The Night of Shadows: Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE - Isidora

“I was not alone. I’m never alone in my dreams, he’s always there.” I took a long drag from the cigarette Kiernan handed to me. As I exhaled slowly, my mind drifted back to the night before. The dreams were always the same and ended up with me getting absolutely no sleep at all. I passed the cigarette back to him. “They’re always there.”

“You know,” Kiernan started, stopping to take a drag, “you sound crazy when you talk like that, don’t you?” The smoke flowed out with his words, curling around in the air as the server walked by. “I mean, I’m not, you know, like, the poster child for ‘sane talk’, or whatever. BUT, when you talk like that you sound straight jacket, padded room type of crazy. Like Girl, Interrupted, only less fun.”

I made a “whatever” face and shrugged, stuffing a forkful of greasy hash browns drenched in ketchup into by mouth.

“Dude,” I said while chewing, “you’re the one who asks me about it all the time.” I crinkled my nose as my tongue found the single burnt piece of hash, and swallowed hard to get rid of the taste.

Kiernan laughed loudly, “Yeah, because I can hear you making those sleeping dog type noises at night!” He shoved some of his pancakes into his mouth, still laughing.

“I do not make dog noises in my sleep! There are eight dogs in that house, you probably heard one of them. You definitely have been hearing one of them.”

My protests went unacknowledged as he continued to laugh and mime a dog having a dream, scratching at the tightly shaved side of his head, careful to avoid his properly maintained dark curls at the top. “I hope you choke on that flapjack, you jerk face” was the best comeback I could muster before sucking down some soda through a straw.

“No you don’t,” he said, breathlessly, stopping his whimpers and whines to take a sip of his coffee, “because then you’d only have those damn animals for friends and they’d eat you’re dead body if you died in that house alone.”

Still chuckling at himself, his long fingers pulled out another cigarette and lit it. “You know you need me. I’m a good buffer between you and the rest of the world. If you didn’t have me, you’d have to deal with people directly. On your own.”

He smiled that wide grin that took up his slim face and made his eyes get squinty. That always made the women and men go bananas for him. He’d arrange his face in that way while asking someone to do stuff for him, and they’d fall all over themselves to do it. I never understood why. He never understood why it didn’t work on me. That’s probably why we ended up more like siblings than friends - I didn’t fall for his bullshit charms.

I finished off my soda and told him, “You know for an absolute certainty that I’d be perfectly happy living out in the middle of nowhere with only those animals, food delivery, and wi-fi to keep me company.

He finished off his coffee and turned on his bar stool to look at me. “Right,” his voice had a little edge to it as his face tighten up. “Is that what we’re calling this period since Ivar -”

“Stop. You don’t have to remind me,” I interrupted him quietly. “It’s only been four years.

We sat there for a few more moments in silence. Kiernan finished the last of his pancakes, and I stacked my dishes neatly so the server could clean up easier. After she brought us our check and left with our dishes, Kiernan turned to me.

“Look, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be an asshat. You know that, right?” He took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You know Bran and I are just worried about you, we’re all worried about you. And it’s because we love you, not because we think you’re some little baby who can’t manage.” That got a small laugh out of both of us.

“Dude, I know. I’m sorry for still being sensitive about it,” I shrugged into a heavy sigh. “I just don’t know how to live with it yet.”

He put one of his hands over mine so that I would look him in the eye. “Honestly, Dora? No one does. We’re all struggling with trying not to rush you, but be helpful, but not be like an overbearing TikTok Mom. I mean, really? I’m the one who’s suffering here.”

That one made me laugh like a donkey braying. I slid off my barstool and grabbed my cane while trying to tone down the volume on my laugh. “Well, the last thing I want to do is make you suffer,” I gasped while slapping the check on his chest. “Here. This will make you feel like you’re being helpful. Don’t get chintzy with the tip, either.”

As I slowly made my way towards the door, I could hear Kiernan mumble, “You’re lucky you’re crippled” while trying to decide if he had enough cash to cover the bill and tip. I waved to the diner owner, Nora, and told her thanks for breakfast.

“Anytime, Dora, you know that,” was the response I got as she gave one of those waves goodbye that was more like a mother shooing her kids out of her garden.

By the time I had made it to the car, Kiernan was already closing the distance between us. God, how I envied those long, working legs of his.

I could hear him talking to someone on his mobile as he hit the button to unlock the car doors and walked to the driver’s side of the car while he continued his conversation. I tried not to eavesdrop as I lowered myself into the passenger seat. I did catch his tone, though. It was his “Get Shit Done” tone, the one he used back when he was my manager and shuttling me off to signings, showings, and interviews.

In fact, it was at the first gallery showing I had in Seattle, for my show Up Against Your Will, that Kiernan had introduced me to the man who had purchased every piece in the showing and that would change the trajectory of my life.

+++ 14 YEARS AGO +++

I had been extra nervous that entire night.

First, Kiernan had me in this short black dress with no back whatsoever or sleeves, so all my tattoos and scars were just out there for every high profile stuffy art collector here to see and judge.

Second, the heels. Holy hell, I was pretty sure I was going to kill half the people in this gallery with them if they didn’t stop being so fake. Maybe not half. Probably almost all of them. This was not what I had in mind when I made that Van Gogh Pact with myself four years earlier and gave myself ten years to make an art career or die trying. I was fully prepared for the pretentious artist types in the Art World. That was a given in every artist circle. But this? I needed something stronger than this Aqua Net tasting champagne shit they had these college kids trying to balance on trays as the wandered around while trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

Unfortunately, or fortunately (the jury was still out at this point), Kiernan had just cornered me to tell me that one man had purchased the entire collection and that he wanted to meet me tonight.

I was confused and nervous. Confused why someone would want to buy an unknown 34-year old artist’s entire first showing. That didn’t make any sense. Not that I thought I lacked talent or thought I was too old to be in the art scene. I was just too old and too unknown to have someone pull a move like this one. What did this joker really want?

I was nervous because I had priced everything obnoxiously high in response to the crowd I knew Kiernan was bringing in on opening night. No one with that amount of money was someone I should be allowed to talk to. Ever.

Kiernan took me by the shoulders and asked me if I trusted him or not. Only knowing him a handful of months at that point, I looked at him, looked down at the dress and shoes he had talked me into wearing, then back at him. I nodded a quick “yes” while grabbing his drink from him and downing it in one gulp. Out came that big wolfish grin and off he went, leaving me to look for another round of rancid liquid courage, despite the fact that I swore I was going to quit drinking if I ever got lucky enough to get my art in a gallery show.

Just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand one more round of small talk with another rich douche canoe with a putter stuck up his ass in replacement for his spine, I was overwhelmed by the smell of sea salt, cedar, and that chaos of a lightning storm. A feeling of warmth washed over me, I almost thought I was having a hot flash.

It had the most calming affect on me that I almost didn’t notice that the man who had be talking at me, for what seemed to be the last 500 years, suddenly shut up, made a slight bow where he exposed his neck, and left without saying anything. I turned to see what he was walking away from in such a hurry and came face to chest with exactly what had scared him off.

“Dora, this Ivar Westerberg, the man who bought your entire show. Ivar, this is Isidora Drogo, the artist who’s on the verge of making a name for herself with this showing.” Kiernan stated deviously as I backed up a little to better see who I was being introduced to.

The man was stunning.

If the name hadn’t given it away, the blond hair, height, and blue eyes made my brain scream “Swede” and “viking”. The outfit he wore was perfectly tailored to be just snug enough to accentuate the fact he was solid muscle underneath the all black blazer, t-shirt, and trousers.

He somehow oozed wealth in a way everyone else in that room was desperate to convey, while being the only one who was understated in dress. I could feel my legs start to go weak as I desperately tried to will my mouth to say something beyond a string of vowel sounds. I was not used to being speechless in front of anyone, but I felt about two seconds away from turning into a Tex Avery cartoon if I didn’t snap out of it soon.

Before I could embarrass myself beyond repair, this walking Armani ad took my right hand in his, leaned down, and lightly brushed his lips against my knuckles. An electrifying feeling danced from my hand, up my arm like I had just grabbed on to a low-level electric fence. It was a pleasant feeling that I realized I wanted more of.

It made me giggle. Like a teenager. I thought Kiernan was going to choke on the Inception Negroni he had come back to the introduction with.

“I’m delighted you would take the time to meet with me, Mrs. Drogo.” Ivar’s voice was a steady, low rumble that set off a feeling down to my core like a lit fuse, amplifying the electricity from his touch. He never broke eye contact.

“Oh, no. I-I’m the delight one. And it’s just ‘Isidora’, please. I’m not married.” I might have said that last bit with too much force. I was in so much trouble.

“In that case,” he replied, pulling me back in to him, his aroma wrapping around me like protective arms, “please, call me Ivar.” He had both of his hands around my hand now, and we both just stood there staring at each other until Kiernan cleared his throat dramatically and walked off back to the bar.

“Can I take you to get something to eat? I know a place that makes great Mongolian Beef, especially at this time of night.”

“I am a slut for wontons,” I blurted out without even thinking, which made him throw his head back and laugh. The sound made the tension in me snap, and I realized that I would let this man take me anywhere at anytime.

+++ PRESENT +++

“Is everything okay?” I asked Kiernan as he dramatically sighed into the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, yeah. Just an issue at the office that I need to try to take care of before the end of business today,” he answered as he started the car and began to leave the parking spot. “You didn’t have anything else you needed to do in town today, did you?”

“No, I’m fine to go back to the house,” I mumbled back as I watched the world go by out the window.

He continued to talk, but I didn’t hear the actual words he was saying. My mind was already doing that disassociating thing it does now every time I’m in a moving vehicle. It’s not exactly spacing out, but I’m also not focusing on or thinking about anything in particular. My brain just refuses to take in any new information.

I guess it was exactly spacing out.

I could never get a straight answer on whether this was a symptom of the traumatic brain injury or the PTSD. I suppose it didn’t really matter either way, in the end. I was stuck with it until I died, it was never going to get better. It only had the possibility to get worse.

It was just one more instance where I made others uncomfortable with my silence.

After the car wreck, and getting out of the hospital, and the funeral, I discovered how many in mine and Ivar’s social circle were really there only because they could get something from us. With him dead and my disabilities making me a “completely different person”, it was clear neither of us were much use to a lot of them in our current states. Mine being a brain damaged cripple. His being in the form of ashes in an urn. Or, what was left of him at the site of the wreck.

If I’d had more energy at the beginning of that period, it might have surprised me how much silence unnerved people, how much they refused to sit with it. Instead, I was busy relearning to do basic tasks and discovering that I wasn’t going to be able to bounce back to the life I had before. Shit, I’d be lucky if I’d still be able to make art, let alone write or talk about it again.

Not to mention, I was expected to just go on without Ivar. People really held the expectation that I would move on without him, and felt comfortable telling me to do so, when I just wanted to crawl into the coffin and be buried with him. They did that in his culture back in the day, right?

It wasn’t a long drive back to the house from town, but it was a scenic drive. While Ivar was never a pretentious ass about his wealth, he was somewhat hyper-vigilant about setting up a “sanctuary” for us. One year into our marriage, he told me that he was backing off from his business so that others could take over the day-to-day tasks and, eventually, run the whole show without him. He said he wanted more time with me, and he wanted us to have a permanent home to spend our lives together in, to grow a family in.

I thought he was teasing me. I was already too old to have babies! Wasn’t I? Turned out, I hadn’t been.

As Kiernan maneuvered his car up the long driveway that led to the garage, the dramatic angles of the house began to jut into view. It was all very modern in its use of steel, stone, and glass. The design was all up to Ivar. I told him it was his money, he should make the house look the way he wanted it to look, knowing full well saying that pushed his buttons and that it would end up looking like that straight up Scandinavian design style that was the complete opposite of every apartment I had ever lived in.

Which it was, for the most part. Minimalistic, walls of glass to let natural light in (and for the person inside to see everything outside), clean lines, simple, mostly neutral colours. Even the out buildings and barn had the same style. The decoration exceptions were our bedroom suite, the library, his office, and the studio he had built for me halfway between the barn and the house. Those looked like a mix of both of us. The architecture was all him, but the decoration, what Ivar said gave those rooms life, was more me. The eclectic patterns, use of colours, the various nods to the heritage I didn’t even know that much about at that time - it was me. He always got me. He was the only one that did.

That’s not to say that the rest of the house was all him. The displays of our union were just more subtle and you had to have been in our inner circle to have picked up on it. Those areas were for gatherings and where we would have parties, places he didn’t want what he held most dear out for anyone to know the histories of. I never questioned it. I figured there were things that, as a ridiculously wealthy person, you would want to keep private. Ivar wasn’t hiding me, people knew we were married, but the lived in areas of the house were kept for the rooms that only we lived in.

Not much had changed since his death. I didn’t have the heart to change it. Kiernan and Bran had redecorated the guest rooms when they decided to just stay living with me after the wreck. Well, Bran had been my PT nurse, and he somehow had the Forever Bachelor Kiernan head-over-heels for him on day one.

It wasn’t really a difficult decision for Kiernan to move his life from LA to the wilds of Colorado, but I was surprised by how easily he transitioned. He was one of the very few friends I had left, not just my manager. I’d go so far as to call him my best friend or my brother. I was so grateful he stayed with me after Ivar died.

I let them have the suite of rooms that Ivar kept saying would be a nursery, but that we used as an extra guest suite. Having Bran stay wasn’t just good for me, because I did need a lot of help for a good while, he was good for Kiernan. It was a noticeable change that was bittersweet to watch in the state I was in.

Trying to filter those feelings wasn’t something I was very successful at, in the beginning. The coup-contrecoup injury I sustained as my body rag dolled in the car when it flipped however many times it flipped did enough damage to my frontal lobe that my impulse control was at an five-year old level for a number of months.

My vocabulary, unfortunately for Kiernan, was not at the same level.

Bran was the ultimate professional, with the patience of a damn saint. Because there’s no way Kiernan wouldn’t have ditched back off to LA after a week of my fowl attitude, even with my apologizing immediately afterwards, if Bran hadn’t been there to remind him of what they and I were dealing with. We were too sibling like for him not to want to smack me and yell back when I would get in his face about how he could just live out his very own romcom in front of me while I’m having nightmares every night about my decapitated husband.

I owed a lot to Bran. Not just for helping me walk again.

When we got to the house, Bran was waiting with The Pack (aka, the dogs Ivar and I adopted while we “tried” for our own children). As Kiernan pulled the car up, Bran made a hand signal that caused all eight dogs to immediately sit down. He opened my door for me once Kiernan turned the car off.

“Hey, Bran. How’s the zoo holding up?” I asked as I worked my legs out of the car and negotiated my cane into the correct position so I could stand up. It had been four years since the car wreck, and it was still a struggle to just stand up most of the time. The pain radiated up my legs as I steadied myself on the car door.

“Well, no Jurassic Park moments, yet,” he responded brightly as the dogs gathered around to follow me to the studio. He closed the car door behind me. “Nox was here and left already. I think Kannon had them go pick up some packages at the post office.” Kiernan had come around the car to bury his face in Bran’s chest.

“Ugh! I missed you,” Kiernan breathed as he melted into Bran’s well-toned arms. They both were tall, but Bran was somehow taller than Kiernan and just a mountain of a man. I never asked and figured it was due to his profession as a physical therapist/trainer. I did teasingly ask him if I had ever drawn him in any of the figure drawing classes at the local community college before the car wreck. There was something so familiar about him to me that I couldn’t put my finger on.

“You are so dramatic,” Bran chuckled as he kissed the top of Kiernan’s head, ruffling his dark brown hair when he turned to start walking them towards the house. I could hear Kiernan complain about messing his hair up and Bran reminded him he didn’t have any video meetings today before they disappeared into the house. I continued my way to the studio to see what work I could get done today.

When the dogs and I got to the studio, I could hear some music playing. I opened the door and let the thundering of paws announce my entrance to Kannon, my studio partner and second oldest friend. She and I had been friends in art school in California, but she had come on to help me last year when I started taking small commissions from restaurants and bars for basic ceramic work. It was a way to keep from getting rusty while trying to not feel like I was pulling my own heart out through a cut in my diaphragm every time I attempted to make personal art.

Ralphie, the supposed Great Pyrenees mix, let out an excited bellow when he saw her rolling the cart of just finished bisque ware that we could start glazing for a restaurant in Denver. The dogs all wander off to their designated areas to keep busy while we did our work.

“Ralphie!” Kannon exclaimed as he trotted by on his way to grab his favourite chew.

“Hey, Dora! No explosions with this set. Was just about to start checking for cracks and getting them prepped for glazing.” She was pulling her long, straight black hair up into a ponytail while looking at the shelves of bowls we needed to sand and wash before glazing. It wasn’t time consuming work, especially if Nox got back here soon, but the fine dust from the bisque ware was going to get everywhere. Everywhere. And my hands were going to be aching from the sandpapering. I was just not looking forward to this.

“I hope we don’t have any so we can be finished with this order. I’m kinda done with looking at this bland design already,” I complained as I pulled my apron on. It wasn’t like I needed to do these commissions for monetary purposes. The money mostly went to Kannon and Nox. I took these jobs to keep busy, but, sometimes, they were a drag.

However, it was difficult to tell if my disinterest was because the project was just that uninteresting and taking a good chunk of time to get through, or if it was the unavoidable depression that was a result of your brain rattling around your skull like loose change in a tin can being shook because you weren’t wearing a seatbelt in a rollover car wreck at high speed.

I looked at the beige on beige colour swatches on the final mockups for the plates and bowls we had agreed to do for this client. My shoulders fell. No, this project was just boring as shit

“Ugh. This is the worst client we have ever taken. Why do we even have this colour glaze?” I asked out loud, not to anyone in particular.

“We didn’t have it,” Nox said as they backed into the doorway, arms full of packages and letters. “We had to make it specifically for this client.” They set everything down on an empty table, and then wiped their hands on the backside of their pants. They then adjusted their shirt by pulling it down a little by the hem at the bottom, and started sorting through the mail.

“Oh my god, we have to burn it in a fire when we’re done with it,” Kannon chimed in. She was carrying a plank of five bowls to a table with a tub of water, towels, and various sandpapers to get started on the prep work of the bowls.

“I say we take all of these boring ass bowls out back and use them for target practice. Blame it on a freak stampede of elk through the studio. Act of God,” was my suggestion as I spun around on the stool I was sitting on. “There’s no way they could prove it didn’t happen.” Kannon snickered at the suggestion.

Nox shrugged, “They’re bland as hell, but they’re paying pretty good and I really want to go to ECCC this year.” They had finished with the mail and were tying their apron on.

“Well,” I started, as I rolled my sleeves up before I began cleaning off the plank of bowls I had grabbed to work on, “I guess that means we have to keep working, Kann. Got a real taskmaster over here. I wouldn’t want to be the reason someone misses out on a social life.”

“That’s right, you two,” Nox said, running a hand through their close cropped hair with a slight smirk. “The faster we get this done, the faster we can move on to something less bland beef stroganoff.”

“Less what?” I laughed out.

“You heard me, cotton-top! Get to work!” They mimed cracking a whip before picking up a plank of bowls to work on.

“Oh, god, don’t! I’m gonna crumple into dust before we get this shit finished!” The rest of the day played out pretty much like this, until we got all the bowls cleaned and glazed and set out to dry. Later, they would be put in the kiln and fired over night.