and Jill began showing her a new illustrated storybook that she had gotten for Christmas; Kate wasn’t quite the lover of fairy tales that Jill was, but she always appreciated pretty things. Meanwhile, Rusty quietly started pulling books off of the book shelves and watching them drop to the floor.
“Stop that!” yelled Kate when she realized what her brother was doing.
“Stop what?” Rusty asked, nudging another book off of the shelf and watching as it bounced on the floor, landed on it’s spine, and opened at an illustration of a giant.
Just then the front doorbell rang. Jill jumped up and glared at Rusty. “I’m going to see who’s at the door. But you’d better have my books put back on the shelves when I get back!”
“He will,” assured Kate, “or I’ll tell mom and dad.”
Jill went down the hall. “I’ll get the door, mom!” she said loudly enough for her mother to hear her.
She opened the door. Sam was standing just outside.
“Hi,” he said.
“What are you doing here?!” Jill asked.
“I’m sorry to come by so late, but I think maybe I dropped something here before Mr. Luke and I left this morning…? Did you happen to notice anything we might have lost?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. Do you mean the chain and pendant with the blue gemstone?”
Sam looked relieved. “So, you did find it! Great! Can I get it back from you? I’m so sorry I didn’t phone you first, but I was so sure I’d dropped it walking back to the Gallery…I mean, to Mr. Luke’s painting studio; I never figured I might have left it here. I’ve been looking for it on the sidewalk all the way over!”
“I’m sorry, Sam, I was going to call Mr. Luke and let him know,” Jill ushered Sam into the house, “but I got so busy helping my mom. We’ve got my cousins over for supper.”
“Your cousins?! Oh no! Including Kate?”
“Yes. What’s wrong with Kate?”
Sam turned red. “Uh…nothing….”
Jill looked at Sam oddly. “Is there anything I should know about the two of you?”
“Not as far as I’m concerned!” said Sam. “Let’s just say Kate always seems to be looking for me in the hallway at school…”
“Oh ho!” said Jill. “That’s news to me. But, you’ll just have to brace yourself. She’s in the library with Rusty, and that’s just where I left your pendant.”
“Oh, great,” groaned Sam.
“Jill? Who is it, honey?” her mother called to her from the dining room.
“It’s Sam from school, mom!”
Evie came out into the hallway. “Oh, hello, Sam! Have you had your supper yet?”
“Oh, yes ma’am,” said Sam, “I just came by to pick up something I forgot earlier this morning.”
“You were here earlier?”
“Yes, mom, Sam came by with…with a friend. I forgot to tell you,” said Jill.
“Well, that’s alright. It’s good to see you, Sam! Why don’t you both run along to the library; we’ll have some chocolate chip cookies for all of you a little later — if you’d like to stay for some, Sam.”
“Thank you ma’am,” said Sam.
Jill and Sam walked down the hall and entered the library. Standing in the middle of the room was Kate, all alone. She was white and trembling.
“Kate…?” said Jill, “What’s wrong? Where’s Rusty?”
Kate looked at both of them wide eyed, then lifted her finger and pointed to one of the paintings on the opposite wall. “He…he….”
“He what, Kate?!”
“He fell…he fell through the painting!!!”
