Chapter Fourteen #2
The Lady Kolfina appears more often for me now, after our late-night music session.
I don't tend to talk much, and Kolfina not at all, but she doesn't seem to mind.
She simply sits by and happily listens to me play, occasionally pointing out various keys or notes and having me repeat them until I have them correct.
Other times she just listens, tucked away on her chair with her eyes shut and her head bobbing to the melody.
When my fingers grow comfortable enough with certain sections of the music, I find myself watching her.
The gentle up and down of her rhythmic nodding, the way she mouths the words to herself as if she wishes to sing but is too afraid to part her lips far enough.
Her fingers will tap at the armrests of the chair, plucking away at invisible strings she can no longer touch or poking at keys on a piano she can no longer play.
I grieve for her in those moments. Grieve, not for the loss of her life or her body, but for her heart.
Her soul. I cannot imagine being so close to the thing that gives me life and not being able to use it.
Cannot imagine standing in my studio as someone else uses my brushes and my paints, while I cannot do so much as pick up a stick of coal.
It's those days that I speak to her most. I have never been one for long conversations, as I quickly grow bored of those who have nothing but drivel to say, but Kolfina is silent and happy to listen, so I speak of the things I know and the things I love.
I tell her of the paints I make myself, even taking her into my studio to show her how I make them.
I teach her the different brushstrokes to create a desired look, and bristle types needed for those strokes to look ideal.
I show her a few of my sketchbooks, eagerly pointing out the sketches of my various siblings, my father and aunt, even a page or two of Theodore when he was unaware of my watchful gaze.
Some nights we do not speak at all. Some nights she sits on the window seat in my studio, and she watches me paint for hours and hours on end.
I have never cared much for an audience while I work, but Kolfina is an easy presence to accept, and if I can alleviate even a moment of boredom for her, I will.
One night, not long after Theodore has left for the day, Kolfina stands from her perch at the window and joins me at my easel.
She stares at the unfinished painting I have been working on for the past few hours—a simple rendition of Sainte-Falaise nestled in a bed of thick trees; another attempt at a landscape that has left me feeling hollowed out and tired—and I wonder what it is she sees.
I think of asking her as I had Theodore all those weeks ago, but the look on her face gives me pause.
Consideration, perhaps? Curiosity, tinged with a whisper of sadness?
A moment later, Kolfina appears at the doorway, hazel eyes wide as she gestures for me to come closer.
I raise an eyebrow at her, but there is an impatience in her frown, in the little hop she gives as she waves me forward again, so I waste no more time in divesting myself of my palette and brush and doing as I’m bid.
I follow her quickly up the stairs and down the hall, the thought of this being another dream chasing my muse flitting through my head.
I expect her to lead me to my own bedroom, judging by the direction, but she pauses instead at the door next to it.
One that has my heart thundering in my chest; one I had locked the moment I finished unpacking it, not daring to give even Allard the key.
All of a sudden, I feel foolish. Of course a ghost would not care about locks and keys.
I should have thought of it before, should have expected this outcome the moment Allard informed me of Kolfina’s presence.
I have spoken to her so reverently about my art, have shown her my sketches and my paints, but I have never dared mention this.
And yet… is there a reason for secrecy now? Surely, she has already seen them, and still, she is here. Is that not a good thing?
After all, who better to show the rot inside my soul than someone already dead?
Kolfina does not float through the door like I expect her to.
She just waits at my side, watching with a patient tilt to her head.
Expectant, but not insistent. So with a deep breath, I pull the key from the chatelaine on my hip and unlock the door with forcibly steady hands, pushing it open before I have the chance to talk myself out of it.
The room itself adjoins my bed chambers, only slightly smaller and with a large, curtained window taking up the majority of the back wall. I imagine it might have been an office at one point, or perhaps a sitting room to entertain more private guests.
Now it is a love letter to my own desolation.
Heavy frames and painted canvas are hung up on every inch of wall, cluttered together, big and small, in a forest grown from death and horror.
A few larger paintings rest on display easels in the corners, smaller ones propped up on a long buffet against the wall.
Each one darker than the last, like poetry in the shape of cracked bones and bloody rivers.
Leading Kolfina into my little gallery feels all too much like prying open my ribs and showing her the ventricles of my heart.
The last time I showed anyone these works, it had only led to disaster. And while logically I know that Kolfina has likely already seen them, I cannot help the strange, child-like fear twisting in my throat at the thought of her reacting the same way.
But I find no disgust on her face when she passes me by, her eyes wide as she takes them all in, searching for something before making her way to one of the largest paintings above the buffet. She pauses before it, fingers resting against the frame as she turns to look at me. Expectant once more.
Whether she somehow knows it or not, the painting she has chosen is my most recent addition to the gallery.
Or rather, the last piece I’d completed before I tucked my gruesome heart away for good and focused my efforts on more…
palatable endeavors. It is also one of my favorites—a body partially submerged in a pool of blood until only the torso and thighs are visible, dozens of blood-soaked hands grasping at dark skin and digging their claws into it, tearing it open until the insides spill back into the sanguine liquid below.
As foolishly insecure as I am of these paintings, there is still a seed of pride within me when I see them.
Sprouting and spreading through my limbs as if trying to bloom into fondness, into inspiration.
I can feel them beneath my skin, wrapping around the bones in my fingers, begging me to paint more and more and more—
Kolfina taps the frame silently again, then presses her fingers to her own chest. She tilts her head at me, those big eyes of hers waiting for answers to a question she has not asked.
“I painted that one a little over a year or so ago,” I tell her, though judging by the pinch in her lips and furrow of her brow, it’s not the answer she wanted.
Something in those autumn eyes of hers swirls as she looks up at the painting, though I cannot tell if it is affection, despair, or something else entirely.
“Do you like it? I could move it to your music room if you’d like.
Though, I admit Theodore has not seen these yet, and I am unsure of how he would react—"
The little ghost shakes her head, puffing out her cheeks in frustration. Her skirts flutter around her legs, and I cannot help wondering if she’s stomped her foot at me like a tetchy child.
“I’m sorry, I do not understand.”
Sorrow and annoyance twist across her face in an elegant dance, and I find my heart twisting with her. How horrible it must be to finally have someone see you, and yet still you are nothing but a silent spectator.
Kolfina takes a deep breath, her brows pinching together again and her teeth gnawing away at her bottom lip in consideration.
After a moment, she gestures to the door behind us, draws a box in the air with her fingers, and then taps the fingers of one hand to the fingers of the other like a steeple.
It takes me a moment to understand, to draw that line back down the stairs to my studio where she’d been watching me paint. “The village? My painting of it?”
Excitement lights up in her eyes, and Kolfina bobs her head, blonde curls dancing around her face.
She taps her fingers together again before fluttering her hands as if to shoo the painting away.
Then she gestures to the painting on the wall, her smile growing soft as she places that hand over my heart.
The touch is cold; her eyes beg me to understand.
I wish I didn’t.
“You think I put my heart into these paintings, but not the ones in my studio, and you want to know why.”
She is not the first to ask this question. Jonas was rather incensed when I first began packing away my more macabre pieces, only for his upset to be quickly replaced with worry when I spiraled into despair not long after.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever told you about my family, or how I became a part of it.”
I do not look at her for confirmation, instead stepping up to the buffet beneath the painting and unlocking the top center drawer.
From it, I pull an old, tattered sketchbook—one that is no more than a gathering of loose parchment and scraps of canvas tucked inside a worn leather cover.
It is fragile and heavy in my hands, filled to the brim with dreams and visions and memories I have long since locked away.
“When I was very little, my parents gave me to a painter in Lyon,” I say quietly, placing the sketchbook down atop the buffet as gently as I can. “I was talented, even then, and that talent lent well to paying their debts when they came due. I hold no grudge against them for it.”