Chapter 33
Phaedra stared up at the painting, a feeling so close to madness hovering over her that she dared not move. Thoughts buzzed around her like an angry swarm, ready to strike, to push her under into the swamp of hysteria waiting at her feet.
What was this? What was happening?
Her eyes moved over the two figures depicted in wax, a young woman and an older man sitting at a piano, their backs turned.
The woman played, her hands poised nimbly over the keys, while the man had one of his hands around her waist, the other accompanying her song.
Yet despite the apparent congruence of their joint endeavor, their postures told another story—a glaring difference in their states of mind.
There was a sense of oblivious joy radiating from the woman, a freedom celebrated as if she had never known it before.
The man, on the other hand, felt different.
There was a silent tension in the lines of his body, his grip on her too tight, his fingers rigid as if he would be holding himself back, almost to the point of pain.
And over it all, draped across the edges of the frame in frills and waves of unearthly color, the green dress shone radiant, affixed to the woman’s form.
Phaedra shook her head, unable to form words.
When had she done this? Why could she not remember?
Because it was her work, of that she was certain. She recognized the colors she had mixed, the layers and patterns in the wax that were so uniquely hers, and yet…
She felt Nathaniel step to her side, and she turned to him with a desperate hope that he could somehow make sense of what was happening, but he continued to move, halted only by the table before the fireplace.
His head swung slowly from left to right, as if he would take in the entirety of the wall inch by inch, and when her gaze finally followed his, she understood why.
The painting above the mantel was not the only new addition. Flanked on each side, two other pieces hung on the wall, the three usurping the places of the portraits that had been relocated to the ballroom.
“What is this?” Nathaniel asked, his own incredulity lacing his voice. “When did you paint these?”
He turned to her, the expression on his face a kaleidoscope of so many things she never wished to see there. Confusion, uncertainty, suspicion. Distrust.
But her words were lost to her own jumbled mind, because what could she say? How could she explain when she herself could not understand?
He turned away to brace himself on the table, as if it would pain him to continue looking at her, and the notion tore into her more than the fear shuddering to life in her bones.
She watched the tense lines of his shoulders as he hung his head, his palms pushing against the tabletop before him.
But only when his fingers jerked, his hands balling into white-knuckled fists, did she see the fading light catch on the strips of tattered green strewn across the surface in front of him.
The remnants of the fabric she had used for the dresses.
But before she could put together what this meant, to determine a timeline of how—if at all—this could have happened, he spoke, his tone colder than the chill in the room. “Did you take the journal?”
Phaedra blinked, the accusation like a slap across her face, harsh and sobering.
“No!” she cried. “How could you even think—” Yet her words sputtered even before she could finish the question, because if what he was implying was true, that these new paintings had indeed depicted the entries she was yet to hear, this was the only explanation.
Or, at the very least, the only sane one.
She swallowed, flecks of light swimming in her vision. “I did not take it.”
“Then how?” He whirled toward her, his hands flying out to gesture to the panels, the irritation in his always collected voice making her flinch. There was a ferocity in his eyes that did not belong, twisting his features into forms they were not meant to take.
“I don’t know,” she said, her words snagging on a shudder. She folded her arms around herself, trying to subdue the tremors threatening to overtake her body. Then before she could decide against it, she asked, “They are accurate, then?”
Surprise shot through his expression, its force breaking the storm raging in his eyes, and she carried on before he could fall back into its torrent. “Show me.”
His brows pulled together. “What?”
“Read me the rest.”
There was a moment of stunned silence before he said, his teeth grinding on the words, “Very well.” Then he turned, and left the room, the echo of his steps resounding long after he was gone.
Phaedra let out a breath, then looked up at the paintings once more, her thoughts awhirl with possibilities both real and fantastic.
Pieces of fabric were affixed to each panel, the dresses looming out of the frames as if of their own desperate will to join the living, their color diffusing even into the gathering darkness.
There was a pull to them, drawing not only on her eyes, but her very being, and she could almost feel how they stripped her of every other choice but to stare, and the growing, near-rabid urge to touch.
She straightened, a spark igniting in her mind, its force seeming to halt the powers working against her.
Not knowing where she had found the strength, she turned away and looked back toward the other wall, the one that had housed the opposite of the icy exchange of a few moments ago, and the last piece of fabric crumpled at its base.
Her fingers twitched as her eyes moved over the glimmering surface, and she knew with sudden certainty that if she were to go and pick it up, to drape it over her prickling skin, she could go after Nathaniel and finally finish what they had started.
Yet, for the first time, the thought did not weave through her with the raging fire of unbridled need.
Instead, it left her rooted to the spot, a chill dread blooming over her spine in latticed frostwork.