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She s been thinking about me, I said sullenly.
Well, now I am too. Thinking why in the hell you re waking
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MISTRESS OF THE RUNES
me up in the middle of the damned night. It s nearly four a.m. Are we
talking about Liz Chase? You can run a great big corporation and you
can t outrun one little blond woman.
Go to sleep, I said and hung up, wide-awake now, alert with the
alcohol wearing off. In all my life, I couldn t remember Madge ever
being so unhelpful.
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MISTRESS OF THE RUNES
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
he next morning as everyone slept in, nursing their hangovers,
TI got up early and decided to take in the JP Getty Museum.
I hadn t slept well. Liz was on my mind. I could envision her soft,
blond head of curls on the pillow next to me and imagine how good
she felt. To wrap around that small waist with one arm and slide my
hand down& I squeezed my eyes shut and clamped my knees together,
warding off this thought. I need to get out of this bed, out of this hotel,
perhaps even out of my own skin.
I slung the covers back, hurried into the bathroom, and took a cool
shower. I dried off, blow-dried my hair, threw on some makeup and a
pair of slacks with a nice shirt and a loose sweater, and caught a cab,
sinking back into the thin, torn black leather seats, for the first time
in my life not telling the cab driver the route to take or to slow down.
An hour later, I was wandering through the echoing corridors of the
museum soaking in the artifacts and artwork.
At the end of the last corridor, as I rounded the gargantuan arches
leading into a dimly lit room, a massive painting overpowered the wall,
and me. The canvas perhaps twenty feet long and twelve feet high, an
elaborate battle scene, gripped me with a force that obliterated the paint
and brushstrokes of the castle compound and made the painting real,
as real as the clan of men who beckoned me now to take up arms and
fight.
In the foreground, elevated above the rabble, was the huge image
of a red-bearded warrior, hoisting a blond queen up behind him on his
horse. Other horses trailed behind him, the whites of their eyes wild
in terror, as men, hundreds of them in great detail, battled among the
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fires and flames. I was as frozen in time as the image on the wall, the
adrenaline from a thousand years of warring still pumping in my chest,
as I struggled to whisper, Oh, my God, it s real!
I walked up to the painting in disbelief and read the plaque beside
it: The Battle. Painted in 1642 in Iceland by the last living Mistress
of the Runes. Donated to the museum by Edward S. Samuels, San
Francisco.
The name that was on the postcard given to me by the woman at
the Yakima River! How can that be? It s too bizarre to be a coincidence.
So I ve been dreaming about a painting that actually exists? Maybe I
saw it years ago and it stuck in my mind. I sat down on the bench in
front of the painting. It was early morning and the room was empty. I
know the feel of the folds of the woman s garment, like the down of a
bird s breast or a mare s soothing breath. Does the painting convey that
to me or did I touch that fabric, run my hand across it, hold it between
my fingers, and lift it to caress what was beneath?
I rose and approached the painting, getting as close to the image as
possible. The red-bearded warrior: muscles taut, brow furrowed, sweat
beading on the tan, rugged skin of his neck where the leather cord with
the stone hung, and a symbol that looked like the letter M carved in it.
The warrior looked exactly as I had dreamed him, and his queen, blond
and blue-eyed, looked exactly like& Liz Chase. Goose bumps raced up
my arms, over my shoulders, and down my spine. What was I looking
at? What did this mean?
I don t know how long I stood there soaking in the painting. It
was a religious experience an awakening a realization that life
embodied some sort of continuity, some pattern or cycle or rhythm
that couldn t be summed up in a banal paragraph about joining God in
heaven. Something or someone larger than myself existed out there
Who can paint! I joked in my head to keep myself from falling to my
knees and sobbing.
Leaving the room silently as if from a chapel service, I maneuvered
the length of the museum to the gift shop to inquire about a copy of the
painting. The woman behind the counter ran a search based on title and
said they didn t have a painting by that name.
I found a docent outside the gift shop, a tiny, wiry, frail old lady
who looked like she was asleep on the bench outside the glass door.
Should be called a doze-nt, I thought as I bent over to ask her if she
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MISTRESS OF THE RUNES
could get someone to take a digital photo of the painting, or if someone
in the building knew more about it. She was unable to recall the painting
and walked back down the corridor with me to the room.
I rounded the huge support arches and entered the gallery where
across the room, on the wall, hung a totally different painting, this one
of a massive forest filled with large old fir trees and pine-needle trails
that wound through them. The canvas was the same size and in the
same frame, but it wasn t The Battle.
This is the room, but this wasn t here, I explained to the docent
as I pointed at the large expanse of forest. I was confused now; where
was the painting?
We do change the artwork around from time to time, she said
kindly. How long ago were you here?
Twenty minutes.
Oh! Well, I can assure you that the room hasn t been changed
over the last twenty minutes! And she laughed lightly. Is it necessary
to find just that painting? Or would you be interested in looking at
others of that period?
No, it has to be that painting. It s, uh&
Your dream painting? She filled in the sentence. Yes, people
fall in love with certain works of art. Well, I know you ll find what
you re looking for, if you just keep searching. And I would be more
than happy to help you. She had a lilt to her voice, and she cocked her
head and stared at me with piercing blue eyes.
I& just need to see that painting.
Would you like to leave an address, in case I come upon it?
I hesitated, then thought why not. Okay. I took a card out of my
wallet and handed it to her.
So you re a corporate& She tried to read my title.
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