O Night Divine A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,186

no sign of the strange man. Other than the couple, still strolling along arm-in-arm, there was no sign of anyone. Josiah pressed a hand to his forehead. “Where the hell…?”

How could the stranger have disappeared so quickly? He couldn’t have. Not unless he had wings on his feet, or had leapt into the river. Josiah leaned over the wall, half-expecting to see someone hanging from the bridge. Or floundering in the water. He saw neither.

Confused to the point of dizziness, he attempted to arrange his thoughts. Had he imagined the entire encounter? Was he ailing? True, he’d had a headache earlier that day. But he didn’t really feel ill. He just felt very cold. And crushingly tired, all of a sudden.

Hopeless.

The word slid into his brain unbidden.

Maybe that was it. He closed his eyes against a prickle of tears and tried to slow his breathing. Maybe his brain had conjured up the stranger, trying to compensate, somehow, for his dejected state. It sounded ridiculous. But what other explanation could there be? He couldn’t blame alcohol. He’d not had any in days. And he hadn’t dallied with opium for weeks.

Trying to make sense of all that had occurred, he barely remembered the walk back to his garret. By the time he got there, he’d managed to convince himself that the entire episode had been some kind of hallucination. Moreover, it had been brought about by his melancholic mood and the freezing temperatures. Even now, with his front door in sight, his hands and feet were so cold he could barely feel them. It didn’t help, either, that he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in several days. The choice often had to be made between rent and food, not to mention his art supplies. This month, rent had taken priority. Maybe he should have kept the painting after all. He might have got a few francs for it.

He stumbled over the threshold into the cold, windowless foyer of his run-down apartment building, his teeth chattering so hard they shook his skull. The exertion of climbing four flights of stairs in pitch darkness warmed him up a little. With benumbed fingers, he retrieved the key from his pocket and let himself into the garret that had been his home for the past year.

Compared to the total darkness of the staircase, the poky apartment offered a measure of light, due to the little circular dormer-window set into the slope of the slate roof. He couldn’t look down on the street but, on clear nights, he could lay in bed and look at the stars. Lately, though, his nighttime view of infinity served only to remind him of his solitude.

During the day, what little daylight there was reflected off a large ornately-framed mirror, which had been purposely placed for that intent. It brightened the gloomy space and gave Josiah some extra light to paint by.

Tonight, the temperature within the room was almost as bitter as without. He kicked off his shoes and crawled under his blankets fully dressed, the mattress sagging as he curled into a ball, shivering uncontrollably. His headache had returned, the persistent throb made worse by the ongoing turmoil in his mind.

The encounter on the bridge had greatly unsettled him, solely because he could make no sense of it, and it frightened him. Could it really have been a hallucination? If so, did it mean he was losing his mind?

And had he actually, even for a moment, contemplated ending his life?

“Northcott men never give up,” he whispered. “Isn’t that right, Papa? Isn’t that right?”

A lump came to his throat as he stared at the silhouette of his easel, which stood beneath the window. Tomorrow, he resolved, he’d wander up to Montmartre, find a likely spot, and paint a quick, mediocre daylight scene. Maybe he’d make a few francs. Assuming the weather cooperated, of course.

No sooner had that thought slid through his mind than the wind rattled his window, as if mocking him. He blew out a breath, watching it cloud and then fade away like a little ghost. Then he blew out another.

And something suddenly occurred to him.

Not once, he realized, had the stranger’s breath clouded in the cold air. Not once. Which seemed to confirm his suspicions: the man simply hadn’t been real. The entire encounter had been a fabrication of the mind. “The cold,” he murmured, pulling the blankets tighter around him. “It had to have been the cold. That’s all.” As warmth gradually seeped back into his bones, he