Chapter 11 #2
“Well, perhaps you ought to consider this an opportunity to right past wrongs.” Florrie did not mention her own familiarity with the potential consequences of a single brushstroke. “Vern needs your help, but the painting does, too. I don’t suppose you could fix this arch while we talk?”
She wasn’t certain how the artist would react to the sudden demand from a stranger, but Florrie wondered if it might help Ceru calm himself.
When she felt overwhelmed by an emotional reaction, nothing suited Florrie better than taking on a physical, tangible project she could accomplish with her hands alone.
Ceru seemed to be of the same mindset. As he examined the ruined part of the landscape, his shoulders stopped shaking at last.
“What calamity struck here?” Ceru murmured.
“Me, I’m afraid.”
Florrie winced as the artist swivelled on the stool to face her.
“I applied a gentle cleaning solution, and look what happened,” Florrie explained. “I would have repaired it myself – I am a conservator by trade – but I feared further applications of Folk solvents would only cause more damage.”
“Impossible,” said Ceru. “This is a changeling painting, protected by the magic born from my brush. Your silly solvents should have melted away the second you applied them.”
Florrie was sure she was gaping, but she didn’t quite possess the presence of mind to compose herself.
“Do you mean to say,” she whispered. “that it wasn’t my fault, after all?
That I couldn’t have damaged the painting?
Perhaps – perhaps some other Fairy tried to repaint the arch without your knowledge, long ago, then covered it to hide the mistake, and my cleaning merely revealed their handiwork?
That’s not uncommon in Folk art, you know.
One time, I cleaned the glaze of a tiled admonition, only to reveal—”
“Now, let’s not get carried away,” said Ceru, shaking his head.
“You most certainly did damage the painting. Fairy brushstrokes feature a transcendent grace that your wanton marks lack. See here…” As Ceru spoke, he pulled from his smock pocket a transparent wand that Florrie soon recognised as a paintbrush.
As she watched, the tip of the brush changed, taking on a grey–purple to match the original colour of the arch’s masonry.
“But you must help me make sense of this conundrum, Florrie, as we may be on the cusp of a radical discovery. To start with, let’s rule out the more elementary explanations.
Is it possible you may have inadvertently acquired a Fairy paintbrush languishing in a dusty Folk basement and used it in your conservation?
Or, oh… have you any Fairy ancestry?” As Ceru spoke, Vern’s arch rebuilt itself beneath the artist’s brush.
Stones sprang forth like toadstools on a dewy frame in an open-air gallery.
Florrie felt too spellbound to register the question.
Somehow, the paintbrush – which had not been dipped in any pigment – contained a multitude of colours that flowed simultaneously to create the outline and shadows of the arch.
It was as though the brush housed a collective of tiny painters, each tasked with their own colour and texture.
“Decidedly no Fairies in our family,” Florrie replied, at last. “All my relatives hail from the coast, which is about as far from the Fairy world as one can be. And all my brushes are bespoke. I prefer to use those that are identical to the style favoured by—”
“Then I can’t fathom it. You could not have altered the painting without Fairy magic.” Ceru tapped the brush again. Vines and flowers (the very ones Vern had fretted over, Florrie recalled) grew along the repaired archway. “Unless the painting wanted you to, I suppose.”
“I don’t think Vern intended for me to damage his home.”
“I said the painting – and that’s what I meant,” clarified the artist. “As I mentioned, there’s a magic to it. An animating force that sustains the world your friend inhabits.”
Florrie frowned. “And you’re saying this magic might allow me to harm the very world it sustains? Why?”
“Well, I can’t pretend to know that.” Ceru gave the brush a thorough shake, sending the colours running down the handle until they vanished completely.
“Besides, I’d prefer to believe you succeeded in altering a Fairy artwork because you are an oddity.
A curiosity that complicates and challenges established literature about Folk and Fairy artistry.
I don’t suppose you’d be willing to participate in a study – or five?
My colleagues at the Archival Institute for Curiosities and Cognition would love to speak with you— But…
oh, of course not. Your face says it all. ”
Florrie didn’t know exactly what her face “said” to Ceru, but she hoped its statement adequately reflected her lifelong weariness with investigations into her curious cognition.
She felt her jaw clench as she repeated Ceru’s words in her mind.
It wasn’t the first time Florrie had been called an oddity.
Then she remembered Vern referring to himself in such a way, when they first met, and relaxed her jaw. He must have been repeating something Ceru said about him. The life of an oddity felt more bearable when she wasn’t the only one.
“You simply must tell me how that brush works,” Florrie exclaimed, to redirect the conversation. “It’s the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh, this trifle?”
To Florrie’s delight, Ceru passed the brush across the table.
In Florrie’s hand, the brush seemed ridiculously oversized, like the luxury ones designed in the fifth century for waving about at balls as fashionable accessories.
When she tapped it, the brush felt light and hollow – which seemed fitting, considering its eerie transparency.
“I received it from my teacher, who received it from theirs, who received it from hers – and so on back through the generations,” he intoned.
“Alas, my rather besmirched reputation as Lord Mauve’s one-time copyist prevented me from finding an apprentice of my own.
No matter. To answer your question, I imagine the colours I’d like to paint, and the appropriate hues appear. ”
“Does that save you a great deal of time?” Florrie asked.
Ceru shook his head. “I must conjure a clear image of the specific shades I need. The process takes ages to perfect. If not for my discipline and skill, I might have spent the better part of a century working on the forgery!”
“And your skill is astonishing,” Florrie admitted.
“Thank you, Florrie. I was so distressed about making a living painting that I never acknowledged how fine it is. Why, look at the shading on Lord Mauve’s figure!”
“However did you make the drapery so realistic?”
“Ah, it’s all in the layering,” Ceru replied.
“I complete a full anatomical rendering of the subject, then add the garments on top. That’s how I manage to paint cloth falling over the body in a naturalistic way.
It is rather funny that all my figures start out as nudes, though.
” He gave Florrie a knowing glance. “But you already knew that, didn’t you? ”
“Why— whyever would I?”
“Because you are a conservator,” Ceru continued in a most placid manner. “And I presume you examined the underpainting as part of your initial evaluation.”
“The underpainting?” Florrie repeated. “But that’s impossible! Examining the underpainting would involve removing the outer layers of paint, which would be irreversible.”
The artist sighed and reached into his smock pocket once more. This time, the object he produced was a reverse-woven satin ribbon. Dangling from the ribbon on a golden chain was an amethyst that sparkled in the light from the studio window.
“You must have been trained in a backward place, poor dear. I could have sworn we taught Folk about this ages ago, but I suppose not everybody is ready for progress when it comes.” The gemstone hummed pleasingly in Ceru’s hand.
“This lens allows you to look through paint,” Ceru said. “Mine was a gift from a curator colleague. I don’t use it often. It feels regressive to spend too much time peeping under the layers of one’s completed work.”
“Are you saying it’s possible to see beneath the layers of a painting?” Florrie said, nearly collapsing in her seat. “Why, imagine how that would revolutionise conservation! We could study every secret figure and false start any artist ever made. Have you one to spare?”
“No, they’re terribly dear. But, as consolation, would you like to see how it works?” Ceru winked.
Florrie wanted very much to see how it worked – but remembered there was only one portrait present that Ceru could use for this demonstration.
“Oh, goodness, no thank you,” Florrie demurred.
“Not even a single glance at the underpainting? I thought you’d be keen to see an example of my anatomical figure technique.”
“Not like this – that is to say, I’m afraid I can’t spare the time,” she said, clearing her throat and trying not to look at the figure of Lord Mauve – clothed, fortunately, though he was.
In her flustered state, Florrie realised she’d unconsciously started swinging the empty portfolio-bag around her wrist, and it landed with a conspicuous thump on the table.
“Why, is that an old-fashioned portfolio?” Ceru asked, leaning down to inspect the bag. “Are you an artist yourself?”
“We consider these quite new-fangled, thank you,” said Florrie. “At any rate, I only brought the bag because it was convenient. Now that you’ve repaired the painting, I did hope we could discuss the matter of Vern’s confinement. Do you know if there is any way of freeing Vern from the painting?”
“I wish I did,” Ceru sighed. “This isn’t the first time such a thing happened.
Changeling paintings may be rare, but there’s enough of them in existence to justify some scholars studying the phenomenon at the Institute.
Long ago, a few particularly unscrupulous artists even specialised in the genre. ”
“The genre of bringing paintings to life, you mean?”