Free The Ghosts of Kerfol by Deborah Noyes Page B

the blade. Had they thrust a hemp bag over his head? Could he see the sky through the fabric? Were there bits of blue, Victor wondered, to soothe his eyes, and did white clouds reel past, perhaps a seagull circling — or some better, brighter bird? Was it all blinding brightness in that last moment? All color, like the world when Victor closed his eyes or let his vision blur, let the brush lead him . . .
    Maybe Mother and his succession of tutors were right, and he would always be a child, painting unexceptional pictures.
Except one,
he thought with grim pleasure, remembering the girl on the easel across the courtyard.
    When he arrived at the patio, the dogs had already stationed themselves on either side of his worktable like sentries. He laughed out loud at the absurdity of it. The dogs shifted uneasily. What were they waiting for? What could he give them?
    When will you
do
something?
    Though the portrait was on the other side of the easel, he held her face in mind with desperate clarity, and at almost the same moment that the dogs began to stir, he remembered Marguerite’s words.
That neck begs the blade.
    Real or imagined, the words struck him with fresh horror, and he blundered to the easel with closed eyes, shooing back the dogs, and now Sömmering’s words swarmed into his thoughts like wasps.
Furthermore, credible witnesses have assured me that they have seen the teeth grind after the head has been separated from the trunk.
    Victor opened his eyes long enough to snatch the painting up under an arm and gather the paint tray to him like a child from a burning bed, and then he closed them again, with surprising determination.
And I am convinced that if the air could still circulate through the organs of the voice . . . these heads would speak.
    He felt paint ooze over his wrist as he strode past the wretched watchers into the gilt-and-mirrored shadows of Kerfol. Once inside, he dared to open his eyes, hurried to a bench in the great hall, and set her down beside him. He held the board in two trembling hands as he might the shoulders of a lover.
    Yesterday’s glaze had dried, and his soul’s mate seemed to watch him, craning her tender neck, and he knew then that they were but two dolls, poppets, playthings. Whom would he love in a world of play? Playing house, playing lovers, playing at a future?
    Do
something.
    He took up a paint pot, the first he snatched, red cadmium — a good, dark color — and began to slap paint straight from the pot onto her face. He heaped it onto his palms, the oily slap a pleasure against his skin, a joy in his nostrils. With hands slippery as a surgeon’s, he swiped and fumbled for the big boar’s-hair brush. He slashed at her pretty eyes, erasing what could only suffer, saving her.
    Before long, much of the panel was a blank red stain, and his heart beat hard as he strode to the big front door and opened it again, his hand leaving a bloody smear on the doorknob. The dogs were there, dotting the lawn, perfectly still. Soundless as before.
    He eased the door shut, though they would not pursue him. Again, he knew this. Somehow. Still he staggered to the stairs, tripped, and fell forward on his hands. Victor walked up on all fours like prey, leaving a pattern of handprints.
    Mother woke him in his bed, but only after the trunks were packed.
    In a silky bustling of widow’s silk, she peeled the covers back and cursed the paint everywhere. “Oh, Victor, not
you
as well as the stairs!” She barked for Michel, whose footfalls came nearer. “Victor, look at you. Covered . . .”
    He cringed like a child as she heaved the blankets away, curling out of her reach. “I don’t care if I never come back here,” he told the pillow, feeling the full wrath of his father’s memory.
    “Look at you . . . foolish boy. You’re not well again. Up, now!” She slapped his behind, and he rolled sullenly away. “See what Mother has for you in the carriage . . .”
    “Or if I die penniless