I itch to see the painting up close. We know these are copies. Is there something that would help me date it? Tell whether copies were made in the seventies, when the originals were altered? Created later, after the originals were destroyed? Or created recently, to launch this assault against Mercy?
We’ve lost the Crying Girl painting. Mercy has taken the Eldest Daughter and cut us out of the loop. I’d like the chance to examine this one.
Get closer. Activate it. Decide then whether it’s mild enough—like the Crying Girl—that I can barrel through and endure the curse while I undo it. I might not have my Magic 8 ball here, but I’m quite happy to relocate the curse onto the damn door knob if I need to.
I start forward, braced for visions of any kind. Are my thoughts drifting anyplace unpleasant? Is reality shifting in any way? Do I catch the shimmer of a ghostly vision before me? No, no and no.
I make it all the way to the painting. Then I stand there and wait. Still nothing.
Okay then.
The painting is propped on the floor. I kneel to get a better look. Up close, I can see the brush strokes. I can also make out minute scratches in the paint. That would seem to suggest it’s not brand-new, but I keep investigating. Touch the paint. Scrape lightly. My nail doesn’t seem to do anything.
I run my hands over the frame. This is where my expertise kicks in. I know a few things about checking for fake-antique artwork. I know even more about furniture like frames. This one looks antique, but it’s cheap. Old, rather than valuable. Maybe nineteen forties.
I touch the paint again. The antique-shop owner in me wants to be careful, but even without the curse, I wouldn’t resell this painting. Too many bad memories for Athene, whether it’s the original or not. I want it destroyed. So a little damage to answer my questions is reasonable.
I can hear the curse whispering, and I momentarily open myself to it, but that whisper is too soft, and I can’t catch it. I block the sound and focus on the painting.
I’m running my index finger over the saxophone when pain slices through my finger. I yank back. Blood wells up on a small paper cut. I squint at the painting, but I see nothing there that would have cut it.
Then I remember what Marion said, that one of her staff had been injured by the painting. I stare down at my finger. Okay. Well, as curses go, this would be a mild one. Nasty but mild.
I clean off my finger and continue examining the painting. There’s a spot on the boy’s neck that seems lighter. A ragged edge where the top of his turtleneck alternates between black and dark gray. I rub my nail along the lighter part. The paint cracks. I peel of a pinky-nail sized piece to see lighter paint below—paint that matches the background color. It leaves a divot at the top of the boy’s turtleneck. I find the edge of the removed piece and carefully scrape.
When my fingernail scrapes through to the canvas, I try the other angle and manage to peel off another small piece. I keep working at it, sometimes going too deep and sometimes managing to separate the two layers of paint. It takes a good ten minutes to clear just over an inch, but when I do, I see an older layer, one that shows the boy with a high-lace-collared shirt. The lace is scalloped, and when someone repainted it as a turtleneck, they evened out the neckline.
I ease back on my heels, still crouched. So this seems to be a duplicate of the original, rather than a later copy. A second portrait of a Renaissance teenager turned into a “modern” one in the seventies.
I reach for the curse again, clearing my mind until I catch the whisper of Latin. Yet, I can’t quite catch the words or the music.
My gaze drops to the saxophone. Pretty sure that’s not a period-appropriate instrument. Yep, when I get closer, I can see the flaws in the overpainting, just like with the collar. The artist in the seventies—or whenever it was “touched up”—used an object of a similar size and shape from the original. A long and slender object that the boy’s fingers rest atop.
The perspective of the painting means that the bottom of the saxophone is missing—there’s just part of the curved bell coming up from the base, and the more I look at it, the more the proportions seem wrong.
I run my finger up the keys of the sax—
Ouch!
I yank my hand back to see a second paper cut. Really? I glower at the painting. All right, so it seems that I cut myself if I touch the saxophone. The rest is fine.
I bend to squint at the sax. Whatever is under it is significantly thinner. Also, the color of the sax is unusual, more metal-gray than bronze.
Metal gray. Sharp. Thinner than a sax. Sharp.
Oh! I know what it is. He’s holding—
The boy leaps from the painting. All I see at first is a blur of motion that has me tumbling back onto my ass. Then he’s right in front of me. A teenage boy wielding a sword.
He slashes. Pain slams down my arm, and hot blood rushes up.
What the hell?
I scramble backward, crablike, but he keeps coming, his face cold and determined.
The Vengeful Boy.
This is what I saw in his face. Not fury. Icy resolve.
He swings again. This time I manage to dodge, only the tip piercing my leg, pain still making me gasp. He lunges at me, and I scramble to my feet and run to the door.
It was safe there.
It is no longer safe there.
I have my back to the door, and he’s right there. Before I can run, he swings the sword, and it hits me in the neck and, in that moment, I think I am dead. I feel the blade go in. Feel it cut right through me and see it swing out the other side.
I don’t die. It takes a second to realize that. The absolute horror of that moment steals both breath and thought, and when I realize I’m still alive, there’s a second, even more horrifying moment of thinking I’ve been decapitated and I’m still conscious.
Then I see him lift the sword again, and I snap out of it and run. I run all the way to the other side of the room and plaster myself against the wall as I shout for help. The boy runs at me, sword raised, and I scream that I’m not his enemy, I didn’t hurt him or his family. I know it doesn’t matter. This isn’t a ghost. It’s a curse-triggered hallucination. I don’t care. I’m terrified and alone, and there is blood dripping from my arm and hip and neck, and this boy is so angry, rightfully angry.
He’s rushing at me, and I’m backed into the corner, as far as I can get from his painting. He’s running at me, his face that impenetrable mask of cold, and I’m bracing for the blow, telling myself it will hurt but nothing more. He pulls back the sword . . . and disappears.
I don’t move. I barely breathe. I brace myself for him to return. Nothing.
I take two steps forward, and he lunges from his painting again. I force myself to close my eyes. If I can’t see him, does that break the spell?
The blade rams into my chest. I feel the pain of it and the cold of the metal, and I stagger back, gasping. He yanks the sword from my heart and lifts it to swing again, and I turn and run for the corner. When I’m there, I twist and see him lunge at me, only to vanish a couple of feet away.
I am outside the range of the curse. I thought I was when I stood in the doorway. I wasn’t. I just hadn’t activated it.
I slide to the floor and breathe. It’s a while before I stop shaking. I touch my wounds. They’re all shallow cuts, barely scrapes. They sting like paper cuts, and blood wells along each, but I’m okay. As long as I stay right here, I’m okay.