EPILOGUE
The por-trait ar-rived on my doorstep on my nine-teenth birth-day; a cold, crisp day in March.
It was wrapped in brown par-cel pa-per, se-cured with pre-cise squares of rose-printed washi tape. On the back, “for Penny” was scrawled in cur-sive marker. There was no ad-dress.
The sender had de-liv-ered it per-son-ally.
A cold dread slicked over me as I pulled it in-side.
Af-ter leav-ing Do-rian, I had sold the town-house my mother had left to me—auc-tion-ing off most of the ex-pen-sive and mean-ing-less ob-jects in-side—and bought my-self a small, airy flat in the Old Town. It was a neater, more man-age-able place in which to grieve. Catalina, Davina, Maisie and Fraser had helped me dec-o-rate it at Christ-mas. Col-ored fairy lights and gar-ish blue tin-sel, home-made sugar cook-ies strung on the boughs of a wonky tree, cheesy Bublé play-ing as we sipped at eggnog and watched Fraser per-form his new Coco Coxx act for us.
Fam-ily, or some-thing re-sem-bling it.
The demons in my mind had not van-ished en-tirely, but they seemed a lot smaller, some-how, like triv-ial gnats I just had to swat away when-ever they ap-peared. Be-cause the feel-ing that stuck with me long af-ter I left the lim-i-nal world was the pain of what could have been. It was a pro-found yearn-ing that ached in ev-ery cham-ber of my heart—I would have done any-thing to have the mother from be-hind the por-trait with me now. And yet it was done. She was as gone as the mother I’d grown up with. What could have been would never be.
All I could do was not make the same mis-takes with my own life. If I lay on my deathbed with the knowl-edge that I’d thrown away the rich-ness of my hu-man-ity, my joys and pas-sions and hopes and dreams and fears, all in the name of tem-po-rary beauty … it would feel a thou-sand times worse.
And so I lived my life in a way I hoped my child self would be proud of. I started fenc-ing again, once my body was strong enough. I joined a chess club and was sud-denly sur-rounded by peo-ple from all walks of life who thought the ex-act same way I did. Weekly ses-sions were held above a dingy pub—the fur-thest thing from the glit-ter-ing grandeur of Do-rian I could imag-ine—and we’d stay there for hours ev-ery Mon-day night, an-a-lyz-ing po-si-tions and de-bat-ing the-ory and go-ing far too deep into pawn struc-ture. I hired a coach. I read ev-ery chess book I could get my hands on. I en-tered ev-ery Scot-tish tour-na-ment that was go-ing to be held that year.
Good nerves.
The nerves as I un-peeled the mys-te-ri-ous brown pack-age, how-ever, were not.
As the par-cel pa-per fell away, I could not sti-fle the gasp.
It was a paint-ing of my mother.
My real mother.
The woman I had met in the un-der-world. The mother I had yearned for all along. Mossy-gray eyes shot through with pink blood ves-sels. A puffy, bloated face; low jowls hang-ing from the jaw. Strag-gly gray hair. An em-i-nent hu-man-ity shin-ing be-hind her like a back-light. The whole thing charged with a meta-phys-i-cal ten-sion.
And I knew ex-actly who had painted it.
Him.
How did he know where I lived? My gaze snapped around the liv-ing room, as though he were about to jump out from be-hind a cur-tain. Like I was be-ing watched.
I thought of the strange, in-tense-stared man at my mother’s fu-neral, and the dis-quiet swelled in my chest.
It had been him. I was sure of it.
He was still out there, lurk-ing in the shad-ows.
Was this por-trait a gift? Or a threat?
I tried to steady my breath-ing, to steel my-self against the re-al-iza-tion that no mat-ter how deeply I healed, there would al-ways be a dark un-der-world wait-ing to prey on my mo-ments of weak-ness. On my in-se-cu-ri-ties and im-pre-ca-tions. I just had to stay vig-i-lant. Re-mind my-self ev-ery sin-gle day that I was worth sav-ing. That my beauty was the least in-ter-est-ing thing about me. That chas-ing it would only ever leave me hol-low.
My heart panged as I ran a fin-ger over the gilded frame, won-der-ing what my mum would think if she saw me now. Would she ap-plaud the shaved head? Sup-port my de-ci-sion to drop out of Do-rian, as she had too? From the brief but beau-ti-ful mo-ments I’d shared with the real her, I felt that she would, on both counts.
As my fin-ger moved from the frame to her aged face, a pe-cu-liar jolt shot up my wrist. I yanked my hand back from the paint-ing, a sickly sense of dis-ori-en-ta-tion com-ing over me.
A strange nau-sea with no clear ori-gin.
The feel-ing of oily wa-ter trick-ling down a mir-rored sur-face, dis-ap-pear-ing into a floor that didn’t truly ex-ist.
Some-where deep in the back-ground of the paint-ing, a shadow flick-ered.
EN-JOY THIS BONUS SCENE FOR EV-ERY EX-QUIS-ITE THING
Ed-in-burgh Christ-mas Mar-ket smelled of cloves and dried or-anges, fir trees and burnt sugar and pome-gran-ate noir per-fume. It rang with the sound of blades skat-ing across ice rinks, of chil-dren laugh-ing and bag-pipes bleat-ing, of crepes siz-zling on hot plates, of a me-chan-i-cal ho-ho-ho from a gi-gan-tic (and frankly rather dis-turb-ing) Santa Claus. I looked around and smiled. I hadn’t been since I was eleven or twelve, and it meant a lot to be shar-ing it with my found fam-ily.
Maisie, Fraser and Catalina were skat-ing on the rink, whoop-ing and hol-ler-ing in their scarves and mit-tens, while Davina and I stood and watched. De-spite her devil-may-care per-sona, Davina had paled at the sug-ges-tion of the ac-tiv-ity, mut-ter-ing some-thing about not want-ing to lose her fin-gers, and I’d kept her com-pany. She leaned on the bar-rier be-side the ice, mood-ily watch-ing her friends have fun. Hard to blame her, when her dop-pel-g?nger was still trapped be-hind the Gallery of the Ex-quis-ite.
I read-justed the mus-tard-yel-low bob-bly hat—which Catalina had knit-ted for me with love and a gen-eral lack of com-pe-tence— on my bald head and took a sip of my creamy hot co-coa. “Catalina thinks she might have a lead on how to pull the other you back through a por-trait—with-out killing its sub-ject.”
“Yeah.” The word was short, blunt.
“You don’t seem con-vinced?”
A shrug. “I can’t risk some-one else dy-ing just to free my-self.”
“Since when are you con-cerned with petty things like moral-ity or no-bil-ity?”
“Fuck off, Penny,” Davina cursed, but there was no real heat be-hind it. She just sounded tired.
Fraser, who wore full drag makeup, did an elab-o-rate pirou-ette, earn-ing ri-otous ap-plause from a gag-gle of on-look-ers. His Coco Coxx act was gath-er-ing mo-men-tum, and he was es-sen-tially a mi-nor lo-cal celebrity at this point. Maisie watched him ad-mir-in-gly as she glided along like a bal-le-rina. Catalina, on the other hand, had the ap-prox-i-mate co-or-di-na-tion of an in-tox-i-cated mule, stum-bling and slip-ping ev-ery few yards. It only made me love her more, and when she stag-gered over to the bar-ri-ers to peck me on the cheek, her whole face was flushed pink.
As her rose-petal lips grazed mine, warmth spread through my ribs, my limbs, and not just from the hot choco-late. I watched her floun-der away again, feel-ing a tad guilty. I didn’t want to rub our re-la-tion-ship in Davina’s face—not when she was al-ready in a dark place.
“I’ve been cast in a role on the West End,” Davina blurted out be-fore I could air my triv-ial con-cerns.
“Davina, that’s amaz-ing! What’s the play?”
“Some rel-a-tively un-known drama. Called Rock / Hard Place. It did well at the Fringe and they’re tak-ing it to the Big Smoke. Play-wright came to see Mac-beth a few weeks ago and was im-pressed by my per-for-mance. He in-vited me to au-di-tion, and I booked it. I’ll be gone all sum-mer.”
I beamed at her, filled with a joy scrubbed clean of any-thing re-sem-bling jeal-ousy. “I’m so proud of you.”
“What-ever,” she mum-bled, that stormy mood re-turn-ing. “Hope-fully trav-el-ing so far from the gallery won’t … I don’t know. Com-pro-mise me. Hurt me.”
“We’ll make sure it doesn’t.” I fought the urge to squeeze her shoul-der; she wasn’t one for un-nec-es-sary phys-i-cal con-tact. “I’m a chess bum now, so I have time to re-search, to fig-ure this out. I might not be as smart as Catalina, but—”
“You’re one of the smartest peo-ple I know,” Davina in-ter-rupted. “I thought you were done with the sell-ing-your-self-short thing?”
I laughed brightly, but then—
—a black smudge. A blur, a dark masked fig-ure.
A semi-fa-mil-iar sil-hou-ette flash-ing be-tween two bod-ies on the other side of the bar-ri-ers, there one sec-ond and gone the next. The same one I’d seen at my mother’s fu-neral.
Was I imag-in-ing it?
Or was the other Masked Painter re-ally fol-low-ing me?
Adren-a-line staked through my heart, leav-ing it hitched, sus-pended, like a car-cass on a butcher’s hook.
As the oth-ers fin-ished up on the rink and came am-bling back over, giddy and gig-gling, I tried as best I could to shake the nascent dread.
“Come on,” I said, drain-ing the last of my hot choco-late and point-ing to-ward the Fer-ris wheel. “No chance of los-ing fin-gers.”
Davina blanched. “I don’t much care for heights, ei-ther.”
Catalina tossed her arm over my shoul-der, eyes shin-ing with mer-ri-ment. “Or we could go to the board game café. Penny can an-ni-hi-late us all at chess, and then I can fi-nally force you to play DnD.”
Mirac-u-lously, Davina rolled her eyes, folded her arms over her leather jacket–clad chest, and said, “Fine.”
Catalina whooped like some sort of sports hooli-gan as Maisie and Fraser smooched obliv-i-ously nearby, then said, “Fine? Re-ally? You’ll play?”
Davina gave an ex-ag-ger-ated sigh—one that said, Yes, but only be-cause there’s no chance of dis-mem-ber-ment.
“Amaz-ing.” Catalina grinned wolfishly. “I can re-ally see you as a cleric.”
As we am-bled back through the mar-ket, fairy lights twin-kling and arms looped to-gether, that soft warmth swirled in my belly once again—but so too did the dis-quiet over the smudgy sil-hou-ette that might have been the Masked Painter, and my fear over what lay ahead for Davina. And I thought that per-haps this was what life would al-ways be. Great swathes of joy, of good, of hope, in-ter-spersed with in-evitable dark-ness.
The knack, it seemed, was to keep go-ing any-way.