Chapter One #2
“She did?” A memory hits me and suddenly I’m eight years old again, eating cake that a nice lady brought by Dad’s office as he marked a pile of essays. “What happened to her?”
“She died a couple of years ago. Anyway, Tim had a huge personal collection of art and so on,” Dad continues.
“He used to donate a lot of his finds to a Victorian museum in London, but I heard he started to hoard things after Hazel passed. I think a lot of people will come to see if he actually had anything valuable. That’s why we’re here so early—I want to see if there’s anything the Heywood Gallery might want to acquire. ”
“These people are no better than vultures.” Kim tuts, even though she’s already scouring a shelf of bric-a-brac.
She selects a black disc, studies it and looks disappointed as she puts it back down.
“Colored glass,” she explains. “I thought it could have been obsidian. I need a new scrying dish to help with my fortune-telling, though the cleansing I’d have to put it through might be beyond me, what with his body having been here for so long.
It’s such a shame nobody thought to check on him until they noticed the smell… ”
“Let’s look over here, Kim.” Dad flushes even redder and redirects her attention to a large wooden armoire on the opposite side of the room.
I hide a smirk as he turns back to me. Who knew my serious dad would fall in love with a woman who thinks she’s part witch?
“Have a look around, Fliss. We won’t be long.
Then maybe you can let Kim treat you to that coffee, okay? ”
“Okay,” I agree, but he raises his eyebrows at me. “I’ve been nice so far, haven’t I?” I say defensively.
“So far.” He tips his head as I avoid eye contact, studying some drab landscape paintings that lean against the faded yellow wallpaper. “She’s looking forward to getting to know you better.”
“I know,” I mutter, aware of the whine in my voice. I flip through the nearest stack of paintings before stopping on an unframed portrait. “Ew, who would even paint this?”
“Felicity Keller, I will never understand your lack of appreciation for the fine arts.” Dad laughs, moving closer to me and glancing down at the canvas. “Oh my god.”
“Grim, right?” I lift it carefully, realizing the wooden bars that the canvas is stretched over weigh a ton, so I prop it up at the front of the stack awkwardly. “You’ve got to be messed up to paint something like that, right?”
Dad crouches down and peers at it. “Fliss, wait there.” When he stands, he has the jittery look of someone who might be going into shock, and I can see the whites all the way around his eyes.
Panic bubbles in my stomach and I wonder if I should shout for Kim, when he breaks into a huge smile.
He presses a hand on my shoulder and looks me in the eye.
“I mean it. You wait here, and you do not let anybody touch that painting, do you hear me?” He lowers his voice and whispers conspiratorially, “This could be a huge find. Just guard it while I talk to that guy at the door, George. Okay?”
I nod mutely, confused but also relieved as he pulls his phone from his coat pocket, takes several photographs of the painting and taps the screen a few times.
“Oh my god,” he repeats, holding the phone to his ear as he walks out into the hallway.
“Alessandra? It’s Michael. You’ll never guess what… ”
Dad moves out of earshot, and I look back at the painting, bewildered. As unsettling as it is, it’s oddly mesmerizing, and I find that when I close my eyes, the image is seared onto the inside of my eyelids. I think about the art terms Dad has taught me over the years as I try to analyze it.
Medium: I think it’s painted in oil, though the streaks look thicker than I’d expect, like the tube was out of date when the artist used it. There’s a letter “A” slashed into the paint on the bottom corner too, which could be a signature.
Composition: It’s a portrait, or maybe even a self-portrait.
I think it’s a man, but it’s hard to tell, because the whole image is so disfigured it barely looks human.
The top of the head is so smudged it blends into the burgundy background, as though the figure is being sucked into it.
Its mouth is stretched in an eternal scream, and long, violent streaks of white and yellow paint slash down its face, giving the impression of rotting, desiccated skin.
I tilt my head so the light hits at a different angle and see the almost-hidden layer that sits just beneath the paint, the flash of a grinning skull painted beneath.
“Well, I like the weird and wonderful, but this is a little much, even for me,” Kim says from behind me, and I force my eyes away from the empty eye sockets that bleed darkness.
“Interesting use of a pentimento, though,” she adds.
I tilt my head in confusion at the unfamiliar word, so she indicates the skull.
“It seems as though that was painted first and then the artist covered it. ‘Pentimento’ comes from the Italian word meaning to repent or change your mind. Canvas was expensive back in the day, so painters would sometimes reuse it by painting over existing works. You can’t always see them with the naked eye—a lot are only detectable with scans—but some artists chose to leave them visible. ”
“So you can see the skull on purpose? Why?”
“Part of the artist’s vision, I suppose.
” Kim’s eyes are glittering. She’s a painter; I should have known she’d be into this stuff.
That’s how she met my dad—he went to one of her exhibitions in Paris.
“See this part here?” She points at an area of the face that appears flatter than the rest. “This would indicate that the portrait was unfinished for some reason. It’s called underpainting, but I prefer the other term for it. ”
“Oh yeah?” I say, interested now. “And what’s that?”
“Dead coloring.” Kim grins ghoulishly, and a shiver runs down my spine despite the heat. I’m sorry I asked.
“Got it.” Dad reappears in the doorway, his face flushed with excitement.
“The Heywood Gallery will officially own this beauty once I sign the paperwork.” He comes over and squeezes me to him, planting a kiss on my head as I marvel over his choice of words.
As captivating as the painting is, I don’t think anyone else would call it a “beauty.” “Fliss, you little star. Do you know what you’ve uncovered? ”
“Everlasting nightmares?” I say, avoiding eye contact with the portrait, though it seems to demand it. “I was worried about you. Your eyes looked like they were going to pop out of your head.”
“I’m fine,” Dad reassures me. “I just didn’t expect this to be here. I mean, if it’s what I think it is…” He trails off and grins at us both.
“What do you think it is, honey?” Kim asks Dad, laughing at his obvious joy. I soften to her in that moment. She really does make it difficult for me to dislike her.
“Well, if I’m right—and I’m not saying I am, but I sent Alessandra at the gallery some photos and she’s on the same page—then it’s a Very Big Deal. A lost piece of art so fabled that no one was sure it even existed. I had to buy it for the gallery before someone else got their hands on it.”
“Really?” I ask, looking at the painting. It leers back at me. “So why did Professor Williams keep it a secret, then?”
Dad furrows his brow, and I can tell that he hasn’t thought about it.
He brushes off the question as George appears in the doorway with a roll of brown parcel paper, a shear-like pair of scissors and a ball of string.
Dad approaches him, thanks him profusely as he takes the items and heads back to us. He is practically oozing excitement.
“Give me a hand, will you, Kim?” Dad asks. Kim takes the paper and unrolls it across the floor; then Dad lifts the painting and gently places it on top. “Fliss, can you grab those scissors and cut the paper so we can tie it up?”
I take the shears and chop into the paper until the scissors start to glide in that satisfying way they do. “Ouch!” I snap my hand back as a white-hot pain slices into the meat of my palm.
“You okay?” Kim asks.
I study the slash in my skin as a drop of blood wells to the surface. “Paper cut. A big one.” I wince, putting down the scissors so I can press my mouth to the wound.
Kim pulls a sympathetic face before helping Dad wrap the painting.
George then reappears with some paperwork and Dad follows him over to a table, copies down some numbers from a credit card and signs his name with a flourish as Kim finishes tying the string.
You can tell she’s done this before—each corner is supported, and the extra string forms a handle of sorts as she picks it up.
“I guess we’re stopping by the gallery before we go for coffee, then?” I ask.
“No way.” Dad shakes his head as he pockets his copy of the paperwork and takes the painting from Kim, beaming at it. “Alessandra is away until tomorrow, and I don’t trust anyone else with it. This baby’s coming straight home with us.”
Oh, great, I’ll be living with a demonic painting for the foreseeable future.
What could possibly go wrong?