“For the chalkboard,” he said, looking a bit bewildered.
“But . . . where did you get it?”
“Where did I get what?”
“The chalk!”
His forehead wrinkled slightly. “Ryman’s. They had a sale.”
I opened my mouth to say something else and then closed it abruptly. I wasn’t doing this with him. Not again. Not today. I sat down on the sofa and crossed my legs. “All right.”
Jonas regarded me warily for a moment, as if I were the one acting strange. But in the end, he didn’t say anything, either. He just fished out a piece and started scribbling on the board, like a more than slightly batty professor.
“Now, as I was saying, visions can be a bit . . . dicey. Agnes often described them as less of a narrative than a kaleidoscope or puzzle, with pieces here and there that, without context, made little sense. Would you agree?”
I shrugged. “I’ve had both kinds. The jumbled ones are the most irritating.”
He nodded. “Yes, so she said. She also told me, however, that having a starting point, some clue as to what she was seeing, often went a long way in helping her sort them out. And once she knew to focus on a particular piece, the others that went with that puzzle often presented themselves.”
“So what puzzle piece do you want me to focus on today?”
“One I’ve been working on for some t
ime now. I’ve been doing some fascinating research into the—”
He stopped and looked at something over my shoulder. I turned my head to see the mage peering around the chalkboard. He looked back and forth between the two of us. “I, er, I was wondering—”
“No, no, we’re past all that,” Jonas said.
The man looked at him for a moment and then decided to focus on me. “Are we having lunch?”
“No.”
“Dinner?”
“No.”
“It’s just . . . I haven’t eaten.”
I just looked at him.
“Could I have my chocolates back?” he asked after a moment.
I silently passed them over. He disappeared back behind the blackboard. Jonas looked at me. “Where were we?”
“I have no idea.”
He thought for a moment. “Oh yes. I was telling you about my research into the old Norse sagas—the mythology of ancient Scandinavia. Have you read them?”
“Uh, no.”
“You’d like them, Cassie.” He waved the hand with the chalk in it. “All sex and violence.”
I frowned. “Why would you think that I’d—”
“And in a real sense, they’re very like visions, in that they give us pieces. Not necessarily the best pieces, you understand, nor in the right order, nor with the right emphasis, but pieces nonetheless. It’s up to us to decode what those pieces mean.”
“Pieces of what?” I asked, trying to figure out where he was going with this.