by Paula Guran
Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shhhhhhh.
Terry stood, tried to pull her from the piano, but she was a dead weight.
“Ava, come on, we have to go!” He knew he was speaking, he could hear his voice in his head, but the sound he made was swallowed up, absorbed by the quiet of the room.
The silence was enveloping everything, feeding on the sounds they made, stealing them, leaving nothing behind in its wake. A blank slate. Terry tried again to wrench Ava from the piano, from this parasitic house, but silence closed in around them. His mind emptied, blackness swirled instead, accompanied by the sound of air being sucked away. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh.
Terry put his hands to his ears, trying to stop the pain in his head. He reeled against it, falling into the piano, knocking the urn from its perch.
It all happened so slowly in the quiet room that it had the same blurred quality as his dreams. The urn rolled to its side, silently tumbling toward the ground, knocking against the piano lid on its way down and releasing an enormous cloud of ash.
The particles swirled into the air, caught in a whirlwind, and for a brief moment Prue stood before them. She looked at Terry and opened her mouth into an exaggerated smile.
The house, he realized, created the silence for other sounds. Sounds suppressed or obscured, dormant or tacit. Sounds long dead, buried deep in the heart, called back again to speak out, amplified by the vacuous silence of the room.
Ava had tried to warn him, though she’d been bound to silence in her role as dutiful daughter. She’d always been caught between two parents and Terry felt a sudden overwhelming sense of sadness for his daughter.
Prue stopped smiling. Her mouth opened wider and wider, her face collapsing into a yawning, swirling hole. Terry stared into the hollow and saw only the darkness at the heart. A low rumbling like distant thunder emerged from the pit of it, then a cacophonous melancholy strung out into the room. He’d been the author of those sounds he’d realized, of her anguish and grief. But it wasn’t too late—
“Prue,” he tried to say, but the words couldn’t compete with the piercing discord. He placed his hands to his ears. The notes became louder and louder, starting to come together, flowing into the familiar melody. Climbing higher and higher, as if to the gods. The crescendo surged into the room from her mouth, spiraling around as if in flight. The music broke against him like a wave, and in awe he opened his mouth dumbfounded and swallowed it all down.
The dead have no choice but to listen, but Prue always answered back. He should have known she’d want to have the last word.
The sound of the urn shattering broke Ava from her trance. She glanced at the shattered remains on the floor then looked toward her father.
“Dad? Dad?”
Terry could feel the ash in his throat, silted around his larynx. A cloud of ash and dust rested in his gullet. He reached for his voice but felt only his absence. Yet in his mind all he could hear was music.
V. H. Leslie’s stories have appeared in Black Static, Interzone, Weird Fiction Review, Strange Tales IV, Best British Horror, and Best British Fantasy. She has also had fiction and non-fiction published in Shadows and Tall Trees and is a columnist for This is Horror. She was recently awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship and the Lightship First Chapter Prize; 2015 will see the release of her novella “Bodies of Water” as part of the Remains series from Salt Publishing and her debut short story collection, Skein and Bone, from Undertow Books. More information on the author can be found at vhleslie.wordpress.com.
Girder’s art challenges people because he fills it with his turmoil in order to exorcise himself . . .
Emotional Dues
Simon Strantzas
Girder looked for somewhere to park. His rusted Chevy felt out of place on the tree-lined Bridle Path, its rust-orange holes like neon lights announcing his presence. He felt the neighbors’ eyes spying on him—it was clear to every one of them that the scrawny man in the faded denim jacket and stained pants didn’t belong. He wondered if they would feel the same about his paintings. Someday, he mused, they might crawl over one another to have one on their fancy wall. At least, he hoped. Girder took in the Rasp Estate, sitting a few hundred feet away, through his scarred windshield. The red-brick house sprawled, looming above bright emerald grass, its sharp roof knifing into the cerulean sky. He hoped coming had not been a mistake, because it felt like a colossal one.
Girder got out of the car into absolute quiet, his movement causing ripples in the chilled air. Brown and orange leaves were underfoot and everything smelled of sweet decay. The rain from the night before left enough damp that leaves clung to Girder’s old shoes as he limped to the passenger side of his car. He shivered his thin jacket closer to squeeze more heat from the worn denim, and then folded down the torn vinyl seat to retrieve the wrapped painting he’d brought. He thought of Raymond, sitting in the back room of the Overground, sipping orange tea while Girder was out in the cold betraying him, and reminded himself he was doing the right thing.
The walk to Rasp’s door was a long one, hampered not only by a crooked leg but by the weight of the painting in Girder’s weak arms. He had to traverse the distance slowly, his jaw hanging loose as he panted, breath sour and full of worry. Girder wished he could have contacted Mr. Rasp before arriving unannounced at his gate, but there was no listing in the telephone directory, and Girder knew no one who might help. He had no contacts in the community, no one but Mr. Raymond, who insisted on brokering all deals for Girder’s work, and Raymond would not be so quick to be cut out of the equation. Merely asking for Rasp’s name had caused the man’s drill-hole eyes to blink repeatedly, like an alligator preparing to snap. “It’s a habit I’m loath to get into. Everyone is a friend when the gallery’s walls are full, but when that work starts to sell, artists quickly forget what it is I do for my commission.” Girder had to lie and promise he would not circumvent Raymond before the gallery owner would reveal Rasp’s name, an action that later filled him with regret.
Raymond claimed to have met Rasp only once; long enough to show him Girder’s work. “How did he know about it?” Girder asked when Raymond, breathlessly, told him the news.
“Do you remember that tall dark man lingering at the show? He works for Rasp. A scout or buyer or some such. I definitely know him from somewhere.” Rasp had arrived at the Overground’s closing hour, heralded by his assistant. “The fellow made sure no one else was in the gallery before bringing Rasp in. I was quite furious until I realized who he was.” Rasp had grimaced at the work on the wall, Raymond said, scowling when he found Girder’s abstractions. Then Raymond claimed Rasp’s eyes widened as he stared deep into the swirls of paint and immediately insisted he own the series. When Girder arrived at the gallery the next day, Raymond handed him a check. Finally, there were digits enough to reflect what he deserved. For the first time since his father’s passing, Girder wished the bastard were still alive. Just so he might finally rub his nose in it.
It was a relief to put the wrapped painting down in front of Rasp’s large red door. Needles pricked the length of Girder’s knotted arms, and his curved left hip throbbed. He pressed the doorbell, heard a soft chime thud somewhere in the depths of Rasp’s estate, and rubbed his hands together for warmth. He rang the bell again and waited. There was no movement. Peering through the circular inset window, he saw nothing but darkness. Perhaps Rasp was not interested in seeing any more of Girder’s work. Perhaps there was something to his father’s drunken laughter. Perhaps—
The creak of metal hinges, dreadfully cautious of what was to come. A tall thin Asian man appeared, his flesh the sallow tan of someone sheltered from the sun all his life. He wore a pinstriped suit, its sleeves too long, and did not utter a word. Instead, he scoured Girder inscrutably. Girder swallowed, his nerve abandoning him as he stared at those empty eyes.
“Um . . . I’m here to see Mr. Rasp.”
It sounded like a question.
The suited man did not react, did not take his eyes from Gir
der’s. He spoke with a hollow voice and an accent Girder couldn’t place.
“He does not take visitors.”
“But I—I have a painting here I thought he might want to buy.”
“Why would he want to do that?”
“Why?” Girder stammered. “Because I’m Girder Schill.”
Dark eyes slipped behind narrowed eyelids. Girder shuffled, paper-wrapped parcel at his feet.
“Should I know who that is?”
Girder frowned. His voice betrayed his irritation.
“Mr. Rasp bought some of my paintings from the Overground. I think he might be interested in seeing more.”
A noise between a sniffle and a snort. A raised knotted hand.
“Wait here.”
The man vanished behind the closed red door. Girder’s anger welled; red patterns mixed and swirled with other colors as they crept over his eyes, abstract shapes betraying some secret. Girder willed himself to calm down. He had no conduit for the vision at hand. He could not allow himself an episode without documentation. No puzzles without all the pieces. Girder looked down at where his narrow hands must have been and willed them to appear through the haze. He visualized each digit, forced the vision back to the edges of his sight until it passed. His mouth tasted like a battery. His heart beat wildly. Every muscle in his body tensed and ached. It took ten cold minutes for the door to open and a pale tan hand to beckon, fluttering urgently like a wounded bird.
Through some strange refraction of light, the foyer appeared too large, too long. The ceiling was at least twenty feet from the ground, trimmed with ornate cornicing, and the walls were dark with paint or shadow, lined into nothingness with rows of artwork. A table lamp illuminated the foyer just barely, chasing the darkness to the corners to bide its time. The thin man materialized from the dark like a strange specter.
“Mr. Rasp will be right with you.”
Girder’s nerves jittered. Rasp could be his salvation. If so, betraying Raymond would be worthwhile, even if the gallerist had been the only one brave enough to show Girder’s work. He called it “a violent cacophony of nightmares.” For Girder, they were catharsis, rage, and inadequacy painted on canvas; a conduit for his hallucinations, something he barely understood. “It’s automatic painting, dear,” Raymond said. “All the best do it. It’s a money-maker.”
Yet that money never came.
“No one likes looking at them, dear,” Raymond said, tipsy on champagne as the show closed, his tiny eyes glazed bubbles. “It unnerves them.”
And continued to unnerve them over the following days. At least until Rasp arrived.
An unusual odor wafted into the foyer. Damp, meaty, stale; so subtle it might have always been there. A pale shape floated through shadows some distance away, hovering a few feet from the ground like a humming wasp’s nest. When further veils pulled back, Girder saw ill-defined features coalesce. From nothing formed what could only be the wrinkled face of the elusive Mr. Rasp.
He was rotund. Confined to a wheelchair pushed by the tall assistant, and cocooned in a heavy indigo robe, Rasp’s pale bulbous head was perched on the folds around a bruised throat. No other flesh was exposed. His gloved hands were attached to withered lifeless arms that rested at his side. The wheelchair stopped a few feet from Girder, and the artist had to stifle his reaction. Rasp’s flesh was nearly translucent, filled with dark spider-web veins, and his red mouth was an open wound, revealing too many tiny discolored teeth.
“You are Girder Schill?”
The wound spoke with incredulity, the voice harsh, consonants accentuated yet wet. Doubt momentarily infected Girder. He favored his good leg.
“Yes, I am.” He belonged there; he repeated it to himself. “I’m sorry for showing up without warning you first.”
“Never mind. Never mind.” Rasp’s head rolled, threatening to fall off his rigid body. “You aren’t as I expected you. One builds an image in one’s thoughts.”
Girder knew that all too well.
“I don’t want to take up too much of your time, Mr. Rasp. I have a painting here and I—”
“Nonsense. You aren’t taking any of my time at all. Come, you could no doubt use something to drink. You look positively drained.”
“Well, I—” Girder started, but Rasp was gone before he could finish. The sound of rubber wheels echoed, voices fading. Only the rows of paintings remained.
Girder carried his package and found Rasp in the sitting room, his tall assistant by his side. The room was bigger than Girder’s entire apartment. Yet, in there, Rasp’s presence swallowed the space.
“Sit. Nadir will bring something to drink. Do you have anything in particular you’d like?”
“I’ll—I mean, I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
“Oh, I won’t be drinking with you. Despite how I look I’m on a very strict diet.” Yellow smile, dark gums revealed. Still, Girder tried to laugh, though he was certain it sounded forced.
“Just a beer, I guess. If it isn’t any trouble.”
“None at all. Nadir?” The thin man nodded, almost bowed, then slipped through the doorway. “Now, while we wait, let’s take a look at this painting. I’m rather excited, as you can imagine.”
Girder stood. Everything rested on how Rasp reacted to the work. Without his patronage, Girder’s future was dire. His leg wobbled long enough to catch Rasp’s eye. He put it out of his mind and focused on the string tied around the painting’s frame, and how it had become knotted. He worked the knot with the tips of his nails, knowing they were far too short, but also that he had no other way of opening the package. The panic was sour in his throat.
“I’d help you but—” Rasp looked down at his own thin withered arms. Girder nodded, then struck upon an idea. Keys from his pocket found the twine, and there followed the sound of a bowstring being plucked. Girder carefully removed the flat brown butcher’s paper. Rasp stared hungrily. Girder’s stomach growled.
“This one is called ‘The Empty House.’ It’s oil on canvas.”
Girder held the painting at arm’s length. Rasp’s voice wheezed, “Higher, please.” Girder lifted until his face was covered. “Nice, nice,” Rasp said, then a wet sound like lips being licked. Girder lowered the painting. Rasp looked beatific.
“It’s a wonderful piece. Wonderful. Just as I expected. The color, the emotional fury; it’s like a late-period Gotlib, or even a Munch—if Munch were any good. Compared to you, though, the two were finger-painting. I can see the emotion here, so much it hurts. Tell me, does it have a story?”
Girder’s father’s fists. Insults, jeers. A beating that irreparably loosened something in Girder’s brain. A cultured veil of fury; abstractions hinting at unfulfilled secrets. Vision that had to be fixed in place with paint to be understood, to be made real. It was his father’s dying gift.
“No, there’s no story. It’s just a painting.”
The fat man’s laugh sounded like wet choking. Tiny brown teeth bared, a dozen pale lumps struggling for escape against indigo folds. Girder became worried, but as Nadir returned, beer on a small platter, that mirth ebbed.
“It’s not customary for me to take visitors here, Mr. Schill, which is why I can’t offer you anything more exotic to drink. In truth, Mr. Raymond should not have provided you with any information about me. It causes too many ethical conflicts.”
Girder nodded but said nothing. He did not want to accidentally dissuade Mr. Rasp from the purchase. Instead, he slowly sipped at the beer he had been given and tried to keep his sensation of biliousness at bay.
“Normally, I’d have you sent back to Mr. Raymond to arrange the transaction, but your work is something to behold—so emotional!—that I’m willing to cut out the middle man, as it were, so I might get new works more expediently. I assume the rate I paid at the Overground would suffice here? Good! Nadir, take this piece and bring me a check for the normal amount. It seems Mr. Schill and I have come to an agreement.” Another smile full of ugly brown teeth. G
irder questioned whether what he felt was happiness, especially when he held the check in shaking hands. It was more than Mr. Raymond had ever given him.
“You look pleased, Mr. Schill.”
“Oh, I am. Yes. This will help me out a lot.”
“Good. I trust then there will be more pieces coming?”
Girder had no doubt.
Girder returned home, energized. Why had he needed the gallery when the direct approach was so lucrative? Rasp would be his salvation, not smug, thieving Mr. Raymond. Girder’s work was finally being recognized for its worth; neither Raymond nor his dead idiot of a father could tell him otherwise.
The money paid Girder’s outstanding bills, and what remained paid for supplies. Canvases were stretched, paints were mixed; Girder’s specters hovered close, revealing themselves only when finally he held his brush. An opaque veil dropped, his eyes clouded. A landscape of colors clashing, a Rorschach of emotion. He worked hard to commit the essence to reality. Weeks passed, but the anger did not. The colors didn’t run, didn’t move. Instead, they leapt from the brush. Never had the euphoria been so cathartic. Never had the muse guided his arm so exactly. From him pains and sorrows flowed onto canvas. At the end of the fourth week, he awoke on the floor, paint outlining him, muscles aching. The work was done, though he couldn’t remember when. Exhausted, he staggered to bed, slept more than a day. His dreams were monochrome.
“Frankly, Mr. Schill, I feared you wouldn’t return.”
Girder’s face could not contain his smile.
“Of course I was going to. I painted this for you.”
“Oh, I should hope not. I hope you painted it for yourself. That’s where the choicest pieces originate.” And Rasp laughed, though it was strange and stuttered. His perched head rolled. Girder averted his eyes, but it was too late. He’d already seen it.
“Nadir, if you’ll do the honors.”
The tall assistant nodded, then reached to peel the butcher paper from the canvas. As he did so, his sleeve pulled too far back and a flash of skin stained different colors caught Girder’s eye. Just as quickly it was gone, replaced with the sight of Rasp expectantly dampening his lips with a sliver of desiccated tongue.