Chapter 9 #2
Just as she had this thought, Florrie identified a familiar form in the water, steps away from the shoreline.
It was an easel. Legs, braces, supports – all carved from a porous ancient stone and touched by pearl-grey moss.
Mounted on the easel was a large board and a matching palette that appeared (based on the best analysis Florrie could manage from such a distance) to be at least three hundred years old.
The more she looked at it, the more Florrie found herself overcome by a strange desire to paint the scene before her on that very easel.
It wouldn’t take too much time. She could tear a page from her sketchbook and complete a simple study.
Vern would appreciate seeing the water, too.
Perhaps she might even wade in while holding the painting…
She shook her head, shocked at herself. Florrie had completed many questionable deeds in the name of conservation lately, but it was unthinkable to take a painting – no matter how magical – into a lake.
No. The solution was obvious: she needed to leave The Resolute Portrait on the shore for a few moments.
“Florrie, can you hear me? What’s the matter?”
Florrie blinked. She compelled herself to look away from the easel.
“Have you been talking to me?” she asked.
“For a little while now. Is something wrong?” Vern was at the leftmost edge of the painting.
As a matter of fact, she could envision precisely where he was – on the far side of the cottage, where the swirls of moonlight curled most dramatically through the trees.
Remembering the landscape made her head slightly clearer.
“I fear I might be unwell,” Florrie managed to say after a few moments.
“In what way?”
Florrie took a deep breath and turned away from the lake. She tried to focus on something, anything – her memories of The Resolute Portrait, the titles of the first three hundred ceramic sculptures she ever restored, the sandy trail beneath her feet, with its peculiar smoothness…
“Vern,” she said, “I suddenly feel, in every part of my body, that I will simply die if I don’t paint something on that easel in the lake.”
“Ah,” Vern replied. “I don’t suppose you’re saying that in a figurative sense?”
“I rarely say anything in a figurative sense.”
“Do you usually feel as though not painting will result in your death? That sounds like a sort of enchantment, don’t you think? In several ballads—”
Florrie clenched her fingers within her gloves. “I suppose there’s no use fighting it. I’ll only be a moment. Would you mind if I left the bag here?”
“It’s not that I mind—”
Before Vern could finish, Florrie found herself attacked by a flash of pink – though not, she believed, a rogue hue. It was Florrie’s distinct impression that her foe possessed a form as forceful as the puffed wool used to protect paintings in crates.
“Florrie!” called Vern. “What’s happened now? Won’t you please come into the painting?”
Travelling through the canvas proved just the thing to dislodge the mysterious assailant.
Florrie’s eyes blurred for a moment as she adjusted from bright mountain sunshine to the painting’s gentle moonlight.
Vern, startlingly full-sized once more, ran across the garden.
Today he wore a plain white shirt, which billowed in a pleasing way as he dashed.
He stopped just before her to catch his breath.
“What was that?” he gasped. His curls bounced around his chin. “Did it hurt you? Can you stand? If not, well, I’m not very strong, but do you need me to carry you into the cottage?”
Florrie was relieved that he’d said need instead of want.
“That won’t be necessary,” she said. “Thank you for sheltering me.”
“You certainly don’t need to thank me.” Vern glanced down – and, to be fair, there was an intriguing green blossom near his left boot. “I wasn’t sure if you’d come back.”
“I don’t know what you could possibly mean by that. I’ve spent every waking moment wishing I could see this place again.”
Only when Vern started staring at her in the most curiously delighted way did Florrie realise this was one of these moments when she had been more candid than she ought to have been.
“Could you call upon that window of yours?” Florrie asked. “I’d like to see what was responsible for all this nonsense.”
“The window? Oh, certainly! But let’s go inside first.” She could tell Vern was trying to suppress his natural grin, given the gravity of the situation, but it was a futile effort.
As they entered the cottage, Florrie could feel herself regaining her senses.
She must have fallen prey to some manner of Fairy enchantment, as Vern suggested.
Yet she knew woefully little about the practice of artistic magic.
What was the aim of compelling her into the lake? To distract from the impending attack?
Florrie took a breath. What mattered most, at present, was that she’d survived said attack as well as the enchantment.
The compulsion to approach the easel disappeared the moment she entered the painting.
There was something so comfortingly stable about Vern’s cottage.
From a visual standpoint, she suspected the gentle curves of the walls and the pleasing clutter of yarn and cloth made her feel at home.
Through Vern’s enchanted window, she could see the lake – less alluring now that she wasn’t in front of it – before the mountains and the vast sky. In the foreground of this alpine landscape was a certain pink-and-black butterfly.
Or, more accurately, a certain butterfly whose wing patterns featured the precise colour of the attacker that had driven her into the painting.
Florrie cursed herself for failing to recognise it sooner. The influence of the enchantment must have truly addled her. Now, the butterfly sat in front of the painting, looking perfectly tranquil.
“That’s what flew at you? I knew that creature couldn’t be trusted,” muttered Vern.
“I wonder what upset it?” She watched as the butterfly flapped about. “Well, I’m sure it won’t be long before it flies away again.”
As though it had heard her, the butterfly suddenly dived backwards before flying at a surprising clip toward the lake. Upon reaching the water’s edge, the butterfly alighted on the easel Florrie had found so tempting.
It paused there for a moment, its graceful silhouette flickering against the untouched board.
“Florrie,” asked Vern in a low voice, “what is that?”
As Vern spoke, Florrie saw it, too – a massive shadow beneath the easel and the surface of the lake.
The butterfly trembled. A flat bill the size of a small gallery burst from the water, snapping fiercely as the butterfly flapped away, out of reach.
The stone easel was subsumed in a moment within that massive mouth.
The monster surfaced, its black eyes fixed on the butterfly, and Florrie was surprised to realise she was observing an enormous predatory duck.
But there was something odd about it – other than the obvious.
Even as it swam after the butterfly, the duck didn’t seem to possess any legs.
Its underside was completely flat and its feathers almost appeared sculpted.
When she looked closer, Florrie could imagine an artist’s hand tracing the delicate mask of green and gold that surrounded its wide, wary eyes.
As the butterfly returned to shore, the creature sank below the surface and settled back into position, opening its mouth beneath the water to reveal the tempting false easel once more.
At this point, Florrie experienced two major revelations. The first was that she had truly been in danger of losing her life. Centuries had passed since the prime of the Old Amethyst Road. Was it any surprise that new perils had emerged in the intervening years? She must be more careful.
This grand resolution was swiftly forgotten as she experienced her second revelation – namely, that the frightening scene had apparently scared her into unconsciously leaning upon Vern’s shoulder. She could practically feel the weave of his white shirt.
“I do beg your pardon.” Florrie shifted to the other side of the window. “I dread to think what would have happened if you hadn’t encouraged me to hide in here.”
“Me? I did nothing,” murmured Vern. He wound a stray scrap of orange yarn into a tight knot, which kept unravelling as his hands shook. “You ought to thank your strange friend instead.”
Outside, the butterfly hopped about in a manner that one might whimsically interpret as triumphant.
“Could you allow the butterfly to see us for a moment?” she asked Vern.
“Yes, of course!” Despite the careless confidence of his statement, Vern then proceeded to simply stand in front of her, continuing to trouble the orange yarn.
“Do you need to… do anything?” Florrie asked encouragingly. “Is there some sort of spell?”
“Not at all!” Vern said, tying the yarn into a perfect loopy bow. “I simply have to think I’m ready to be seen, and the painting takes care of it for me.”
As Florrie bit her lip and frowned, trying to puzzle out the baffling simplicity of the painting’s apparent magic, Vern gestured eagerly to the window.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Well. Greetings, fellow traveller,” Florrie called to the butterfly. “I gave you bread, and you saved my life. Shall we go our separate ways, now?”
The butterfly then landed on the hamper and settled in, rolling around to find the best spot on the wicker in a disconcertingly feline manner.
“I suppose I ought to be grateful for the company,” Florrie said to Vern. “Even if those giant antennae make me shiver. Never fear – I’ll get us far from this accursed lake straightaway.”
Vern stood and shuffled his hands into his pockets, which were sewn with pleasingly crisp pleats.
“Are you truly going back out there?” he asked in a small voice. “You almost died, Florrie.”
“All the more reason to continue on to safety.”
Vern took a very deep breath, and Florrie realised her practical attempt at forced cheer had caused her to miss the obvious.