Still Life

by Jacqueline West

  “Olive!” Mr. Dunwoody’s voice rang up the staircase. “Would you come down to the kitchen, please?”

  With a last look at the darkened still life, Olive turned and trudged slowly down the steps.

  She had expected to find her parents making dinner, measuring precise ratios, discussing boiling points of various sauces. What she found instead made her stop with a jerk.

  Ms. Teedlebaum was seated at the kitchen table. The kitchen light in its stained-glass shade burned above her, catching on her bushy hair and leaving the rest of her face in shadow. Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody sat like smiling bookends on either side. All three of them looked up as Olive froze in the doorway.

  “Come in, Olive,” her father said brightly. “Have a seat.”

  Olive inched across the floor.

  Ms. Teedlebaum’s faceted green eyes followed her.

  “I was just telling your parents what a promising young artist you are, Olive,” she said.

  Olive perched on the empty chair as if it were upholstered with cactuses.

  “Her work in class is always exemplary.” Ms. Teedlebaum’s voice sounded even sparklier than usual. “She seems to have a real passion for art.”

  “Olive has always been very creative,” said Mr. Dunwoody, in a but-we-make-the-best-of-it tone.

  “Yes, she started asking for sketch paper instead of graphing paper by the time she was four years old,” Mrs. Dunwoody added with a little sigh.

  “During our trip to the art museum, Olive impressed me again,” said Ms. Teedlebaum, leaning forward over her steaming mug of tea. “She identified a very rare two-layered painting, all on her own. She has a gift for spotting hidden truths, doesn’t she?”

  Olive swallowed. Sitting across the table from Ms. Teedlebaum felt like standing too close to a splattering frying pan. She looked down at the art teacher’s fingers wrapped loosely around the mug.

  “You’re right, Florence,” said Mrs. Dunwoody. “Olive often notices things that we don’t. Isn’t that true, dear?”

  “Hmm?” said Mr. Dunwoody, who was counting the crystals of sugar falling from his spoon into his cup.

  Olive went on staring at Ms. Teedlebaum’s hands. They looked strangely clean. Even the art teacher’s fingernails, which were usually tipped with little half-moons of brightly colored paint, were spotless.

  “I certainly understand her fascination with the museum,” Ms. Teedlebaum was saying, taking her hands off the table and clasping them in her lap. “I share it myself. But I’m afraid I have one problem to temper all this praise.”

  Mr. Dunwoody looked up from his mug.

  Olive held her breath.

  Ms. Teedlebaum let out a sad little sigh. “It seems that Olive sneaked back into the museum after it was closed on Saturday.”

  The breath in Olive’s lungs turned to ice.

  “If she’d just been exploring the place after hours, I wouldn’t even have come here tonight,” said Ms. Teedlebaum, sounding almost apologetic. “I would believe that she’d just gotten carried away by the artworks and lost track of time. But I am quite certain that wasn’t what happened. You see—she was spotted by a security guard, not long after closing. He says that she was clearly trying to hide from him. And just a little while later, I saw her myself, in the basement’s storage room.”

  The ice in Olive’s lungs splintered into shards.

  “We could have reported this to the police, of course, but I didn’t think there was any need for that kind of trouble.” Ms. Teedlebaum gave a little cough. “Not when a friendly visit over a cup of tea would do.”

  There was a moment of silence while everyone stared at Olive.

  Olive couldn’t speak.

  Her parents didn’t have this problem.

  “Is that true, Olive?” Mr. Dunwoody asked.

  “Did you stay at the museum after closing?” asked Mrs. Dunwoody at the same time.

  Olive blinked from one parent to the other. She nodded reluctantly.

  “Was it simply a mistake?” Mr. Dunwoody sounded hopeful. “Maybe you didn’t know that you weren’t supposed to be there?”

  Olive shook her head even more reluctantly.

  “I wish that were the case, Alec,” said Ms. Teedlebaum. She looked straight into Olive’s eyes. “But you see, it seems that Olive stole something—something of value—from the museum’s collection.”

  Olive felt her whole body freeze, from the toes inside her socks to the hairs on the back of her neck. Every tiny, terrified cell was waiting for Ms. Teedlebaum’s next words. Because Olive—and all of her cells and toes and hairs—had just figured out the truth.

  Ms. Teedlebaum knew.

  She knew about the Nivenses. And if she knew about them, she knew about Elsewhere. And if she knew about Elsewhere, she knew about Aldous McMartin, who had been hiding in the museum’s dim, dry basement. And if she had learned the truth about Aldous without getting trapped or destroyed in return, then she was working for him.

  And now she would say, with perfect honesty, Olive stole a painting . . . and the Dunwoodys would make Olive give it back.

  “What is she believed to have stolen?” asked Mrs. Dunwoody.

  “It was a pair of antique spectacles,” said Ms. Teedlebaum.

  Something shot through Olive’s body with the speed and ferocity of a firework. She felt the ice shattering, the petrified pieces of her heart threatening to explode.

  “What?” she choked.

  But she didn’t need to hear Ms. Teedlebaum’s words again. Her mind had already flashed from one truth to another.

  Ms. Teedlebaum wasn’t going to stop with the Nivenses. She was after an even bigger secret.

  “They are extremely valuable,” the art teacher was explaining to the Dunwoodys. “Their age and their history make them most unusual, and they belonged to one of our greatest local artists.” Her spotless hands floated back to the tabletop, fingernails tapping against her mug. “I must ask for them back.”

  Mr. Dunwoody looked confused. “Did you take a pair of spectacles, Olive?”

  “I—” said Olive.

  “I believe they are hanging around her neck right now,” said Ms. Teedlebaum.

  The Dunwoodys looked at Olive’s collar, where Ms. Teedlebaum’s gaze was already locked. Reluctantly, Olive reached into her sweater. She tugged out the spectacles on their purple ribbon.

  “I—I didn’t steal them,” said Olive, managing to force out a sentence at last. “I found them. They were—”

  “I understand,” said Ms. Teedlebaum, tipping her head sympathetically to one side. “They were just lying there, and no one was using them—but they are not yours, are they?”

  “Well—no, but—”

  “Olive appears to have a fascination with eyewear,” said Mrs. Dunwoody.

  “Yes,” Mr. Dunwoody agreed. “Wasn’t she playing with another pair of old glasses that she found last summer?”

  “I wasn’t playing with them,” said Olive. “I was—”

  “Maybe she simply needs glasses of her own.” Mrs. Dunwoody gave Olive an encouraging nod. “We’ll take you to the optometrist first thing this week, Olive.”

  “No—I don’t need glasses, I—”

  “Then you won’t mind quite so much when I ask you to return them.” Ms. Teedlebaum held out her hand, palm up, over the kitchen table. “If you just give them back to me now, Olive, we can forget that this whole thing ever happened.”

  Olive caught her lip between her teeth. Panic and anger and confusion spiraled inside of her like the sharp metal bit of a drill. Her parents watched her. Ms. Teedlebaum waited, wearing a forgiving little smile.

  Very, very slowly, Olive pulled the ribbon over her head. She folded the spectacles with a click. Fingers shaking, she set them down in Ms. Teedlebaum’s cold, smooth palm.

  �
��Well done, Olive,” said Mr. Dunwoody.

  “You can pick out glasses of your own at the optometrist’s,” said Mrs. Dunwoody.

  “Thank you so much, Alec and Alice,” said Ms. Teedlebaum, rising to her feet. To Olive, she looked suddenly, terribly tall. “And thank you most of all, Olive,” she went on. “You’ve done the right thing.”

  Olive swallowed.

  Ms. Teedlebaum wrapped her sparkly cloak around her shoulders. “If you don’t mind, might I have a word alone with your daughter?” she asked, looking from Mr. to Mrs. Dunwoody. “Perhaps she could walk me to the door?”

  “Certainly.” Mr. Dunwoody picked up Ms. Teedlebaum’s cup of tea. “Thank you for stopping by personally, Florence.”

  “Yes,” added Mrs. Dunwoody. “You’re welcome in our house anytime.”

  Olive walked ahead of Ms. Teedlebaum through the darkened hallway. No one had turned on the sconces, and the light through the windows was wintery and pale, leaving most of the hall in blackness. Olive could hear the gentle clink of Ms. Teedlebaum’s necklaces, but the teacher didn’t speak.

  Olive yanked open the heavy front door. The snow was falling fast and hard, thick flakes blotting out the streetlamps. Cold air rushed into the hall.

  Olive shuddered.

  Ms. Teedlebaum didn’t. “Step outside with me, will you, Olive?” she murmured.

  Olive slunk to one side, waiting for Ms. Teedlebaum to step through before following her onto the snowy porch. She kept one hand on the doorknob, just in case.

  A few quiet seconds passed. Olive shivered. Ms. Teedlebaum kept perfectly still.

  Finally, Olive whispered, “You’re working for him, aren’t you?”

  The cold wind tugged her words away, but she knew Ms. Teedlebaum heard. Her eyes fastened on Olive’s, light green and glittering.

  “Maybe you met him at the museum,” Olive went on. “Maybe he promised to teach you about his paintings. Maybe he promised to make you like him. You just had to help him first.”

  For another instant, Ms. Teedlebaum was quiet. Then a slow, snaky smile spread across her face. “Oh, Olive,” she said, in a voice that didn’t sound like Ms. Teedlebaum’s anymore. “So close, and yet so completely wrong.”

  Ms. Teedlebaum lifted one long-fingered hand to her head. She gave a strong, steady pull, and her mass of frizzy red hair slid from her scalp. Olive couldn’t hold back a gasp. Ms. Teedlebaum wore a wig! But why would anyone choose hair that looked like it belonged to an electrocuted clown? Then she saw that it wasn’t just the hair that had peeled away. Part of Ms. Teedlebaum’s face had come with it.

  A limp, bloodless strip, like a piece of very thin leather, had torn from her forehead. Another shade of skin—paler and rougher—glimmered beneath. Olive stared, frozen to the floorboards. The long-fingered hand went on pulling. The art teacher’s cheek stretched and split. The rip plunged downward, streaks of fleshy color glinting, as her shoulder and chest and arm tore away. Ms. Teedlebaum reached up with her other hand, tugging down the sparkly cloak and the long, flowing dress and the skin beneath it, until the layers of her body—kinky red hair, flowing dress, empty skin—lay in a heap on the icy porch floor.

  Nausea flooded Olive’s stomach.

  She stared from the scraps of Ms. Teedlebaum to the body now standing in their midst. It was dressed in a dark suit. Long legs led up to a bony chest, a pair of wide, humped shoulders, and a craggy, sunken, horrible face.

  Olive tried to step backward, but her legs had turned to lead. She could only stand in place, breathing hard, staring up at a pair of eyes that burned against the swirling snow.

  “Pentimento,” said Aldous McMartin, in his own deep voice. “One painting hidden inside another.”

  Rutherford, Olive thought. Get your grandmother, get Walter, and—

  Aldous stepped forward. “Too late, Olive Dunwoody,” he said. A smile hovered on his face, as faint and impermanent as dew on a stone. “I am home at last.”

  A blast of wind swept across the porch. Flying snow stung Olive’s skin. She tried to lunge into the house, but Aldous’s bony hand lashed out, knocking her backward

  A cascade of blackness dropped over her. It shut out the snowy street, the freezing air, and, finally, that pair of burning eyes. Olive felt herself dissolving. With one last hiss of frigid wind, the spark of her mind winked out.

  OLIVE’S EYELIDS FLICKED open.

  She was lying on her back. A deep violet sky floated above her.

  She twitched her legs and wiggled her fingers. Nothing hurt. Nothing seemed to be missing. As she moved, she could hear the sleepy sound of long grass whispering against her ears.

  Grass?

  Olive sat up.

  She was lying on her own front lawn. The old stone house loomed above her, a few gold lights gleaming in its windows. Morton’s house stood next door, and Mrs. Dewey’s cozy white house nestled on its lawn just down the street.

  Olive glanced down. The ground where she lay was dewy and cool, and soft mists were pillowed on the curve of the hill. How had she closed her eyes in wintertime and opened them in spring? Had she fallen off the front porch and slept through an entire season?

  She patted the front of her sweater. And where had the spectacles gone?

  Olive clambered to her feet. In the spot where she’d lain, the grass rustled as it straightened itself.

  She took another look around. She knew this misty hill, and this empty, car-less street. She knew the houses that waited here in frightened silence.

  This wasn’t her front lawn at all.

  This was Elsewhere.

  And the old stone house was towering above her.

  On the whole painted street, this had been the one house that was missing. The space beside Morton’s house had been noticeably bare, disturbingly bare, like a socket without an eye.

  But now, here it was. The old stone house.

  The swing hung on its porch. Ivy tendrils climbed its walls. Lush baskets of ferns dangled above its front steps. It was captured in every perfect, painted detail.

  Olive’s mind whirled. She stumbled backward, looking around for anyone who could explain. Through the mist, she spotted three blurry figures in front of Mrs. Dewey’s house. Olive lunged toward them.

  The mist thinned as she ran across the lawns. Soon she could see that one of the figures was long-legged and knobby, like a water bird wearing a baggy sweater. One was short and round with tiny feet. And one was wiry and quick-moving, with a head of very messy hair.

  “Rutherford?” Olive shouted. “Walter! Mrs. Dewey!”

  “Well, hello, Olive,” said Mrs. Dewey pleasantly, straightening up from a patch of leafy shrubs. Behind their tiny wire-rim glasses, her eyes were the same color as the mist. “A lovely evening, isn’t it?”

  “Lovely—what?” said Olive. “You . . . What happened?”

  Mrs. Dewey blinked. “What do you mean, dear?”

  Olive gestured around the quiet street. “How did we get here?”

  “Well, we came out to gather Drowsy Grayleaf,” said Mrs. Dewey. “It only unfurls at night.”

  “I—mmm—I think I found some,” said Walter, who had to fold his long legs nearly up to his ears in order to reach the ground.

  “Very good, Walter,” said Mrs. Dewey over his shoulder.

  “You might think that something called Drowsy Grayleaf would be used in sleeping spells,” said Rutherford to Olive, “but that is not the case. It got its name because the leaf itself acts drowsy.”

  “No—but—” Olive spluttered. “I mean, how did you get here? Elsewhere?”

  Mrs. Dewey and Walter looked up, puzzled.

  “Elsewhere?” Rutherford repeated.

  “You’re in a painting! This is a painting!” Olive burst out, flinging her arms through the misty air.

  The other three
glanced at one another.

  “Mmm—I think—” said Walter, looking worried. “I think you might be—mmm—”

  “Hallucinating,” Rutherford supplied. “Or sleepwalking. Or you’re having another experience of pareidolia. Maybe you saw the water vapor re-form itself, and assumed this was Elsewhere.”

  “Rutherford.” Olive released an exasperated breath. “Look!” She kicked a pebble on the walkway as hard as she could. It bumped weakly across the lawn before flying back to its original spot.

  “I’m not sure what you’re trying to demonstrate, except that you should not plan on a career in professional soccer,” said Rutherford.

  Olive grabbed him by the arm. “Read my thoughts. Please. Believe me.”

  Behind their lenses, Rutherford’s brown eyes were paler and softer than usual. “I believe that you believe it,” he said.

  “Olive,” said Mrs. Dewey, picking droopy gray leaves that flew straight back to their stems, “why don’t you come inside with us? There are infusions I could make that might—”

  “No.” Olive took a step backward. Her eyes followed Mrs. Dewey’s hands, plucking the same leaf over and over again. “That’s—that’s okay.”

  “Come back if you change your mind!” Mrs. Dewey called as Olive turned and bolted away.

  She ran across the Nivenses’ front yard, stopping suddenly at the sight of a glimmering candle in the parlor window. As Olive veered up the walkway, more lights came into view: a burning lamp in the living room, another candle flickering upstairs. She’d never seen so many lights in Morton’s quiet house.

  The painted front door tried to pull itself shut again, but Olive managed to pry it open just long enough to slip inside.

  Morton, his mother, and his father were gathered around a piano in the living room. Mary was playing a loud, lively tune that Olive didn’t recognize, and Harold and Morton were singing along in one deep bass voice and one light squeaky one.