Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 100, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 603 & 604, October 1992

Seeing him in the park, so obviously awaiting her, Sybil had felt almost apologetic. Not that he greeted her with any measure of reproach (though his face was drawn and sallow, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well, nor even questioned her mutely with his eyes Where have you been? Certainly not! He smiled happily when he saw her, limping in her direction like a doting father, seemingly determined not to acknowledge her absence of the past four days. Sybil called out, “Hello, Mr. Starr!” and felt, yes, so strangely, as if things were once again right.

“How lovely! — and the day is so fine! — ‘in full daylight’ — as I promised!” Mr. Starr cried.

Sybil had been jogging for forty minutes, and felt very good, strengthened. She removed her damp yellow headband and stuffed it in her pocket. When Mr. Starr repeated the terms of his proposition of the previous week, restating the higher fee, Sybil agreed at once, for of course that was why she’d come. How, in all reasonableness, could she resist?

Mr. Starr took some time before deciding upon a place for Sybil to pose — “It must be ideal, a synthesis of poetry and practicality.” Finally, he chose a partly crumbling stone ledge overlooking the beach in a remote corner of the park. He asked Sybil to lean against the ledge, gazing out at the ocean. Her hands pressed flat against the top of the ledge, her head uplifted as much as possible, within comfort. “But today, dear Blake, I am going to record not just the surface likeness of a lovely young girl,” he said, “—but memory, and

emotion, coursing through her.”

Sybil took the position readily enough. So invigorated did she feel from her exercise, and so happy to be back again in her role as model, she smiled out at the ocean as at an old friend. “What kind of memory and emotion, Mr. Starr?” she asked.

Mr. Starr eagerly took up his sketch pad and a fresh stick of charcoal. It was a mild day, the sky placid and featureless, though, up the coast, in the direction of Big Sur, massive thunderclouds were gathering. The surf was high, the waves powerful, hypnotic. One hundred yards below, young men in surfing gear, carrying their boards lightly as if they were made of papier-mâché, prepared to enter the water.

Mr. Starr cleared his throat, and said, almost shyly, “Your mother, dear Blake. Tell me all you know — all you can remember — about your mother.”

“My mother?”

Sybil winced and would have broken her position, except Mr. Starr put out a quick hand, to steady her. It was the first time he had touched her in quite that way. He said gently, “I realize it’s a painful subject, Blake, but — will you try?”

Sybil said, “No. I don’t want to.”

“You won’t, then?”

“I can’t.”

“But why can’t you, dear? — any memory of your mother would do.”

“No.”

Sybil saw that Mr. Starr was quickly sketching her, or trying to — his hand shook. She wanted to reach out to snatch the charcoal stick from him and snap it in two. How dare he! God damn him!

“Yes, yes,” Mr. Starr said hurriedly, an odd, elated look on his face, as if, studying her so intently, he was not seeing her at all, “—yes, dear, like that. Any memory — any! So long as it’s yours.”

Sybil said, “Whose else would it be?” She laughed, and was surprised that her laughter sounded like sobbing.

“Why, many times innocent children are given memories by adults; contaminated by memories not their own,” Mr. Starr said somberly. “In which case the memory is spurious. Inauthentic.”

Sybil saw her likeness on the sheet of stiff white paper, upside-down. There was something repulsive about it. Though she was wearing her usual jogging clothes (a shirt, running pants) Mr. Starr made it look as if she were wearing a clinging, flowing gown; or, maybe, nothing at all. Where her small breasts would have been were swirls and smudges of charcoal, as if she were on the brink of dissolution. Her face and head were vividly drawn, but rather raw, crude, and exposed.

She saw too that Mr. Starr’s silver hair had a flat metallic sheen this afternoon; and his beard was faintly visible, metallic too, glinting on his jaws. He was stronger than she’d thought. He had knowledge far beyond hers.

Sybil resumed her position. She stared out at the ocean — the tall, cresting, splendidly white-capped waves. Why was she here, what did this man want out of her? She worried suddenly that, whatever it was, she could not provide it.

But Mr. Starr was saying, in his gentle, murmurous voice, “There are people — primarily women! — who are what I call ‘conduits of emotion.’ In their company, the half-dead can come alive. They need not be beautiful women or girls. It’s a matter of blood-warmth. The integrity of the spirit.” He turned the page of his sketch pad, and began anew, whistling thinly through his teeth. “Thus an icy-cold soul, in the presence of one so blessed, can regain something of his lost self. Sometimes!”