Darker Still

by Leanna Renee Hieber

  This, I determined, was what it must feel like…

  I was in love.

  With a two-dimensional object. A mute in love with a painting. Lovely. Just lovely. I could do nothing but stand there and accept my absurd fate.

  A healthy, rosy color was high on Lord Denbury’s cheeks, as if he too were blushing, those blue eyes so bright and so alive.

  Mrs. Northe was watching me curiously, and remembering myself, I turned to her, ready for her commentary. She pointed to the book and then to the paper. She saw the clues that I had glimpsed. They were there still. I hadn’t dreamed them.

  “I am not a girl,” Mrs. Northe said pointedly. “And so I can only think that he means you. Ever since you and Lord Denbury were introduced, this painting has taken on a whole new life. Truly. And it can’t have been Maggie. She’d seen him plenty of times before we met you. He’s never reacted to anyone but you. You are the one he’s chosen.”

  I looked at Mrs. Northe helplessly, my heart pounding in my chest. “What…does he want?” I signed.

  “Why, I’ve no idea,” Mrs. Northe replied. “Have you asked him?”

  I looked at Mrs. Northe as if she were daft. She pursed her lips, refusing to let me think she had insulted me and added, “He spoke to you via note. Why don’t you do the same?”

  I again stared at her blankly. She was speaking to me as if this were commonplace. I wondered if she was as mad as I was. Perhaps we both ought to throw ourselves into the nearest histrionic ward. She stared at me for a long moment, then up at Denbury, and then back at me.

  “Our world is new, Natalie,” she mused, staring at the painting. “Magic truly does exist. Though I’ve never seen any like this. Have you?”

  I shook my head. “But I saw his ghost,” I signed. I bit my lip.

  Mrs. Northe cocked her head. “His ghost?” she breathed. I nodded.

  “In the Art Association,” I signed, my hands shaking. “He passed and spoke to me. Different. Not…a gentleman. He was frightening. His eyes were…off.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked sharply. I stared at her, helpless. Her gaze softened. “I’m very sorry, Natalie. I expect too much of you. I forget you are entirely new to such matters, though I believe you’re suited for them. Of course you didn’t dare say a word. You thought you’d be declared mad. But you’ve not lost your mind. Thank you for telling me about his other form. It helps me to know what we might be dealing with.”

  I raised my eyebrows in hopes she’d educate me.

  “Oh, any number of unpleasant things,” she replied. “But you’ll have to ask Denbury himself to narrow it down.”

  When I turned back to Lord Denbury, my hand slowly rose to my mouth. He had changed again. His hands were no longer behind him. Now his right arm was extended, his long fingertips outstretched, reaching for me.

  What could he possibly want from me? Something wicked? Something courtly? Something sweet? I found each possibility titillating and terrifying. I’d heard his voice. And I did want it to call my name.

  “He calls you, Natalie Stewart,” Mrs. Northe said, again as if this were entirely ordinary. I was grateful that she was able to speak of such odd things with nonchalance. It kept panic from overwhelming me. “Just like in the old stories when a cursed prince needed to ask a favor of a young lady…well, here you are. Had you ever dreamed you’d be such a princess?”

  I gaped at her. This was mad. She held out paper and fountain pen, insisting I take them. “See if a note will do.”

  I shook my head, trying to get my bearings. “How…?” I signed, feeling as though someone might be playing a horrible joke on me. But Mrs. Northe simply shrugged while pressing the pen and paper into my hand.

  “I have seen things in this world, my dear, that defy explanation. While I have never seen anything like this, I am not inclined to think myself mad, nor should either of us be overcome by a female fit. Dark powers are afoot, and we must take them seriously. But not hysterically. You two have business. I ought to leave you to it.”

  She descended without another word and disappeared into her study, moving with ethereal grace. Perhaps her time with spiritualists had made her somewhat of a spirit herself.

  I was left alone with my dark, odd fairy tale, and no idea what to do.

  I moved to the small console table that bore a lovely vase of flowers. I edged the china vase aside and tried not to think about how purely ridiculous the scenario was before I scribbled:

  What do you want from me?

  I held up the note, lifting it to eye level as he stared out above my head. I’d never felt more absurd in my life. I looked away, my breath escaping in a bit of a scoffing snort. Looking up again, I froze. His fingers were curled. The eyes I’d first seen as cloudless sky-blue were now stormy as they gazed down at me. Pleading. He was beckoning me.

  I wished he would just step down off that canvas and explain what the devil he was. Goodness, I thought, I hope he’s not the Devil—but this is certainly not the stuff of angels. This is the stuff of magic and weird—of fairies and sorcery! Perhaps there is the Devil in sorcery. I’ve not much experience in these matters, but things are not right…

  Alas, my thoughts run faster than my pen, as I seek to comprehend these recent events. I’d never wished for the faculty of speech more than in those aching moments when reality was as strangely woven as the spectacular threads of the canvas before me. So very real, and yet so very unreal.

  Perhaps my query was too broad. I moved to the console again to scribble another phrase.

  Can I help you? How?

  I held up the paper again, trying to brace my arms to hide how much they were trembling.

  But the paper fluttered to the floor, dropping from my slack fingertips as I noticed the latest change in Denbury’s portrait.

  His figure now pointed at the desk, to the blotter and the hasty, speckled pools of ink left there. Two words written there struck me to the core.

  Touch me…

  I stopped at this command, which seemed straight out of Wonderland. Alice, I recalled, had been subjected to as much terror as she was to wonder. The only sound and sensation in that moment was my heart, a roaring creature that had surpassed pounding in my chest and migrated its furious thump into my ears.

  I shivered as if he’d read my mind. Could he sense me wondering if his flesh would be warm? Surely I’d feel only cold, flat paint. Perhaps I should have thought before I moved, but I was too intrigued to have paused. After all, what harm could there be in touching a canvas? Forgive me, fellows at the Metropolitan, artists, and historians who would chastise me for touching the oils of my skin to the oils of a painting. I do realize that, in time, such action would cause damage to the piece. But this was no ordinary canvas at my fingertips.

  I moved closer, and the masterful brushstrokes became more evident, order descending into abstraction as I searched deeper. The strokes were now dimensional, piled artfully upon one another. My trembling fingers rose.

  His hand had moved again, as if during the time I’d blinked my eyes he had returned, leaving his pointing gesture behind to again reach for my hand. I was unaware of time passing, only that I was alone on the landing with this mystery. My breath hitched in tiny, anxious gasps.

  I removed my gloves, undoing their buttons, easing them slowly off, and then cast them aside.

  My fingertips hovered before his, yearning to take his hand. My body was responding, almost without my own comprehension or consent. I was in his thrall. I touched the most protruding strokes of oil, where tiny peaks and valleys had been created by the thick layers of paint, but the reality of the sensation was nothing like what I expected.

  I felt as though I were dipping my fingertips into water, as if the paint were not dry. It was as if I were reaching inside. Not into canvas or into wall, but inside the room where he stood…

  And then I tumbled through.

  The sensation was the most peculiar thing a body could experience. Perhaps if on
e had the memory to recall being born it might be something like this, a great, heaving pull and a tingling as the air and light became all antithetical: cool and warm, blinding and dark, somehow all at the same time.

  I felt a roaring explosion of sensory input, a dazzling burst of stars, and then I heard nothing but my pounding heart and then gasping sounds coming from deep in my throat. I was too disoriented to be properly frightened. I was off balance, and I pitched forward. There was a blur of dark movement and then I was swiftly caught.

  His hands gently cradled my head as he pulled me toward his chest. I suddenly felt as though I was the most precious thing in his world.

  “Thank Heaven,” he murmured against my hair. “There is yet hope.”

  His accent had a delicious, lilting British cadence. His voice was not the unsettling one of his ghost but the firm voice of a man in trouble. I took a moment to soak in his warmth and relish the feel of his arms around me. No matter that this was pure madness; it seemed as if some sort of fates had aligned.

  Timidly, I pulled away from his chest and looked into his face. His luminous blue eyes were warm and inviting. This Denbury was far more striking and alive than the shell I’d seen walk down the Art Association hall. This was the true Denbury: vibrant, tall, broad shouldered, and, as I could tell from his hold, strong.

  At the encouraging look he gave me, I could not keep myself from gently pushing back one of his errant black curls. My fingertips grazed his cheek, down to his chin, brushing his lips. Exquisite sensation. This was not how two persons introduced themselves…

  And yet he smiled, a heartwarming sight. Only a faint darkening below his eyes signaled that he was anything but the strapping picture of health. His eyes gained a sparkle as a slight grin tipped his mouth. “I assure you, I am real.”

  His speech brought me to myself again, and I nearly jumped back. How horribly forward I’d been. I could feel the blush that set my cheeks afire.

  “I beg your pardon! I don’t know what came over me,” I said.

  I said.

  I was too shocked to even consider my next words. “I…I…am…speaking?”

  The sound of my voice was faint, far away, and a bit higher in pitch than I could have imagined—but it was not like any of the ungainly sounds I’d once made in the asylum. It was not the troubled noise I’d occasionally attempted in the privacy of my room. This was a sound I could live with. A sound I’d longed to hear.

  I’m sure I should have been more terrified that I was alone in the study of a finely appointed English manor house with a beautiful man who, until a moment earlier, had existed only flat against a wall—and that I’d just gone through a painting. Yet tears of joy coursed down my cheeks at this turn.

  “What…is…happening?” I asked, touching my mouth to see if I was indeed moving my lips, if I could feel the breath upon my hand, if this was honestly the miracle it seemed. It was. What I’d known would take years of brave, unrelenting practice, now, with odd assurance, was somehow my own, by the grace of a strange and magical God whose wonders never ceased and whose bidding was not yet clear…

  “It seems we both defy propriety,” Denbury said. He slanted me a slightly wicked smile once again. “But we find ourselves in circumstances that polite society hasn’t yet come up with rules for.” His smile became strained. “Magical curses that imprison a man inside a frame defy convention. I’m Jonathon Whitby, Lord Denbury. Until this recent madness, I was resident of a fine estate in Greenwich, England. Do tell me your name, fair one, now that you can.”

  “My name is…Natalie Stewart, resident of less fine apartments in New York City, and yes, until this moment…I…have not spoken since I was very little…I…did not think I could. This…this is the stuff of my dreams and fairy tales. It’s a…miracle.”

  Denbury’s broad shoulders eased. The intensity of his gaze positively cut my breath from me. “My God, getting a miracle out of this nightmare heartens me greatly.”

  “What…happened? To you?” My words were slow, taking a moment to travel from thought to my lips, but that was to be expected of something so unpracticed.

  “I can’t exactly say. I’d lived all my life in England, and life was grand.” His bright gaze darkened. “Then my parents died, a devil was commissioned as solicitor, and I was taken for a bloody fool,” Denbury spat. “All in one day…” He whirled on me. “Miss Stewart, could you tell me what year it is?”

  “It is 1880, sir, and you are in New York City.”

  “I don’t suppose you might know if I’m…”

  “Dead?” I finished and then hesitated. “Or presumed so?”

  “You may speak freely to me,” Denbury pressed. But he added gently, “Now that you can speak, I hope you will do so freely and joyfully.”

  I smiled at him and then returned to the sobering matter at hand, wishing we had something else to discuss. Like flirtation. Alas.

  “Yes, Lord Denbury, you are presumed dead,” I fumbled. “Suicide, the newspapers say. What little I knew of you came in conjunction with the arrival of your portrait.” I blushed, still having to speak slowly, still wondering at the sound of it, the feel of it, such a thrill amid so much trepidation. “But…I saw you, your ghost. It was you, but not like you. He was…different.”

  “Yes. Something overtook me and imprisoned me here. Something’s out there…”

  I shuddered. “My father works for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I insisted they put you in the permanent collection. I…did not expect to be a part of it myself,” I said, wringing my hands. A sudden stab of fear pierced me. Now that I was here, would I be able to get out?

  When I could take my eyes off him, which was admittedly difficult, I looked more closely at our surroundings. The study was exactly as it had appeared in two dimensions, only now it was in three. But everything looked odd, foreshortened—like a stage set. The fine Persian rugs and gold fountain pens spoke of the grandeur of Lord Denbury’s estate, and yet everything was slightly blurred around the edges. It was a dream state where things were beautiful at first glance but a bit off upon the second…

  How then had he, and I, come to this unbelievable pass? Everything I thought I knew about the world had just been proven infinitely more complicated.

  “You were never in England?” he asked suddenly.

  I shook my head. “Why?”

  “There’s…something about you. Familiar. That sounds mad. Well, you’re in a painting, which tops madness, but—”

  He’d touched upon the same troubling notion I’d had when I’d first read the newspaper article about him. An inexplicable familiarity. We stared at each other. “What do you last remember?”

  “Him. The demon. Unwittingly, I invited something terrible into my home. After my parents died, it all became a blur,” Denbury murmured ruefully.

  Of course he still grieved. He took to pacing. His movement didn’t help my nerves, but it seemed to keep his energy more focused.

  “The demon commanded me with terrible power.” Denbury rubbed his head, disheveling a lock of that lustrous black hair, as if by touching his skull he might gain a clearer sense of his own predicament. “And I hardly can remember the face of the one who overtook me. But Crenfall I remember. He was the one who took me to—” Denbury halted, his face suddenly red, shamed. “Well, I…woke bound. There was some sort of terrible ritual. Then this prison.”

  He wasn’t, obviously, being entirely forthcoming. But I didn’t press him. He placed a hand on his chest as if testing his own solidity, saying, “I feel my body here. And yet…”

  “And yet I saw you out in the world,” I blurted. “Did the…demon, as you say, have strange eyes, dark eyes, almost like—”

  “An animal’s,” Denbury finished. “Reflecting strangely, like a dog’s.”

  I nodded. “Then that’s what I saw. Who I saw. He’s taken on your face as his own.”

  Denbury pounded his fist on his desk in fury. “The bloody bastard!” He turned away, clenching h
is fists as if looking to strike something. He sighed. “My apologies for such language in the presence of a lady, Miss Stewart,” he said as he came back to himself and turned to stare out at the world beyond.

  “That’s all right. I imagine I’d curse anyone who put me in such straits.”

  The frame of the painting looked like a doorway as I turned to follow Denbury’s gaze. I vaguely recognized the area beyond the frame as Mrs. Northe’s landing, but as if it were seen through a faraway lens, a pool of water between these two distinct places, shimmering and obscured.

  And that was when I saw myself.

  As if through a darkened glass, I stood with fingertips outstretched, my face blank. My goodness, I was in two. Part of me was here; part of me was there. “Oh my…” I breathed.

  I was still so taken by being in Denbury’s presence, by how it felt to be clutched in his arms, by the sound of his voice, and still reeling from the overwhelming shock of hearing my own voice that I couldn’t be troubled that there were two of me. But it was yet another blow atop the many I’d already received. I’d never been so assaulted.

  “Yes.” Denbury gestured to my body outside. “Just as you see yourself, I also seem to be two, mind split from body. I shudder to think what the devil’s making of me. Where am I, then? I’ve seen a tall woman. There’s a light about her—”

  “Surely that’s Mrs. Evelyn Northe, Lord Denbury. You’re in her home. She’s a magnificent woman and an excellent hostess. She owns your portrait but plans to move it to the Metropolitan. Your canvas is truly an unparalleled work of art, but as it stands—”

  “Oh, there’s nothing else like it, I’m quite sure,” Denbury muttered.

  “And she knows it,” I assured eagerly. “She’s kept it out of evil hands. You have a friend in Mrs. Northe. She knew there was something about you from the very first. I wish you were truly with us in New York to appreciate her hospitality under better circumstances.”

  “I like New Yorkers,” he offered.

  “I like the English,” I blurted. Then blushed. That was a stupid thing to say. Surely Maggie would have said something more clever. Or perhaps she’d have simply gaped at him. I couldn’t be sure. I had to give myself credit for forming words at all, considering that speaking was entirely foreign.