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Sadie shut the book and leaned back against the shelf behind her, massaging her temples.
So, turns out the guy is a complete nutcase.
The setting sun outside mixed long shadows and square puddles of light across the wooden library floor. Sadie had been camped out in the biographiessection all afternoon, surrounded by books on twentieth-century artists. She'd found information on Casper Franklin pretty quickly: an artist, born in the city. His career had taken off in his early twenties, earning critical acclaim for his flawless attention to expression and intricate, layered symbolism within his paintings.
Sadie had a look through his earlier works – mostly abstract portraits and architectural scenes. But there had been no relevance to the flowers or the lark, and Sadie had been starting to wonder whether Avel had sent her on a wild goose chase when she'd flipped a page and his style completely changed.
Instead of the portraits, the rest of the book was filled with page after page of sprawling landscapes, much like the one Avel had done on Gerrard Street. The earlier paintings had rough, formless outlines and thickly layered colour, drawn with an urgent chaotic energy that seeped straight off the canvas. But the flora he'd depicted were unmistakeably the same as those the lark had given her. The bird itself even made an appearance or two, soaring across a pearly grey sky, wings outstretched.
Which took her to the biographies, as she tried to find a reason for the change. In a collection of feverish notes written in a private diary, he described seeing visions of another world, a forested paradise he called Eseran. Over time, his writings descended into chaos, becoming increasingly more disordered and indecipherable. Eventually he became convinced the sun would soon be devoured by chariot-riding otherworldly warriors, and died alone in his manor house in a bunker he'd assembled in his living room from mattresses fortified with shards of broken glass.
Reading about it made her uneasy. Casper was clearly delusional. But he'd seen the same things she had. Which meant...what? She really was crazy, too — seeing visions of things that weren't real? Or that place he'd spoken of was real, and he'd been right all along?
She jerked her fingers a few times, clutching onto the familiar tension and release spreading through her hands.
You're not crazy. She muttered it to herself a few times, low under her breath. There's a logical explanation for it. He'd obviously come across the strange plants and pebbles — perhaps the lark had visited him, too. And perhaps...unable to explain their origin, he'd fabricated tales of another world.
Sadie nodded to herself. She liked that. It made sense. He'd made the whole thing up and become too absorbed in the world he'd created to remember it was just fantasy. Perhaps he'd tried to use his paintings to bring it all to life, to persuade himself and everyone that it was real.
