The Painting

by Charis Cotter

  In the striping light from the tower I could see a cloud of smoke billowing out from behind the house.

  “Help! Help!” called the voices on the wind. I tore around the house to the front door and stumbled in, coughing. Through the smoke, I could make out the figure of a girl, outlined against a blaze of flames. The beacon from the lighthouse filled the room with bright light, illuminating her terrified face for a moment, and then blinked out.

  It was Claire. She stood frozen, gaping at me.

  The flames licked at the wall beside her. I lunged forward, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away from the fire.

  “Water!” I yelled above the roar of the storm. “We need water!”

  CLAIRE

  SHE WAS RIGHT there, in the kitchen, holding me by the arm and yelling at me about water. Annie.

  I shook myself like a dog coming up out of a pond.

  “Water!” yelled Annie again. “We need water!”

  I pulled her toward the corner where two buckets stood on a table. We each grabbed one and dumped them over the flames.

  “We need more!” she bawled in my ear. I turned and stumbled out the door through the drenching rain to the rain barrel at the corner of the house. The wind pulled at my clothes and hair, but Annie was right behind me and I pushed the thoughts of the Old Hollies out of my mind. The thunder was rumbling northward and the lightning crackled out over the ocean. We dipped our buckets into the rain barrel and ran back inside to try to douse the sputtering flames.

  It took four trips to put out the fire. We stood panting in the dark kitchen, the floor slick with water under our feet, the light from the lighthouse glancing off our faces. One minute I could see her and the next minute the darkness swallowed her up.

  “Annie,” I said, reaching out and grabbing her hand so she wouldn’t disappear completely again. “You saved my life.”

  ANNIE

  I STARED AT HER. I had that tilting feeling again, only this time it wasn’t the sea that was pitching and tossing, it was me—I felt like I was toppling over a cliff, held upright only by the steady pull of her bright eyes. I knew her. I felt that deep inside I knew her, but I didn’t know from where. Her features were small, and she had a pinched look, like someone who was hungry all the time.

  “If you hadn’t come, I would have burned to death,” she said, holding tight to my hand. “You saved my life, Annie!”

  The light from the lighthouse flashed on and off. One minute she was there, her eyes shining brightly at me, and the next she was engulfed in darkness.

  I pulled away. “I’m not…I just…I just heard you screaming for help and came in.”

  She shook her head. “That wasn’t me screaming! It was the Old Hollies.”

  “Who are the Old Hollies?” I asked. “And why were they screaming? And where are they now?”

  “Hang on a minute,” said Claire. “I can’t see you properly.” She turned to the dresser and fumbled in a drawer. I heard the sound of a match striking as she lit a candle.

  It made a golden bubble of light, with Claire in the middle, beaming at me.

  “Annie,” she said, “I’m so happy you’ve come back.” She took a step closer and held the candle up so I was enfolded in the golden bubble too. She looked intently at my face, as if she was committing it to memory.

  “You’re different,” she murmured. “I mean, I can see that you’re Annie, but your face has changed.”

  That feeling of familiarity swept over me but I pushed it away. “I don’t know you,” I said. “You’re mistaking me for someone else.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m not. You’re my sister Annie. I’d know you anywhere.”

  “I don’t have a sister,” I said. “I’m an only child. And anyway, this is just a dream.”

  “That’s what I thought, last night. But I’m not dreaming now. You’re my sister Annie who died four years ago.”

  CLAIRE

  ANNIE LOOKED REALLY scared and started swaying like she was going to fall over. I grabbed her and steered her toward a chair. She sat down with a thump. Then I got her a glass of water.

  She sipped it slowly, looking at me like I was the ghost.

  “I’m not your sister,” she said. “My name is Annie Jarvis. I live in Toronto. I’ve been having strange dreams ever since my mom went into the hospital. This is one of them.”

  I sat down opposite her. “Mom’s not in the hospital. She’s gone to Blackberry Bight to visit Marjory. She’ll be back later tonight.”

  “You mean you’re all alone out here? In the middle of the night? In a thunderstorm?”

  I shrugged. “It’s not the middle of the night. It’s only just after six o’clock. I would have been fine except for the fire.”

  Just at that moment a long, eerie wail filled the air. The house shook and rattled in a sudden fierce gust of wind. Annie grabbed my arm, her eyes big.

  “What is that?” she whispered. I could feel her shaking.

  “Just the wind,” I said, patting her hand. “Don’t worry, Annie.”

  “But it sounds like people screaming! That’s what I heard before. People calling for help.”

  I listened. The howling of the wind rose and fell. It went screeching around the house, then died away again.

  “It’s the Old Hollies,” I whispered. “I never heard them so clearly before.”

  “What are they?” asked Annie.

  “Ed says they’re the spirits of all the shipwreck victims that died along this part of the coast.”

  “Who’s…who’s Ed?” stuttered Annie.

  With a few more earsplitting screeches, the voices moved away. I could hear them racing along the cliffs and out to sea.

  “Ed’s our handyman. He has the best ghost stories.” I patted her hand again. “It’s okay, Annie, they’re gone now. Ed says they come just before something terrible is going to happen, like a big storm, or a death in the family.”

  Annie’s face crumpled.

  “Oh no,” she said, and began to cry.

  ANNIE

  “ANNIE!” CLAIRE JUMPED UP and put her arms around me. “Don’t cry, sweetheart! It’s okay.”

  I couldn’t stop. Great gulping sobs came surging up out of me. I felt like I wanted to throw my head back and wail like the Old Hollies. Everything I had been holding in ever since we got the phone call about Mom came bubbling up and I couldn’t bear it.

  Claire kept patting my back and murmuring, “It’s okay, Annie, it’s okay, it will be all right,” over and over again. Finally the tears subsided. Claire smelled like lavender soap. She was warm and kind and familiar. Who was she? I almost had it—but it slipped away.

  “Hey,” she said, pulling back and looking at me. “Better now?” She smiled gently. “This reminds me of how you used to cry when you hurt yourself when you were little. I could always make it better, couldn’t I?”

  I shook my head. “No. No. You don’t understand. I’m not your sister. I’m really not your sister.”

  Claire shook her head. “You’ve forgotten, that’s all. It happens. Ed told me sometimes ghosts wander for years, not knowing who they are or where they belong. That’s why you’re crying, because you’re lost and you can’t remember.”

  “No, I was crying because my mother is really sick and she’s in the hospital, and when you said the Old Hollies were…were…” The tears were coming again and I tried to shake them off. “My mother might be dying. I’m so scared she’s dying, and I thought maybe the Old Hollies were warning me—” I began to cry again.

  “I don’t understand,” said Claire. “I’ve been calling you for so long, trying to get you back. And now you’ve finally come, but you’re different and—”

  “I heard you calling,” I interrupted. “The other night. I was in my bedroom, right after I heard about Mom. I was sitting on the bed looking at the lighthouse painting—”

  Claire went on talking as if she hadn’t heard me. “I’ve missed you so much, Annie. I can’t even te
ll you. It’s so awful here and Mom’s worse than ever. She hardly talks to me, just paints all the time. And I’ve got no friends because everyone thinks I’m a stuck-up townie, and all I want to do is go back to St. John’s, but Mom says no, and I hate it here and—and—”

  She grabbed my hand again and leaned toward me.

  “I didn’t mean it when I told you to go away before, I was just upset. Ever since then I’ve wanted you to come back. I miss you so much.”

  Her eyes were filling with tears, and for some reason I couldn’t stand to see her cry. It hurt me, like something sharp was stuck inside my chest. I took a deep breath. It still hurt.

  Claire wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. I cleared my throat.

  “Umm…You’ve seen your sister’s ghost before? You told her to go away?”

  “Yes,” she said, with a little frown. “Of course. Come on, Annie! You remember. Right after you died, you kept appearing everywhere, just staring at me, and I finally couldn’t take it anymore and told you to go away. But then we moved here and you never came back. I’m sorry, Annie. I never should have told you to go away.”

  “How did it…how did she die? Your little sister.”

  “Don’t you remember? You saw a neighbor’s dog, that little black Scottie, Sammy, across the street, and you broke away from me and ran straight across the street and a car—a car—” She gulped and couldn’t go on.

  “How awful,” I whispered. I reached out and took her hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It…it was horrible. I still have nightmares about it. Why did you have to run, Annie? Why did you always have to run?”

  CLAIRE

  SITTING THERE, WITH Annie’s hand in mine, looking into her eyes, it all came back to me in a rush. The way she was bouncing down the street beside me that day, and then when Sammy barked how she tore away from me, straight for Sammy across the street, and how I lunged after her and the car that was suddenly there and the squeal of brakes and the thump. That awful thump. I stopped just short of the car and stood there panting. I didn’t want to go around and see what had made that thump. I knew it was Annie.

  Grown-ups appeared from nowhere, a whole crowd of them, running and shouting, and somebody screamed and started to cry, and I just stood there, frozen. Then a neighbor took ahold of me and that’s when I wanted to see Annie, and I struggled and cried and tried to go back, but the neighbor hauled me away.

  So I didn’t see her again. I wouldn’t look at the funeral. I couldn’t.

  And now here she was, come back to me. Her hand was warm in mine. I squeezed it.

  “Don’t leave me again, Annie,” I whispered. “I can’t bear it.”

  She gave me a funny look, like she felt bad for me.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “This is a dream and at some point I will wake up.”

  ANNIE

  “THEN DREAM IT again,” said Claire. “If it’s a dream for you, dream it again.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” I said. “I don’t have any control over it.”

  Claire frowned. “Tell me. Tell me what you remember.”

  “Well—I guess it all started with the painting on my wall. A painting of your lighthouse. I’ve had it for months, but last night I couldn’t sleep because I was worried about my mother, and I was staring at it and somehow—somehow—I must have fallen asleep and dreamed I walked into the painting, and there I was, on the road, looking up at your house.”

  “A painting? Of the lighthouse?”

  “Yes, and I knew it was Newfoundland, so today I went to the library and found a book with Newfoundland paintings in it. There was another painting by the same artist of the lighthouse in a storm, and I guess I must have fallen asleep again, and I was outside, and I heard the screaming, and—and—and here I am.”

  “Weird,” said Claire. “It doesn’t sound like anything I ever heard about heaven or guardian angels or purgatory or—”

  “Of course it isn’t purgatory! It’s Toronto! It’s where I live. This—” I waved my arm around the room. “This is all a dream! I told you. It’s just a dream, and you’re in my dream, and when I wake up, you’ll be gone.”

  “You won’t be here, but that doesn’t mean I will be gone. This is where I live, and it’s not a dream. You’re a ghost—a spirit. You’re not alive. All the rest of your life is a dream, not this.”

  I stood up and my chair fell over backward.

  “I am alive!” I protested. “I am not a ghost! This is a dream and you’re the one who’s not real. You’re inside some painting in my imagination, and as soon as I wake up, you’ll be gone.”

  Claire frowned again, as if she was trying to figure something out. Finally she looked up at me.

  “Who did the paintings?” she asked. “Who’s the artist who did the paintings of the lighthouse?”

  “What does it matter? It’s just some artist I never heard of her before—Maisie King, that’s her name. Maisie King.”

  Claire stared at me. “What?”

  “Maisie King. I don’t know why I never heard of her, because she’s really good. I’ve been studying Canadian painters with my teacher, but she’s never come up. Maybe it’s because—” I stopped. Claire was still staring at me, her eyes round.

  “Maisie King is our mother,” she whispered.

  CLAIRE

  ANNIE WASN’T THE same. She was mixed-up and angry, and of course she was older now, my age, not a four-year-old anymore. But she had changed. Annie was always running and jumping and coming up with wild stories and plans of things we could do, and I was always the one trying to slow her down. She was funny and mischievous and always tearing from one thing to another, never happy to sit still, unless she was drawing.

  But now she was slow and cautious and scared—different. She was convinced that the life in her head in Toronto was real, and that she wasn’t dead at all, and that she wasn’t my sister. But the very fact that she came to me through Maisie’s paintings proved something. Didn’t it?

  I stood up.

  “Annie, look—” I began. But before I could say anything else, the house rattled in a strong gust of wind and the candle on the table between us flickered and went out, plunging the room into darkness. I counted to five and the beam from the lighthouse flashed through the room.

  I was alone. Annie was gone.

  ANNIE

  THE CANDLE BLEW OUT and everything went dark. I waited for the beacon to flash on but nothing happened.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Claire.

  There was no answer. Only darkness, all around me, thick and silent.

  CLAIRE

  THE WIND HAD picked up again and the Old Hollies came shrieking back around the corners of the house. I fumbled for the matches and relit the candle. I held it high so I could look into every corner of the room, but Annie was just as gone as she was before. I checked the front door to make sure it was closed tight and then took the candle up to my bedroom.

  Maisie wouldn’t leave Blackberry Bight till the worst of the storm was over. She might not be back for hours.

  I wasn’t scared. I liked being in the house by myself, and the Old Hollies didn’t bother me anymore. Not now that I’d seen Annie and knew she wasn’t a dream.

  We kept an oil lamp in each room for power-outs. I took mine from the dresser and set it beside my bed and lit it. Then I blew out the candle and quickly got into my nightie and crawled under the covers. The house quivered and creaked in the wind, the rain drummed against the window and the waves pounded the shore. But I was safe and warm in a circle of light, high above the sea. Annie would be back. I knew it.

  “He’s dreaming now,” said Tweedledee: “and what do you think he’s dreaming about?”

  Alice said “Nobody can guess that.”

  “Why, about you!” Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. “And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you’d be?”

  “Where I am now, of course,” said Alice.


  “Not you!” Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. “You’d be nowhere. Why, you’re only a sort of thing in his dream!”

  THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE

  ANNIE

  “ARE YOU OKAY, DEAR?” asked a woman’s voice. I opened my eyes. I was in the library.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up into Mrs. Silver’s concerned face.

  “You were asleep, Annie. Were you having a bad dream?”

  “I—I think so,” I said. My head felt fuzzy.

  Mrs. Silver sat down beside me, placing the book she had been reading on the table. It was Through the Looking-Glass, one of my favorites. I’d known Mrs. Silver forever. She lived down the street and always had a kind word for me when I ran into her. I liked to pretend that if I ever had a grandmother she would be just like Mrs. Silver: there was something so comfortable and warm about her. She had silvery-white, curly hair, wire-rimmed glasses and soft blue eyes that crinkled up when she laughed, which was often. Her favorite colors must have been blue and gray, because I never saw her wearing any others. Today she was wearing a soft blue cardigan over a gray dress.

  The library was hushed around us. The path outside the windows was empty—the women with their strollers must have moved on. I glanced down at my knees. No blood. No scrapes. And my clothes were dry.

  The Newfoundland art book still lay on the table in front of me, open to the picture of the lighthouse in the storm.

  “That’s a very good painting,” said Mrs. Silver. “Where is it?”