AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh no,” she said, peering inside. “Poor darling. What’s wrong?”
A dove, pale grey feathers with a black band around its neck, rested in a nest of shredded newspaper.
“He’s got something wrong with his foot,” Arthur said. “Saw something moving in the garden and saw him—her, maybe—hopping around. I caught him, but he nicked me on the arm.”
Gingerly, Regan gathered the dove into her hands to examine it. She spotted the problem at once, a bit of wire around its leg, caught tight and cutting into the twig-like limb.
“Just a case of string foot,” Regan said. “Can you go into the kitchen and fetch a bowl of water. He’ll need some food—grains, seeds, lettuce, carrots. Whatever you have. Antibiotic ointment if you have it, too.”
Regan held the bird near her body to keep it calm while she gently eased the ragged bit of wire off the bird’s leg.
Arthur returned quickly with a bowl of water, a bowl of sesame seeds and lettuce.
“He’ll be fine,” Regan said as she placed the bird into the box with the food and water. She showed him the bit of shiny wire that had been caught on the dove’s leg.“Nesting birds sometimes confuse good nesting material with bad. Leave the box open, and he’ll probably fly off when he’s filled his belly.”
Already the collared dove was dipping his beak into the water between taking bites out of the lettuce leaf.
“When I saw the bird I wished you were here,” Arthur said. “Then you were. Magic.”
Regan lightly stroked the back of the dove’s head before letting him alone to eat and drink his fill.
“I got your note,” she said. “I’m curious to know why you sent me the name ofthatpainting.”
“Wild stab in the dark—no pun intended.” He looked toward the house. “My parents have a gallery near here, on Half Moon Street.”
Regan knew of it—The Half Moon Arthouse.One of many galleries and museums owned or patronized by the Godwick Family Arts Trust.
“We’re opening a new exhibit next week, female artists of the Baroque period. The Gentileschi is the star of the show. My parents asked me to stop by, to make sure everything was up to snuff. I was looking right at the painting when it just…fell off the wall.”
“A priceless Renaissance masterpiece fell off your wall.”
“Our paintings don’t fall. They wouldn’t fall if there was an earthquake. But this one fell as if it jumped off its hook. If you’re worried, the painting is fine. The frame, too, but…it wasn’t like the hooks fell out of the plaster. It shouldn’t have fallen. It felt like a sign or a…”
“A message?”
He nodded. Another breeze blew and more red rowan leaves fell into the darkening garden.
“I had a dream,” she said, “yesterday afternoon, after you left.”
“After you sent me packing.”
She shrugged, looked at the dove rooting around in the box.“I dreamed I was Judith and I was in the tent of Holofernes. And right before I was about to cut his head off, he turned into you.”
“Me?”
She smiled, met his searching gaze. “Then I cut his head off.”
They looked at each other as the last of the evening light faded to grey and the lamps along the garden paths turned themselves on. The collared dove hopped once, twice, then out of the box. With another hop, he spread his wings and flew up into the rowan tree. The temperature seemed to plummet all at once.
Regan shivered, but it wasn’t from the autumn breeze. This was a winter wind and it came from inside of her.
“Let’s go in,” she said. “I want to look at that bite on your arm.”
He lifted his left arm, glanced at the wound. “It’s only a scratch.”
“Doves can carry disease,” she said.
He looked at her, then gave her a slight smile. “Anything you say.”
