high that the slightest wind threatened to collapse them. Burgundy shawls doubled as lampshades, casting dim lighting over a pair of over-sized cream-colored ottomans in the room’s center. A wooden table cracked down its length sat between the cushions, on which was a collection of nine Russian nesting dolls. The walls were covered in odd-shaped mirrors, shiny glassware, and hanging baubles that light and image bounced off. A hundred different reflections of Emmett bounded around the room as he tentatively moved through the living room. The fluttering color from the goldenrods and orange velvety wings of two Monarch butterflies sitting on the outside of the window’s ledge registered in his periphery.
Hanging on the far wall beside the window was an unframed oil painting of a group of people at a dinner table looking aghast at a disembodied hand in the air above them. There were five people sitting at a table set with food, each dressed in old period clothes. One of the men wore some kind of crown and, like the others, looked frightened by a hand above them pointing to words written on a hazy cloud-like backdrop. The letters were in a language that Emmett could not read.
“ Belshazzar’s Feast ,” a voice said to Emmett. He turned to see a young woman standing behind him. It was always the same woman. Her face was concealed by the serpents coiled around her head except for the pair of amber eyes that stared at him.
“The Dutch painter Rembrandt created this portrait of the Babylonian King Belshazzar who, according to the biblical Book of Daniel, in drunken revelry blasphemed the sacred vessels taken from Solomon’s Temple by the previous king,” the woman continued as she always did. She stepped past Emmett to the painting and pointed up at it. “In response, the ghostly, disembodied fingers of a human hand appeared in the air and wrote on the wall words that the prophet Daniel interpreted as meaning that God had numbered the days of Belshazzar’s kingdom, and that the Babylonian King had been weighed and been found wanting.”
The woman lowered her hand and looked at Emmett. “The painting is currently on display at the National Gallery in London.”
“Why is it here?” Emmett asked. He always asked the same question.
She always gave the same answer. “Do you know the words?”
“No.”
The woman recited the words without having to read them from the painting. “‘Look at the sky, how the orbits of the planets and stars never change, how they rise and fall according to their natural order. Look at the earth, how everything that takes place has their beginnings and their ends—summer and winter, and clouds and dews and rain. The trees appear to shed their leaves; the trees crown themselves in green leaves and fruit. All this from year to year forever and ever and ever like the bottomless sea and the endless rivers that lead to it.’”
“What does that mean?” Emmett asked, already knowing her answer.
The woman turned to Emmett and held one hand up with her palm facing him. She lowered the other hand, palm facing out and down. She always did this with a look in her amber eyes as if she were waiting for him to respond in kind. Yet he never did. And so the dream ended as it always did, the woman repeating the same seven words.
“One day, Emmett, you will save me.”
CHAPTER 5
Emmett raised his eyelids with great effort, wading through murky, imageless darkness. As his eyes struggled to focus, so too did his mind. A formless memory surfaced, steeped in malevolence. He crushed his eyes closed against the torrent of returning images: trees and thorny bramble, a gravel road, a flashing overhead light. Then he remembered a crash. He had been running; his aching limbs told him so. He had fallen. He was attacked.
“Good afternoon,” an accented voice greeted him. Emmett groaned in response, pushing his eyes open again to a whirl of unfocused shapes. As his vision sharpened, he could see he was
Hanging on the far wall beside the window was an unframed oil painting of a group of people at a dinner table looking aghast at a disembodied hand in the air above them. There were five people sitting at a table set with food, each dressed in old period clothes. One of the men wore some kind of crown and, like the others, looked frightened by a hand above them pointing to words written on a hazy cloud-like backdrop. The letters were in a language that Emmett could not read.
“ Belshazzar’s Feast ,” a voice said to Emmett. He turned to see a young woman standing behind him. It was always the same woman. Her face was concealed by the serpents coiled around her head except for the pair of amber eyes that stared at him.
“The Dutch painter Rembrandt created this portrait of the Babylonian King Belshazzar who, according to the biblical Book of Daniel, in drunken revelry blasphemed the sacred vessels taken from Solomon’s Temple by the previous king,” the woman continued as she always did. She stepped past Emmett to the painting and pointed up at it. “In response, the ghostly, disembodied fingers of a human hand appeared in the air and wrote on the wall words that the prophet Daniel interpreted as meaning that God had numbered the days of Belshazzar’s kingdom, and that the Babylonian King had been weighed and been found wanting.”
The woman lowered her hand and looked at Emmett. “The painting is currently on display at the National Gallery in London.”
“Why is it here?” Emmett asked. He always asked the same question.
She always gave the same answer. “Do you know the words?”
“No.”
The woman recited the words without having to read them from the painting. “‘Look at the sky, how the orbits of the planets and stars never change, how they rise and fall according to their natural order. Look at the earth, how everything that takes place has their beginnings and their ends—summer and winter, and clouds and dews and rain. The trees appear to shed their leaves; the trees crown themselves in green leaves and fruit. All this from year to year forever and ever and ever like the bottomless sea and the endless rivers that lead to it.’”
“What does that mean?” Emmett asked, already knowing her answer.
The woman turned to Emmett and held one hand up with her palm facing him. She lowered the other hand, palm facing out and down. She always did this with a look in her amber eyes as if she were waiting for him to respond in kind. Yet he never did. And so the dream ended as it always did, the woman repeating the same seven words.
“One day, Emmett, you will save me.”
CHAPTER 5
Emmett raised his eyelids with great effort, wading through murky, imageless darkness. As his eyes struggled to focus, so too did his mind. A formless memory surfaced, steeped in malevolence. He crushed his eyes closed against the torrent of returning images: trees and thorny bramble, a gravel road, a flashing overhead light. Then he remembered a crash. He had been running; his aching limbs told him so. He had fallen. He was attacked.
“Good afternoon,” an accented voice greeted him. Emmett groaned in response, pushing his eyes open again to a whirl of unfocused shapes. As his vision sharpened, he could see he was
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