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Alex set the rolled-up canvases on the bench to his right, on the side away from her. He placed the painting on her lap.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“A gift.”
She stared at him a moment, then pulled off the brown paper.
She looked genuinely stunned to see the painting. She lifted it reverently in her hands. Her eyes welled up with tears.
It took her a moment to find her voice. “Why are you giving me this?”
Alex shrugged. “Because I want to. You thought it was beautiful. Not everyone thinks my work is beautiful. You did. I wanted you to have it.”
Jax swallowed. “Alex, tell me why you painted this particular place.”
“Like I told you before, it’s from my imagination.”
“No, it’s not,” she said rather emphatically.
He paused momentarily, surprised by her words. “Yes it is. I was merely painting a scene—”
“This is a place near where I live.” She touched a graceful finger to the shade beneath towering pines. “I’ve spent countless hours sitting in this very place, gazing off at the mountain passes here, and here. The views from this hidden place are unparalleled—just as you’ve painted them.”
Alex didn’t know what to say. “It’s just a painting of the woods. The woods can look much the same in one place as another. A species of tree all look pretty much the same. I’m sure that it simply reminds you of this place you know.”
With the edge of a knuckle she wiped a tear from under an eye. “No.” She swallowed and then pointed to a spot he clearly recalled painting. For some reason he’d put extra care into the trunk of the tree. “See this notch you put in this tree?” She glanced up at him. “I put that notch there.”
“You put it there,” he said in a flat tone.
Jax nodded. “I was testing the edge I’d put on my knife. The bark is thick there. I sliced paper-thin pieces of it to test the edge. Bark is tough, but is easier on a freshly sharpened blade than other things, like wood, might be.”
“And you like to sit at a place like this?”
“No, not a place like this place. This place. I like to sit at this place. This place is Shineestay.”
“Shineestay? What’s that mean?”
“It’s an ancient word that means ‘place of power.’ You have painted that exact place.” She looked again at the scene and tapped a spot to the side of the sunlit glen. “The only minor difference is that there is a tree, here, near the side of this open area, that you have not painted. This is the exact same spot, except for that one tree that’s missing.”
Alex felt goose bumps tickle the nape of his neck. He knew the tree she was talking about. He had painted it.
He had originally painted it exactly where she was pointing, but while it might have been right in such a forest, it had been compositionally wrong for the painting, so he had painted over it. He recalled at the time wondering why he’d painted it in the first place, since it didn’t fit in the composition. Even as he looked where Jax was pointing, he could see the faint contour of the brushstrokes of the tree beneath the paint that now lay over it.
Alex was at a loss to explain how it could be the place she knew. “Where is this place?”
She stared at him a moment. Her voice regained a bit of its distant, detached edge. “Alex, we need to talk. Unfortunately, there is a great deal to say, and like the last time, I can’t stay long.”
“I’m listening.”
She glanced at passersby. “Is there somewhere not far away that’s a little more private?”
Alex pointed down the hall. “There’s a restaurant down there that’s nice. The lunch rush is over, so it would be quiet and more private. How about if I buy you lunch and you can tell me what you have the time to tell me?”
She pressed her lips tightly together a moment as she considered the place he’d pointed out. “All right.” He wondered why she was being so cautious. Maybe she had a grandfather like Ben.
As they stood, she held the painting tightly to herself. “Thank you for this, Alex. You can’t possibly know what this means to me. This is one of my favorite places. I go there because it’s beautiful.”
He bowed his head at her kind words. “I painted it because it’s beautiful. That you like it is a greater reward for me than you could know.”
He still wanted to know how he could have painted a place she knew, a place she knew so well, but he sensed the tension in her posture and decided to go easy. She’d said that she wanted to explain things, so he thought it best if he didn’t intimidate her out of wanting to do so.
Alex picked up the rolled canvases and then tucked them under an arm as they started down the hall.
“How did you come by the name Jax?”
She brightened, almost laughed, at the question. “It’s a game. You toss jax on the ground, throw a ball up in the air, and then try to pick up the jax and catch the ball in the same hand after it bounces once. It’s a simple child’s game but as you try for ever more jax it requires a sharp eye and quick hands. Certain people were amazed at how quick I am with my hands, so my parents named me Jax.”
Alex frowned as he tried to reconcile the story. “But when you were born you couldn’t have played anything yet. A kid has to be, what, five to ten years old before they can play that kind of game? How could your parents know you were going to be quick with your hands when you were just born?”
She stared straight ahead as she walked. “Prophecy.”
Alex blinked. “What?”
“A prophet told them about me before I was born, told them how everyone would be amazed at how quick I would be with my hands, how it would first be noticed because I would be a natural at the game of jax. That’s why they named me Jax.”
Alex wondered what kind of weird religion her parents belonged to that put that much stock in the words of prophets. He thought that if her parents expected her to be quick with her hands then they would encourage her to practice and as a result she would end up quick. He wanted to say so, to say a lot of things, ask a lot of questions, but a growing sense of caution reminded him to take it easy and let her tell her own story. So he kept his questions on the light side.
“But Jack, like in jacks, is a boy’s name.”
“The boy’s name Jack is spelled with a k. My name is spelled with an x. J-A-X comes from the game of jax, not the boy’s name.”
“But the game is called jacks, J-A-C-K-S.”
“Not where I come from,” she said.
“Where’s that?”
“You wouldn’t know it,” she said after a moment. “It’s a long way from here.”
For some reason she had avoided answering his question, but he let it go.
As they strolled down the hall he watched her out of the corner of his eye. He often watched people, studied their posture, their natural way of moving, their attitude expressed through the way they carried themselves, to help him accurately paint the human form.
Most people when in public conveyed either a casual or a businesslike attitude. People were often focused on the place they were headed, never really aware of anything along the way. That tunnel vision affected the way they moved. Those projecting a businesslike attitude held their bodies tight. Others, being self-absorbed and out of touch with their surroundings, moved in a looser fashion. Most people were self-absorbed, unaware of who was around them or of any potential threat, and their body language betrayed that fact. In some cases that casual attitude drew dangerous attention. It was what predators looked for.
Most people never consciously considered the reality that bad things happened, that there were those who would harm them. They simply had never encountered such situations and didn’t believe it could happen to them. They were willfully oblivious.
Jax moved in a different way. Her form, unlike the tight businesslike posture, carried tension, like a spring that was always kept tight, yet she moved with grace. She carried herself with confidence, aware
of everything around her. In some ways it reminded him of the way a predator moved. Through small clues in her posture she projected an aura of cool composure that bordered on intimidating. This was not a woman whom most men would approach lightly.
In fact, that awareness was what he found the most riveting. She watched the people moving through the halls—every one of them—without always looking directly at them. She kept track of them out of the corner of her eye, measuring each, checking each one as if for distance and potential threat.
“Are you looking for anyone in particular?” he asked.
Absorbed in thoughts of her own, she said, “Yes.”
“Who?”
“A different kind of human.”
In an instant Alex yanked her around a corner and slammed her up against the wall. He hadn’t intended to be so rough about it, but the shock of hearing those words tripped something within him and he acted.
“What did you say?” he asked through gritted teeth.
He held her left arm with his right hand. The painting was pressed between them. His left forearm lay across her throat, his hand gripping her dress at her opposite shoulder. If he were to push, he could crush her windpipe.
She stared unflinching into his eyes. “I said I was looking for a different kind of human. Now, I suggest that you think better of what you’re doing and carefully let go of me. Don’t move too fast or you’ll get your throat cut and I’d hate to have to do that. I’m on your side, Alex.”
Alex frowned and then, when she pushed just a little, realized that she was indeed holding the point of a knife to the underside of his chin. He didn’t know where the knife had come from. He didn’t know how she had gotten it there so fast. But he did know that she wasn’t kidding.
He also didn’t know which of them would beat the other if it came down to it. He was fast, too. But it was not, and had not been, his intent to hurt her—merely to restrain her.
He slowly started to release his hold on her. “My mother said the same thing to me a few days ago.”
