Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 10–15 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

Kelly chronicled the whiplash of Daedalia’s sudden success, including the money, the secrecy, and the way it left her both proud and invisible. Across a few entries she admitted how lonely she felt without Lefty, how much she wanted him to see her, and how the work was starting to exhaust her even as Daedalia’s myth kept growing.

The following transcript is an excerpt from an interview with Kelly Mudd recorded on January 10, 2033 at her home in Black Mountain, North Carolina six months prior to her death.

MM: Where did you go when you disappeared before that first big show, Daedalia’s New York premiere?

KM: For the first two weeks, I didn’t go anywhere. I stayed in a budget motel on the other side of town. That’s not what you imagined, right? I was still just a kid then. I had lots of imagination when it came to drawing but I had very little in my real life. I’d barely seen anything of the world.

MM: What did you do during those two weeks?

KM: I ate a lot of takeout food and watched a lot of television. I was like a kid on summer break. I just wanted to be a vegetable and catch my breath. I had pushed myself really hard because I didn’t want to disappoint Lefty. Eventually, though, I got bored and I did something very out of character. I bought a one-way ticket to Italy.

I know it seems embarrassingly on the nose for an artist to make their first trip abroad be Florence, but it was a radical thing for me. I came across the movie A Room with a View during that marathon of watching TV and I fell in love with the landscape and the light. You have to understand, I had a rural high school education and no idea that Tuscany was the birthplace of art in the Western world. When I saw a documentary about da Vinci a couple of days later, that sealed the deal for me.

MM: So even though you had said you were done with art, you really weren’t. Did you know that at the time?

KM: Oh, I think so. I could no more stop making art than I could cut off my hand. I was just being dramatic. From the minute I got off the plane and took the train from Rome to Florence, I couldn’t stop sketching. I covered both sides of a stack of cocktail napkins, and cursed myself for not bringing a sketchpad.

The first couple of nights I stayed in a youth hostel like someone who didn’t have a stack of traveler’s checks tucked away in my backpack.

MM: What are traveler’s checks?

KM: Ha, you wouldn’t know that, would you? Your generation does everything on your phone. Traveler’s checks were what you got when you planned to travel abroad as an American. They were safer than carrying cash.

MM: Weird. So what did you do when you got there?

KM: I did what every tourist does when they go to Florence. I visited the Uffizi Gallery, walked through the Duomo, and of course saw the statue of David. All of it was amazing, the food, the smells, and the people. But it wasn’t until I made the pilgrimage to Vinci that I really fell in love. I rode on a bus with a bunch of German tourists and planned for it to just be a day trip, but I ended up missing the bus back to Florence. I was so taken by what I saw in that museum. Da Vinci was such a weirdo, completely out of his time. I spent hours staring at his obscure little sketches and the bizarre and creepy things that came out of his brain. When I finally looked up, they were closing the museum and the bus had left without me.

One of the older women who worked there took pity on me and offered up the spare room in her house for the night. Rosa, her name was. She was so sweet. She fed me homemade pesto and I had never tasted anything so divine. The next day, she connected me with a family friend who rented me a villa when I returned with my stuff. I ended up staying there for three months. It was one of the most magical times in my life.

MM: What made it so special?

KM: You’ve been there, you know. The light has a quality, especially in autumn, that is like nowhere else in the world. I would sit for hours in an olive grove on a blanket just taking in the light, watching how it changed over the course of an afternoon. At the end of the day, all any artist does is pay attention to the light. It was healing for me, I think, to be in such a different place all on my own with no one to answer to.

MM: What was your relationship to your work then? Did you know what was happening back in the states?

KM: Oh no, I had no idea. You have to remember we had no internet at the time and no phones. How would I have known?

MM: So for however long you were away in Europe, you had no idea your work was completely exploding in the art world?

KM: That’s right, and I’m so grateful for that. There are few things worse for an artist than that kind of success. I was completely oblivious and utterly happy.

MM: I don’t think I’ve ever seen any work you did from that period. Did you do any pieces or was it all just sketching?

KM: No, I didn’t want to make anything big. I wanted to go inside, deeper. I needed time to understand what my relationship was to the gift I’d been given, to the collaboration I had stumbled upon.

MM: You’re talking about Ona now, right?

KM: Yes. Yes I am. And I can see in your eyes you believe I’m a lunatic. That’s okay. It’s never mattered much to me that others, even you, understand my relationship with her. She opened doorways for me to walk through and it wasn’t until later when I came home that I understood she was opening doorways for others too. Anyone who saw our work, really took the time to see it, found a door they could pass through or a window they could open to have a different view. What is it? What are you thinking?

MM: It just struck me, the great irony of your life. Commercially, you never got credit for your work, which seems like a crime, but in a way, if what you say about Ona is true, then maybe you don’t deserve credit for it. I mean, if it’s not just you making the art.

KM: It’s true and it’s the reason I was able to accept the arrangement Lefty and I made. I had an intuition about it that I can’t explain and that intuition was right. By letting go of my attachment to it, my ownership of it, the work could become about more than just me.

MM: Did you communicate with Lefty at all during that year and a half?

KM: I didn’t and if I have one regret, it’s that. He was worried sick about me, had no way to know if I was okay, no way to know if he’d ever see me again.

MM: But he had quite the payday from that show. That must have been some consolation. I can’t see him being too grief-stricken.

KM: You’re too hard on him. He’s not what you think. And you know, every penny of my share was waiting for me when I did finally come back. He had receipts for every sale and had put my share into a separate account.

MM: Tell me what that was like, when you saw him after all that time.

KM: Well, I didn’t know if he would even talk to me. I didn’t know if he would still be there at all. I didn’t even know if my little house would still be mine. When I walked out of that life, part of the reason I could was because I didn’t feel I had any claim to it. So I fully expected to come home to nothing and to have to start all over again.

But when the taxi dropped me at my place in the canyon, my key still worked in the door and everything was just like I’d left it. Well, not exactly. The pieces for the New York show were gone, of course.

MM: So he had what, just kept paying the mortgage and the bills while you were gone?

KM: Yeah, that’s Lefty. He had faith I would come back. Even the phone was still hooked up. After I got all my bags inside, I sat down at my desk and I called him. When he picked up, he didn’t say anything at first. There was just this silence and I imagined him seeing the caller ID and thinking I was a ghost calling him. An hour later he was there in my living room, larger than life. I remember he hugged me for a really long time and when he finally let me go, he just looked at me. There was a difference in the way he saw me and I could feel it.

MM: What do you mean?

KM: I don’t know what he saw. I only liked that he saw me, finally.

MM: That pair of photographs in the frame at the end of the mantel, were those taken around that time?

KM: Can you hand them down to me so I can look? You know my eyes are shit now, just like everything else. [Kelly studies photos in small book-matched frame] Yeah, that was me in Rome a month before I flew back home.

MM: What do you see when you look at these pictures? Can you describe yourself, I mean like you would if you were painting someone else?

KM: I see a confident, young woman. Her arms that were once almost translucent and skeletal are now bronzed and muscular. She looks as if she belongs, as if the body she was renting, she finally owns. Look there. You see the hand on her hip, the arch of her spine. It’s playful, unafraid.

MM: So that’s who he saw that afternoon when he came to your house?

KM: I think so. You’d have to ask him.

MM: Do you think that’s when he fell in love with you?

KM: Oh no, he’d always loved me just like I’d always loved him. Love doesn’t happen in a minute. You don’t catch it like some virus. I think it’s always there waiting, the potential for it anyway. But yes, to your point, things changed when I got back. I can’t explain in a way that you can understand what it felt like.

MM: You mean coming back to all that success or being with Lefty again?

KM: All of it. It was as if I had crawled away from L.A. a caterpillar and returned as a butterfly. That sounds dumb, but it’s true. It was a transformation. I stepped into another life.

MM: What was the biggest change? I know you’re getting tired and I’ll let you rest after this last question. Tell me a memory from that time that can help me see it like you did.

KM: Some water, please. I need to think about it. Let’s see, a couple of days after I was home and had settled in, he picked me up and took me to the offices he had set up above a restaurant in Venice. On the walls he had hung a series of framed documents. There were some clippings from reviews in the New Yorker and the Paris Review but what I found astonishing was the handwritten letters, some of them from people who had bought my pieces but the ones that really moved me were from people who had not been able to. They had just seen them at one of the gallery shows or hanging in someone’s home.

The letters were so raw, so personal. They weren’t gushing about the work. They were talking about their lives and what they had seen of themselves in this painting or that one.

I see that look on your face. I know it well. You look like you’re trying to swallow some undercooked chicken I just served you.

MM: I’m sorry. It’s just hard for me to believe. You know I love your work…

KM: But you’ve never experienced it the way these people did, right?

MM: No, I haven’t. I’ve tried for as long as I can remember but I’ve always felt like it’s some club I’m not a part of or maybe I’m just not smart enough or open enough or…

KM: I’m sorry. Marabelle, I’m sorry. I assure you it’s none of those things. Can I tell you a story? Would that be okay?

MM: Yes, of course.

KM: It’s one I heard years and years ago when I was traveling through Poland. It was told to me by this genteel old man. We were sitting outside a coffee shop early one morning. He was the only other customer and he struck up a conversation with me the way older people do who tend to be so lonely. He was a writer who collected stories in a little leatherbound notebook. I asked him to read me one. I’m not sure why he chose this one, but he did and it’s always stuck with me.

It was about a master clockmaker who crafted these intricate timepieces, each one a marvel that could capture the dance of the stars, that’s how he put it. They would take months, even years for him to complete, hunched over his bench. But in perfecting these clocks that brought utility and wonder to those people of a certain class who could afford them, he completely lost track of time, the precious time he could have spent with his wife, their children, their friends.

To them, his clocks, whenever they would see them in some great hall, were nothing but a reminder of his absence. They didn’t capture the dance of the stars. They were just a pair of hands that stole minutes, hours, days, and years from a man they never really got to know.

MM: Jesus, that’s a terrible story.

KM: Yeah, I suppose it is. Most true stories are.

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Did this chapter take you in? Leave a ❤️ below to help fellow travelers find it. Speaking of fellow travelers, a lot of friendships have started in the comments of my serials.

Leave a comment

Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 10–15 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

Kelly chronicled the whiplash of Daedalia’s sudden success, including the money, the secrecy, and the way it left her both proud and invisible. Across a few entries she admitted how lonely she felt without Lefty, how much she wanted him to see her, and how the work was starting to exhaust her even as Daedalia’s myth kept growing.

In September 1993, Kelly disappeared after completing a trio of canvases that would be the centerpiece for Daedalia’s New York City debut at the Wider Still gallery in SoHo the following month.

When Lefty showed up at her place on a Thursday, Kelly was not home. Two days earlier, they’d had another in a long series of arguments about the future of Daedalia. The three canvases were arranged along the wall opposite the front door. Lefty saw them the moment he stepped inside, his hand still on the key.

He gazed into them from where he stood, frozen in the doorway, on the threshold between his best-laid plans and the reality that couldn’t be bent to them. The boundary between the trio of canvases and the room that contained them dissolved. His nose filled with the scent of old timbers baking in the sun, and the acrid tang of coal soot rose in his throat. He was standing in the open, the air ionized by the tumbling rush of whitewater far below.

The experience transcended his visual perception. It was as if the images slipped straight through the ocular nerve, bypassing the silent, unreliable interpreter in his brain that made sense of light, and descended deep into the soft center of him, where they manifested into a hollow foreboding sensation he had all but forgotten from his teenage years. His eyes pricked with tears. He swallowed and took two steps closer. When he did, the canvases emerged again, filled edge to edge with the meticulous result of Kelly’s labor. He felt the floor beneath him again and the stifling stillness of the empty house.

He turned away from the canvases to survey the room. Even before he saw the note on her desk, he knew she was really gone. Dust particles swirled in the shaft of sunlight that beamed down on her desk where he found the note and one of her favorite pens. He sat heavily in her chair and picked up the page torn from one of her notebooks.

Dear Lefty,

I’m sorry, but I can’t do this anymore. The other night you didn’t seem to hear me at all. I know you don’t understand. The work takes something out of me. It’s not like I have a bottomless well. I know you think this thing is just getting started, but it got away from me and I can’t do it anymore. I’m grateful to you for all your help and mostly for believing in me, but I need some time to figure out who I am. I’m sorry.

Kelly

I can only imagine what Lefty felt after reading that note. He was probably angry, but then he would have been disappointed in himself for being angry. Mostly, I think he was worried, and that worry would plague him for the year and a half it would take for him to hear from her again.

He looked in her bedroom and saw that her closet was empty. The chest of drawers was empty. All of her art supplies remained. He wondered if she had even bothered to take one of her favorite sketchpads, or a couple of pens, but he doubted it. He had pushed her too hard and understood too late that he had done to her what his father had done to him every day of his childhood after it was discovered that Lefty had a powerful arm and a level of control that far exceeded his gangly twelve-year-old body.

Lefty’s punishment was to have to carry on the charade of Daedalia by himself. Contracts had been signed and promises made. There was no one he could call to see if Kelly was okay. She had no friends that he knew of and he was certain she would never reach out to her mother.

He tried to think of the positives. She had plenty of money. She was very young and she needed time to be young. He tried to picture her walking on a beach in Bali or sitting on a bench in the Louvre eating a sandwich. He hoped that’s what she was doing. He hoped she would come back to him in a couple of months fully recharged with stories to tell, but he didn’t expect her to.

She had abandoned him in their moment of triumph. He had cracked the fucking code, broken into the bank vault that only one in ten million artists ever would while they were still living, and like a petulant child she just said, “Not for me.”

He traveled to New York to oversee preparations for Daedalia’s opening there. Greta had continued to be a big help as he navigated into deeper waters. It was she who helped him stage a bidding war between the top galleries in New York, ensuring that Daedalia’s opening would secure the highest profile with the most marketing dollars. It was she who had coached him to be as hard, aloof, and obtuse as possible in his dealings.

These things didn’t come easy for a man whose wiring and genteel Southern disposition demanded he do everything in his power to be liked and put others at ease. She helped him understand that he could play a character. So he did, and he convinced himself he was doing it for Kelly. He believed she would come back, and when she did, he wanted to have a worldwide audience clamoring to see her work. He also had bills to pay.

He spent the week before the opening pushing to make sure everything was perfect. In a year, he had learned a lot about staging and theatrics. Being an untrained outsider gave him an unmatched ability to disrupt conventional thinking.

Upon walking into the gallery on Broome Street, he immediately insisted the space wouldn’t do unless they made a lot of changes. The large front windows would have to be papered over. The walls would have to be painted black. The tracks of lights that lit the room like a football stadium would have to be turned off and replaced with tiny, focused spots. The space had to be dark.

What had been a happy accident borne out of necessity in the little warehouse where he staged Daedalia’s first show had become the only way he would stage the work for the first decade of her career. The darkness created a nocturnal, dreamy state for the viewer and threw the small pieces into dramatic focus.

Kelly had disappeared before they could come up with a name for the show, so he had been forced to do it on his own. The afternoon before the pieces had to be packed and shipped, he spread them all out across the living room and kitchen of her little house just as he and Kelly had done that first time in his studio apartment. He drank orange juice out of the half-empty carton she had left in her fridge and wandered from piece to piece, allowing himself to fall into each one.

Unlike her first couple of series, which were mostly a collection of random ideas unified by her technique, these were operating on a different plane. They were in communication with each other. Where one ended, the next began. She had numbered them on the backs, but he could have sequenced them without any help because they told a story. He wasn’t sure he could have articulated it to anyone else, but it was there, etched into his heart with all the precision of her meticulous pen strokes.

On the sidewalk across the street from the gallery, he stood for a while staring at the words he had written on the envelope he shipped with the paintings two weeks prior. Now they were printed in elegant white lettering across the blacked-out glass of the gallery’s front window.

He shivered in the October chill, wishing he had brought a camera. He took a deep breath, crossed the street, and stepped up to the door in front of a line of people queued around the block. The doorman nodded and let him in.

It was not a typical gallery show in the city. He hadn’t allowed it to be. It wasn’t filled with people chatting over champagne flutes and canapés. Only ten guests were admitted at a time and each had been required to make a reservation.

The gallery owners, a skeletal couple with the austere names of Hela and Sherman Kirn, had been more than a little rankled about being told how to run their business by this hick and had gone so far as to have him sign a contract stating that he would cover the loss if they sold less than twenty-five percent of the works on opening night.

He signed it, but not without extracting a promise that the owners would not permit their usual patrons privileged access. They would have to wait in the cold like everyone else. Hela and Sherman were certain the evening would be a disaster.

When he stepped into the space and the door closed behind him, shutting out the chill and the honk and murmur of the city, Lefty had what he has described as a religious experience. From his vantage point, he could see each of the nineteen pieces he had selected for the show. None of them was large enough to comprehend, much less decipher, from a distance.

But standing there by the door, he witnessed the emergence of something much greater as he moved toward the center of the gallery. The pieces weren’t just thematically connected. They were a single, living organism, not unlike a stand of aspen trees or an octopus with its thinking appendages furling and unfurling, flattening, shifting as it changed in dimension, color, and texture.

“You’re here. Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice broke with emotion. “How did she know so much about our lives? Is this some kind of stunt?”

He hadn’t heard the gallery owner approach. When he turned slowly to face Hela Kirn, the sharp planes of her face had softened and her eyes shimmered with tears. He felt a discomfort, like the wrongness of putting on a well-worn T-shirt backwards. When he tried to speak, words wouldn’t come. Tears streamed down his face as they had that first time he looked at Kelly’s notebook.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, his eyes drifting back to the middle piece of the triptych displayed prominently on the center back wall. “These pieces, they’re not your story.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you see it? This is her story… and mine.”

The gallery owner’s face drained of color and she stared at him blankly before turning to follow his gaze at the triptych. “That’s our child. That’s our Melanie.”

Lefty stared at the figure in the center panel that only just emerged at this distance and experienced an echo of the feeling that had overwhelmed him a few weeks prior when he had first seen the pieces. In the half dozen times he had looked at the collection, handled the pieces in preparation for this show, he had never seen this, had never been far enough away.

Up close, the works were a bending, twisting labyrinth of flora and fauna interrupted by landmarks, crypts, statues, an overgrown garden shed collapsing into decay. The figure he saw was himself at fifteen, standing on the old train trestle that spanned the gorge off Route 9. The angle of his head, the slackness of his posture, the lump of his bat bag and helmet on the track beside him, it was all there.

He brushed past her and moved closer, hoping to see what this woman saw, but the singular subject exploded into a trillion tiny strokes like the dust particles floating in the air of her empty living room a few weeks prior.

“I won’t sell any of these pieces,” he said, barely audible.

“I beg your pardon?” She moved up behind him.

“You can let them in, but no one’s buying anything tonight.”

He turned to face her, ready for a fight.

“I agree,” she said. “They must not be separated. Not yet.”

Many times I have heard this story and I’m still not sure I believe a word of it, though I want to, more than anything. The collection has never been staged in its entirety since that first showing. For the week it lasted, it breathed in that room off Broome Street and then it was sold off in pieces. The elite collectors of the New York scene, and those who had traveled in from London, Paris, and Prague, had to wait in the cold for hours like teenagers queuing to buy concert tickets. The bidding war was unprecedented for a new and unknown artist.

But no one who saw the work could leave without at least trying to take it home, where they were certain it belonged.

« Previous | Table of Contents | Next »

Did this chapter take you in? Leave a ❤️ below to help fellow travelers find it. Speaking of fellow travelers, a lot of friendships have started in the comments of my serials.

Leave a comment

Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 10–15 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

An L.A. art critic received a cryptic, hand-drawn invitation on his coffee cup that led him, alone, to a warehouse address after midnight. Inside, he found a single, meticulously lit labyrinth drawing that pulled him into a trance before Lefty Moody appeared and introduced himself as Daedalia’s representative.

The following text is transcribed directly from Kelly Ann Mudd’s journals. There are fifty-three volumes in the collection that was donated to MoMA by her estate.

July 12, 1993

I can’t get used to having my own place. It’s weird. It doesn’t feel real. I never imagined having anything of my own, or really being a grown-up, but here I am with my own dishes, my own actual bed, and a television (which I totally need to put in a closet).

Things have been happening so fast I wanted to write it down here in case it’s all just a dream and it’s gone tomorrow. I want to be able to remember it. My little one-bedroom house is in Laurel Canyon. Yes, that one where fucking Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash lived together! I have a forest view, a little deck where I can sit and have coffee in the morning, and a big open living room with a skylight where I can work. Best of all, I don’t have to sleep on a lumpy couch or share a bathroom.

I’m able to work anytime, day or night, though nights are a little scary. It gets dark out here and it’s so quiet. It feels too much like where I grew up. I don’t know how you can hate and love something equally, but I do. Ona likes the quiet, the trees, the solitude, but it reminds me of being a kid and being alone in that house.

This morning it’s sunny as I sit here in my chair at my table looking over at the piece on my desk. I have a desk! Such a luxury to draw on a massive, sturdy desk that doesn’t wobble. It’s the kind architects use that has a top that can tilt up. It was a gift from Lefty, a “business expense,” he would probably say.

I haven’t written about everything that’s happened since last year and I can’t possibly capture it all because there’s just been so much. If it all goes away, if I’m back where I started in six months or six years, I want to be able to remember at least some of it. There’s been so much I haven’t wanted to remember in my life.

Here’s the thing. I’m an ARTIST now. A successful artist. People buy my work for lots of money. How much money, you ask? Lefty sold a piece last week for $10,000! Who are these people? I can’t even really comprehend it most days. I even feel a little guilty when I think about how hard most people have to work to earn that much. There’s another part of me that wants to shout it from the rooftops, to tell all those assholes from high school that I’m a big fucking deal now and not some freakish thing to be pitied.

But I can’t do that. I can’t do it because the only way this works is if I’m kept a secret. Daedalia is the mysterious artist everybody is dying to meet. It’s more than a little fucked up.

The other night Lefty arranged an invitation-only showing at this gallery called Splinter and I told him I wanted to go and he said it was too risky and I told him to fuck off and we got in this big stupid fight, which makes zero sense, except it does, because I’m sick of being the secret ingredient in my own life. If the version of me and him sitting in that little shitbox in Echo Park could have seen us, they would have been disgusted. He told me this is exactly what I signed up for, which pissed me off even more because it was true. He also said it was my idea, which was also true. At that point I just got quiet and left the restaurant. In true form, I made a scene, which was also not the smartest thing to do for our little enterprise.

He called me later from the gallery and apologized and said I should come, that he had arranged a cover for me. I went down late and hovered on the sidewalk for a while like some lost puppy in fancy, uncomfortable clothes. I looked in through the tall glass windows at the people looking at my pieces and it was such a weird feeling that I can’t describe.

I made all this happen, at least it looks that way, but it’s complicated. I don’t think I ever expected any of it to actually work. I thought me and Lefty would do this little experiment together and it would be a laugh and he’d have a reason to keep letting me hang around.

He helped me get into this place and it’s lovely, but I miss him being around. It was a weird moment when I realized we were looking at places just for me. He got his own apartment in West Hollywood, which is a little bit of an upgrade from the shitbox but nothing fancy. He’s been really careful about the money, wants to make sure it’s fair.

After that first little stunt that Greta helped us pull off and he started getting real offers for my work, he wanted to formalize things to protect me. I said we should just split it 50/50 but he refused and said the most he would take would be 25%. So I’m renting a house in the Canyon and he’s got a one-bedroom apartment.

That’s it for now. I left out so much, but I’ve got work to get to. I have some ideas about a new series with butterflies. The patterns on their wings are so crazy if you think about them. It’ll be interesting to see what we do.

December 31, 1992

Lefty went home for Christmas. He asked if I wanted to come but I told him I don’t have the kind of parents he does, plus unlike him, I can’t exactly tell everybody about my success. I should have done something though, gone somewhere. It’s really sucked to be alone for the past week.

I went to the big stupid mall and walked around for a few hours. I went into a few fancy stores all decked out for the holidays and I bought clothes, like girly clothes I never wear, just because I could afford them and I wanted to treat myself. I wanted to do something with this money I suddenly have. It was fun for a few minutes. I ate way too much Chinese food, came home, and got a little too drunk. I fell and cut my hand somehow. I wanted to call him, but he would just ask if I was okay and then he’d ask what I was working on.

I keep thinking about that afternoon back in September when he took me for a drive up the coast because he saw how tired I was and said I needed a break. He was quiet most of the way and we just listened to music. Something was on his mind but he never said. I know he was seeing somebody. I could smell her sometimes when he came around. But he never talked about her to me, which is weird.

We ended up in this little seaside town called Cambria. It was like a residential area, not a touristy place. He hadn’t planned to stop there, but he was tired of driving. There was a rocky beach, Moonstruck Beach, and we walked for a while. It was like a romantic spot and I don’t think he meant it to be. I think it made him uncomfortable. I wanted him to kiss me and I was reaching with my mind, willing him to, but he didn’t.

I don’t know if he sees me like that. Sometimes when I’m working with Ona I talk about him. She knows him very well by now but she offers no advice. I can feel her waiting for me to ask her to help me make him see me. I think she could do it, but I don’t want it to be like that, a trick.

I’m planning on a new direction this year and that’s what I’m doing here as I sit on my deck with the sun going down on the last day of this year that’s changed my life. I want to do something bigger and bolder so I’ve bought some larger canvases and I’m planning to experiment with more color.

I know an artist isn’t supposed to read their reviews, but I do. Maybe I’m just using the loophole that I’m not officially the artist, but I don’t care. It’s fun to read what other people think about the things that were once just in my head.

That guy Rousseau, the one who wrote that first review in the L.A. Times, said my work was “a tumble down a twisty rabbit hole filled with enchantment and mystical symbology that masks a beautiful, tortured soul sharpening her nib to carve her way out of the darkness.”

The rabbit was Ona’s idea. I’ve never really thought of rabbits before, but I found I liked the shape of them when I started to doodle. Of the six little invitations Lefty had me make for the six fancy people Greta had been whispering to before we did that little show, I connected most with the one I did for him. When I read one of his articles and studied the little black-and-white headshot with his column, I felt a connection to him, like somehow we had similar stories. Lefty thought the invitation was kind of creepy, like stalkery, but when I wrote the words “did you lose something?” I wasn’t just thinking about Rousseau.

The thing about being universal is you’ve got to get personal and personal is messy. The great artists are the ones who give their whole heart away, I think. Some days I think maybe I do that, so maybe I’ll be a great artist, but then I think no, I don’t really do that because I’m cheating. Daedalia is the “beautiful, tortured soul.” I’m just a hick girl from Black Mountain who’s a long way from home and about to spend New Year’s Eve alone.

Future me, don’t feel too bad. I bought some expensive champagne and a whole cheesecake and I’m planning to watch twelve hours of Star Trek.

June 5, 1993

I never thought I would be tired of doing art, but I am totally burned out right now. I know it’s not true, but I feel like I could just walk away and never do it again. That’s scary to me because I’m not sure who I am without it.

I turned 22 yesterday and I feel so old. I’ve done 26 pieces in less than eighteen months. Each one takes us so much time, like at least 200 hours or more. When she’s with me, it’s effortless, almost like dreaming, but more and more it’s just me and my hand starts to cramp after eight or nine hours and my shoulders hurt. I don’t have any kind of a fucking life outside of my art. I thought that’s what I wanted but it’s not enough. How can I already be done when I’m just 22?

I’m afraid to tell Lefty. He’s going to be mad. No, he won’t be mad. He’ll be sweet about it and then gently remind me about all the reasons why I can’t quit. I only see him like twice a week when he comes up to check on me like I’m a prize racehorse he keeps in a stable or something. He always brings me something, food or some little gift he thinks might inspire me.

Once a month we go over the finances and he talks about different galleries across the country who want to stage a show for Daedalia. He talks about her in the third person. It’s so fucking weird. What’s even stranger is he’s got me doing it now too. In some ways it’s easier because it separates me from her and that whole world. Is it weird to be jealous of someone who doesn’t exist?

How messed up is it that I’m bitching here? I have over $200,000 in the bank at this point. That number doesn’t even seem real when I look at the statement. I don’t know how much Lefty has but he seems happy enough. He loves the game of it, but I also think he’s proud of what we’ve done. I want him to be happy. He’s really the closest thing I have to family now.

For my birthday he gave me this collection of photography books by a nature photographer whose thing is to take a single photo every day, only one, and he’s done it for something like ten years. The images are so gorgeous but there’s also something that feels really lonely about them, isolating. Like he’s trapped by this thing he started. I feel that.

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Did this chapter take you in? Leave a ❤️ below to help fellow travelers find it. Speaking of fellow travelers, a lot of friendships have started in the comments of my serials.

Leave a comment

Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 10–15 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

After six months of rejection in the L.A. gallery scene, Lefty shifted from trying to get Daedalia shown to studying the people who bought art and the rules that governed them. At an opening he met Greta Krieger, who dismantled his hustle, flirted with him for sport, and left him with one directive—and her number: make a spectacle.

Clem Rousseau sat at his usual table in the back of the café, sipping a double espresso in the late afternoon. Normally, he was here in the early morning and wouldn’t risk so much caffeine so late in the day, but he had to be sharp for the evening in front of him.

It was his routine to wake early and come here to work on his latest column. It was preferable to write here in his yellow legal pad than over the small, cluttered desk of his studio apartment, which smelled of cat piss and stale cigarettes. The foul stench was all that remained of Roger, who had left him more than a year prior for an older model with a better bank balance. Clem had been walking around in a malaise until this morning, when he received a curious invitation with his coffee.

On the white paper cup, a single question had been handwritten with a fine-tip black pen. The print was so near-perfect that, at first, he thought it was clever printing on the cup, but there were small imperfections that made the writing distinctly human. He had an eye for such things. The simple question, on its own, was compelling, but what stirred his imagination was the arrow beneath it, pointing to the bottom of the cup. It tickled a part of his brain—unlocked a memory of decoding riddles on the backs of cereal boxes as a child.

He had looked around at the other patrons seated in the café, just as he did this afternoon, to see if any of them had received a cup like his. That morning he had tried to do this subtly, as he was loath to draw undue attention to himself. As far as he could tell, his cup was one of a kind. There had been a strong urge to lift it over his head so he could investigate the bottom of the cup, but that might have alarmed the couple sitting adjacent to him. So he waited, sipping his coffee at a pace that scalded his throat, his pen hovering over the draft of his piece on a graffiti artist whose work had been causing a stir on the New York scene for the past few months. The four-word inquiry carefully printed on his cup taunted him and felt deeply personal.

Did you lose something?

When he finished the coffee, he turned the cup over. In the same precise, tiny script, another message was scrawled, this one spiraling from the outer rim toward the center like a nautilus shell. He had to raise the cup inches from his face to read the message. What he read brought the slightest smile of satisfaction to his lips.

After weeks of hearing whispered rumors within the art community about these mysterious invitations and feeling excluded, he had finally received one. No two invitations had been the same, so he hadn’t even known what to look for—in fact, he had been afraid he wouldn’t recognize it for what it was. He reread the message repeatedly throughout the day as he traced his index finger along its spiraling path, entranced.

This morning, he nearly stopped to ask the barista about the special cup, but there had been a line of customers, and he discovered he didn’t want to know how the cup had come into his possession.

He worked for a couple of hours to finish up the piece he had neglected this morning. His deadline loomed and he was a professional, so even in this highly distracted state, he prevailed. It wasn’t his best work, but then what more did a graffiti artist deserve? Clem considered himself a fair and balanced critic, and unlike some of his contemporaries—who indulged in the cheap thrill of the hatchet job or the gushy sycophantry that ensured comp tickets to all the best events in town—he wrote his observations of art with a direct, honest intensity.

He checked his watch. It was only six-thirty. He still had five hours to kill before he could drive to the address written on the bottom of the cup. It was on the east side of downtown, off Alameda, and seemed sketchy to him.

Earlier, after leaving the café, he had stopped by the office to speak with his editor and made a point of asking around about the location. A grubby beat reporter with eczema—who had been eavesdropping on his conversation with his friend Cheryl in the break room—told him it was nothing but warehouses, cold storage, a trainyard. Not exactly a place for a gallery show.

For someone who rarely stayed out past ten, and whose idea of an adventurous evening was to try a new Vietnamese restaurant that had mixed reviews, visiting an unknown location in the warehouse district after midnight was both thrilling and terrifying. He would have asked a friend to tag along, but that was forbidden. What had the invitation said? This is a trip you must take alone.

Clem understood it was a stunt. He had seen them before from artists, but this one was different—and it wasn’t just that it was so exclusive. There was something about the tiny figure drawn at the center of the spiraling message on the bottom of the cup. He had studied it with a magnifying glass and marveled at how just a few abstract pen strokes rendered the perfect form of a rabbit. The image had stirred him deeply, and he couldn’t understand exactly why.

Rather than go back home—where he feared he might lose his nerve and not venture back out—he decided to stay out and find something to kill the time. Two hours later, he found himself standing outside the multiplex, staring at movie posters. It had been years since he watched a popular movie and he remembered why. They all looked so garish and overblown. He considered Coppola’s Dracula but decided he didn’t need to be more spooked than he already was, so he bought a ticket for something called A River Runs Through It that had the delicious Brad Pitt standing waist-deep in a mountain stream.

By the time the movie finished, Clem was weepy, exhausted, and embarrassed about being so pathetic. He wanted nothing more than to go back home, curl into bed, and dream of fly fishing. But a fate worse than death for an art critic is being the last one to publish an opinion on an emerging talent. So when he got back into his car, he gave himself a little pep talk and cranked the engine of his old Accord. The streets of West Hollywood were still humming with happy, drunk clusters of young people ambling down Santa Monica.

On La Brea, headed south, there was an atmospheric change. It was quieter, darker. By the time he crossed Olympic, he saw the shimmery halo of Hollywood fade in his rearview. He passed strip malls with psychic readers, boarded-up storefronts, and liquor stores with spastically strobing fluorescent lights. At the 10, he merged east, passing half-lit billboards, graffiti on overpasses, and endless concrete arteries. He hated the freeway, especially at night.

When he exited on Alameda, it was warehouses and shuttered loading docks, semi-trailers parked like sleeping giants marked with the bubbly graffiti of fading gang tags. No more palm trees. No more pedestrians.

He pulled slowly down a narrow street with nondescript industrial buildings on one side and a chain-link fence bordering a weedy parking lot with hulking warehouses on the other.

This was a bad idea.

He fumbled for the cup in the passenger seat, slowed to a stop, and checked the address. 2326 E. 8th Street. It was somewhere on this block, but nothing screamed art exhibition. “At least there’s plenty of parking,” he mumbled to himself like a man whistling in a graveyard as he put the car in park behind a gray Toyota Corolla, the only other car on the street.

He got out, closed the door, and looked up and down the street in both directions. The storefronts—if you could call them that—were all shuttered with heavy rolling doors or corrugated steel sliding doors with handles chained together and padlocked. The only working light was three doors down from where he stood, but when he walked up he saw the number was wrong and it was locked up tight.

Walking back toward his car, he was ready to give up when he heard the faintest strains of music: a solo violin playing somewhere farther down the darkened sidewalk.

The last door at the end of the block was partially open and the music was coming from inside. As Clem approached, he could see a faint light flickering from inside a chipped clay pot by the door. The candlelight illuminated a small card affixed to the painted cinderblock wall. On the black-bordered card, in the same careful print from the coffee cup, the sign read:

You found me, please come in.

He looked left and right. There was no one. It was unnerving and he felt foolish for allowing himself to be taken in by what surely was either an elaborate practical joke or a lure to attract an aging, lonely man and separate him from what little money he had.

But he had come this far.

He had to push with his shoulder to slide the door open enough on the rusty track above so he could squeeze into the dimly lit space. Once inside, his eyes quickly adjusted and his senses sharpened. There was a pleasant, earthy smell like cardamom, leather, and patchouli.

The room was large, easily a hundred feet to the back wall, where there was a single framed piece that appeared as a tiny window. It was so precisely lit from a powerful pin light somewhere above in the ceiling that it looked as though it were lit from within. The rest of the massive space was in inky shadow, with no other source of light.

As he moved toward the piece, his shoes scraped on the dusty concrete. The music swelled, the violin shifting into a high, aching register, the notes cascading and building upon themselves like the churn and roil of rapids on a river after a heavy rain.

Clem forgot himself—forgot to be anxious, skeptical, or afraid—as he drew near to the piece. When at last he stood before it, he found he had trouble understanding the scale of it. What he had estimated to be a frame less than three feet wide by two feet tall seemed so much larger up close given the incomprehensible amount of detail and perspective.

He understood right away this was not something to be consumed in one go. It required time and space to open itself. At a distance it had appeared to be one thing—a surreal, naturalistic landscape awash in tones of green and blue—but on closer inspection, it was an intricate, labyrinthine drawing in the same careful pen strokes he recognized from the cup.

His eye was drawn to the bottom left corner of the canvas where he recognized a version of the rabbit from the bottom of the cup. The creature was poised before an open gate, half-covered in ivy. Beyond the gate, his eye traced a path through the hedgerows that twisted back into the distance of the painting, sometimes disappearing behind a structure like a fountain or stone cottage and then reappearing only to twist back upon itself.

The piece provoked in him the same tingling sensation he had as a boy upon seeing his first M.C. Escher drawing, and yet it was different. This work tugged at something deeper inside him. For such a technical piece, there was a raw, visceral, emotional energy that built up as he lingered before it. He found he was no longer in an abandoned warehouse observing a work of art, but moving through long-hidden passageways from his childhood.

He had no idea how long he stood before the painting, and he might have stayed there until dawn if the music hadn’t faded and a man’s voice hadn’t broken his trance. He wasn’t startled, which he certainly should have been—alone in a dark warehouse well after midnight. The voice was low and soothing with a hint of Southern charm.

“Hello, Mr. Rousseau. I’m so glad you were able to make it.”

Clem turned to see a tall man with a rangy, athletic build wearing an open-collared white shirt with a dark suede jacket, jeans, and desert boots. He had a handsome face, a strong chin, and an easy smile.

“My name’s Lefty Moody.”

He offered his hand. The warmth and strength of his handshake made Clem feel wobbly and out of sorts. Normally, he prided himself on his unflappable ability to articulate in any situation, but he couldn’t find words.

“Can I offer you a drink?” Lefty asked. “I have some wine, whiskey, or perhaps a sparkling water.”

“Um… sorry, this is all just so strange. Are you the artist?”

“Oh, lord no. I can barely draw a square if you gave me three sides to start. The artist’s name is Daedalia. I represent her.”

“And is she here?”

“No, I’m afraid not. No one will ever meet her for reasons I can’t get into. Let’s just say she’s a private person.”

Clem’s face contorted. He had about fifty questions he wanted to ask and they were bottlenecked, leaving him, once again, at a loss for words. This man, Lefty, was patient and had an ease about him. He just seemed to be waiting.

Finally, Clem asked the only question that truly mattered.

“How did you… how did she know what I’d lost?”

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Did this chapter take you in? Leave a ❤️ below to help fellow travelers find it. Speaking of fellow travelers, a lot of friendships have started in the comments of my serials.

Leave a comment

Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 10–15 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

After six months of rejection in the L.A. gallery scene, Lefty shifted from trying to get Daedalia shown to studying the people who bought art and the rules that governed them. At an opening he met Greta Krieger, who dismantled his hustle, flirted with him for sport, and left him with one directive—and her number: make a spectacle.

“When are you going to show her my work?”

Kelly and Lefty were sitting at the diner on Alvarado Street where they sometimes went for breakfast if she was around when he woke up.

“I don’t know, but not anytime soon.”

“Why not? Isn’t that the point? I mean, she’s the kind of person you’ve been trying to meet, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s better to wait. I know what I’m doing. She’s the type who likes a change-up.”

“Is that another sports-ball reference? You know I don’t get those, right?”

He took a sip of coffee, set it back down, and stirred more sugar into it.

“The only reason she gave me the time of day was because she couldn’t figure me out. She likes that. If I just take your portfolio to her and spread it out on a table like an encyclopedia salesman, she’s not going to be interested.”

“But you’ve met with her, what, three times now? Are you sleeping with her? I mean, it’s cool if you are, if you think that’s going to help, but…”

“No. I decided that wouldn’t be smart. For this to work, I think the best move is not to give her what she wants—cultivate a little mystery.”

“Whatever. It seems like a lot of work.” Kelly took another big bite of pancake and continued talking with her mouth full. “So what do you talk about in these meetings if you’re not fucking her and you’re not showing her my art?”

“I’m learning the business and working on our angle.”

“Has she asked to see my work?”

“Oh yeah. Several times.”

“And what have you told her about me?”

“You mean about Daedalia? All kinds of crazy shit, but I dole it out a little at a time and never in a super obvious way.”

“Like what kind of crazy shit?”

“Daedalia works in manic bursts over several days when she doesn’t sleep at all. She goes into this trance-like state. Her eyes are very sensitive, so she prefers to work in a dark room with only a headlamp—it helps her focus only on what’s directly in front of her. She’s also has this rare nervous system disorder since she was a child where her skin is so sensitive even the slightest touch feels like she’s being shocked.”

“You know how dumb it sounds for an artist to work without natural light, right? I mean, that’s kind of the whole thing. You’ve made her into a complete shut-in freak.”

“I’m still experimenting.” He paused and looked out the window. “Point taken about the light. I’ll back off that detail. Nothing really matters until it’s in print. Right now we’re just talking.”

“You’ve made her sound creepy. Do you think that’s what my art is—creepy?”

“What? No, of course not. Like we said, this isn’t about you, or even your art. This is about creating a myth that people will buy.”

“So is she buying it?”

“Yeah, I think she is. She wouldn’t keep wanting me to come around if she wasn’t intrigued.”

“So what do you tell her your relationship with Daedalia is?”

“I haven’t shared the whole story with her yet. All I’ve said is she’s the daughter of an old friend who died, and she’s suffered some great trauma.” He watched her take another bite and traced the rim of his cup with his middle finger. “Hey, that reminds me—do you remember Annie Weems back in Black Mountain?”

“Yeah, of course I do. She lost her entire family in that train accident. That’s the backstory you’re thinking of?”

“Something like that. Daedalia survived but was left all alone in the world. Her art is all she’s got. It’s her lifeline, the thing that keeps her…”

Lefty talked on, excitedly, as he looked out at the cars passing. He was so absorbed in his story that he didn’t realize Kelly had set her fork down and was staring into her lap. Eventually, he looked back across the table and saw that she was upset.

“Hey. What is it?” he asked, leaning forward.

“Nothing. It’s just fucking weird how into this you are and I’m just…”

“You’re just what?”

“I’m kind of that girl, right? I mean, this story you’re making up—it’s based in some truth. You didn’t just invent it out of nothing.”

“No. You’re wrong about that.”

“Am I?”

When she looked up, her eyes were glassy with tears.

“Kelly, I’m sorry. It’s just a dumb story. We can change it to be anything you want.”

“She was supposed to be this heroine, Lefty, not a freak like me. She was supposed to be like a comic book character with supernatural powers, not somebody you feel sorry for.”

“You’re right. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking about it that way. I was just thinking about what makes most artists. There’s always something tragic about them, about their lives.”

It was clear from the backstory he was creating about Daedalia that he really didn’t see her.

I think Lefty must have understood that he hit a nerve that day, a deep one. He had never asked her about her family or what secrets she kept or where her darkness came from. He had tried to accept her on her own terms, and some part of him identified with her need to reinvent herself. It’s why he went along with this scheme they had hatched.

She didn’t say anything—just wiped her face with the sleeve of her hoodie and stared out the window.

When they were walking back to the apartment on the sidewalk littered with empty malt-liquor bottles and fast-food trash, she stopped and knelt to pluck a tiny dandelion growing up through a crack in the concrete. He had become accustomed to this behavior. She was always noticing things no one else paid attention to.

When they were off the main road and on Glendale, walking by the lake where it was quieter, she said, “I don’t want my life to be tragic.”

“Me either,” he said. “Look, I thought this was me and you taking a piss on the world, but if it feels bad to you, let’s stop and figure out something else.”

“I don’t want to stop. I’m just… I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“When’s the last time you got out and did anything? The stuff you’re doing right now is really amazing, but you’re not a machine. You need a break.”

“Who would I go out with, man? I mean, look around. I don’t exactly have any friends out here.”

“What about that drummer you hung out with a couple of times?”

“Frankie? He’s got a girlfriend now.”

“I don’t have a shift tonight, if you wanna do something,” he offered.

“Too bad you don’t have another appointment with Greta Von Trapp.”

“I’ll see her Thursday.”

“I picture her like this—ball-crushing, Grace Jones–like Amazon woman.”

“She kind of is.”

When they made it back to the apartment, she was feeling a little better, but still in her head. He was right—she was lonely—but that wasn’t all of it. She didn’t understand the terms of their relationship, and it made her feel conflicted. No one had seen her art the way he did and as grateful as she was, she wished he saw her.

“Is it cool if I work for a while?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’m just gonna lay here in a food coma.”

He was sprawled on the couch, which, being her bed, always made her feel weird. It was another example of the porous boundaries in their relationship. She didn’t like to be watched while she worked, but he looked exhausted to her and it seemed wrong to tell him he couldn’t do whatever he wanted in the place he paid for.

She pulled the latest piece she was working on out from under the couch, sat down at the card table in the kitchen, and started to work.

Lefty has said she used to just make a mad dash at the canvas with her pen, fully committed from the start. If you know her early work—the intricacy of it—this is hard to fathom. It must have been like the line was there all along, hidden beneath the white surface, and the tip of her pen was just summoning it into the visible world for others to see. This would change as she matured, became more ambitious, and the stakes got higher.

Sometimes she was able to drop immediately back into the flow where she had left off, and other times she had to sit and stare into the piece for a long time, straining to hear whatever whisper it was that guided her hand. She was working in a slightly larger format now, at Lefty’s suggestion. The board covered most of the table. She leaned over it as she perched on the chair with her feet tucked under her butt.

By the time I was able to watch her work, late in her career, she would spend days sketching the full piece in pencil, the faint, whispery lines like a spider’s web stretched across the canvas. In the days, sometimes weeks, that followed, the ink would flow from one corner of the canvas, carving up the negative space, bending it, folding it, and coaxing it to render a form like nothing that had ever existed before. It was machine-like, her process—like in her mind there was a blueprint with the whole thing precisely mapped, and the painstaking, almost random-looking act of her nib moving mechanically across the canvas, building up the ink, paint, and sometimes found objects, was pure execution.

I imagine it was on a day like this one—with Lefty snoring on the couch and Kelly hunched over the card table working—that she created one of the five pieces that would change the course of their lives. I wish more than anything that I could have been there to watch. Would I have been able to see anything more than a young woman moving a pen across the surface of a canvas?

I like to believe that I might have seen, or at least felt, the presence of what I imagine to be her luminous collaborator hovering somewhere just above her, guiding her movement. But this is a romantic notion, a fantasy I entertain. I can’t know any more than Lefty knew the origin of her talent. She, like all of us, is an unreliable narrator.

But I want to believe it’s true. I need to believe it’s true, especially now.

« Previous | Table of Contents | Next »

Did this chapter take you in? Leave a ❤️ below to help fellow travelers find it. Speaking of fellow travelers, a lot of friendships have started in the comments of my serials.

Leave a comment

Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 10–15 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

After a dead day at the Santa Barbara street fair, Lefty finally admitted he’d sold Kelly’s work by pretending to be her—and Kelly, unnervingly calm, said it was part of a “deal” she wouldn’t explain. On the drive home, they agreed to invent a mysterious woman artist no one could meet, and weeks later Lefty taped a name to the fridge: Daedalia.

It didn’t work.

This is not something surprising to me—and probably not to you, or really any other rational person—but Lefty was genuinely perplexed as to why he couldn’t get a single gallery in the greater Los Angeles area to entertain showing the work of an anonymous artist.

The Southern charm that had been his primary asset up to this point in life couldn’t have been more of a liability when he stepped into the austere, echoey inner sanctums of the L.A. gallery scene. For the first few attempts, armed only with what appeared to be a photo album, he never made it past the receptionists. At the third or fourth stop in his first campaign, a kind stranger who happened to witness his utter rejection tipped him to the fact that serious galleries would only review slides. This explained why his family photo album from K-Mart was appraised with the disdain afforded a turd in a punchbowl. And so he learned.

But the obstacles were so much greater than just needing slides of Daedalia’s work. The format of the pieces was too small. They weren’t abstract enough. They were too abstract. They lacked sophistication. They were too obtuse. They were not the work of a serious artist. They lacked depth, complexity, and emotion. What he was able to show of Kelly’s work was not communicating the undeniable power of it, but there was also the reality that no one had ever heard of Charles Moody, Artist Agent, as he had printed on his business cards. More importantly, they had never heard of his client with a name they couldn’t pronounce and were told they would never be able to meet.

Every day for six months, Lefty came home pissed off. Kelly tried not to be there during the couple of hours when he returned to eat something and change before going into work, but sometimes it was unavoidable. He never took it out on her exactly, but tended to give her a lot of unhelpful direction based on whatever he had just been told. The more she learned about the serious art world through him, the more she despised it and doubled down on the things he criticized about her work. This wasn’t something she did intentionally. It was a natural reflex that most artists have. If she could take direction, then she could have worked at Kinko’s or an advertising agency.

Lefty may have gotten more frustrated by her contrariness if he wasn’t so fully absorbed with the work she was doing. In just a few months, her style had evolved and become increasingly more ambitious and layered, incorporating splashes of vivid watercolor and expanding in size. What he understood about art, art history, and the great masters could fit on a trifold brochure, but he knew Kelly’s work with an intimacy that bordered on obsession. Why else would he have allowed her canvases and supplies to cover every available surface in their small living space? Why else would he persist where most men, when confronted with so much rejection, would have come to question their own taste and given up? But the rejection only made Lefty more dogged—his belief stronger.

There’s no logic for this commitment he felt, and Lefty himself has never been able to explain it when he’s been asked over the years. Her genius has more than proven itself and Daedalia is celebrated as one of the greatest artists of the twenty-first century, but at the time, she was just a kid making cool pictures that no serious gallery was interested in.

Lefty’s masochistic visits to the galleries did nothing to advance their cause directly, but they did give him an education—not just in fine art, but in the kinds of people who collect it. He would often make a point of coming back to openings at the galleries that wouldn’t give him the time of day just so he could study the people who turned up to sip Prosecco and peer into the canvases with such rapturous intent.

He could never convince Kelly to come with him on these reconnaissance missions. It wasn’t that she had no interest in other artists and their work. It was the fact that the events terrified her and pissed her off in equal measure. The pretense and spectacle of them, and the underlying tension she felt in those spaces, made it hard for her to breathe. While she was grateful for Lefty’s persistence in pursuing them, she didn’t miss an opportunity to bust his balls about the lengths he would go to. He never confessed to her that the chunky black-framed glasses and black turtleneck he donned for these outings were as much a disguise to hide from the haughty curators who had roundly rejected him the day before as a costume to blend in as one of the gallery patrons.

It was at one of these openings that he met a woman who, either out of curiosity or pity, took Lefty under her wing. Greta Krieger was an institution of the L.A. art scene and had worked in the business for twenty years. He had observed her from a distance at nearly every opening he attended but avoided trying to engage her. Maybe it was her austere appearance—the shock of white hair spiked to fine points, the thick eyeliner, leather pants, and heels that looked more like weapons than footwear—or maybe it was the way he overheard her carve people up with a tongue sharper than a straight razor.

“Why don’t I get one of those?”

She slipped up behind him while he had been chatting up a couple standing in front of a giant canvas depicting a vivid and cartoonish Jack-in-the-Box toy foisting a grenade.

“Excuse me?”

“It doesn’t work, you know—the business card thing. A 3 x 2 piece of card stock doesn’t make you someone unless you already are.”

“How do you know I’m not someone?”

“Because I know everyone in this town who’s worth knowing.”

Lefty pulled his hand from his pocket, where he had been thumbing the slim stack of cards he had left, and extended his hand to her. Her handshake wasn’t the removed, limp affair he had become accustomed to in these circles, but an honest Midwestern grip, which surprised him.

“I’m Lefty. Are you someone?” He squinted his eyes, appraising her before adding, “Because if you’re not, you’re trying really hard.”

Her eyes narrowed and she laughed. “I like you. And here I thought you were an ingratiating sycophant trying to sell life insurance.”

They left the gallery well before the event was over—her suggestion—and ended up at a bar on Sunset Boulevard called the Cat and Fiddle—also her suggestion. The place was like a Hollywood movie set for a British pub and not at all the kind of place he imagined to be her scene, so he assumed she picked it for his benefit. Lefty had a preternatural gift for knowing the role he was supposed to play in any dynamic, but he was struggling to find his footing. He allowed her to buy the first round of drinks, but he insisted on picking up the tab at the end of the night, even though it would probably amount to more than he made in two shifts at the stereo store.

“So this mysterious artist you represent—why are you bothering? Is it love?” She tilted her head and pouched her lips. “No, I don’t think so. If it’s money, then I can think of about a thousand ways that would be easier than this game.” His silence set the hook and she continued to tug. “Don’t tell me you think she’s brilliant, that she’s the next Rothko. Surely you’re smarter than that.”

“She is nobody, but her work will make Rothko look like a house painter one day.”

“And tell me, Lefty Moody—so much better than Charles, by the way—what makes you qualified to make such a prediction?”

“I don’t know, but I’m right. You’ll see.”

“Will I?” She leaned forward and squeezed his thigh.

Up close, he could see the crow’s feet beneath the theatrical eyeliner she had applied with the precision of a surgeon. It wasn’t her severe, almost androgynous style, or her aggressiveness, that restrained him. He would have happily slept with her, but he knew if he did, he wouldn’t get what he really needed. So he allowed her to handle him.

After her third gin and tonic, she said they should go somewhere more private. He agreed, but didn’t move to get up. Instead, he asked about her life, her childhood, her loves, gradually working his way closer to what he really wanted to know. How did she spot talent? How had she successfully represented so many artists?

“The old-fashioned way, darling,” she answered.

When he looked confused, she clarified. “I have money to spend. Lots of it.”

“But that’s not enough, is it? People have to recognize that the work is great, right? I mean, it can’t be that simple.”

“Oh, you’re so adorable,” she cooed, leaning in and kissing him on the cheek. In his ear she whispered, “People believe what they’re told by people who have more power. Money is power, so people believe money.”

“And you’re saying there’s no other way.”

She pulled back and looked him directly in the eye. “You believe there is, I think. So maybe there is.”

“If you didn’t have money to promote an artist, to buy them an audience out of the gate, what would you have done?”

“I would’ve created a spectacle.”

“What do you mean?”

“Art is disruption. It’s a slap in the face of a sleeping world, comfortable in their nine-to-five, sitcom lifestyle. The battle is to be noticed, to cut through the complacency. You have to make a spectacle.”

It was late when he closed out the tab, and Greta was very drunk. He didn’t know if this was just another Tuesday night for her or if she had made it an occasion because of him. Either way, he couldn’t, in good conscience, allow her to drive. He had stopped much earlier and was fine, except for being completely preoccupied by everything he had learned in talking with her.

She leaned into him as he walked her down the street to her car. It was a candy-apple red Mercedes convertible with a vanity license plate, and he wondered if she knew she was out of central casting.

As if she heard his thoughts, she murmured into his chest, “I’m not what you think I am.”

He didn’t know how to reply, so he said nothing. As they approached the car, he did the calculus in his head. He needed this relationship. She was the only tenuous thread of a connection he had managed to grasp in over six months working this scene. The easy thing would be to give her what she was asking for, but he knew, as fun as that might be, there could only be one of two possible outcomes: she would want him to keep doing it, or she would never talk to him again—at least that was his small-town framing. It would not be the first or the last time this binary system failed him.

“How about I drive you home?” he asked when they reached the driver-side door and she began digging for the keys in her purse.

The car chirped and the taillights blinked. She turned to face him. “How about we fuck in the car until I’m sober instead?”

When he didn’t respond right away, she bit her bottom lip, tilted her head back, and nodded deliberately. “I see, you’re playing the long game. You’re imagining you take the tipsy Duchess home and tuck her chastely into bed and, as a reward, she will give you the keys to the kingdom in the morning.”

In response, all he could manage was a smile. He was smart enough to know when he had been outmaneuvered.

She leaned forward. In heels, she was his height. She gave him a lingering, sloppy kiss, and before his body could even respond, she pushed him firmly away before popping open the door to the car and getting in. She closed the door and started the engine but didn’t pull away. She had her back to him and was doing something.

After a minute, she rolled down the window and extended two slender fingers, clasping a small white card as though he were a valet and this was his tip.

“Call me tomorrow and we’ll arrange to meet and talk spectacles.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in business cards,” he said, taking it from her.

“Did I say that?”

Before he could answer, she peeled out of the parking lot with the precision and facility of a Formula One driver, the opening chords of an old Pat Benatar song blaring through the open window.

He looked down at the 3 x 2 card and turned toward the streetlight so he could read it. In a typeface so small he had to squint, it read:

There were no contact details printed anywhere on the card. On the back, in red ink, she had scrawled a seven-digit phone number in a hand so large and expressive the card barely contained it.

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Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 15–20 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

In a late-life interview, Kelly reflected on her early years, describing the force she called Ona and the complicated way she experienced her art. She admitted she ran from the first major sale, unable to reconcile survival, money, and the feeling that her work never fully belonged to her.

For a few days, Kelly mourned the loss of the pieces Lefty sold. She would never be as attached to any of the art she made as she was to that first collection. You’ll make more, Lefty probably told her over and over again, but he didn’t know if that was true. What did he know about any of it?

The fact that complete strangers were willing to buy her work gave Kelly a confidence she had never possessed before, and within a week she was drawing again. Anytime the particulars of how he managed to sell the pieces came up, Lefty deflected, saying the work was so undeniably good that it sold itself. At the time, he feared the truth might crush her and she would stop working. I suspect he also feared how she might react. Her moods were mercurial under normal circumstances, and he had witnessed the explosive results when she felt cornered. While they would become two functioning parts of a superhuman whole, I try to remember how little they understood about each other in those early days.

Three months after the big sale, Kelly had completed enough pieces to warrant Lefty securing a stall at another regional arts festival. It would be the last time her work was shown in this kind of amateur setting. It would also be the last time her work was attributed to K.A. Mudd.

The street fair in Santa Barbara ran over a gorgeous weekend in the middle of September. Lefty got them a motel room so they could stay over Saturday night, and it was in that room, after a day when not a single piece had sold, that he finally came clean.

“Come on, you need to eat something,” he said, pushing the Styrofoam container of congealed enchiladas and rice toward her.

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

“Suit yourself. The food’s pretty good, though. Authentic. You should try some of this tamale.”

He was always selling. Kelly had come to understand it was his natural state, so she must have been perplexed when he spent the entire day reading quietly in the back corner of the booth while she struggled to answer even the most basic questions from the few people who stopped to look. As she poked at the cold Mexican food with a plastic fork, she must have been weighing his value. That’s the only explanation for how she responded to what he said next.

“Look, Kel. I’ve gotta say something, and you’re not gonna like it. But it’s the truth, and you should know. I sold all those pieces in Santa Monica because I pretended I was you.”

He winced and leaned back in his chair like a man expecting a blow.

“I figured,” she said without looking up.

“What?”

“I figured that’s what happened. It’s not a big deal.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I told you I released them, right? Well, I guess that was part of the deal I made.”

“What do you mean, deal with who?”

“It doesn’t matter, man. What matters is my work sold. People thought it was good, and we got some cash.”

“How long were you going to let me twist in the wind on this hook?”

“I don’t know. Can we get over this now?”

“What do you mean? Why aren’t you pissed?”

“I know you were only trying to help. And you did. If you hadn’t, it would have been just like it was today. Fucking misery.”

“But it can’t work like this. I mean, you’re the artist. You do the work and you should get the credit. I’m just a goddamned carnival barker. You’re the real deal.”

Kelly later wrote about this moment, about how what Lefty said forever changed the way she saw him. Before this, he had been a means — a ride to someplace, any place better than where she was. After, she saw him as a man she could trust and love deeply, though he wouldn’t know this for quite some time.

Later that night, after they turned off the television, they lay on their backs in different beds with the same scratchy sheets, watching the headlights of passing cars wheel across the ceiling. When Kelly spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper, the kind of thing you might risk saying if you thought there was a chance the person next to you might be sleeping.

“I get that it’s weird for you, pretending, but maybe there’s another way, you know? A way you wouldn’t have to pretend to be me. You could be yourself and do what you’re so good at.”

“Selling stereos?” he said.

“Don’t be a dick. What if the artist was somebody else — some mysterious figure we created, like how writers use pen names? I make the art. You sell the art, and this character no one will ever get to meet takes the credit.”

He was quiet. She imagined him turning it over in his mind, looking for the flaws. She rolled over and faced his direction in the darkness. She could see the silhouette of his long body, his feet poking out from under the covers at the foot of the bed.

“Maybe it could work,” he said. “But honestly, I don’t understand why you’re so willing to give up on yourself. You deserve to be recognized for your talent. If I could do what you could do…”

“But you can’t. Any more than I can do what you can do. It doesn’t work like that. Don’t you see? I don’t know why, but I know this. It won’t work if it’s me. It’s not part of the deal.”

“What’s this deal you keep talking about?”

“Never mind. I just know. Maybe this is the only way it works for me… for us.”

After saying this, heat rushed into her face. She wanted to say something crass, something smartass to smear this last bit, but her mouth went dry and her throat closed up. He rolled over to face her.

“I don’t know, Kelly. It’s kind of fucking crazy. It might not even be legal. Besides, how would we even do it? People are going to want to know the artist. They’ll want interviews, photographs, stories…”

“You’re hilarious.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said, laughing. “I love how you can just think grandiose thoughts at the drop of a hat.”

“Yeah, my mother might have given me too much attention. But still, how would it work? How do I promote somebody who can’t do an interview?”

“Don’t you see? It’s the mystery that will make it irresistible. People eat that shit up. People don’t want to buy an artist like me, Ms. Nobody from Hicksville, U.S.A. I mean, you saw it for yourself today. Whatever it is, I don’t have it. And you do — but you won’t be me, at least not for more than a few hours. It bruises your delicate sensibilities. You’ve been Mr. Mopey-pants for weeks, harboring your secret.”

“I’m not Mr. Mopey pants. And, for the record, you’re not a nobody.”

“Whatever. You’re missing the point. I’m a good fucking artist, and we both know it. I don’t give a shit about the rest of it as long as I can keep doing my art. It’s the money that makes that possible. And you’re really good at the money part. What do you say?”

The next day, back in their stall at the festival, she watched him work his magic. With her full endorsement to reprise his role as the artist K.A. Mudd for one last time, he put on a show — as much for her as for the passing patrons.

“This one almost cost me my life,” he said toward the end of the day, before closing a deal on one of the four remaining pieces. “I hadn’t slept in two days. I’ve had these trance states before, but this one — this one was something next level. I just couldn’t let it rest until I got to the end. You see here in the corner? Yeah, lean in closer. Do you think this is the beginning or the end?”

The woman wearing glasses with bright red frames that matched her belt and dangling watermelon earrings peered into the drawing with rapt attention. “It’s the beginning, right?”

“Wow, do you know how few people can see that? It is the beginning. But do you know what? It’s not where I started the piece. I started it way over here,” he said, reaching around her body with his lanky arm to point at the uppermost corner of the drawing.

He gave Kelly an almost imperceptible wink, and she rolled her eyes.

That afternoon, on the drive home, they celebrated like bank robbers in a getaway car. They bonded in the way only two people can who share a conceit hidden from the rest of the world. Almost immediately, they set to work fashioning the eccentric, reclusive figure that would become their shared obsession.

“She’s got to be a woman. You can make up whatever crazy shit you want, but she’s got to be a woman.”

“Are you sure?” he said. “Because women really seem to love your art. If our hero is a man, there’s the added sex appeal…”

“Let’s be clear — those women were responding to your pheromones at first, but they didn’t take out their credit cards for you. You were just the bait.”

“Exactly, but it worked, so…”

“No, dude. It’s got to be a woman.”

“Okay, I can work with that. I love women. What’s her name?”

Kelly ate a French fry from the grease-stained bag, then took out another and held it in the air like a wand as she contemplated the possibilities.

“It’s clearly got to be one name. Iconic. Like Madonna, Cher, Sting…”

“Agreed. It has to sound cool.”

“And look cool. Her signature must be epic.”

For the remainder of the ride, they made a game of it. She scrawled a long list of candidates in her tiny printed style in columns on the back of one of her sketchpads. The page was later folded into her journal from that period and donated to MoMA along with the rest of her archives.

A name is a funny thing. If you’ve ever tried to name a pet, or a band, or a child, you know it’s an impossible task. You’re trying to define something that has yet to become. Once you give it a name, the first limitation — the first boundary — has been imposed. Or so you think.

If you know and love the artist’s work as I do, it’s fun to imagine some of those iconic canvases signed in the corner: Smoot. Traktor. Foofy. McFuffle. But these were all names that made it onto that list, some smudged with French fry grease. The name they eventually chose doesn’t appear anywhere here.

According to Lefty, it took them several weeks of going back and forth. They would try one on for size for a few days, then one of them would find a reason it was terrible. It’s tempting to imagine they were like giddy, anxious parents-to-be. But I don’t think that’s correct.

Kelly lost interest in the exercise. It was irrelevant to her work, so it was Lefty who came up with the name. Kelly later wrote in her journals that the name — the persona — was to be his work of genius, not hers.

Daedalia was the name he wrote on the back of a power bill and stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. She found it one morning when she went to retrieve the milk.

When Lefty walked into the kitchen after his shower, he found her sipping coffee at the table, staring at the envelope.

“It’s good, right?”

“What does it mean? Is it the name of a flower?” she asked without looking up.

“It means something complex and intricate. I believe ‘genius’ was somewhere in the definition.”

“Sounds like a Greek goddess. Kinda cool.”

“That’s actually where I got it. On my break last night, I was looking through a book on Greek mythology because I thought maybe it would spark something. Anyway, the story of Daedalus was about this guy who designed the first labyrinth. It was supposed to trap a minotaur.”

She traced the letters with her index finger. A smile played on her lips that pleased him.

“So you like it,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“Definitely.”

She uncapped her favorite drawing pen and leaned forward.

They had a name.

And now things could begin.

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Did this chapter take you in? Leave a ❤️ below to help fellow travelers find it. Speaking of fellow travelers, a lot of friendships have started in the comments of my serials.

Leave a comment

Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 15–20 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

Lefty pushed Kelly to make a plan for her life, and the conversation exposed how frightened and stuck they both were. When he came home expecting her to be gone, he instead saw her work assembled for the first time and finally understood its power. A single sale at a Venice art festival sealed an unspoken pact between them.

The following transcript is an excerpt from an interview with Kelly Mudd, recorded on January 8, 2033, at her home in Black Mountain, North Carolina, six months prior to her death.

MM: Do you ever wish people knew the truth, that you were the actual artist behind the work?

KM: I’m not sure anymore. Ask me again tomorrow.

MM: So you’re saying you don’t regret it today.

KM: No. I’m saying I’m not sure. I never really wanted to be famous or to be recognized. Not really.

MM: Why not?

KM: People are a lot of work. Even if you’re not famous, you still have to interact with your family or friends or co-workers. That’s a lot. I can’t imagine having to be responsible for maintaining some kind of relationship with thousands of strangers. Leave me be and let me do my thing. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.

MM: But you may feel differently tomorrow?

KM: Possibly. Who knows? I’ve always felt differently.

MM: How do you mean?

KM: I don’t feel things the way other people do. I never have. My feelings change abruptly, unpredictably. I don’t think it’s that way for most people. At least it doesn’t seem that way to me.

MM: Can you give me an example?

KM: Mmm. I’m not sure if I can just conjure one up. Ask me about a specific time in my life and maybe I can think of one.

MM: Okay. How about when you were young, when you were just starting out in California?

KM: Oh, I was all feelings back then. I miss having feelings that big, that all-consuming. That’s the thing about getting older. It’s quieter. Less to get upset about. But I kind of miss getting upset in the way I did when I was twenty.

MM: Can you tell me a story from that time?

KM: Let’s see… Well, in the beginning I struggled with knowing how to be in the world because my world was so different. I didn’t understand that people couldn’t see and experience what I did, so I came off crazy much of the time.

MM: You mean mentally ill, like sick or do you mean eccentric?

KM: In those days, there wasn’t much of a distinction between the two. I acted out, I ran away. I was trying to figure out my own operating system. You see, my connection to my art, the way I’ve always made it… it’s not me exactly. It’s a force, an energy that works through me, that I follow. I know, I know, that sounds really woo-woo or whatever, especially these days. But I don’t know another way to say it and, frankly, I’m old and at a point where I don’t care anymore what other people think so much.

MM: I can’t tell if you’re being literal or not about this force you’re referring to.

KM: Oh yes. Very literal. She had a name — Ona.

MM: Okay, that’s… weird. You said she had a name. Is she no longer there?

KM: She’s here, I guess, and her name is just my label for her. She’s not even a she. Why do you suppose us humans are so fucking beholden to naming and categorizing every single thing? Why must we pin everything down?

MM: I don’t know. It makes it easier to talk about, maybe?

KM: I suppose that’s true. Sorry, I got sidetracked. What was I saying?

MM: You were going to tell a story about your big feelings in your twenties.

KM: Yes. It’s hard to remember just one. (laughs) I had a lot of big feelings about selling those first few pieces. They were part of me, like my children. They were evidence that I was good at something. But they were also a connection to something deeper. Call it wisdom or magic or whatever you like but I was being shown things– Ona was opening doors for me to worlds a twenty-year-old girl had no business knowing. It was a gift in the truest sense of the word.

So when Lefty came along and saw these drawings as something else, as a means — well, I didn’t know what to do with that. I needed money. God knows he had been taking care of me for almost a year because I didn’t know how to do anything. I just wanted to draw. Once the pieces were done, they were like my children in a way. How could I just give them up or, worse, take money for them? But that’s what Lefty wanted me to do. He said I had to if I was going to survive.

MM: So you never thought about how you might sell your art, use it to make a living, before Lefty came along?

KM: Oh sure, I did. I saved up for a whole year to print this dumb little zine. I took my box of them to California. I was going to be a star. At the time I thought I was so original. That was the one time I tried. I knew I didn’t have that muscle or gear or whatever it is that Lefty has.

MM: Do you regret that? Sometimes when you talk about him, you sound… well, like maybe you resent him.

KM: No. Never. At least not then. Don’t ever let him hear me say this, but he saved me. He did. He was no saint, Lord knows, but he saw something in me before anyone else did. That first time he sold all those pieces…

MM: Which ones do you mean?

KM: It was the Echo Lake series. There must have been thirty or so. I was just beginning to understand what I was doing.

MM: Oh, right. I came across an article the other day about those. They’re in Saudi Arabia now. All but two. Did they sell at a small gallery or something?

KM: Oh hell no. It was one of those little street festivals. I think it was Venice or maybe Santa Monica. I can’t remember exactly, but I do remember sitting there with Lefty in that cramped little tent with all those pieces staring at me and strangers walking by like they didn’t even see them.

I’m not sure if I was more upset about them being ignored or at the prospect of someone taking them away from me. Either way, Lefty was oblivious. He just kept pushing. I tried to cancel, to tell him I was sick that morning, but he wouldn’t give in. He’d already paid for the space. He paid for everything in those days with money he didn’t have.

So I went, and we sat there for hours, not talking, as people walked by. I remember a girl stopping in front of one of the frames and just staring at it for the longest time. It’s like I could see her, like I was inside the drawing with Ona and I could see her looking in. I could feel what she was feeling — her fear, her shame, her self-hatred. Her yearning was so strong. It brought tears to my eyes.

I remember clenching my fists so tight. I wanted to get up and give the piece to her, to just shove it in her hands and tell her to take it. Meanwhile, I could feel Lefty’s eyes boring into me, imploring me to be the show pony, to hop up and dance, to try to get this girl who couldn’t afford to buy a damned hotdog to buy this piece of art for three hundred bucks.

MM: So what did you do? Did you give it to her?

KM: No. I ran away. I just ran.

MM: Where did you go?

KM: I walked until I got lost. I ended up in this not-great part of town. It wasn’t like under a bridge or anything like that, but I did get mixed up with some people I shouldn’t have. I was so young, really just a country mouse. I’d never done drugs or really drank much. But I wanted to escape that feeling I had that I didn’t know how to deal with.

I’m not even sure what it was those guys gave me. Looking back, it was probably ecstasy. But I floated for a while. It’s hard to explain what drugs do to someone with a brain like mine. I think most people use them to get to a place where I live most of the time.

MM: So what happened?

KM: I ended up without my shirt in some nice old lady’s front yard.

MM: Was Lefty mad?

KM: I suppose he was, but he was also pretty damned proud of himself. He had sold almost all of that series in my absence and we finally had a little bit of money, which we badly needed.

MM: Did you ever tell him why you ran away, why it hurt you to sell your work?

KM: Not for many years. He would never have understood back then.

MM: While we were talking, I looked up the value of those pieces from that series. The Saudi guy’s collection is estimated at thirty million dollars. How does that make you feel?

KM: Tired. Sad. Proud, a little too, I guess. But mostly tired.

MM: I’m sorry. You need to rest.

KM: It’s okay. I like talking with you this way.

MM: Can I ask one more question?

KM: Sure.

MM: Do you ever think about those pieces, or really any of your work that’s been sold over the years?

KM: I do think of them sometimes. If I close my eyes, I can see them all. I know where they are and what they’ve seen. You don’t believe me. That’s okay.

MM: No, no, just trying to understand. So you’re saying however many pieces you’ve created over the last forty years, you can see them all — or like see through them, like they’re windows or something?

KM: That’s a great way to put it. It’s just like that and nothing like that at all.

MM: I want to understand.

KM: I want you to understand.

MM: I’ll let you rest now.

KM: Okay. But would you stay with me for a while until I fall asleep?

MM: Yes, of course. Can I get you some more water or anything?

KM: You think I’m a crazy old woman, don’t you?

MM: Why would you say that?

KM: Because it’s true, mostly. But I’ve been crazy most of my life.

MM: Or maybe it’s the rest of the world that’s crazy. Can I share a theory?

KM: Okay.

MM: You never really were the artist. I mean, you made the art, but you never really saw yourself as the owner of it, and that’s why it wasn’t hard for you to just let someone else take the credit.

KM: I was rewarded handsomely. I’ve had a good life. A better life than I could have ever imagined for myself when I started out.

MM: I’ll get your water. Can we talk again tomorrow?

KM: Yes. I’d like that, I think.

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Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 15–20 minute to read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

In journal entries from 1987 when Kelly was just 16, she wrote about her early obsession with drawing as an escape from her abusive home life with her mother and stepfather, her attempted suicide. She also introduces the idea of Ona, the voice she hears in her head that inspires her to draw.

This is the point in the story of Kelly and Lefty that you might imagine as some kind of montage in a biopic, where we see them at a dozen art festivals with close-ups of money changing hands, Kelly hunched over a canvas late into the night working furiously, and the two of them toasting to their success amidst a crowd of beautiful people in a prestigious New York gallery at the close of a wildly successful opening.

But that’s not really how it happened. When Lefty has talked about that year and he was feeling generous, he would describe it as a year of growing pains. On other occasions, he would describe it as Kelly losing her fucking mind. He was still years away from an understanding of what he was dealing with. But he couldn’t look away.

He managed to get Kelly into more art festivals in the months that followed, but no pieces were sold. He became increasingly frustrated. He had maxed out his three credit cards. The sum of that debt has vacillated over the years, ranging anywhere from $4,000 to $25,000 depending on the telling. Regardless of the amount, it was all the money in the world to them at the time, which is either a testament to Lefty’s unwavering belief in Kelly’s art or his penchant for delusional thinking.

The pivotal story from 1993 took place in April after one of those festivals. Kelly disappeared midday after telling Lefty she was just going to go check out some of the other art. She had been sullen for days leading up to that gloomy Saturday in Santa Monica and had barely spoken to Lefty all morning. She was exhausted by all his coaching and the motivational tips he gleaned from self-help business books he skimmed over during his dinner breaks at Barnes & Noble.

When she didn’t return after an hour, Lefty thought of just packing up and leaving her to find her own way home. But one thing he could never tolerate was waste. He couldn’t just concede the day as a loss any more than he would have let the coach take him out after he walked four batters in a row in the state semifinals in high school. He threw his magazine into Kelly’s empty chair, combed his fingers through his hair, and stepped to the front of the small booth where a steady stream of people passed. He tried to make eye contact with everyone, but focused on the women. He always led with a simple greeting and the flash of a smile. If they responded, he would follow up with a curious squint and a tilt of the head, as though he recognized them from somewhere. Often, this was enough to make them slow just a beat, just enough for him to step forward and say, “Can I show you something really cool?”

His magnetism is legendary now, but in those early days, I imagine there was a rawness to it, a greenness that was probably off-putting to most, which is why he was relentless. Lefty acted on an obvious insight that most people are not willing to accept. It’s a numbers game. You keep pitching until you get them to swing. That day he did get them to swing, and once the first three pieces sold, each for a very special discount, the others began to go in rapid succession.

“How do you capture this level of detail?” they asked. “How long did this one take?” and “Is there a way through these? They’re mazes, right?”

Lefty has said that by disappearing, Kelly gave him no choice but to step up. He’s also said that, had he not been so angry at her and stressed over money, he would never have reprised his accidental role as the artist. But that day, K.A. Mudd answered all the festival-goers’ questions with studied modesty. Once he had them interested, he knew how to dim the wattage of his smile to draw them closer. He spoke just above a whisper as he stood before one of the pieces, drawing them closer still. He confessed that he didn’t really know where the work came from because he went into a kind of trance once he started drawing. Some visitors might have rolled their eyes, but most didn’t. They wanted to believe. He understood this. He recognized their desire, their gnawing hunger for something to believe in, because he shared this desire. So he sold them a piece of magic they could take home with them.

“There’s always a way through,” he told them. “But not everyone can see it. It takes a special kind of person to sit with it, to hold the complexity of the whole thing in your mind until the way reveals itself.”

When he’s described that day, Lefty gets a faraway look in his eye and his voice drops into a reverent register. He believes something happened that day, a shift, or perhaps a swell that crested into a wave that he was able to stand and ride. It wasn’t a deception. He wasn’t a salesman, though he was selling. He wasn’t an artist, but he was creating a vision. He had studied all the pieces and was the world’s foremost expert on the artist up to that point. At odd hours of the day, when Kelly was out, he had stood in his underwear, spooning Corn Flakes into his mouth, peering into the twisty patterns entangled with flora and fauna from the known world and artifacts from fantastical realms. He had lost hours standing or sitting in front of the sketches he had framed at his own expense. So when he spoke of trances, of being lost inside the work, he wasn’t lying.

By five o’clock he had sold all but three of the twenty-four pieces they had loaded into the trunk and backseat of his car that morning and made nearly $5,000. He expected Kelly to turn up any minute, but she was nowhere to be found. After loading the car, he wandered through the circuit of the festival as the other weary artists were wrapping their unsold canvases and placards, sculptures and cases filled with earrings, bracelets, rings, and bobbles, and loading them into crates and boxes to be lugged to their vehicles by indulgent partners, dutiful children, or the borrowed hands of a merciful stranger. Kelly was not chatting with any of them. She was gone.

He stayed until dark, leaving the Corolla parked in its original spot in case she came back while he made several more circuits around the downtown area on foot. He looked in coffee shops, a bookstore, and a place where they had gotten tacos once before. He walked through the Third Street Promenade, thinking he should step inside one of the dim-lit restaurants with white tablecloths. He had earned an expensive meal. But the high that the wad of cash in his jean jacket pocket inspired had gone, leaving him empty and worried. He settled for a sloppy gyro at a Greek place that smelled like bleach and was so small he had to turn sideways to let other customers pass while he was placing his order. He ate it standing on the street.

When he returned to the apartment, he had hoped there would be lights on and that Kelly would be sitting on the couch. He would chastise her appropriately and then share the story of their success. But the apartment was dark, empty, and quiet except for the drip in the kitchen sink.

Five hours later, Lefty was awakened by the telephone. He picked it up on the second ring. The gruff voice coming through the hum of static on the wireless handset was not distinctly male or female.

“Are you Lefty?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s me. Who is this?”

“I’ve got a girl here who gave me your number.”

“Kelly? She’s with you?”

“No idea who she is. She’s not all there, if you know what I mean. Black hair, pencil-thin, glasses. Sound like your girl?”

“Yeah. Who are you?”

“I’m nobody, just a good Samaritan. Found her on my lawn. She was half-naked, curled up in a ball. Look, you gonna come get her or what?”

When Lefty parked in front of the modest house in a neighborhood off 15th Street, he saw Kelly sitting on the front stoop wrapped in an old blanket. There was a stocky old woman standing beside her with her arms crossed. When he crossed the tiny lawn, Kelly looked up with an expression somewhere between recognition and confusion. He had to coax her to stand, then handed her one of the big sweatshirts he dug out of the milk crates that served as a dresser for her back at their apartment. He got her settled into the passenger seat and returned to talk to the old woman.

“Thank you so much for taking care of her. I’m not sure what got into her…”

“The world’s a dangerous place. You need to watch out for that girl. You’re lucky it was me that found her and not somebody else.”

“Did she say anything to you about what happened? I was looking for her all day.”

“Not really. She did talk, but it didn’t make any sense. I worked for years as a nurse in the ER. Saw kids like this all the time, drugged outta their minds.”

“Kelly doesn’t do drugs…”

“Well, she does something, because she was talking all kinds of nonsense about other dimensions and portals and God knows what else. I was just going to let my dog out when I saw her curled up right over there.”

The woman pointed to a little landscaped garden area with a couple of manicured cedars, like overgrown bonsai trees.

“She wasn’t wearing a shirt and was missing her shoes. When I asked what the hell she was doing in my garden, she said some Mona or Lana or someone guided her here. Said that the roots of the trees were tunnels that connected. Hell, I don’t know. I gave her some hot tea.”

“Thank you. And she didn’t say what happened to her? Why she took her shirt off?”

“No. She didn’t even seem to notice until I covered her up.”

“Okay. I’m going to get her home. Thank you, for everything.”

On the ride home, Kelly looked out the window and didn’t speak. She seemed alert, wide-eyed, taking everything in. Lefty opened his mouth to speak several times but couldn’t produce words to explain what he was feeling. Relief? Love? Regret? Anger? Probably all of these things. I believe this is when he began to fall in love with her. There was something about her that wouldn’t let go of him. The combination of her brilliance and helplessness, her innocence and world-weariness, her swings from kindness to rage stirred him, distracted him from his own emptiness.

I imagine them getting back to that tiny, low-ceiling apartment and Lefty flipping the light on. Did she wonder, or even notice at first, that all her pieces that had lined the baseboard perimeter of the small studio were gone? Did she ask, or did she just curl up beneath her blanket on the couch?

Lefty said she didn’t have to ask because she knew they were gone. She knew they were gone because she had released them. That’s what she told him the next day. She said that’s why she couldn’t stay. If she had stayed, she wouldn’t have let them go.

It would take some time before Lefty would be confronted and have to own up to his deception. He had spent more than thirty years memorizing his lines to be the good guy, the selfless savior, and he would never fully relinquish the role, but it had become more complicated.

Their true partnership had begun.

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Did this chapter take you in? Leave a ❤️ below to help fellow travelers find it. Speaking of fellow travelers, a lot of friendships have started in the comments of my serials.

Leave a comment

Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 15–20 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

Lefty pushed Kelly to make a plan for her life, and the conversation exposed how frightened and stuck they both were. When he came home expecting her to be gone, he instead saw her work assembled for the first time and finally understood its power. A single sale at a Venice art festival sealed an unspoken pact between them.

The following text is transposed directly from the journals of Kelly Ann Mudd. There are fifty-three volumes in the collection that was donated to MoMA by her estate.

June 1, 1987

I still feel bad. I’m tired of feeling bad. Yesterday I wrote a note and everything. I put it in this stupid notebook the school counselor gave me, but this morning I read it and it was just so terrible I ripped it out. My life sucks, but I don’t want that whiny thing to be the last thing I leave behind. So I guess I’m journaling to come up with a better suicide note. Ha ha.

The thing is, I kind of hate writing. It feels like school which I also hate. So I’m sure my drawings will probably take over here like they do everywhere else. But I’ll try not to. The counselor said I should write in it like I was writing to somebody I love and who loves me. Yeah, right. That’s not going to happen unless it’s fiction. But I’m okay with fiction I guess. Who can say what’s real anyway? Who gets to decide? The best conversations I’ve had are when I’m by myself. I know I’m a freak. Who knows, maybe this little journal will turn into an amazing comic book about that sad freak girl who offed herself! That would be the most boring comic ever. So fucking cliche. I’d rather live and be a weirdo than be so pathetically conventional.

I’m going to make something really cool because fuck the world. Fuck the world the way it is with guys who don’t see you at all or just creep on you. And then there’s the girls, my kind, I guess? I have more in common with Mr. Boggs, my cat, than I do with those bland, bitchy piranhas. That’s what they are, swimming around in schools, looking for the next person to devour. Then they all grow up, the girls and the boys and become step monsters but I’m not going to go there. This is for me. This is going to be the beginning of my story the way it’s supposed to be. I’m going to be out of here one day and none of this will have mattered because none of it ever happened. That’s the power of art. You can change things to be the way they should be.

June 3, 1987

Last night I stared into the mirror above the sink for so long. I did that bloody Mary thing we used to dare each other with as kids, the one where you’re supposed to stare into a mirror and say her name three times and then she appears. It was kind of scary actually, gave me goosebumps and I felt silly. She didn’t show up, (duh!) but I kept staring and after a while, it felt like I pushed through into another dimension. It’s like when you stare at something so long without blinking how it turns inside out, transforms into something else. The same thing happens when you say the same word over and over again. There’s something about patterns and repetition that’s so cool. It reminds me of the way a chicken can be hypnotized if you draw a line over and over in the dirt in front of them. I saw it happen with my friend Maisy. She lived on a little farm and her dad was so cool, a total weirdo but so nice. He talked to their chickens all the time like they could understand him. I thought the stick thing was a trick only he could do, but he showed me how to do it and it worked. If a chicken brain can be fooled, I’m pretty sure a human brain can be too. I think a lot of adults never stop staring at the stick!

I’ve started drawing patterns. Yesterday I filled up three pages in my sketchbook. It felt kind of amazing. I didn’t think about anything else for over five hours. My neck got so sunburned though. Next time I need to find a shady spot.

Something was happening while I was drawing and I’m not sure I can really explain it. There was this feeling of opening up or pushing through or something. I can’t think of a better way to describe it. Like the more I drew, the deeper I went. The more I used what I was seeing around me and wrapped those things in the twisty patterns I was drawing, the more that opening feeling happened. It was trippy, like when you’re first falling asleep but you don’t know you’re falling asleep. You’re thinking crazy thoughts but they seem totally normal. Anyway, it was like that and then I was just inside and when I was inside, there was this really clear voice.

No, that sounds fucked up, even for me. It wasn’t a voice but it was something and it was “speaking” to me, guiding my pen pens (I actually went through two of them). I’m aware I sound like a total freak but I’ve decided that here I will write about my real life not my pretend life. Otherwise, what’s the point?

I’m going to give the voice a name because it’s better than just saying ‘it’. Names are hard. I hate my name so I get why she resists a name. She resists having a gender or really any kind of label. She’s bigger than all that but I have to call her something because naming stuff makes it easier. The down side is that labeling her puts her in a box and she has to be like everything else in this stupid conventional world. For now I’m going to call her Ona.

What Ona does while I draw is she sits with me. She doesn’t exactly tell me what to draw and she doesn’t judge. She asks questions. Now I’m making her sound like that dude on channel 13 with the afro who talks to the trees he’s scraping out with that little knife thingy. She’s cooler than that, but also kind like that guy. If she had a voice it would be kind of whispery like how he talks. The longer I sit and draw, the more clear her voice gets. The more I listen to her, the better I draw. It can feel strange and sometimes I want to resist, like if I don’t, she’ll just take over and then it won’t be me anymore deciding things.

Yesterday when I was at BeansTalk, this dude came in. He was big and gross and had these shifty eyes. He sat at the table across from me and pretended to read the Highlander Rocket. Nobody reads that shit because it’s mostly ads but they’re free and they’re always there in the wire rack by the front door. Anyway, he was really just checking out Meg, who was working behind the counter. She’s so cool and beautiful and kind. I’m glad I’m not beautiful like that. You’re like a creep magnet if you are. Anyway, Ona said I should draw him, incorporate him into what I was drawing. I ignored her but she kept nudging me and then I said fuck it and drew this big blob shape like to say, “Happy now? We just ruined this.” But then she kept asking me more questions and I started refining the blob and he turned into a big toad with a slimy tongue and his shifty eyes were looking at a dragonfly that landed at the center of the page where I was working on this cool labyrinth design. I just kept drawing the toad, making him more and more real and gross. I used the cross-hatch shading technique Ms. Barnes taught me last year. I felt this giddy kind of feeling, like this tingly surge of power like being plugged into a socket. The big creepy fuck started shifting around on his chair like he was sitting on a grill that was heating up.

Before I could finish the dragonfly, he got up and left. It was because of me and Ona. We did that. I watched Meg’s face after the door closed behind him. She looked like a thousand times more relaxed and she didn’t mess up making change for customers like she had while the eye of Sauran shitball was there gobbling her up with his shifty eyes.

June 4, 1987

What a random day. Like, totally random. So I was almost in a movie, no big. I’m just sitting in Beanstalk doing my thing and these two women come in. They’ve been shooting this big Hollywood movie here for months and everybody in town has been talking about it forever and practically knifing each other to be in it. You should hear mom and captain combover talk about it all the time. I could give two shits but they offered me $400 for just one day!

Turns out it was a scam to get stupid local girls to be naked and play cowboys and indians. I wasn’t going to do that shit. Anyway, this rando guy gave me a ride back into town. He’s not really rando though. I know who he is. You can’t live in this little butt-lick of a town and not have heard of Lefty Moody. He was going to be a big deal baseball player but now he lives with his parents. How sad is that? Total golden boy loses his crown. Anyway, he did the weirdest thing. He wanted to see my sketchbook. I don’t let anyone look at it but when he asked, I was just so surprised, I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. He didn’t just flip through it though, he really looked at every drawing, like he was really into it. My stomach was filled with butterflies which made me feel kind of gross but it wasn’t like that, like I was into him. It was more like I was just excited about somebody seeing what I do. When he handed it back to me I think he was crying! Like actual tears! I’ve never made anybody cry. He seemed a little freaked out about it too because he got all like, “how about those Braves!?” and practically shoved me out of his truck.

So it was a weird day. But I’m serious when I say Ona is a powerful friend. None of this would have happened if she wasn’t with me. All I want to do is draw and she’s got so many ideas. They’re always weird and totally out there, but when I go with them it’s the most amazing feeling. I want to get a bigger sketchpad so I can spread out, give us more room to work. I hate asking CC for money. Let’s be clear, I never ask him. I ask my mom and she asks him and he always makes a fucking ceremony out of giving it to me. Another year and I’ll be old enough to live on my own. I know I need to get a job. It’s not worth it, asking him, feeling even more owned by him. I’m going to stop there. Ona says he feeds off my energy.

August 21, 1987

It’s been so long since I’ve written in this journal but a lot’s happened. I’ve not been allowed any freedom at all. I’m not going to write the gory details because this is my story and I can tell it the way I want to. All I’ll say is things happened. It was so bad this time and I couldn’t deal. I tried to find Ona but she was quiet. I guess it was too much for her too.

The place where they put me was worse than hell. I fought it for a while but then I realized unless I told them what they wanted to hear, I was going to be stuck in there forever. It’s better to be here in this prison of my mom and CC than there. At least here I can draw and go out in the yard. I can avoid CC because he avoids me now. When I do have to be around him, I just stare at him and the longer I stare, the squirmier he gets. I think he knows I want him to die and that just makes him more Mr. Rogers. More sickeningly sweet and “helpful.” My stupid mom just eats that shit up like it’s pie.

But it’s okay because I know I’m going to get out. I’m going to draw my way out of this fucking maze. It’s been a couple of months since I tried to draw and I was scared I forgot how. But today I started again and almost immediately the pain in my gut went away, that feeling like a rusty knife is twisting in there stopped. But Ona was silent. I don’t know where she’s gone. Maybe she won’t come back. Maybe the meds they put me on put her to sleep.

I’ve decided I won’t let them win though. I won’t let their story be my story. I will be great one day. I will have a life I love and they won’t be a part of it. I don’t know why I know this, but I do. I feel it.

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Did this chapter take you in? Leave a ❤️ below to help fellow travelers find it. Speaking of fellow travelers, a lot of friendships have started in the comments of my serials.

Leave a comment

Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 15–20 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

Kelly stayed. What began as a few days on a couch turned into weeks, then months. She drew. He worked. They learned each other’s habits without naming what they were doing or where it might lead.

After six months of Kelly sleeping on his couch, Lefty’s patience, charity, fascination, or whatever it was, started to run out. She wasn’t finding her way, and he became convinced she never would without some kind of push.

The growing tension between them was not just about her overstaying her welcome. Lefty was stalled out. Somehow, he had acclimated to the idea that his life wasn’t going to amount to much, but seeing Kelly’s wasted potential up close everyday was an irritant. This irritation was made worse on weekend afternoons, when he had put off calling home as long as he could and finally spoke to his parents. Their disappointment was tangible in the awkward silences and the way his father would bring up the trophies from his childhood. He had peaked at sixteen, when his blazing fastball clinched the all-state championship. Now he was selling stereos for little more than minimum wage.

On a Sunday in early December, Kelly came home just after he hung up from one of these calls. He was sitting at the card table in the kitchen that served as a dining table, staring at his hands.

“Hey,” she said.

After an uncomfortable silence, he said, “Hey, can you sit down? We need to talk.”

He hadn’t been planning to talk to her, to bring to the surface the conversation they had been avoiding. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but the conversation with his parents had primed him. Kelly pulled the folding chair out and sat down across from him, her hands in her lap, making herself small—even smaller, if that was possible.

“Look, you’ve been crashing here since June, and you know, nothing’s really changed. I don’t want to be an asshole, but…”

“No, you’re right. I’m the asshole,” she said stiffly. “I’ll pack my stuff up and be out of here this afternoon.”

“Hey, come on. That’s not what I said.”

She was pushing away from the table. He rose halfway out of his chair and reached for her shoulders, gently pushing her back into her seat.

“I’m not kicking you out, Kel. I know you’ve got nowhere else to go. I’m just saying something’s gotta give here. You’ve got to work with me, you know? You’ve got so much potential. Your art’s amazing, but you’ve got to, like, do something with it, or you’ve gotta find some way to pay your way.”

She didn’t respond and didn’t look up from her lap, where her hands were knotted together.

“Hey, look, I’m not your dad or your big brother. I didn’t sign up to have this talk with you, but you’re kind of leaving me no choice.”

Silence.

“Kelly, for fuck’s sake. Don’t act like I’m punishing you. I think it’s clear how much I care. Can you say something, please?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m scared. I don’t know what to do besides draw. It’s all I know how to do.”

He didn’t say anything right away. He needed to get this right. “Maybe. But have you tried? I mean, have you given yourself a chance to try?”

In response, she just shook her head slowly.

“So it’s not that you can’t do anything else. It’s that you don’t want to do anything else. You’re not helpless. Your art’s not holding you hostage.”

“Fuck you, man. What are you, a motivational speaker now?”

“Easy.”

“What? You don’t like your little orphan girl to talk back?”

“There you go again. Poor, helpless little Kelly.”

She rocketed out of the flimsy chair, and it fell backward. Her face was bright red, her mouth a tight line.

“You like me that way,” she said. “I make you feel like a big man, taking care of me with your big job selling stereos—”

He didn’t breathe for a few seconds. He clenched his teeth. With one swift sweep of his hand, the coffee mug that was sitting in front of him crashed into the kitchen cabinet and shattered. Kelly jumped back and stood there blinking, frozen, cornered. He closed his eyes, exhaled heavily, and leaned back in the chair.

She started backing away from him in the direction of the door. She was going to run.

He held his hands up slowly, the universal semaphore for surrender. “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to make his voice gentle. When he finally looked up to meet her eyes, he saw real terror there and felt ashamed. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Look, we’ll figure this out together, okay?”

She didn’t say anything.

“I’ve got to go sell some stereos now, so we can keep this little enterprise going.” He got up and grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter. At the door, he paused and, without turning around, said, “I don’t want you to leave. This isn’t me kicking you out, okay? Just start thinking about a plan. That’s all I’m asking.”

He had been completely distracted at work, replaying his small act of violence. Lefty didn’t know much about Kelly’s childhood, but he knew it was bad. He didn’t expect her to be there when he returned home hours later. He heard music playing through the door as he put his key in the lock, and he felt a twist of emotions. She was safe, and that was good, but she was safe because she was still his responsibility, and that sandbagged any kind of buoyancy he might have felt when he opened the door and saw her.

She was standing in front of one of her drawings, bouncing on the balls of her bare feet, hands clasped behind her back. She had taped it to the wall along with twenty or more other sketches from her various sketch pads in a makeshift gallery around his tiny studio apartment.

When Lefty tells this story, he claims it was this moment that he understood the enormity of Kelly’s genius. He says it was like he had only ever caught glimpses of the raw power of her talent up to that point, like he had been observing it through a keyhole. Seeing the pieces spread out before him, he was speechless.

When she heard the door close, she turned around, and he saw a smile on her face he had never seen before. It transformed her entirely, the way sunlight transforms the sea from impenetrable slate into a shimmering, mythological presence. He dropped his keys and wallet on the table and joined her in front of the drawing. They stood side by side, looking at the piece without saying a word, before he moved slightly, shifting his focus to the next one, and she followed. In this way, they made their way through her intimate, homemade gallery.

The peeling linoleum, the dishes in the sink, the noise from the highway—all disappeared as the bounded rectangles of her pieces expanded and connected, incorporating and assimilating the mundane into the fantastical realm of her imagination.

When he finally did speak, nearly an hour later, after they had looked at the last piece, his words came slow and halting, as though he were struggling to speak in a language he didn’t know.

“I see it. I think I see what you do… now. I didn’t… I couldn’t before… but now, now I do. We have to… we must do something with these. Okay?”

At this point, he paused and looked up to meet her gaze. She nodded, and in that small gesture, a contract was signed—one that would endure beyond what either of them could have ever imagined.

The next day, they went to an art supply store, and Lefty nearly maxed out his only credit card on framing materials. Neither of them knew what they were doing, but they knew the work couldn’t be presented, much less sold, without frames. Frames added legitimacy to things. They gave the rest of the world permission to see what Lefty already saw, what he knew, what he had known since first seeing her cramped sketches in the composition notebook five years earlier in front of the little coffee shop in the hometown they had both fled.

The next Saturday, there was a little art festival over in Venice. Lefty paid the $300 registration fee to rent a little ten-by-ten stall. They arrived early in the morning with twenty-four of her pieces framed and stacked in the trunk of his Corolla. They filled the three walls of the small tent and propped the rest up on the ground. Lefty had fastidiously taped three-by-five cards to the frame of each piece with titles like:

The one time he had ever walked through a proper gallery where the pieces sold for thousands of dollars, he was both impressed and disgusted that so many of the artists hadn’t bothered to provide titles for their work. It was aloof, arrogant, and probably genius, or so he thought. To price the pieces, Lefty was pragmatic, using every bit of what he learned in his one semester of business school at UNC Asheville. His formula was something like this: list price = ((artist’s time × $25) − cost of materials) × 2.

By ten, the sidewalk was beginning to fill up with potential art buyers who strolled by as contemplative solos or chatty duets. By midafternoon, the festival was packed with noisy ensembles who slurped slushies and noshed on greasy funnel cakes as they moved amoeba-like in and around the long corridor of stalls. One out of every ten people stopped to look at Kelly’s work. There were polite, close-lipped smiles and nods, but no one lingered and no one pulled out their credit card.

Early that morning, before they left the apartment, Kelly came out of the bathroom wearing a dress. It was a boxy denim thing that might have been totally fine on a middle school girl in a podunk town in North Carolina going to Applebee’s on her first date. It could have been fine on a curvy woman with a big laugh and hair like a shampoo model. On Kelly, it was a hand-me-down sack. Lefty had been encouraging—she was making an effort. This was a big day. But as the day wore on, and he watched her retreat by inches from her post out at the front of the stall in the early morning sun to the very back corner in the shadows of late afternoon, he could see there was no amount of encouragement that would give her what was missing.

She had refused to let him spell her even for five minutes to go visit some of the other stalls, maybe strike up a conversation with another artist. It was her ship, and she needed to be at the helm. He brought her some French fries and a barbecue pork sandwich, but she didn’t touch it. When someone did stop to look at one of her pieces, he watched her lips work silently, trying to conjure words as she fidgeted with her hands. Just as the words were formed and she turned to speak them, the visitor would step back into the flow of strollers, on to the next delight.

The only time all day she did successfully engage was when she yelled at a couple of teenaged boys who insisted that one of the fairy nymphs tangled in a spiderweb of Untitled #8 had weird tits. Scalded, they slunk away with their skateboards, and she returned to the perch of her bar stool after nudging it another inch back.

The only K.A. Mudd original that sold that day moved when the artist left her post to relieve her bladder. Lefty was pacing back and forth in the stall, likely contemplating whether or not the art supply store might allow him to return the frames for a partial refund, when an older woman in a tunic with a jungle print stopped to admire Untitled #16.

“Evening,” Lefty said, smiling. After a beat, he stepped closer and gestured at the piece. “So, what do ya think?”

“I’m not sure yet,” the woman said. She had an affected, melodious way of speaking. “There’s a lot going on here.” She leaned in closer to the drawing and adjusted her glasses so she could observe the detail. “What does it mean?”

“Honestly, I have no idea, really. But I like to think it’s about a journey, this one. A complicated journey, maybe you don’t even know you’re on.”

“Well, I must say it’s exquisite. You’re extremely talented. Would you take $250 for it?”

By the time Kelly made it through the long line at the porta-johns and returned, the woman was long gone, Untitled #16 tucked under her arm. Kelly saw the gap on the wall and assumed the piece was stolen.

“What the hell happened? Where’d it go?”

In response, Lefty held up the check for $250, the amount scrawled in the patron’s looping hand. “Congratulations, Kel. You’re officially a professional artist.”

She held the slip of paper in her trembling hand and stared at it in disbelief for a long time. Finally, she looked up at Lefty, and her words came out in a rush, each subsequent question stepping up in pitch.

“What happened? How did I miss it? What did she say?”

“Well, let’s see. I believe she used the word exquisite,” he said.

“Really? She said that? And then she just bought it?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly how it went.”

“We should celebrate!” she squealed, jumping up to hug him. When he set her feet back on the ground, she added, “And this time, I’m buying.”

He smiled and nodded and turned to start packing up. She floated over to the vacant spot where Untitled #16 used to be and traced her finger lightly around the rectangle of negative space.

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Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 15–20 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

At Comic-Con, Kelly tried to put her work into the world and watched it fall flat. When she ran out of places to go, Lefty offered her one without asking for anything in return. This time, she stayed.

From what I can piece together of their early years, there was no formal agreement between them, no point at which they consciously chose to orbit one another, but that’s exactly the way I see their relationship.

I realize that makes no sense. Two bodies can’t orbit one another. One must have more mass and be at the center. But it’s fair to say they were both still unformed people and growing at different rates, so they might have taken turns surrendering to the other’s gravitational force, at least until the thing they made together became the planet they would both orbit.

After that day at Comic-Con, Kelly never went back home to North Carolina. Lefty had little to offer beyond a couch in his dank studio apartment in Echo Park, but it was a lifeline for her. I imagine every week for the first few months she probably talked about her plan to secure a job and find her own place. But that never happened. Such basic things were a Rubik’s Cube to her, so she tried to take up as little space as possible. She was up early every morning, the scratchy sheets and blanket she slept in neatly folded and stacked on the pillow at the end of the couch while Lefty was still snoring behind the cheap rice-paper shoji screen that served as a bedroom door, minus the actual privacy or noise-canceling attributes.

Just as she had at home as a kid, Kelly spent most of her days outside. Her favorite spot was under a jacaranda tree in the park by the lake, where she would sit in the violet-tinted shade of its blossoming boughs with a sketch pad and a couple of ink pens for hours, drawing. She always started by sketching something she saw—a duck rooting in the grass by the water’s edge, an old Chinese man doing tai chi, or a broken bicycle abandoned on the sidewalk. But the images always evolved beneath her hand into an otherworldly dimension with a near-impenetrable latticework of passages bending around and back upon themselves—a maze. In these trances, hours would pass, her hand cramping so hard the tendons in her wrist were on fire, and she wouldn’t realize it until she finally stopped and capped the pen.

She would rise, stiff and light-headed, close the sketch pad, and massage her wrist. She was hungry all the time. I imagine she lived on air mostly. In the few pictures salvaged and archived from this time period, the only recognizable feature of the woman she would become is her enormous dark eyes, which were that much larger set in a face so thin and so pale it was almost translucent. She survived on the kindness of strangers. The immigrant women—some of them nannies who brought their children to the park to play—began to bring her food. It was always homemade. The empanadas and tamales, pork dumplings and rice balls, were an exotic discovery for Kelly, who had grown up on Hamburger Helper, tuna casseroles, and McDonald’s.

Some days, when she was deep into a drawing, her stomach would begin to growl and, in sympathy, her pen would respond, sketching a path through a stand of bamboo by a koi pond filled with swirling goldfish, head to tail, one consuming the other, the scales of their muscular bodies wrought in such painstaking detail. Her pen would continue on to the corner of the page, where it left a narrow but open corridor—an invitation waiting for some kind soul to accept and step in with a pair of fish tacos, the homemade tortillas still warm.

I can’t imagine her thanking these women profusely or striking up animated conversations about the weather or the price of eggs. That kind of behavior was as foreign to her as English was to most of them. But I can imagine her gratitude. I can see her tearing one of the drawings from her pad and giving it away, or maybe even teaching a shy child how to draw a kitten face on a greasy napkin.

Because Lefty worked most evenings, their lives might intersect for only fifteen minutes or an hour or two at most. His work was always a hustle of some kind. He sold stereos part-time in a big electronics chain store, and he worked at a couple of clubs around Los Angeles promoting shows or even selling merch for larger touring bands. On rare occasions, he would convince her to come out to a show if he thought she might like the vibe. He was forever trying to decode her and was often spectacularly wrong about her tastes.

I can’t imagine what she thought of him, this tall, lanky, all-American-looking guy who made friends as effortlessly as he found new, wildly different sexual partners. He had no type, or so it seemed to her. He was just hungry all the time. He never brought them home at night or made her uncomfortable, but on many afternoons she could smell cloying perfume and the musky, jungle scent that lingered beneath it.

When she surprised him right after one of these trysts, his face would be flushed. It might have been from the sex. It could have been embarrassment, or some combination of both, but he wouldn’t meet her eye. She wanted to tell him it didn’t bother her, that she didn’t judge him, but that wasn’t her way. So they bumbled through these awkward intersections until he realized she could care less, and then he was himself again—charming, teasing, inquisitive about her day, what she was drawing.

“You should come tonight,” he said, plopping down on the sofa with a steaming cup of ramen in his hands.

“I don’t know, man.”

“Sure you do. You might get inspired. These guys are dark, heavy—like you like.”

“I didn’t not like the last band.”

“Come on, you hated them. I get it, the girl lead singer was a little much. But I’ve got you dialed in now. I can get you in for free, might even be able to comp a couple of drinks too, depending on how the merch does.”

“Who’s this dark, heavy band?”

“Tool.”

“Tool? Are they ironic, or are they actual tools?”

“You be the judge. I’ve never met them before, but there’s a ton of buzz.”

“Oooh, buzz. Now you’ve got me all excited.”

“If you were any more sarcastic, you might pull something.”

That night she did decide to go, and it did make an impression on her, but it wasn’t the main act or even the opening act that really surprised her, though she did like their moody, brooding set and ended up developing a casual friendship with the shy drummer. They bonded over a nerdy love for Brian Froud, the illustrator behind The Dark Crystal.

What enthralled her was the way Lefty worked the room that night. She was filled with a confusing stir of longing and intrigue with a hint of disgust. He talked to the fans who approached the table, whether they were hostile teenaged boys or rough biker chicks well into middle age, with a level of interest, meeting them where they were with exactly what was required to sell an overpriced T-shirt. She perched on a bar stool in the back corner of the club, watching him, occasionally putting her small sketch pad down long enough to take a sip from her watered-down rum and Coke. She realized he made them feel the way he made her feel, and that cheapened it somehow.

They didn’t get into his old Corolla to head home until after two a.m. She felt drunk, more from the exhaustion of people and the chest-crushing bass of the music than the drinks. They were mostly quiet as they rolled south on Sunset Boulevard, passing a garbage truck and then a mint-condition Cadillac convertible from a bygone era of Hollywood, packed with rich kids hooting and shouting like they were auditioning for a movie about rich kids from L.A. that was a little too on the nose. He asked if she wanted to stop at In-N-Out for some food. She said no.

Back in the apartment, he used the bathroom first, urinating thunderously into the toilet before brushing his teeth. She drank a tall glass of water standing by the kitchen sink while she waited. The sound of the faucet dripping into a cereal bowl was the loneliest sound in the world. It was as relentless as it was empty. She thought of the conversation with the drummer. He was sweet, but there was something missing in their connection. She understood it was her.

When Lefty emerged, shirtless, he mumbled “all yours” before disappearing behind the screen. She heard the rustle and swish of his jeans coming off and the creak of the bedsprings before she went into the bathroom. A few minutes later, when she came out, the apartment was dark except for the streetlight coming in through the window above the sink.

She made up the couch, shucked off her clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor, and pulled on the oversized T-shirt she kept folded under the middle couch cushion. She lay down and pulled the covers over her. Outside, somewhere far away, there was a siren that was hard to distinguish from the whistling in her ears. When he spoke, it was so soft she thought it was her imagination.

“Goodnight, Kel. Glad you came.”

“What?”

“I said I’m glad you came to the show.”

“Yeah, it was… fun. Goodnight.”

There was more she wanted to say. There was always more she wanted to express, her feelings like a frenzy of piranha churning just below the surface. As minutes passed in silence, her anxiety mounted and her breathing became shallow. This happened sometimes late at night. Most times she bore down until it passed and could find sleep, but that night she couldn’t.

“Hey,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. It would have been okay if he didn’t hear her, if he was already asleep, but he wasn’t.

“Yeah?”

“What am I doing here?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why am I here? What the fuck’s the point? I’m just like… like I don’t know what I am. I don’t know how to just do things everybody else does.”

“You’re an artist. That’s who you are.”

“Why? Why can’t I just be normal and think normal things?”

“You’re asking the wrong person. I wish I could do what you do.”

“But you don’t really. Not if you knew what it was like, the way I feel all the time.”

“What way?”

“Alone.”

The bed creaked, and she imagined he was propped up on his elbow. She didn’t want him to come to her, to try to comfort her, or worse. The idea was scary, in fact. Her heart began thumping cartoonishly in the cage of her narrow chest, and she regretted saying anything. But he didn’t get up. She heard him roll over, maybe onto his back, his head turned to face her on the other side of the screen.

“You’re not alone. I’m here.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I mean, for letting me be here. I promise I’ll figure something out soon.”

“I know you will. There’s time.”

“Goodnight.”

He yawned audibly and, on the exhale, said, “Goodnight.”

She closed her eyes. Her pulse settled back into a sleepy rhythm, and she took a few deep breaths. She often talked about her dreams when I interviewed her, how they were a rich source of inspiration for her work. She once described her dreams like a dark river she tumbled into, surfacing at different times, always in a different place surrounded by a different landscape. Before she allowed herself to step into the river, she would set some type of intention, like a director giving notes to an actor in hopes of getting the desired performance.

I wonder, on this night—or one of those nights before her and Lefty did what they did, became what they became—if she planted the seeds of the hedgerows that would grow into the labyrinth they would walk. The walk that would guide him to her, that would allow her a way to move through the world unafraid. The walk that would eventually bring them to the center, where neither of them would ever figure out how to leave, even when it no longer made sense to stay.

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Did this chapter take you in? Leave a ❤️ below to help fellow travelers find it. Speaking of fellow travelers, a lot of friendships have started in the comments of my serials.

Leave a comment

Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 15–20 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

Previously…

Five years earlier, Kelly and Lefty met for the first time when they were promptly thrown off a movie set. After the quiet ride back into town, she let him see her notebook of drawings. He didn’t say a word, but he was moved. She felt seen. He drove away, haunted by what he saw, and certain he’d never see her again.

Kelly spent much of the night before the first day of Comic-Con in a bathroom stall in the lobby of the Clarion Hotel. Even under normal conditions, she had a nervous stomach. There was nothing normal about anything that was happening in her life. The fact that she had even made it to San Diego was a miracle. Somewhere in the middle of Texas, her friend’s Dodge Caravan crapped out, and there was no money to get it fixed, so Kelly had struck out on her own, leaving her friend and the two useless dudes her friend had seen fit to let tag along.

Approaching strangers in a McDonald’s for a ride had made Kelly feel like she might throw up. But the thought of getting that far and having to give up and go back was not something she would entertain. She had put every penny she earned at The Whole Story bookshop for the previous year toward getting her zine printed. She had just enough cash left over for her trip, but only if she budgeted ruthlessly and kept to one meal a day. Five hundred copies of Cannibals Love Vegans and Other Delights by K. A. Mudd were neatly packed into a cardboard box she had lugged along with an old L.A. Fitness duffel she had stuffed haphazardly with clothes from her standard uniform of black on black with oversized flannel shirts. If any of this was to make sense, if her life was going to change at all, she believed it would happen at San Diego Comic-Con.

After a few uncomfortable encounters, she had scored a ride with a family that got her as far as Las Cruces, New Mexico. It was a surreal experience for her doing a ride-along with a normal American family, but she was grateful for the safety. Initially, they dropped her off at a gas station just off the interstate, but a few minutes later the station wagon returned, and the mother got out.

“Honey, I can’t leave you here. Frank and I talked. We’re gonna buy you a bus ticket to get you the rest of the way. Now, I won’t take no for an answer.”

When they parted ways at the tiny Greyhound station, Kelly cried out of both relief and embarrassment, but the mother just hugged her and tucked a twenty-dollar bill into her front pocket before letting go. Later that afternoon, in her own air-conditioned seat by the window, she ate the best burrito she’d ever tasted and watched the desert landscape roll by in a loop like an old Road Runner cartoon.

In San Diego, the hotel room at the convention center had been booked with her friend’s dad’s credit card, so Kelly had just found a corner in the lobby to hermit crab and sleep with her head on her duffel. A security guard nudged her in the wee hours of the morning and asked her to move along, so she made an excuse about getting in a fight with her boyfriend and then went up in the elevator to find another place to hide out until the convention started. She was awakened a couple of hours later by a battalion of Storm Troopers exiting their hotel rooms like their watches were synchronized. She got up from her place behind a planter by the window at the end of the hallway and hurried after them with her box and duffel in tow.

When the elevator dinged and the doors opened, she recognized the tall man with the rangy build right away, but he didn’t see her. The Storm Troopers piled in, pushing him into the back corner. When she hesitated to get on, five-foot-two Storm Trooper #4 wouldn’t have it. He pushed the others to make room for her and insisted on helping with the cardboard box, which slipped out of his gloved hands and hit the floor, spilling copies of her zine everywhere.

“Jeez, I’m sorry. Such a klutz,” he said.

Promptly, these chivalrous members of the Imperial Guard knocked helmets and bumped asses trying to bend over and retrieve the copies of her zine in the cramped space.

“Fellas, if I may make a small suggestion? Maybe some of you can step out of the car so we pick these up and make it to the lobby sometime before lunch.”

There were grunts of agreement, and all but Trooper #4 got off the elevator. The doors closed, and Lefty knelt to scoop up a handful of the slippery zines. He handed them to Kelly, who was also kneeling so she could try to stack her precious cargo neatly back into the box. She was trying hard to mask her anger and frustration. Many of the zine covers were bent, and a few were torn. After he handed her the last stack and Storm Trooper #4 had retreated to the far corner of the elevator, she looked up briefly, and Lefty caught her eye.

“Motherfuckers,” he said. “It’s you—the reluctant Indian, right?”

“Yeah, but most people don’t call me motherfuckers.”

“Sorry. I don’t think you ever told me your name that day.”

She couldn’t exactly say why she was glad to see him, but she was. His presence was a comfort, maybe. He seemed like an adult, and after the last few days, that’s what she needed.

“It’s Kelly.”

“I’m Charles,” he said, but after seeing her brow knit into a question mark, he followed with, “Lefty. I used to go by Lefty. Childhood nickname I can’t seem to outgrow.”

“Oh, right.”

“How weird is this? I assume you’re not with these guys. No offense,” he said, gesturing to Storm Trooper #4.

“No. I mean, yes. I’m not with them, but I am going to the Con.”

The elevator opened on the lobby, which now looked like the backlot of a movie set as cosplayers from every space-time dimension milled about looking for their tribe. Lefty reached for the box, and she allowed him to carry it as they exited. He followed her to a relatively quiet spot near the front doors of the lobby. He set the box at her feet and stood before her. She studied him for a beat. He didn’t look any different than he had that day on Wilson’s Creek. His hair was a little longer. His smile was still his best asset, and it distracted from the bags under his eyes.

“I’m assuming these are yours,” he said, kicking the box with the toe of his sneaker, and she nodded. “So you’re still making art then. That’s great.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

It would take him years to get used to her bluntness. But this was a fair question. He looked woefully out of place in his polo shirt, jeans, and Sperry boat shoes.

“You’ll laugh,” he said. She didn’t smile or give him any assurances that she wouldn’t laugh, but he continued anyway. “It’s funny, but I’m kind of here doing the same thing I was the first time we met.”

“You’re looking for a job.”

“I’m always looking for something. I think I’ll know it when I find it, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

“So you just showed up here. Bought a plane ticket and a hotel room to walk around Comic-Con looking for your next break?”

“Not exactly. It’s a long story. I was out here already. This seemed like a thing, and I was curious. I feel like I already got my money’s worth with those Troopers.”

She nodded but didn’t laugh, didn’t say anything. Her expression didn’t change. Lefty shifted on his feet and looked around, surveying the room.

“So, uh, you’ve got a booth or something set up where you’re gonna sell your comics?”

“They’re zines, and no, I don’t have a booth. I couldn’t afford one. I just figured once I got in, I could, you know, make a space.”

“Look at you. I like the confidence.”

This was a generous thing to say. The girl standing in front of him looked like she might throw up any minute.

“It’s a long way from North Carolina to be on your own. This place is kind of a zoo.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding and rolling his tongue around in his cheek. “So I guess I’ll go on inside then, see what this is all about. But before I do, how much for one of your zines?”

“Six twenty-five is what I’m selling them for.”

Lefty dug his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans, pulled out a ten-dollar bill, and extended it to her. She didn’t reach for it.

“I don’t have any change,” she said, shaking her head.

“Well, you’re going to need change. Especially when you charge six twenty-five. Here’s some free advice. Let’s say it’s worth ten bucks. You see somebody you really want to have it, somebody in the industry, you give it to them for five. Everybody else pays ten. It all comes out in the wash.”

She took the bill from him, then squatted down to the box to retrieve a copy of the zine, which she extended to him.

“I guess I’m not in the five-dollar club then.”

“I don’t blame you. Save the juice for when it counts. I was already a fan.”

He flipped through the pages of the slim volume, paused on a couple of pages, and then closed it.

“Well, thanks, man. I’m glad I ran into you.”

“Yeah. Break a leg. And hey, if you need me for anything, I’m staying in room 351.”

“Cool. Got it.”

When Lefty returned to his room later that afternoon with a woman cosplaying as Ripley from the Alien movies, the red dome light on the phone by the bed was pulsing like a tiny SOS, but he had missed it. At some point, when he was in the shower, Kelly came and knocked on the door and was surprised when a woman with a shaved head, wearing nothing but a tight tank top and underwear, answered. Kelly claims this Ripley opened the door fully in character, gripping her homemade blaster like Kelly might lunge at her with a telescoping mouth of serrated teeth.

“The child’s gone, Corporal,” Ripley said a few minutes later, leaning in the doorframe of the steamy bathroom.

“What?” Baffled, Lefty looked up and stopped toweling off.

“She’s scared, sir. I tried to engage, but she retreated…”

Lefty pushed past her and went out into the room, where he finally noticed the light blinking and picked up the phone to listen to his messages.

“Hi, Lefty. This is Kelly. I’ve, um… you know what, never mind. Sorry to bother you. I can figure it out.”

After pulling some pants on and dismissing Ripley, who never once broke character, it took Lefty an hour of picking his way through the crowd of post-show revelers in the crowded lobby to find Kelly. Most of the cosplayers were already two drinks in, by the looks of it. He passed a Dr. Spock with only one ear and a Chewbacca with his head in one hand and a piña colada in the other. Eventually, he spotted her hermit-crabbed in a nook under the main stairwell. He crouched a little, like he was approaching a wild animal that was cornered. He mouthed the words “come on” and motioned for her to come out. He was going to offer to carry the box, but then he realized it wasn’t there. Rather than ask, he picked up her duffel and put the strap over his shoulder.

“Are you hungry?”

“I just want to be away from this.”

When they got to his room, he set her duffel down on the smooth plane of the queen bed opposite the one that was a tangle of sweaty sheets. He made a half-hearted attempt to straighten them. His cheeks were flushed when he turned to look at Kelly slumped down beside her bag.

“Why don’t I go downstairs and grab us some food? I bet you haven’t eaten all day.”

In response, she pulled her knees up under her shirt.

“Okay, well, make yourself at home. There’s a shower, there’s a TV…”

“I don’t need to stay here.”

“Where else are you gonna go?”

“Why are you even helping me?” she asked without looking up.

“What do you mean?”

“Look, I’m not gonna fuck you or anything if that’s what you’re thinking. No offense.”

This threw him, and he didn’t respond at first. Maybe he wasn’t sure why he was helping her. Maybe it was having to see himself through her eyes, someone who knew him from his hometown.

“Well, I’m already fucked, so you’ll have to get in line. Look, I’m just trying to be a friend here.”

“Sorry.”

“You wanna talk about what happened?”

She shook her head. When she looked around the room, she saw her zine sitting on the TV stand. She began to cry, silently at first, but then her shoulders started to shake, and she sobbed. Lefty winced and raised a hand to try to console her, but then pulled it away.

“Whatever happened, it doesn’t matter. You’re gonna be okay. You’re tough and really fucking talented.”

“I tried, I really tried,” she said between shuddering breaths. “But no one even stopped. It’s like I wasn’t even fucking there.”

Lefty sat down on the edge of the bed beside her. “So what happened to your magazines?”

“They’re called zines. I threw ’em off the balcony.”

“You did what?”

“I spent all day trying to make people talk to me, to get them to check out my zine. Then I started just trying to give them away, you know, kind of like you said, only minus the five dollars. They wouldn’t even take it for free. Not one.”

She started sobbing all over again. He hesitated, but then put his arm around her shoulders. She flinched, started to recoil, and then leaned into him, burying her face in his chest.

After her tears subsided, he asked, “So then you just crop-dusted the motherfuckers?”

She laughed and snorted. “Yeah, I guess I did. It was dumb. The security guards chased me for a while, but I was able to hide in the bathroom for an hour.”

“You know these people are idiots, right? I mean, all fuckin’ people are idiots, but these people are next level. You’re an artist. These fucks wouldn’t know art if it sat on their face. Most of ’em still live in their parents’ basement.”

“Don’t you live with your parents?”

“Fair point. I used to, but not anymore.”

She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. He rose and reached for his copy of Cannibals Love Vegans and Other Delights. He thumbed through a few of the pages.

“No offense,” he said, “but is this really you? I mean, the stuff I saw in your notebook five years ago… It was intense. This just feels…”

“Lame?”

“No, not lame. It’s not my thing, but it’s good. I mean, there’s no question you have skill, but this format just doesn’t feel worthy of you.”

She made a dismissive sigh. “Whatever. I’m just trying to find a way to make something people will pay for.”

He peered into one of the pages for a long time, his eyes squinting. “You’ve gotten so much better—I mean technically. How did you learn to draw like this, with this level of detail and… dimension?”

“Taught myself mostly, but I had one really great art teacher in high school.”

He nodded and flipped through another few pages. After a minute, he closed the zine and set it back down on the TV stand.

“Look, I think what you need is a hot shower and some dinner. This place—you’ve gotta get out and see it. It’s like no place you’ve ever been before. They have these trees that look like the ones in Dr. Seuss books. I bet you didn’t know he was from here. How’s that sound?”

She gave a tentative nod, and he rose to his feet.

“Alright, I’m gonna go downstairs and ask the concierge about restaurants. You get a shower, change your clothes, and meet me out front in thirty minutes. Cool?”

“Okay,” she said.

“Thirty minutes,” he said before gently closing the door behind him.

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Daedalia is a serialized novel, with a new chapter released every Monday morning. The story is designed to unfold slowly, the days in between, a space for it to settle into your imagination. Each chapter is a 15–20 minute read/listen. Check out the Table of Contents if you want to jump to a specific chapter. Want something to binge while you wait? Three novels, complete with audio narration are ready for you to dive in.

They met on a movie set in July, 1987. They weren’t actors. They weren’t even supposed to be there, but when Hollywood shows up in a small mountain town to shoot a major motion picture, most people find a part to play.

They each have their own version of the story they’ve told over the years about their first encounter, and their versions are wildly different, which is not surprising in the least if you know them. I could recount both in this book, but there’s so much more I want to get to. Besides, the truth is always somewhere in between, so I will tell that version. I’m an expert at the in-between.

Kelly Ann Mudd was like a feral fox at sixteen, skittish and wily—a survivor. She mostly tried to be invisible, and when that wasn’t possible, she was fierce, all teeth and claws. She spent all her waking hours out of the house. It was safer that way. She never once talked about the abuse, never acknowledged that it happened, and never went to therapy, but it’s the best explanation for her shape-shifting soul and for everything that comes later in this story.

Kelly hid in her notebooks. Most people only ever saw the top of her head—her raven-black hair, cut blunt like a boy’s, bangs brushing the frames of her thick glasses, a pair of headphones clamped over her ears. She wore enormous sweatshirts that allowed her to retract her legs inside like a hermit crab. She would sit that way and sketch in her notebook for hours with a fine-point black pen, making spidery lines upon lines that filled one page and spilled over onto the next.

This is not at all the version of Kelly that Lefty saw that day at the falls on Wilson’s Creek, where the crew was filming the fourth day in what was to be a three-day shoot to capture some pivotal scenes in the movie. A camp of Cherokee Indians are enjoying the peak days of summer fishing before a group of U.S. soldiers come upon them and violence ensues. Apparently, the director was pissed because he couldn’t get the shots he wanted. He needed more Indians in the background, splashing in the creek, cleaning fish, and cooking over open fires. That’s how Kelly was recruited, scooped up by a couple of persuasive women with clipboards while she was encamped at her favorite spot on the saggy sofa by the window in BeansTalk. They offered her $200 for the day and, shockingly, doubled it after she persistently declined. She accepted only because she figured the money would allow her to buy some proper ink pens and paper—a decided upgrade over the ruled composition notebooks and Bic ballpoints she was used to.

Lefty had not been recruited or invited. He had turned up, like other locals, looking for his break, his chance to impress someone from the crew with his knowledge of the place or maybe his winning smile. He heard Kelly before he ever laid eyes on her. The sounds she produced were something between a screech owl and a bobcat, if such creatures could form the words: “GET YOUR MOTHERFUCKING HANDS OFF ME, MOTHERFUCKER! DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME!”

The motherfucker in question was one of the assistants in wardrobe who thought it expedient to just strip off Kelly’s sweatshirt like he was skinning a cat so makeup could get to work on the spray tan required to make her into a convincing Indian. What the assistant didn’t know, any more than the women with clipboards didn’t know, was that Kelly was not a boy. Not that this should have mattered, but those were different times—the dark ages before intimacy coordinators and consent. At this point in the telling of the story, depending on the narrator, the severity of the injuries that assistant sustained from Lefty’s intervention range from some light bruising to a broken fuckin’ arm. Both Kelly’s and Lefty’s versions align on the facts around them being promptly ejected from the set and Kelly never receiving a penny of the $400 she was promised.

In Lefty’s tiny Toyota pickup truck with the rusted-out quarter panels, they rode in charged silence as the spent shocks of the wheezing automobile bumped along the gravel forestry road that meandered in the vague direction of town.

“I didn’t need your help,” she said, breaking the silence.

“No, I guess not. Who knew you were a girl? That guy sure didn’t.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yeah, probably. But I’m the asshole driving you home. Which is… where?”

“Just drop me at the coffee shop.”

“Okay. I’m Lefty, by the way. Not that you were asking.”

He offered his hand, and she didn’t appear to notice. Her face was hidden behind the black-and-white confetti cover of the composition notebook, her pen moving in tight spirals across the page.

“You writing the great American novel or something?” he asked.

“Why did you do that back there?” she asked without looking up.

“I don’t know. Poor impulse control? You sounded scared.”

“I wasn’t scared. I was pissed off.”

“Okay.”

“How old are you anyway, and what were you even doing there?”

“Why does it matter how old I am?”

“Is it a secret or something?”

“Thirty. I’m thirty fuckin’ years old.”

“Whoa,” she said, almost inaudibly.

“I’m in between jobs, and I was hoping maybe I could land something. These movie people have money falling out of their asses.”

The conversation didn’t go beyond that. When he parked on the street in front of BeansTalk, before she could get out of his truck, Lefty had asked to see what she was drawing. For reasons Kelly never explained in any of her retellings of the story, she allowed him to look at her notebook. Maybe she thought he would give it a passing glance and toss it back, but that’s not what happened. He started at the beginning and studied each page, poring over every drawing before moving to the next. They sat double-parked for almost an hour while he looked at the manic sketches and scribbling she had never shared with anyone before. She studied his face, searching for his angle, waiting for him to say something creepy. When he finally closed the journal and looked up, there were tears in his eyes. He handed it back to her and nodded without saying anything.

She felt something shift inside her and loosen, like the feeling of the first baby tooth twisting in the gums before it’s ready to come out. She held his gaze for what might have been a second or five minutes before taking her notebook from him, opening the door, and stepping out of the truck. He didn’t linger but drove away as soon as she slammed the door.

That night, lying on top of the covers in the twin bed in his childhood bedroom, he wouldn’t sleep much, but when he did, he dreamed he was inside the labyrinthine geometry on the pages of the girl’s notebook, wandering in infinite spirals and switchbacks. By morning, when his mother made her fourth passive-aggressive slam of the linen closet door outside his room, he wouldn’t remember anything about his dreams or the notebook. The images would fade, but not in the way dreams do. They would fade as scars disappear, absorbed and assimilated.

Lefty was still adjusting to being a disappointment and a failure. As a white boy from an upper-middle-class family, beloved by a mother who cut the crusts off the sandwiches in his packed lunches until he went to high school and a father who played catch with him every evening after he got home from work, Lefty had no right, no business returning home not as the prodigal son but the burned-out fuck-up. Everything had come easy until the easy lost its meaning and his mind began to drift. It had been a solid decision to drop out of college his sophomore year when a scout for the Carolina Mudcats took a keen interest in his fastball. It seemed a natural progression. He would do a small bid in the minors and then step up to the mound for the Pirates. He would be the product of all that love, time, and attention his parents and the community of their little town had invested.

But a small bid turned into seven years. Seven years of nonstop traveling from one hayseed baseball park to another, throwing his arm out, and then drinking the disappointment away in cheap motels, sometimes in the company of a hairdresser or kindergarten teacher, but more often by himself. In the seventh year, he mustered the last of his childhood ambition and managed to pitch three no-hitters, which got him a shot to step up. He spent two nights in Pittsburgh. The pitching coach had watched him throw for an afternoon in the bullpen, made a few notes, and Lefty never saw him again. That was it. That was as close as he got. After that, he drank more than he pitched for the Mudcats, and eventually they gave him the closure he was looking for.

He lived with a kind-hearted woman for a year in Fayetteville, where he found a job at a car dealership, but he wasn’t able to hold on to either the relationship or the job. Lefty’s recounting of this part of his life is uncharacteristically understated, but the key to being good at sales and promotion is knowing how to diminish the bad and accentuate the good. Charles “Lefty” Moody was a preternaturally good salesman. I think this will become clear as their story unfolds, but that story doesn’t really begin for another five years. During that time, Lefty’s life will feel like a series of seemingly meaningless choices on a circuitous route of frenzied spiraling turns and long straightaways of quiet desperation, only to end abruptly with no choice but to double back along the same route but a different path.

He will work alongside his father, selling insurance for a short spell. He will take on managing a local band and discover he has a talent for spotting talent and opening doors, only to have his heart broken two years later on the eve of the band’s big break when they fire him in a Denny’s parking lot. He will live on a commune in upstate New York for the better part of a year after falling in love with a woman who raises goats and writes poetry. She too will break his heart, announcing one morning that his restless energy and dark aura are disruptive to the animals and to her and that he must leave.

In all this time, he never once thought of the girl-boy with the sketchbook and the foul mouth. He wouldn’t understand until many years later that he was wandering through a maze of her invention. Neither of them would. But there’s no other explanation for how their paths intersected again in 1992 in San Diego, in a hotel elevator crammed with Storm Troopers.

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Continue on to Chapter 2

No one knows who Daedalia is. The anonymous artist’s labyrinthine drawings don’t just mesmerize— people walk away from them changed. Some see a version of themselves they’ve been avoiding. Others are compelled to act on what they see.

One winter morning, twelve of her panels appear overnight around the World Trade Center plaza. Commuters stop, transfixed, unable to explain what they’ve seen. Within days, Daedalia is a folk hero. Months later, after the towers fall, whispers turn to accusations. Had her work foretold or even caused it? The faceless artist becomes a public enemy.

Lefty Moody is the one man who knows the truth: he invented Daedalia. A washed-up baseball player who can pitch anything but has nothing left to sell, he finds his purpose in Kelly, a feral young woman from his hometown with a fierce, otherworldly artistic talent and no ability or desire to navigate the machinery of a career.

Together they build the lie that will change their lives. Kelly doesn’t mind disappearing behind the persona– she’s always felt her hand guided by an unseen presence. But as her art begins to steer the lives of strangers, nudging them toward choices of life and death, Kelly must reckon with her role in the conceit and her very identity.

Daedalia is the story of an artist and the man who becomes her champion, lover and ultimately, her eraser. It asks what art is for, who it belongs to, and what happens when the work itself begins to decide.

Chapters

1. Chapter 1: Not So Meet Cute

2. Chapter 2: Cosplay

3. Chapter 3: An Arrangement, with a Couch

4. Chapter 4: We Need to Talk

5. Chapter 5: Voices in Other Rooms

6. Chapter 6: The Pinch Hitter

7. Chapter 7: Masking

8. Chapter 8: What’s in a Name?

9. Chapter 9: Lessons from a Provocateur

10. Chapter 10: Disappearing into the Role

11. Chapter 11: A Private Showing

12. Chapter 12: A Place of My Own

13. Chapter 13: The Eye of the Beholder

14. Chapter 14: The Clockmaker

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