Phantoms

by Marie O'Regan

  This, then, became her life. The days belonged to her – days filled with long walks along the river, household chores and gossip – and the nights belonged to him. Summer slid slowly into autumn into winter. Still, the work continued.

  Now, though, William had begun to indicate that he was entering some penultimate stage in the painting’s development, for his excitement was palpable. He’d swapped his earlier brushes for smaller, more intimate ones, and he’d abandoned shaving – or any sort of personal grooming – sprouting a wiry auburn beard and a wild, dishevelled look. When she arrived each night, he’d already be lost in the midst of his work, and he’d barely glance at her as she undressed by the side of the bed. Where once his eyes had lingered on her with such longing, now they barely strayed from the painting, and his appetite was only for the woman there, this new, alternate version of Ariadne that she was yet to see – the unwelcome interloper in their affair.

  This alteration in William’s temperament coincided with a similar alteration in Ariadne’s health. Whether it was a symptom of the changing seasons, or something more insidious, she could not say, but the days sapped her strength, and she felt a weariness creeping into her bones that she could not shake. She grew pale, and dark rings formed beneath her eyes, yet William barely seemed to notice, as if his vision of her was unshakeable. In attempting to paint the reality of her, he had succeeded only in rendering the real Ariadne a fiction.

  Yet still, she persevered. He was so close now, and they had come so far. There’d be time to rest once it was done.

  * * *

  The work is progressing well. It’s late on a Friday evening, and Rae is supposed to be out with her friends, but she’s made her excuses and remained at the workshop, hunkered down over the painting, unwilling to break away from the complex task at hand. She hasn’t even stopped to make tea for the last few hours, not since Margot left for the weekend. Outside, in the street below the workshop, she can hear drunken people falling about and laughing, the vocal track to the deep, thudding beat emanating from one of the nearby clubs. She has no idea what time it is, but it’s irrelevant; she’s already decided to work through the night.

  Her boyfriend is concerned that she’s working too hard, returning home weary, skipping meals, barely exchanging two words with him. She knows he’s right, but the work has become too important to her, and he’ll still be there when it’s finished. Just another few days and she’ll be done.

  More than ever, she feels what she’s doing here is somehow vital. The woman is slowly beginning to emerge from the painting, brought back to life with every dab of paint. This is more reconstruction than restoration – she recognises that – but it’s almost as if she can feel the original artist guiding her hand, ensuring the placement of every brushstroke. She thinks if she were to stop, her hand might well continue of its own volition, urged on by that spectral link to the past.

  It’s almost as if she can sense the woman’s impatience, her need to be remembered; as if the original sitter is present in the workshop, watching over Rae’s shoulder, urging her on and on, desperate for the work to be completed.

  Rae knows that she’s imagining this – she’s never been one to believe in such tales – but she finds the thought strangely comforting. She’s felt a connection with this forgotten woman since the very moment she first saw her, back at the manor house, up in the dusty gallery. It’s as if, in excavating her from beneath the layers of blistered paint, Rae is somehow revealing some secret truth.

  The woman in the painting, Rae is now convinced, is not some typical client of Foxley’s. She’s studied photographs of his known works online, and while she lacks the provenance to prove her theory, she’s certain that the work is his. This portrait, though, feels somehow more personal than the others; in the way that Foxley forgoes the typical trappings of his other work – the overblown sense of drama, the finery, the polished gleam. It’s clear those other portraits were intended to flatter, whereas this feels more real, more alive. This is not simply a portrait – it is a study, a window into a woman’s soul. It feels dangerous and exciting, like no painting Rae has encountered before.

  She quickens her pace. In her mind’s eye, she can see the finished work, resplendent, beautiful. She can sense the woman’s smile, the peace that follows its completion. It’s almost like setting her free.

  Rae flexes the muscles in her neck, issues a long sigh. She’s so tired, and so cold. And yet she cannot stop. Not until it’s done. Then she can rest.

  * * *

  The cold had crept into her bones and settled, and no amount of blankets or logs upon the fire could banish it. She knew now that this was no mere ailment, to be treated by rest, or herbs, or doctors. This was something far deeper, a malaise of the soul, from which she could never recover.

  She was bedridden, too weak to even leave the confines of William’s rooms. She craved the sight of the pale sky, the kiss of the breeze, the pungent smells of the river.

  William remained with her, day and night, and yet his attentions were perfunctory, a symptom of necessity. He brought her soup and water and propped her up against the pillows. From time to time he sat with her while she ate, saying nothing, all the while thinking of the painting. She could tell this from the way his eyes flicked continually to his easel and his hands fidgeted nervously, by the way he grew agitated when he was separated from it for too long, and would hurriedly clear away her bowl the moment she indicated she was finished.

  These last few days he’d seemed almost resentful, as he hurried to splash the thin, tasteless gruel into the wooden bowl. He’d worked through the nights, snatching only an hour or two of sleep before returning to the canvas. The place reeked, and she knew that sour smell was the scent of her own impending death. Yet still she held on, clinging to the last vestiges of her life – waiting for the painting to be completed.

  It had become the centre of their existence. Their world had shrunk to contain just these paltry few rooms and each other, and their only purpose was the completion of the work. She longed to be free of it.

  So it was that, with the crowing of the birds one morning in the early spring, William threw down his brushes and issued a heartfelt cry of triumph that threatened to wake the entire neighbourhood.

  Ariadne – so weak now that she could barely stir – opened her eyes with startled surprise, forcing herself up on one elbow. “It’s done,” she said, her voice brittle and dry, like the rasp of barley husks in the wind.

  “It’s done.” He paced to the window, and then to the door, and then back to the easel, as if suddenly lost, or excited, or uncertain. “It’s everything I hoped it would be. A portrait for all the ages. You shall be preserved here for all time, a thing of beauty and wonder.”

  She breathed deeply, and then let it out, steadying her nerves. In all this time, she had seen nothing of the work, not a single glimpse. She almost did not want to see it, for she knew what it represented, what it meant to them both. Yet she had to be sure it had been worth it. She had to know. “Let me see.”

  He nodded, reaching for the easel. His hands paused upon the frame, as if, even now, he remained hesitant to share it with her. But then he lifted the easel and turned it to face her, and she saw that, for the first time, he had succeeded. He had achieved everything he had set out to do. He had painted the truth.

  The woman in the painting was her. Not a mere expression of her, not a facsimile rendered in oils; the woman staring back at her was more real than she was. He had captured her essence, painted with the medium of her soul. He had taken everything she was and placed it upon that canvas, and now she, herself, was an empty husk. There was nothing more of her left. He had given her an immortality she had never wanted, a prison made of paint.

  “Now I can be with you forever,” he said. He crossed to the bed, sat down beside her. He took her hand in his. His skin felt warm. There was no sadness in his eyes. “It’s finished, now. You can rest. We both can.”

  Ariadne wa
nted to rage at him, to beat her fists upon his chest, to demand he destroy the thing, but the light was fading, and she could no longer muster the strength. Her mind drifting back to that moment, all those months ago, when she had first posed for him in the moonlight, and he had sketched her body, and she had felt truly alive.

  She closed her eyes, and quietly slipped away.

  * * *

  It’s nearly finished now.

  Hours have rolled into days. Time passes in a blur, and if she stops to consider it for too long, she grows nauseous, as if she’s suffering from motion sickness like she did as a child, watching the world flit by from the rear seat of her dad’s car. She can focus on nothing but the painting.

  She hasn’t slept for days. There have been moments where she’s blacked out, her head lolling forward, unable to continue any longer, but then she’s come round again to find herself still sitting at the easel, her hand frantically darting back and forth across the canvas, the brush still firmly gripped between her fingers.

  Before her, the woman looks out from the depths of the canvas with a devilish smile, and for the first time, Rae notices that there’s something vaguely sinister in the curve of the woman’s lips, something knowing, expectant. Where before Rae had read only serenity, amusement, warmth – now she reads desire. It is as if the expression has changed as she’s worked, and the closer she’s got to completing her work, the more determined the woman’s expression has become.

  She realises it’s time to stop. She’s been working too hard, for too long. It’s as if the painting has somehow been tightening its grip upon her, and she needs to step away, to break its spell.

  She knows this is only tiredness at work. Her mind is beginning to imagine things that aren’t there, to read intentions into things that can have no intent. And yet, when she tries to pull away, she feels a soft pressure at her back, encouraging her to stay.

  Disturbed, she attempts to put down the paintbrush, but her hand seems to ignore her command, continuing its jaunty dance across the painting. Frowning, she tries again, and this time the pressure is more firm, more insistent – as if someone is leaning on her shoulders, pressing her down into the stool, forcing her hand to keep on working. A cool breath on the back of her neck makes her skin crawl.

  She feels panic flare.

  “Margot? Margot!”

  But Margot isn’t there. It’s the weekend. There’s no one else in the building.

  Rae screams, trying urgently to drag herself away from the easel. But she’s feeling so weak, so tired, so cold, and this other presence, this other person, is so insistent, so strong. She doesn’t have the strength to fight back.

  She glances up at her hand. The brush is darting around the portrait’s eyes, her hand operating under the volition of this other. She realises that she’s no longer even working with oils; the pigments on her palette must have run out hours ago, yet still colour flows from the tip of the brush, reinvigorating the picture before her eyes. What, then, is she dabbing onto the canvas?

  And now she sees what she has missed. The woman in the painting – it’s Rae. Somehow, in her delirium, she’s lost track, she’s missed the moment when the change occurred, when she started to paint herself into the portrait.

  She doesn’t understand what’s going on, how all of this is happening to her.

  “For all the ages,” a woman’s voice whispers in her ear.

  She knows then that the voice belongs to the woman in the painting – a woman so desperate to be free, to be remembered, that she has coerced Rae into taking her place.

  The light is growing dim. Rae feels her hand drop away from the easel. She slumps forward, suddenly released.

  But this is no release.

  * * *

  The woman is looking straight at her, lips curled in an amused half-smile – a smile that is terribly familiar.

  Rae stares back, unable to avert her gaze. She’s sitting on a stool in a workshop. It’s dark, and silvery moonlight slants in through the window behind her. She’s wearing a scarlet dress, her hands folded neatly on her lap.

  The woman leans closer. “Thank you,” she says.

  Rae tries to speak, to implore the woman to help her, to not leave her like this – but no words are forthcoming. All she can do is watch.

  The woman turns and walks away, and Rae stares after her, a silent scream forming on her unmoving lips.

  ONE NEW FOLLOWER

  Mark A. Latham

  “Here you go, one pint of lager.” Dave put two glasses down. Foam dripped over the sides.

  “Hmm?” Kyle said, tearing his eyes reluctantly from his phone screen. He frowned a little when he saw that Dave hadn’t bothered with a beer-mat. Frowned fully when it finally registered what was in front of him. “I was on ale,” he protested, feebly.

  “Asked you three times.” Dave shrugged. “Glued to your phone, weren’t you? Had to make a best guess.” He winked at Steve.

  “What’s so interesting, anyway?” Steve asked, tearing open a bag of salted nuts. “You’ve barely said a word tonight. Again.”

  Kyle took one last look at the screen, pressed SEND, and closed the app, shoving the phone back into his jeans pocket. “Alright, alright,” he said. “I’m all yours.”

  “No, come on, don’t be all mysterious,” Steve pressed, through a mouthful of half-chewed snacks.

  “It’s his photography app,” Dave interrupted. “New obsession.” He gave Kyle a knowing smirk.

  “It’s a bit more than that,” Kyle said, slurping the head off his pint. “It’s called ‘ViewFindr’, you know, ‘finder’ without the ‘e’.”

  “Like Grindr?” Dave asked. Steve snorted lager out of his nose.

  “Look, it’s a photo app, but it’s also a social media platform. No daft filters, no forced crops… It turns your smartphone into a proper camera. Or, rather, it makes your phone act like an artist’s sketchbook for getting your compositions right. You just find a subject, go snap-happy, and it auto-uploads to your online workspace. Then your friends offer critique live and raw. Help you perfect the shot.”

  “Friends.” Dave sniggered.

  “Sounds like a bloody nightmare,” Steve said. “Too many cooks…”

  “You would say that,” Kyle laughed. Steve was an architect, and he was a notorious perfectionist. If anyone so much as glanced at his drawing board when they were in his studio he’d tense up. Offering an opinion before he was finished was strictly verboten.

  “Anyway,” Dave said, “what you’re saying is you’ve got a bunch of virtual mates on your phone who’re more interesting than your actual mates. Who you hardly ever see these days, I might add.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Kyle held up his hands. “Guilty as charged. Look, the phone’s away now. I’m all yours.”

  “Never will understand why you moved to that little village, city boy like you.”

  “Well, it’s for work, innit? Thought it might inspire me.” He didn’t want to admit that he’d needed a change of air after Cassie had left. He’d moved to a little cottage about fifteen miles outside the city, although it’d had such an impact on his social life it might as well have been a hundred.

  “And has it?” Dave asked.

  Kyle laughed. “Not really, no. Actually, I’m off out for a proper nature walk tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll get some good shots for an exhibition. Found out about it on ViewFindr, as it happens.”

  As one, his friends rolled their eyes.

  * * *

  Kyle trudged down a narrow footpath, wellingtons caked in mud. His dog, Bertie, ran through the muck gleefully, legs like black socks. It was good to see the old boy happy, but Kyle didn’t relish the thought of bathing him later.

  He hadn’t picked the best day for it. The sky was the colour of tired linen, and fine, gauzy rain drifted from the heavens, settling on Kyle’s waterproofs, dripping from the brim of his hood in oily beads. He told himself it was a scouting mission – he’d find some good shots, upload them t
o ViewFindr, and come back when the light was better for the final photos.

  He was hoping that some desolate, melancholy subject would present itself. A pile of rusting farm machinery; a lightning-blasted tree; a deer carcass half-chewed by a fox. The kind of thing his friends would poke fun at him for, but that would complement his long-unfinished series. His friends, come to think of it, had never understood his work, no more than they’d understood his house move. Steve and Dave looked and sounded like jack-the-lads down the pub, had done ever since the three of them had been thick as thieves at uni, but in real life, they were successful professionals; Steve was a partner in his architect’s firm and Dave was a solicitor. They had matching canal-side flats in the city centre, within walking distance of work and their favourite bars. Proper townies. Steve couldn’t even drive.

  The track ahead narrowed, and sloped inwards in a “v”, causing Kyle to take toddler steps as his feet slipped awkwardly in the mud. He couldn’t even go off-road: the undergrowth was thick and gnarled and full of thorns. Bertie was having a field day, sticking his head into every bush, prompting the occasional rustle as he disturbed some creature or other.

  Kyle checked his phone, covering the screen with a hand to protect it from the rain. He’d been walking for a grand total of thirty minutes from his front door. There was good 4G coverage. He could still just about hear the main road traffic over the wind and the rain. Despite not being far from civilisation, and the footpath being clearly marked, he hadn’t encountered another living soul. The random guy on ViewFindr had said hardly anyone ever came here. That morning, Kyle had asked the newsagent, Mr Booth, if he ever came here with his dogs, and the old fellow said he’d never heard of it. Stranger still, this particular walk, although fairly long, didn’t seem to have a name on any maps Kyle could find online.

  He entered an overgrown field with the whisper of a narrow track winding through it. In the distance, through the grey haze, Kyle could make out the shadow of some buildings, maybe a barn, and a tall mobile phone mast – that explained the coverage. Either side of the field, the undergrowth gave way to neat rows of saplings, their trunks encased in plastic tubes and chicken-wire – maybe Kyle would get some deer photos after all, even if they were live ones.