Chapter 4: Incendio
And You Say I Never Get You Flowers
Previously in Chapter 3: It Ends at the Beginning
A few hours later we arrived at The Villa at Saugerties, a beautiful bed and breakfast run by a couple named Amanda and Joe. Nestled on several acres beside a small pond, this Mediterranean estate housed four chic guest rooms, each with a fireplace, balcony, and Venetian plastered walls.
Picturesque — nay — gram’able, as it was, we didn’t find any clues just laying around. So we pulled out the glass vase from inside of the quiver, watered the remnants, and waited. We filled the time, as we often do, by staring into one another’s eyes and offering positive affirmations.
I blinked and it was Saturday morning. As no owls or rabbits had arrived, we decided to venture into the town of Saugerties to explore.
Cute town.
Upon our return to the Villa, waiting for us on our balcony was a scroll, a canvas, and a watercolor paint set.
Nicole unfurled the scroll and read aloud.
“When you let go of what was, take your eyes from what will be, and look away from what’s reflected, what remains but a blank slate? Cover this empty canvas with colors from the world inside you and the one around you.
42.131599, -74.009047”
The past and the future were gone: the Pearl Spoon at the bottom of the Hudson, the Prism of Fate possibly in the hands of a playground predator. The Pane of Vanity was sealed shut… Without these bulwarks of identity, what defined Nicole?
So she painted. And as she did, past, present, and future coalesced; memories, feelings, and imagination became external realities — all at once.
As I frenetically texted, emailed, WhatsApped, and IG chatted with a photographer, friends, family, Amanda downstairs, a restaurant, a prop company… Nicole calmly painted on the balcony overlooking the magnificent willow on the outskirts of the pond.
A moment after her final brushstroke, Nicole heard a sharp knock at the door. She bustled over, but when she opened it, no one was on the other side. At her feet, though, rested a purple dahlia. She picked up the remnant of the Blank Slate, closed the door, and added it to her quiver.
Three horcruxes had been destroyed!
I was struck with a sudden and overwhelming thirst, perhaps the excitement from the hunt drying out my throat. I asked Nicole to get me a drink from the small fridge in our room.
“Oh!” She cried out while rummaging for some sparkling.
“What’s the matter?!” I asked.
She turned, holding a scroll, some black markers, and what looked like white cloth squares wrapped in plastic.
Nicole sat down on the bed, undid the knot securing the scroll, and began to read. Midway through the clue, she lost her breath. This wasn’t just another mystery to be solved. It was a poem that greeted her like a familiar stranger. It was the mantra that had guided her self-belief since I had known her — manifested, there, on a shred of parchment.
“The fifth horcrux is inside you. Cruel are the words spoken to us and about us, but even crueler are those we speak to ourselves. For every word that’s left a wound; for every brand left in its place; set afire and burn away.
42.072008, -73.929792”
We arrived at the Saugerties Lighthouse at sunset.
I led Nicole down a boardwalk lined by sedges and tall grass to a secluded river bank several hundred yards from the lighthouse. The retreating tide had flattened the vegetation closest to the water’s edge.
We sat down together on an old, felled tree. The sky above us melted into the river, the coming twilight like a vintage crystal chandelier radiating pink, orange, and yellow. Out of the plastic, she unfolded the white squares to reveal bamboo paper lanterns.
There in the fading light, in bold, permanent marker, she inscribed onto a lantern the cruelest words she found echoing within herself. Here is where she would burn them away.
Soon enough, the lantern looked like the tattooed stall of a high school bathroom. Nicole stood up and stretched open her lantern. The base harnessed a small fuel cell, which I lit with a match from the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge.
Waiting for the chamber to fill with rising air, she silently reread the denigrating half truths covering it. I backed away and watched as she ventured across the flat grass towards the river.
When she felt the pressure lifting it out of her hands, she shoved the lantern as far away from her body as she could, keeping her eyes on it until it was barely a speck in the sky. A bright flash against a pink cloud let us know that the cruel words had been completely engulfed in flames.
Nicole turned towards me for a kiss.
What we wrote will stay private, a moment shared between us; a moment during which Nicole probably expected, along that river bank, under that chandelier sky, a diamond ring.
