A shroud of mist obscured the city like a silk curtain. It hid an airship passing over head. Those below it could only hear the hum of its engines and see the muted glow of its headlights. It cloaked the skyline. Only the foot of the tallest and the shortest buildings could be seen. It filtered the light from streetlamps to lights within buildings. It allowed shadows to cast the city into a premature evening. And in the darkness between an office building and an abandon dance studio, the mist obscured a slight woman.
She stood tense, dampened from the mist. The only spot the mist didn’t touch was the handle of her carpet bag under her cramped hand. She dared not to let it go as it contained everything she had to her name. A necklace, two books, a tea set wrapped around a quilt sown by her grandmother, a music box, and a torn picture of her and her two children.
She wore what she needed: a skirt, blouse, thick overcoat, and fur-lined boots for walking in the snow. Her mittens stayed in her coat pocket. She wanted to keep them dry as the palms of her hands were sweaty. A thin layer of sweat had also formed over her forehead, despite the fact she was cold. Her nerves were getting the best of her. She wanted it darker. The streets emptier. She needed to go to the shop across the street. However, it had to be closer to closing.
She looked down at her wrist. It was fifteen minutes till it closed. She didn’t expect a customer to come in later than that. But what if they did? She swallowed another lump in her throat and looked at the sign to the shop:
Trolly’s Timepieces
She was told that was where she needed to go. Though it didn’t make sense. Then again, nothing within the last week made sense. And getting a painting from a watchmaker was the easiest thing for her to handle.
She squinted and studied a tall man behind the front display counter with a watch in hand. He didn’t worry her as much as the shop’s warm lights. They were going to act like a spotlight the moment she walked in. She didn’t want to be seen. That was a problem. Maybe she should wait longer. Then again, she couldn’t wait. Leaving the city was out of the question by train or airship. Maybe she should just leave the city on foot and live in the wilderness. What she was told had to be too good to be true. Nothing good came from those who made deals using the unknown.
However, if one wanted a painting, they had to go to Trolly.
The patrolman she had been watching, passed by her again. Walking in the direction she going to head, unknowing to her location. She waited until he vanished and shoved aside her fears. However, when her foot moved forward, she hesitated with a moan of uncertainty. She jogged in place, wrestling with herself.
This wasn’t something she should or could do. It was better if she went to the police station.
On impulse, she darted out of the alley and shoved back any logical thoughts and dove into the shop.
Her heart thumped in her chest as the door swung closed behind her. Her nerves found that rhythm far too slow and sped up because at the realization of how exposed she was. The glass cases filled with gold and silver didn’t help the fact the curtains were still open so that anyone along the main street could see her. It was as if a stage was set for her.
“Hello, what can I help you with,” spoke a mild voice.
Betty’s racing mind snapped her attention to the man behind the counter. He had a bald head and a face of indeterminate age. His skin, the color of golden sand in an hourglass, had the wrinkles of a man who smiled, but not one worn by time and harsh circumstance. He was old enough to care about looking professional. But, the waist coat he wore wasn’t the typical solid color of a merchant. It was covered in a golden paisley design. His tie was plain, but his taste for the unusual touched that as well. His tie clip was in the shape of a sun dial. The other thing that was remarkably strange about him was the pair of round spectacles with darkened lenses. When she got close to him, she could barely see the shape of his eyes. However, they were friendly.
“Are you here for one of my watches? Or maybe something larger. I have a grandfather clock in the back,” he said, stepping aside and point to a backroom door behind his counter. Through the glass, she could see the face of it. “All I need to do is to install the pendulum.”
“I want a painting,” she hissed.
“Excuse me,” he asked, tilting his head slightly. Betty took it as confusion.
“Aren’t you Trolly? Cato Trolly?”
“I am,” he replied, picking up the wristwatch off the counter and placing it in a wooden box. He pulled a ribbon from a roll, sitting off to the side and snipped a length of it off. Betty watched him a moment tying his box before sitting her bag down and, tapped the glass gently with the pads of her fingers to get his attention.
“I heard you make paintings for people. I want a painting.”
She could see his brow arch critically at her above the rim of his glasses. “And from whom did you hear this from?”
Betty bit her bottom lip. She didn’t want to say it aloud.
“You had to hear that from somewhere. People whisper all sorts of things in town. From shops to along the streets. Perhaps by a statue.”
“An owl in the park,” she whispered. It was ridiculous. She nearly died on the spot when it spoke to her. “He told me to tell you that Barnaby says hello.”
Maybe she was crazy. What happened had really broken her mind more than it had. Stone owls on top of statues didn’t suddenly talk and take pity on people.
“Barnaby doesn’t just help anyone,” he remarked.
“I plucked a tree blossom off his head so I could see what he fully looked like. He appreciated it,” she said with her voice shaking. Then she winced and followed it with another statement. “An-an-and then I fed a kitten. She said I was sweet and told me I should listen to the owl.”
“Owls are wise, and kittens are helpful when they had a meal. What did you give this kitten to eat?”
“Some chicken. It was the only thing I could give her,” she told him. It was the first thing she had eaten in days. She hadn’t slept very much either. Maybe she thought the kitten spoke to her. That the lack of sleep was starting to take her.
The man behind the counter nodded his head. “Kittens do like the taste of birds around here more than fish.”
“N-n-now that I said it. Can I have a painting? I’m desperate.”
The man finished tying his bow, a smirk tugged at his lips. “It’s always the desperate that want paintings. Very rarely does the adventurous human ask for one. I like those. The most memorable human I helped was a man who wanted to know what it was like to be a knight. We painted a grand kingdom. Mystical and full of rarities. He stayed there because he became a king. Then there was the astronomer who wanted to explore. He wanted to see another planet they had seen through a telescope. They were certain there was intelligent life there. Now he studies at a distant planet’s university. I had hoped you were one, dressed as you are.”
She looked backward and at the window for the patrolman on foot. The streets were empty, no motorcars were in sight.
“I’m sorry, but can I get a painting or not? I can pay you if money is what you want.”
He shook his head. “Money isn’t what I want.”
She dug into her pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. She found them in her husband sock drawer, hidden under an old betting card from the racetrack. “Where I am going, I won’t need this money. I’ll earn the money that is there.”
He looked at the bills and pushed the roll aside. In their place, he leaned on the counter.
“What sort of painting do you want, Betty Pulman,” he asked.
Her eyes went wide, and she stepped back. “H-h-how do you know my name?
The watchmaker pointed to the side. There, on a bulletin board in the only shadowy corner, was a wanted poster of her.
Horror raced through her mind. “Please don’t turn me in,” she begged.
“What sort of painting you want,” he asked again steadily. His voice calmed her down.
She then spoke in a small voice. “Mountains, no, a valley. A snowy valley like the one I grew up in. I want a cottage that overlooks a pond. Blueberry bushes to make jam. A place where children can catch fireflies in the summer.”
“Nostalgia. I see.”
“Not nostalgia. Just the home I miss. The land I miss. The people I miss. Or something like that. But not here, not the city. There is nothing here. No birds singing. Just racket, people yelling and hearing your neighbors through the wall. I want to see snow that’s actually white and not gray and black because of soot from factories running coal.”
“I see,” he said thoughtfully and pushed away from her. “I think I can help, Mrs. Pulman.”
He reached under his counter. Though Betty couldn’t understand where. He was standing behind a display case. She could see his legs. Yet from there he brought out a piece of paper and an inkwell. He then stretched out and she could hear his hand patting a hard surface, searching. He frowned and muttered to himself before bending down out of view. She could hear him rummaging for something in something metallic. She spied down at the counter again. The only thing visible through the glass was his legs as if he was leaning on the counter. Once he straightened up, he held a black quill pen. He blew at it and off, sending a puff of dust into the air.
“Many don’t request my skills very much anymore. It is expected. The sun sets, the clocks turns, and you blink and another century is on you. No many want to deal with the unknown as you call it. Some claim it and all the being associated with it, don’t exist anymore. The truth is, a human isn’t aware until they are forced to confront us. Anyway, Mrs. Pulman, you must sign a contract first. You must be certain this is what you want.”
He pushed the paper towards her. She looked down at it and tried to read what was in front of her. Nothing made sense. The words met nothing to her. Some words stood out, others just jumbled together, forming a mass of black letter. She rubbed her eyes and realized she was just too tired to attempt reading.
She pushed the paper back and said with embarrassment. “I can’t read. I mean, I can, but I have trouble. I don’t understand this.”
She could see his eyelids flutter behind his lenses. She waited for a scoff or a sigh from him. Wondering why she could be so stupid. Something she almost heard daily for over a year. He didn’t vocalize his assessment of her. Instead, he pointed to the first line with a long nimble finger and explained.
“This states this is your personal contract to me, Cato Lorry. You consent that I will help you create a painting,” he said, and his finger went down to the next paragraph. “This states I’m not liable for whatever happens to you in the painting, good or bad. And this one says, you agree to live out your life in this painting. Once you have lived your life, the painting becomes part of my collection.”
“My entire life?”
“What is left of it, yes,” he told her.
All at once, she became uncertain if that was what she wanted to do. She bit her lip again.
“You have nowhere to go, correct? There is nothing else in this world you care or want? Barnaby wouldn’t have sent you here. But if you truly don’t like this, I can modify the contract to a specific number of years so you can return. Maybe after the statute of limitations passes.”
There was nothing else. No one else. Everything she had left was taken away from her in a single night. Life didn’t even feel real anymore. She didn’t even know if she stood in a winters coat inside of a watch shop asking for a painting. The other day, she was talking to owl statues named Barnaby and a kitten.
She eyed the quill feather. It looked as if it had come from a very large crow. She reached out for it and took it into her fingers. Suddenly it sparked into the color and flames. She dropped it. The feather transformed on the counter as a plume of red and gold with a purple eye filled with blue and green.
The watchmaker smiled, intrigued. “Phoenix feathers only reveals themself to those with a special heart. We will make a beautiful painting together.”
Betty picked up the feather with a shaky hand and dipped it. At the bottom, there was a line where she scratched her name slowly and tried to keep each letter on the line. She failed; her name, it was crocked. She could hear her teacher slapping the yard stick on her desk for such sloppy pen work.
“Oops,” she muttered. “Maybe I could sign another.”
“No, this is fine. Character should be valued,” he said, beaming at her name.
Maybe in the painting, she would be able to read and write. Then she would be able to read the books in her bag. Her brother wrote them for the world to read and yet she was unable to. She hoped her husband would read them to her. But that day came and never will.
The paper then rolled up and sprung into the air and floated. The watchmaker then opened a swinging door between the wall and the counter.
“Once you go beyond this, there is no turning back. You must accept the painting. Out there, I can still burn the contract.”
She looked down and just saw a wooden door on a hinge.
“Not all boundaries can be seen. Not by humans, unless allowed.”
Betty gulped. The knot in her throat, threatened to strangle her. She then heard the engine of a motor car rumbling down the road. She could see the head lights reflecting in the glass. There was nothing but a courtroom, judge, and jury waiting for her. She worked up what remained of the tiny amount of courage in her heart, and stepped behind the counter.
Betty expected, actually, she didn’t know what she expected. Her ears popped and started ringing. The air in front of her wavered as if she was looking down a dirt road under the summer sun. The hairs on her arms stood up as she followed the watchmaker to the backroom of his shop.
She saw the workbench that had a grandfather clock standing up in front of it with the pendulum removed and stretched out on a cloth beside it. Tools were lined up on the top of a box, as the clock was ready to be worked on. However, when she walked over the threshold guarded by a scale above, she found herself in a room of white. The floor and the walls were white. In the center of the room, was an easel. The only color were paintings hanging on a wall that seemed to stretch on forever in a very large room.
“These are my most recent paintings,” he explained, taking off his glasses and revealed gleaming bronze eyes with no white.
Betty gasped. Frozen, wondering if she truly lost her mind again. That grief had sent her into a spiral she had never woken up from. Maybe she was still on the floor of her apartment after crying and was still asleep.
He was unaware of her shock and spun his body around as if searching for something.
“I don’t have a canvas out. How inconvenient. Well, I will fetch some so you can choose the size. Feel free to look around.”
Betty didn’t know who or what she had been speaking too. The watchmaker wasn’t human. She should’ve known that. Nothing from the unknown was human. For an instant, fear gripped her. She had to run, but run where, back to the streets where she would go to jail and then prison for the rest of her life? She swallowed and told herself she was safe where she was. However, that didn’t make the space she was in believable. Maybe it was a dream. A fever dream from all the stress.
She turned around to seek the door they had walked through. There was nothing there. Only a row of paintings that, weren’t there before. However, despite her fear and panic, her curiosity lived still. She couldn’t help to find the gilded frames of the paintings attractive.
Her grandmother once had a beautiful painting in a thick stately frame. In her opinion, the golden frame was a piece of art in its own right. Those surrounded the paints there were as well.
She approached the most gorgeous one of them all. A golden frame of woven vines around a landscape of someone on a horse. The horse and rider were walking through a field of cornflowers in a sunset. She could almost hear the breeze and see the wildflowers swaying. For a moment she thought she heard the person on a horse whistling. The title of the piece was Solitude.
She then moved on to another landscape with a town in the background and too people going towards the town hand in hand. In the foreground was a wheelchair left abandoned. It was titled Freedom with a Friend.
A wail took her attention. It was like a whisper on the wind, and she searched for the source of the distant cry. She smelled the sea and felt the salt of the ocean on her skin. The sound of a roaring, angry ocean overtook the cry of a man. She followed the sound like a moth to a flame and stopped in front of a dark painting in a plain silver frame. It was that of the ocean in the middle of a storm. Lightning had been painted and streaked the sky. Waves towered above a man in the middle of the maelstrom, crying, shouting, and begging for an end. The ocean didn’t heed his request. It only worked to toss him endlessly up, down, and under only for him to begin the cycle anew.
Betty involuntarily backed from the painting until her back hit something warm and solid. She spang up and then spun, nearly letting go of her bag. The watchmaker looked at her and then at the painting emotionlessly.
“As I said, the desperate come to me often. Those who wish to hide from the law are the most among them. They wish to hide from themselves. They think I can provide them and escape. But their hearts betray them. Their ill-wills in life manifest a painting suited for them. What did you think this man did?”
She looked at the painting. And held her bag up as if it would shield her from the horror in front of her. “Was he a sailor?”
“Oh, no. Nothing so honorable. He was a businessman with many ships. Ships he sent out to send ore from one port to the next. However, he loved money more. Hogged it, horded it, and didn’t take care of his men or his ships. One night, a ship of his met a violent end. Their hull split in two and sank in a storm.
“And storms swallow ships all the time, but it happened again and again. It’s usually only when there are enough tombstones when something is done. And they investigated. He commissioned those ships with the poorest metal that the least amount of money can buy. However, when the questions came and answers to be made, he had enough money for the best lawyers, money could buy. The law failed that day. A judges pockets grew larger. The common folk were given nothing for their suffering. However, one can’t get the law off your back when you owe it money. He came to me believing I would solve his problems because he run out of excuses.”
“W-w-wait. I know him. A businessman, like a few years ago. He went missing. The Feds were after him,” she remarked and stared at the painting. Her stomach twisted.
“He a fresh start. A where he could build money and power again. But his heart revealed the truth and there was only a single place for him to go.”
Chills coursed through her body.
He then took her by the shoulder. And spun her around.
“That painting lacks the inspiration. You need inspiration. Snowscapes are lovely when you know how to place color into them. And if you don’t keep warmth in your heart, you will freeze inside of dark bleakness where there is no sun.”
They walked across the room and then rounded a corner. Betty looked back, startled. Where had that corner come from? And she found herself in another room. This one warmed by a crackling hearth. Two large leather overstuffed chairs that her grandfather would have appreciated, was placed in front of a fire. Above the mantle was an empty frame.
He bowed and gestured for her to take a chair. “Ladies first.”
She remembered when her husband used to do that. No matter the seat, whether it was a park bend or a squat stool. It was always ladies' first. She sat down in the stuffed chair and then a foot stool appeared and the raised her feet up. She couldn’t relax, though. The rage of the ocean was in her ears. She wondered if the ocean would swallow her up for her failures.
A mug suddenly appeared in front of her face.
“Now, now, you will not make a good painting in that state of mind,” said the watchmaker.
For a moment, she thought it was floating in the air, given everything else. But the steaming drink was held mundanely by his hand. She took it and the sweet aroma of delicious hot chocolate reached her nose. She stirred it in her mug and realized that it was thick. and wondered if she there was something to dip into it. And there beside her was a plate stacked with a collection of sweet biscuits. A collection of flavors presented in front of her. Almond, butter, poppyseed, and caraway. All her favorites. And things she hadn’t had since her second child was born. They were a treat when she managed it. As was the hot chocolate. She selected poppyseed, as that was her favorite.
“Now that we have our drinks in hand, we can find some inspiration,” he told her and pointed forward.
The painting above the mantel was not only of snow, but of ice. A glorious ice castle with a spire that rose into a sky with stars scattered across it. A long sleigh containing two forms being driven by reindeer. The stars that glittered silvery blue, red hued, and golden distance lights. It took her back to the days that she was in the mountains. She sitting in the sleigh beside her grandfather. A bear hide over her lap. Her little hand tucked in thick rabbit fur mittens.
He sang with the beat of the sleigh bells that matched the stride of the deer. In her mind, she was standing in the mountains. However, she wasn’t riding towards some palace. She was on her way home in a tiny village between two mountain that rose like giants. She saw her home village in front of her. The smell of smoke from wood burning in every hearth and stove made her eyes water but delighted her at the same time. It met warmth and everything familiar.
She imagined her grandparent’s house. Wooden and cozy, with woven mats on every surface and carvings of critters on the mantel her grandfather made. Her brother reading a book of tales long lost. Her mother complaining about how small a village it was. Her grandmother chiding her to be happy with the way her world was. She was loved, she had a roof, and she had family.
Those were things that Betty wanted in her future. She wanted a warm house of her own. Instead, her mind went to the small apartment she run from. She remembered the little drowned bodies on the floor. Her husband pointing a gun at her, giving her instructions on what to do.
She didn’t want to remember his words. His plan. His insanity.
“We can always have more children; we need money now,” were the only words her mind dredged up.
The painting in her mind became tainted. The town, the lights from the house, the smoke was replaced with ice and thorns. Three tombstones in the center with her holding his gun.
“This will not do.”
She heard a finger snap. It felt it ripple through her body. She was back in the white world. The painting was gone. Her hot cocoa had grown cold. Over the brown liquid was a sheet of ice. And it was creeping over the edge towards her hand. She screamed and flung the mug away from her. She sucked in air as if she had been running.
The watchmaker was at the side of her chair, looking up at her. His arms folded on her armrest. His bronze eyes took on a more human appearance. She saw whites in his eyes surrounding an iris with a pupil in the middle. However, his irises were still like polished bronze. Concern etched his brow.
“You must not look at the past like that. Helpless and hopeless. That doesn’t make a good painting. And see, you are already trying to freeze yourself. Maybe it will be easier if you think of that valley in the spring or the summer.”
She opened her mouth, but her tongue was stuck to the top of her mouth. He reached behind her chair and pulled back the end table that was between them. There a silver platter replaced the one with the biscuits and on it was a goblet of water.
“Drink.”
She took it. The sweet water filled her mouth, going down her throat. When was the last time she had drank water? She downed the large goblet and sat it on the platter.
“But it’s the cold I miss. I miss the winter. I miss being with family. In the winter, we would all be together.”
“I see,” said the watchmaker, once again assessing her unblinkingly to the point it made Betty uncomfortable. She shifted in her chair, leaning away from him. He became still, like a statue. She wondered if something in him stopped like a clock needing to be wound. He came to life speaking. Still not blinking. “That is what is broken inside of you. There is a loneliness inside you where no warmth and light reaches. Just bleak cold.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. How did he know anything about her? They hadn’t spoken before. She told him nothing. However, there was no disagreeing with him. All what she had left was taken away from her and she didn’t want to face that. That would mean she would have to acknowledge the sorrow she had pushed away to survive.
“You have to. This is your painting. The heart, to produce something comforting and warm out of snow, cannot live in darkness and cold,” he said.
She nodded her head.
“You can’t just forget it all the way and bury what has happened. It always has a habit of coming back. Like that ocean from before. He tried to forget, deny what happened, and run from responsibility. He didn’t care. Happened in his mind, was an inconvenience.”
“You had my wanted poster in your store. My name has been on the radio. You know I’m running,” she cried.
The Watchmaker rested his chin on his forearm and said gently, “Your story is written on your face. Etched into your soul. You didn’t take his life from him. He took it from himself. He let it drain out of him until it was all gone. What you saw that day, was just the remains. He gave up living long ago. And here you are still living. You had enough of a flame to see the phoenix feather. Now look up.”
She looked above the hearth and the painting had changed again. This time, something more peaceful. Something that she had never seen in her life. She didn’t live that far north. In the quiet paint were moving auras. Haunting green light moved across the canvas like curtains being blown gently in the breeze. Below them, not capped mountains. She remembered ever since she was a child, she wanted to see them. She heard stories about them being spirts of the dead making their way through the heavens. Her children would be mixed in. They would be happy. Maybe she could have them exist in her painting. Something that her children could watch as well. Could she have her children? Should she just replace them? She didn’t want to create more and to replace them as he wanted to do that.
Then she felt a vice gripping her hand. “Regrets will not make this painting. Unless you wish to live in a world of regrets. Yes, they are gone, just like he. In this world, you can have representation of your old life. But you are better off with new things that will build their own story.”
“Build my own story?”
“Yes, this is your world. It’s beyond the boundaries of what is material in your world. Beyond what a human can create for themselves. You can create a place of rest and of healing. You cannot do that outside.”
Betty hung her head down and did something she hadn’t been able to do for days and that was cry. When she soaked her hands, she then soaked his shoulder. For only a single instant, in the time it takes to inhale and exhale, she felt feathers pillowing her forehead and the warmth of a winter’s sun embracing her.
She stopped sobbing and pulled back. Bronze eyes greeted her, waiting patiently.
“Do you want to try again, or rest? Not every painting can be planned and executed in a single sitting.”
Betty didn’t want to rest. She didn’t know if she had time. “What if someone comes to your shop? You haven’t close yet. What if they saw me and come looking for me?”
“All you need to know it that time here and there isn’t the same. You have plenty of time here. How about we go into another room?”
She looked around the white space and couldn’t imagine there being another room. Once again, she stood, he took her around another corner. This time she watched and suddenly there was a corner, as if one had been there all along.
The new room was different. There were no white walls and blank hard floors. It was like they had stepped into a log cabin. The floor was made of boards covered in animal hides. Two of them were stretched out in front of another hearth. It was burning low with crackling deep red embers. She sat on the floor while the watchmaker rose, the wick of a lantern brightening the room until the shadows were pushed back.
It reminded her of her grandfather’s home when there was a blizzard out. But also, of those days that some travel could be achieved. Those days of traveling on tree-lined roads through the forest. Sunlight passed through the trees and highlighted the snow. In front of her was like a doorway to a smooth, bright snow for miles. As a child she wanted nothing more than to jump out of the sleigh and jump into smooth surface and disturb it. Roll in until the hood of her coat come off and her hair would mimic a raven’s in a snowstorm.
Beside her appeared a bowl of stew. She jerked away from it and looked behind her. The Watchmaker wasn’t there. He had vanished. She didn’t know if she enjoyed being alone in whatever strange room or realm, she was in. Then again, he was an enigma from the unknown. It was better if he wasn’t around. Her mind now cautioned her from eating the stew that was given to her. However, her empty belly came to life at the savory aroma of lamb and roots. She picked up the wooden bowl and spoon small bites in her mouth until it was all down. She even cleaned the bowl with some flat bread that manifested on a small plate.
It was things she used to eat as a child. In the mountain. Not in the city. The city was warm, people didn’t eat lamb or even mutton as she had. They were things she wished her children tasted. But where she was born and lived. There was nothing left. War had taken it.
She was lamenting again.
He had told her than she needed to move forward. But how could she? She had nowhere to go. No family to run to. Fire burned the trees of her home. Mortars destroyed the countryside and that smooth blanket of snow had blood pooling on it, just like under the body of her husband.
The embers in the hearth suddenly died. Nothing lay there but black coals covered in gray ash. The room became chilly, as if the fire had been out for hours. Then the lantern went dark, and suddenly she felt very alone.
Maybe she should be alone. The world had done its best to make sure she was.
The skins melted into the floor, becoming a sheet of ice. It spread to the wooden planks, and they moaned and creak from the transformation. For an instant, it was silent. Then a single crack ran from her in the ice, and spiderwebbed. Betty froze.
She went back in her mind trying to remember what she was told to do when on splitting ice. And her mind went to how she hated her name. But she didn’t want to remember the name her mother had given her. That name came with sadness. Betty was the name the immigration officer told her to use. She would blend in better if she didn’t carry the name of her people anymore. Betty, was simple. Betty, wasn’t a name that a refugee would have. A name of a woman to be forgotten.
Maybe she needed to be forgotten.
She let her children die.
Despite the sound of cracking ice and cold freezing water pooling by her legs, she didn’t move. Not out of fear or what she was told as a child, but out of resignation.
If the ice wanted her, then she should let it.
As soon as that thought entered her mind, the ice swallowed her. She screamed and tried to fight it as the air was knocked out of her from being stabbed by bone chilling cold. Her desperation for survival was cut off by thoughts of what she hadn’t done. Him telling her they could have more children. They needed the money now. His weekend spent at the racetrack.
She could’ve stopped him.
She should have left him.
And now the water had her. She watched the ice seal itself back up. She was trapped. She closed her eyes and accepted her fate. As the darkness on the edge of her vison formed, a shadow fell over the ice. Whatever it was, pounded the ice and then it became as bright as the sun. When it burst through it took the shape of a bird’s claw. Then Betty blacked out.
Tic tic tic was a sound that pierced Betty’s conscious. The nothingness she floated in to let up a little and she began to think again. She didn’t imagine that in death, she would hear ticking. What was beyond her, shouldn’t be at all like her mortal life. She then heard a horn of an airship and its engine humming above her, the walls vibrated in return. She cracked her eyes, seeing a blur of blue and brown.
When she squeezed her hand, soft fabric greeted her fingertips. That threw her off as she was used to rough sheets or hard floor. She was in a bed and one far too comfortable for the one in her apartment. Her eyes snapped open, and she saw blue wallpaper and the face of a clock. On the bedstand beside her was a tall mantle clock that reminded her of steeple on a building. The thin ornate hour arm pointed to the 10.
Betty sat up, wide eyes searching the room for answers. The window had dark drapes over them that were drawn still, with daylight streaming through the cracks. The room itself was neat. There was nothing much to see. The only thing telling was the mirrored dresser stained a dark color. On the surface of it was a collection of items. None of them looked particularly feminine. In fact, she saw a selection of men’s ties arranged across the top. She swung her head to a closet door. A man’s suit hanging from a hook as if it had come from the cleaners. Beside it on another hook, was a flat cap.
She was likely in the watchmaker’s room.
Betty covered her face letting out a cry for what? Her stupidity, embarrassment, and building fear? She didn’t know. All she knew the fact, she needed to get out of there. She didn’t need to back in her world. Her heart was in her throat, and she immediately searched for her things. The carpet bag that held what was left of her life was in front of the chest at the foot of her bed. The clothing she wore was folded on top of it.
She patted her chest. She didn’t pack a night gown. Her gaze traveled down to the pink fabric. It was new. She was speechless and saw her wide eyes revelation in the mirror. No, no, no, she didn’t need this and would have to worry about it later. She scrambled upright and worked to get her blouse and skirt on.
It was when she pulled her skirt to her waist, the door open.
She gaped at the watchmaker. He stood with a platter of food in his hand, once again, his eyes hidden behind smoky lenses. There was no look of surprise from him by the way his face remained flat. He sighed and continued onward in the room, ignoring her backing away towards the bedstand and eyeing the door. He dropped the platter on the dresser. The plate and tea pot rattled. She turned her back against the closet door and looked for something to defend herself with.
“You, Mrs. Pulman, are a menace,” he said, with his back still facing her.
“Why,” she demanded, her voice as high as a panicked songbird.
“Perhaps I need to explain it better. Where you were last night, that realm response to your emotions,” he said, turning around to face her. He stared at her with severe disapproval. “You claim to come here desperate for a place to go.
Instead, you have a death wish!”
Betty blinked. She felt like she was being admonished by her father. Or what she imagined being admonished by one’s father would feel like.
He leaned against the dresser, letting out another exhale as if expelling his anger. When he spoke again, he sounded as mildly as before.
“That won’t do. You cannot make a painting with thoughts like that. It almost killed you last night. I had to pull you from the ice. Being a creature of the sun, that’s not always easy for me to do. The ice, the cold, the snow needs to be created with warmth not with the light inside of you flickering and dying. It will bury or encase you.”
“How can I have warmth and light as you call it,” she cried. “I’ve no family, no children, my husband— this was all because I-I-I…y-y-you know what happened.”
He looked at her steadily with unjudging eyes. “I know what the radio claims. And I know what the police believe. However, you touch my quill and saw its true colors, so there is more in you than lonely bleakness. So, tell me, what do you truly want? You don’t get to have what was lost to you, which is what you are thinking about. Loss and regret. You don’t want yourself to have anything because you feel like you failed.”
“Because I did fail. I fail at everything,” she returned sharply.
“Mrs. Pulman, a person cannot predict every outcome of all their actions. You cannot control the world or others. You can only control yourself and trust everyone else. The wrongs committed by your late husband is not your burden to bear.”
“But I feel ice is what I deserve,” she muttered.
“Your heart is broken. Some of the most beautiful paintings can come from a broken heart. That is because there is hope there. You need to want a future for yourself. Now. Eat your brunch. Stay away from the window. It faces the street. It’s been busy day out there. I’ll see to you at noon.”
He exited the room and left her alone.
She sank onto the bed. She couldn’t come to terms what was happening. Why would he care? Some being from the Unknown, creating paintings for people out of magic and emotion and collecting them. Surely such a being wouldn’t care if one of those people begging for his services killed themselves. He didn’t seem to care about that businessman. Why did he care about her? There was no answering that. The only way was to ask him, and she wasn’t going to do that. He wasn’t human. There was no way she would understand.
Betty finished dressing and walked over to the dresser to see a simple breakfast sandwich, fruit arranged in a bowl, and two custard pastries. While munching on the sandwich, she and poured herself some tea and wished there was something to explore. There wasn’t, and she didn’t want to touch anything. She was too scared to peer out the window. So, she laid back down on the bed and slept.
Two hours went by quickly and the door to the room opened slowly, and the watchmaker’s bald head appeared. This time, he greeted her with a smile.
“Good, you’ve been resting. And you’ve eaten. I think now we can discuss things in a bit more. I didn’t think you were on such a rocky ledge.”
She came to the edge of the bed, expecting him to sit beside her. Instead, he sat on the floor in font of her. He took off his glasses and laid them on the bedstand. With them off, eyes that tried their best to be human, but failed revealed themselves. They weren’t the bronze she had been seeing, but the crystalline quality of polished amber in the sun.
“Where to begin to help you understand,” he said, pausing with his arms crossed. His eyes wondering in thought before his gaze snapped back to her. “Let’s start at my realm. That is a pocket you stepped into. And one that reacts to thoughts and emotion. It’s not predictable and the stronger an emotion is, the stronger it reacts. So, you must be mindful, or something like last night will happen. Your broken heart manifested that ice and combined with the fact you don’t value yourself at all. It would’ve been death for you.”
Betty blinked at him. None of that made sense. Well, it did, but things didn’t work that way in life. How was she supposed to know what would happen?
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a guest and you appeared to handle the fantastic better than most. I should have kept a sharper eye on you. That was my fault. I apologize.”
Betty opened her mouth, shut it. She wanted to tell him there was no need to apologize to her. However, he continued before she properly formed the words.
“Now, I know what I’m asking you to do is difficult because no one gets over what happened to you in a week. You’ve been hiding in and out of corners and shadows without time for it all to sink in until now. However, I want you to know that your life isn’t so worthless that you throw it into the ice. You are still valued. Mainly by me.”
She frowned at him, shaking her head. “You just want my painting.”
“No, I want your story. What do you think those paintings are? They tell stories. And humans tell the most interesting stories.”
“Why? I’m not interesting at all.”
“Because you aren’t like the other humans. You all bustle around trying to carve and shape a life for yourself and the easiest thing to do is jump into this fast-moving stream everyone is part of. However, like a rock in a river, you lose a bit of yourself rushing through it all. Now the interesting ones, they break away from the stream. Either by choice or happenstance. They catch my attention.”
Betty would rather the normal life. The better part of her life hadn’t been normal. She had what she thought was a normal childhood until it was blasted away. Then everything was different after that.
“Happenstance pushed you out and I think it pushed you too far,” he said, once again studying her a long time, unblinking and unmoving, before he suggested. “Perhaps I should modify your contract.”
She watched him this time. She wanted to see if the self-rolling contract popped into existence. It didn’t. The only thing that happened was an impromptu staring contest between him and her. He broke his unblinking gaze first. His eyes shifted to beside of her.
She looked and there was her contract. The writing on the paper was normal mostly except several lines were struck through with a glowing red line and the new writing was underlined with a glowing golden line.
“I have a suggestion. I’ve taken out you are living the rest of your life in the painting. You are to live in the painting for a decade’s time. When that time is up, I will give you a choice of remaining there or you may come out and live out here again.”
Betty’s eyes widened. “But ten years, if I’m found, I will still be arrested.”
“You might be surprised. Times may change by the time you come back,” he told her.
“But why can’t I live the remained of my life in there as before?”
“You didn’t give up on living before,” he returned. “I can leave the contract as before. It’s your decision to make.”
“But if I come out, I will be alone, and I don’t want that.”
“Then you can stay in the painting if that’s what you wish. However, you can stay with me while you decide if that is what you truly want.”
She looked down at the contract. There was no point to reading it. It was a struggle the first time. There was only thinking about it. She didn’t know what was best, but, maybe, she’ll would know in ten years’ time. That would give her time to think. Something she hadn’t really done. At that point, all she had been doing was reacting. She wasn’t living. Maybe the being in front of her was wise and not just a collector of unique things.
“I want the revised contract.”
The watchmaker blinked, and the contract rearranged the letters and sentences and rolled up in the air again.
“Now that’s decided. I want you good and ready for tonight. We are going to paint.”
Betty nodded in agreement. And he left the room, leaving her alone. She decided she had more sleep to catch up on. She prayed for a black sleep like the one the ice provided her. No bodies, no blood. Nothing but peace and rest.
When she woke up again, the room was dark from it being late afternoon. She sat in the room alone until the sun went down. As promised, he returned, motioning for her to follow him.
He led her downstairs into the shop. It was dark. The lights were off and the drapes in the windows were drawn. She realized that he had carried her up the narrow stair and into his room. That had to be difficult. She felt terrible and embarrassment for what happened. She should apologize for him having to do that.
“No apologies needed, Mrs. Pulman. I’m used to a little extra service every now and again.”
“Surely you want more than just my painting for what you have done?”
“No, that is all that I require,” he told her and opened the swinging door to the back of the counter. Once again, her ears popped, the air rippled this time as if a droplet at fallen into water. They stepped into the gallery and back in front of the easel. There were canvases there of multiple sizes to choose from. What was missing from it all was the ocean painting. It had been removed.
“Now pick a canvas,” he instructed. “Since this is a landscape, pick a nice one that’ll fit everything.”
Betty sat her carpet bag down and laid her coat on top of it. She picked through the assortment of canvases and found one that was longer than the rest. It wouldn’t be a tall painting but a long one, she decided. She saw a spot for a cabin and the pond she wanted.
“This one,” she held up.
“Perfect,” he said grinning and handed her a paint brush. However, there was no paint for her to use. There wasn’t even a palette there. “This is the instrument of your creation. Imagine what you want to see in this painting and touch the brush with the canvas when you’ve a clear picture in your mind. I will help it along.”
Betty nodded. She was good at imagining things. She would daydream often as a child, getting her in trouble with teachers and even as an adult during quieter moments. She hadn’t daydreamed much in the last handful of months. Life had gotten difficult.
She studied the canvas going in her mind what her ideal cottage would look like. She figured a stone and wood cottage would do. Gray stone as she like it better. A bedroom for her and a loft for someone one else, a kitchen that was spacious enough, and a place to sit, eat, and talk. Since it was cold, she needed a nice stack of firewood under a shed for long winters.
The bed she wanted would not be the shabby thing she shared with his children some nights. She imagined the vanity she always wanted and a cute little shelf for books and she pressed in her mind. She wanted the ability to read words like a normal individual.
She pressed the brush to the canvas and the cottage appeared there. She smiled at the oil paint that appeared as if her hands had done them. Well, a masters hands with the nicest brush in the world. She poked at the canvas where she wanted her blue berry bushes and the regret settled in her hear. She told her children that one day, they would leave the city and live in a country cottage with a yard to play in. No loud neighbors. No bad air. And snow that was white.
She lied to them.
“Mrs. Pulman. Move forward, please,” encouraged the watchmaker.
She couldn’t help but feel bitter about it. And to the side, under a tree, she pressed the canvas and two gravestones appeared there. She heard the Watchmaker catch his breath.
“They might not be there, but a piece of them can,” she said, and didn’t bother putting in a third. He didn’t need to be there; he didn’t deserve to be there. And out around the grave, suddenly thorns appeared.
“Bitter feelings like to manifest in a painting. They’ll lessen over time if you don’t grow bitter,” he told her. “Now, you wanted a pond.”
She did want a pond. One that had a sugar maple tree at its edge. A small dock and a little boat for her to sit out in and enjoy the summer sun. Beside that she made a little garden for herself. For vegetables and flowers. It was covered in a blanket of snow, but in the spring, she would plant what she wanted.
“Now that you have the foreground, what about the background.”
She imagined a town. A town of her people, untouched by war. They would have dances in the spring and then in the fall, bonfires and kite flying. There she imagined a forest for them to hunt and mountains to forage. There would be lads who could help her with firewood. Ladies to be her friend and they could all tell stores and be a what she missed. The city wasn’t like that, people always moving, they didn’t talk, and didn’t help. They would fuss and fight and look down on her. No one would do so there. They were all her people.
She decided to set the time of day at night and imagined a sky scattered with stars and the green curtains of the auroras overhead. And the two moons just like she had grown up with. She took a step back and looked at the painting. Mostly the ice-covered pond. She heard it crack.
“Ignore it, or it will consume this painting,” he warned. “I want you to imagine this world in spring.”
She did so, and it became daytime, and everything turned green with the first flowers and tree blossoms everywhere.
“Now, imagine it in the summer.”
She did and her garden was full of vegetables and the blueberry bushes was specked with blue. To the side where the tombstones were, they changed a little. The twisting briars rescinded. They were still there though, just not as thick.
“Now imagine autumn.”
Autumn was colorful. The mountain side was a collection of different hues of yellow, orange, and red. The maple tree at the pond was golden and leaves scattering in the in the water. It seemed so quiet and so peaceful. And then the painting turned back to into the winterscape.
The watchmaker took the brush from her and tapped each corner of the canvas, and then drew a rectangle surrounding in the air. A gilded frame appeared. At the corners was a bird that looked a great deal like a peacock in the head and body, but it didn’t have a train like one. It was something different. Maybe a pheasant, maybe not. She didn’t know. The feathers did have eyes like the feather on the quill she used to sign his contract.
He brushed across the surface of the painting, brightening to lovely shades of dark blues for shadows, silvery light touching the roof of the cabin and the smoke rising from the chimney. The village in the distant lit up from lights lanterns inside of homes and lamps hanging from poles along the street where it branched into a path running to her cottage. The painting took on a sparkling quality as if painted with the world clearest varnish.
The watchmaker took a step back and nodded with approval.
“Now that I sealed your painting, the last thing for you to do is imagine yourself there and touch the painting where you want to be.”
Betty picked up her coat and pulled it on, making sure she was bundled up. She took out her mittens from her pocket and pulled her hood on. The carpet bag felt heavy in her hands, and she wondered if she was making the right decision. Yet her hands instinctively picked out the path to her home from the road so she could walk there herself.
She licked her lips and imagined herself there and touched the paintings. All at once the air changed. It felt thinner and cold, very cold. Her breath rose in front of her only touched by the light of the moons. She gawked in amazement. Her brown eyes widen with wonder. Above her, the sky was emerald and amethyst. She made it.
She took a step forward and her feet sank and crunched in the snow. She walked forward slowly in shock all the way to the door and opened the cabin. Warmth greeted her from the hearth. With a rocking chair in front of it. She walked to the small round table and saw there was a platter on it with a letter and a feather the color of flame. She picked it up the letter and the feather going to her bedroom. There was a lit lantern there and all what she wanted. She dropped her bag on the bed and dug out her books. She made the motion of placing them on the shelf but stopped halfway. Instead, she sank down on her bed.
It was so soft and firm, she flopped down and just lay there. She felt dizzy, as if everything was too good to be true, that she was in a dream. If it was a dream, then she wanted to sleep as long as she could and not wake up. Her mind wondered to the apartment she snuck out of in the middle of the night, leaving everything. She couldn’t go back there. She didn’t even know how to explain things to the police. Why she didn’t call after he was shot? Why she told her neighbors not to worry about it? And sat on her floor crying. And doing something she felt like doing since she was 18, runaway.
She heard the ice groan outside of her window. The words of the watchmaker echoed in her mind. She ignored the ice and focused on going forward. She sat up and opened the first book her brother had written.
She chose a random page and found the printed words looked like words. Individual words. Not pressed together, forming a single unreadable word with no distinction or space. They were words she had learned. Words her teachers trying to force her to memories and again and again she failed. Now there were there, and they were beautiful.
Tears sprung up in her eyes. She could read his poems and stories now. She could read anything including the letter she had taken from the platter.
She picked it up and unfolded it. Written in the plainest of all handwritings it read:
Sarnai, as per our agreement, I will come for you in 10 year’s time. I will be easy to spot.
-Cato
She blinked at the name as she nearly didn’t recognize it as being her own. It had been years since anyone called her that, let alone wrote it. How did he even know it?
-end
She stood tense, dampened from the mist. The only spot the mist didn’t touch was the handle of her carpet bag under her cramped hand. She dared not to let it go as it contained everything she had to her name. A necklace, two books, a tea set wrapped around a quilt sown by her grandmother, a music box, and a torn picture of her and her two children.
She wore what she needed: a skirt, blouse, thick overcoat, and fur-lined boots for walking in the snow. Her mittens stayed in her coat pocket. She wanted to keep them dry as the palms of her hands were sweaty. A thin layer of sweat had also formed over her forehead, despite the fact she was cold. Her nerves were getting the best of her. She wanted it darker. The streets emptier. She needed to go to the shop across the street. However, it had to be closer to closing.
She looked down at her wrist. It was fifteen minutes till it closed. She didn’t expect a customer to come in later than that. But what if they did? She swallowed another lump in her throat and looked at the sign to the shop:
Trolly’s Timepieces
She was told that was where she needed to go. Though it didn’t make sense. Then again, nothing within the last week made sense. And getting a painting from a watchmaker was the easiest thing for her to handle.
She squinted and studied a tall man behind the front display counter with a watch in hand. He didn’t worry her as much as the shop’s warm lights. They were going to act like a spotlight the moment she walked in. She didn’t want to be seen. That was a problem. Maybe she should wait longer. Then again, she couldn’t wait. Leaving the city was out of the question by train or airship. Maybe she should just leave the city on foot and live in the wilderness. What she was told had to be too good to be true. Nothing good came from those who made deals using the unknown.
However, if one wanted a painting, they had to go to Trolly.
The patrolman she had been watching, passed by her again. Walking in the direction she going to head, unknowing to her location. She waited until he vanished and shoved aside her fears. However, when her foot moved forward, she hesitated with a moan of uncertainty. She jogged in place, wrestling with herself.
This wasn’t something she should or could do. It was better if she went to the police station.
On impulse, she darted out of the alley and shoved back any logical thoughts and dove into the shop.
Her heart thumped in her chest as the door swung closed behind her. Her nerves found that rhythm far too slow and sped up because at the realization of how exposed she was. The glass cases filled with gold and silver didn’t help the fact the curtains were still open so that anyone along the main street could see her. It was as if a stage was set for her.
“Hello, what can I help you with,” spoke a mild voice.
Betty’s racing mind snapped her attention to the man behind the counter. He had a bald head and a face of indeterminate age. His skin, the color of golden sand in an hourglass, had the wrinkles of a man who smiled, but not one worn by time and harsh circumstance. He was old enough to care about looking professional. But, the waist coat he wore wasn’t the typical solid color of a merchant. It was covered in a golden paisley design. His tie was plain, but his taste for the unusual touched that as well. His tie clip was in the shape of a sun dial. The other thing that was remarkably strange about him was the pair of round spectacles with darkened lenses. When she got close to him, she could barely see the shape of his eyes. However, they were friendly.
“Are you here for one of my watches? Or maybe something larger. I have a grandfather clock in the back,” he said, stepping aside and point to a backroom door behind his counter. Through the glass, she could see the face of it. “All I need to do is to install the pendulum.”
“I want a painting,” she hissed.
“Excuse me,” he asked, tilting his head slightly. Betty took it as confusion.
“Aren’t you Trolly? Cato Trolly?”
“I am,” he replied, picking up the wristwatch off the counter and placing it in a wooden box. He pulled a ribbon from a roll, sitting off to the side and snipped a length of it off. Betty watched him a moment tying his box before sitting her bag down and, tapped the glass gently with the pads of her fingers to get his attention.
“I heard you make paintings for people. I want a painting.”
She could see his brow arch critically at her above the rim of his glasses. “And from whom did you hear this from?”
Betty bit her bottom lip. She didn’t want to say it aloud.
“You had to hear that from somewhere. People whisper all sorts of things in town. From shops to along the streets. Perhaps by a statue.”
“An owl in the park,” she whispered. It was ridiculous. She nearly died on the spot when it spoke to her. “He told me to tell you that Barnaby says hello.”
Maybe she was crazy. What happened had really broken her mind more than it had. Stone owls on top of statues didn’t suddenly talk and take pity on people.
“Barnaby doesn’t just help anyone,” he remarked.
“I plucked a tree blossom off his head so I could see what he fully looked like. He appreciated it,” she said with her voice shaking. Then she winced and followed it with another statement. “An-an-and then I fed a kitten. She said I was sweet and told me I should listen to the owl.”
“Owls are wise, and kittens are helpful when they had a meal. What did you give this kitten to eat?”
“Some chicken. It was the only thing I could give her,” she told him. It was the first thing she had eaten in days. She hadn’t slept very much either. Maybe she thought the kitten spoke to her. That the lack of sleep was starting to take her.
The man behind the counter nodded his head. “Kittens do like the taste of birds around here more than fish.”
“N-n-now that I said it. Can I have a painting? I’m desperate.”
The man finished tying his bow, a smirk tugged at his lips. “It’s always the desperate that want paintings. Very rarely does the adventurous human ask for one. I like those. The most memorable human I helped was a man who wanted to know what it was like to be a knight. We painted a grand kingdom. Mystical and full of rarities. He stayed there because he became a king. Then there was the astronomer who wanted to explore. He wanted to see another planet they had seen through a telescope. They were certain there was intelligent life there. Now he studies at a distant planet’s university. I had hoped you were one, dressed as you are.”
She looked backward and at the window for the patrolman on foot. The streets were empty, no motorcars were in sight.
“I’m sorry, but can I get a painting or not? I can pay you if money is what you want.”
He shook his head. “Money isn’t what I want.”
She dug into her pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. She found them in her husband sock drawer, hidden under an old betting card from the racetrack. “Where I am going, I won’t need this money. I’ll earn the money that is there.”
He looked at the bills and pushed the roll aside. In their place, he leaned on the counter.
“What sort of painting do you want, Betty Pulman,” he asked.
Her eyes went wide, and she stepped back. “H-h-how do you know my name?
The watchmaker pointed to the side. There, on a bulletin board in the only shadowy corner, was a wanted poster of her.
Horror raced through her mind. “Please don’t turn me in,” she begged.
“What sort of painting you want,” he asked again steadily. His voice calmed her down.
She then spoke in a small voice. “Mountains, no, a valley. A snowy valley like the one I grew up in. I want a cottage that overlooks a pond. Blueberry bushes to make jam. A place where children can catch fireflies in the summer.”
“Nostalgia. I see.”
“Not nostalgia. Just the home I miss. The land I miss. The people I miss. Or something like that. But not here, not the city. There is nothing here. No birds singing. Just racket, people yelling and hearing your neighbors through the wall. I want to see snow that’s actually white and not gray and black because of soot from factories running coal.”
“I see,” he said thoughtfully and pushed away from her. “I think I can help, Mrs. Pulman.”
He reached under his counter. Though Betty couldn’t understand where. He was standing behind a display case. She could see his legs. Yet from there he brought out a piece of paper and an inkwell. He then stretched out and she could hear his hand patting a hard surface, searching. He frowned and muttered to himself before bending down out of view. She could hear him rummaging for something in something metallic. She spied down at the counter again. The only thing visible through the glass was his legs as if he was leaning on the counter. Once he straightened up, he held a black quill pen. He blew at it and off, sending a puff of dust into the air.
“Many don’t request my skills very much anymore. It is expected. The sun sets, the clocks turns, and you blink and another century is on you. No many want to deal with the unknown as you call it. Some claim it and all the being associated with it, don’t exist anymore. The truth is, a human isn’t aware until they are forced to confront us. Anyway, Mrs. Pulman, you must sign a contract first. You must be certain this is what you want.”
He pushed the paper towards her. She looked down at it and tried to read what was in front of her. Nothing made sense. The words met nothing to her. Some words stood out, others just jumbled together, forming a mass of black letter. She rubbed her eyes and realized she was just too tired to attempt reading.
She pushed the paper back and said with embarrassment. “I can’t read. I mean, I can, but I have trouble. I don’t understand this.”
She could see his eyelids flutter behind his lenses. She waited for a scoff or a sigh from him. Wondering why she could be so stupid. Something she almost heard daily for over a year. He didn’t vocalize his assessment of her. Instead, he pointed to the first line with a long nimble finger and explained.
“This states this is your personal contract to me, Cato Lorry. You consent that I will help you create a painting,” he said, and his finger went down to the next paragraph. “This states I’m not liable for whatever happens to you in the painting, good or bad. And this one says, you agree to live out your life in this painting. Once you have lived your life, the painting becomes part of my collection.”
“My entire life?”
“What is left of it, yes,” he told her.
All at once, she became uncertain if that was what she wanted to do. She bit her lip again.
“You have nowhere to go, correct? There is nothing else in this world you care or want? Barnaby wouldn’t have sent you here. But if you truly don’t like this, I can modify the contract to a specific number of years so you can return. Maybe after the statute of limitations passes.”
There was nothing else. No one else. Everything she had left was taken away from her in a single night. Life didn’t even feel real anymore. She didn’t even know if she stood in a winters coat inside of a watch shop asking for a painting. The other day, she was talking to owl statues named Barnaby and a kitten.
She eyed the quill feather. It looked as if it had come from a very large crow. She reached out for it and took it into her fingers. Suddenly it sparked into the color and flames. She dropped it. The feather transformed on the counter as a plume of red and gold with a purple eye filled with blue and green.
The watchmaker smiled, intrigued. “Phoenix feathers only reveals themself to those with a special heart. We will make a beautiful painting together.”
Betty picked up the feather with a shaky hand and dipped it. At the bottom, there was a line where she scratched her name slowly and tried to keep each letter on the line. She failed; her name, it was crocked. She could hear her teacher slapping the yard stick on her desk for such sloppy pen work.
“Oops,” she muttered. “Maybe I could sign another.”
“No, this is fine. Character should be valued,” he said, beaming at her name.
Maybe in the painting, she would be able to read and write. Then she would be able to read the books in her bag. Her brother wrote them for the world to read and yet she was unable to. She hoped her husband would read them to her. But that day came and never will.
The paper then rolled up and sprung into the air and floated. The watchmaker then opened a swinging door between the wall and the counter.
“Once you go beyond this, there is no turning back. You must accept the painting. Out there, I can still burn the contract.”
She looked down and just saw a wooden door on a hinge.
“Not all boundaries can be seen. Not by humans, unless allowed.”
Betty gulped. The knot in her throat, threatened to strangle her. She then heard the engine of a motor car rumbling down the road. She could see the head lights reflecting in the glass. There was nothing but a courtroom, judge, and jury waiting for her. She worked up what remained of the tiny amount of courage in her heart, and stepped behind the counter.
Betty expected, actually, she didn’t know what she expected. Her ears popped and started ringing. The air in front of her wavered as if she was looking down a dirt road under the summer sun. The hairs on her arms stood up as she followed the watchmaker to the backroom of his shop.
She saw the workbench that had a grandfather clock standing up in front of it with the pendulum removed and stretched out on a cloth beside it. Tools were lined up on the top of a box, as the clock was ready to be worked on. However, when she walked over the threshold guarded by a scale above, she found herself in a room of white. The floor and the walls were white. In the center of the room, was an easel. The only color were paintings hanging on a wall that seemed to stretch on forever in a very large room.
“These are my most recent paintings,” he explained, taking off his glasses and revealed gleaming bronze eyes with no white.
Betty gasped. Frozen, wondering if she truly lost her mind again. That grief had sent her into a spiral she had never woken up from. Maybe she was still on the floor of her apartment after crying and was still asleep.
He was unaware of her shock and spun his body around as if searching for something.
“I don’t have a canvas out. How inconvenient. Well, I will fetch some so you can choose the size. Feel free to look around.”
Betty didn’t know who or what she had been speaking too. The watchmaker wasn’t human. She should’ve known that. Nothing from the unknown was human. For an instant, fear gripped her. She had to run, but run where, back to the streets where she would go to jail and then prison for the rest of her life? She swallowed and told herself she was safe where she was. However, that didn’t make the space she was in believable. Maybe it was a dream. A fever dream from all the stress.
She turned around to seek the door they had walked through. There was nothing there. Only a row of paintings that, weren’t there before. However, despite her fear and panic, her curiosity lived still. She couldn’t help to find the gilded frames of the paintings attractive.
Her grandmother once had a beautiful painting in a thick stately frame. In her opinion, the golden frame was a piece of art in its own right. Those surrounded the paints there were as well.
She approached the most gorgeous one of them all. A golden frame of woven vines around a landscape of someone on a horse. The horse and rider were walking through a field of cornflowers in a sunset. She could almost hear the breeze and see the wildflowers swaying. For a moment she thought she heard the person on a horse whistling. The title of the piece was Solitude.
She then moved on to another landscape with a town in the background and too people going towards the town hand in hand. In the foreground was a wheelchair left abandoned. It was titled Freedom with a Friend.
A wail took her attention. It was like a whisper on the wind, and she searched for the source of the distant cry. She smelled the sea and felt the salt of the ocean on her skin. The sound of a roaring, angry ocean overtook the cry of a man. She followed the sound like a moth to a flame and stopped in front of a dark painting in a plain silver frame. It was that of the ocean in the middle of a storm. Lightning had been painted and streaked the sky. Waves towered above a man in the middle of the maelstrom, crying, shouting, and begging for an end. The ocean didn’t heed his request. It only worked to toss him endlessly up, down, and under only for him to begin the cycle anew.
Betty involuntarily backed from the painting until her back hit something warm and solid. She spang up and then spun, nearly letting go of her bag. The watchmaker looked at her and then at the painting emotionlessly.
“As I said, the desperate come to me often. Those who wish to hide from the law are the most among them. They wish to hide from themselves. They think I can provide them and escape. But their hearts betray them. Their ill-wills in life manifest a painting suited for them. What did you think this man did?”
She looked at the painting. And held her bag up as if it would shield her from the horror in front of her. “Was he a sailor?”
“Oh, no. Nothing so honorable. He was a businessman with many ships. Ships he sent out to send ore from one port to the next. However, he loved money more. Hogged it, horded it, and didn’t take care of his men or his ships. One night, a ship of his met a violent end. Their hull split in two and sank in a storm.
“And storms swallow ships all the time, but it happened again and again. It’s usually only when there are enough tombstones when something is done. And they investigated. He commissioned those ships with the poorest metal that the least amount of money can buy. However, when the questions came and answers to be made, he had enough money for the best lawyers, money could buy. The law failed that day. A judges pockets grew larger. The common folk were given nothing for their suffering. However, one can’t get the law off your back when you owe it money. He came to me believing I would solve his problems because he run out of excuses.”
“W-w-wait. I know him. A businessman, like a few years ago. He went missing. The Feds were after him,” she remarked and stared at the painting. Her stomach twisted.
“He a fresh start. A where he could build money and power again. But his heart revealed the truth and there was only a single place for him to go.”
Chills coursed through her body.
He then took her by the shoulder. And spun her around.
“That painting lacks the inspiration. You need inspiration. Snowscapes are lovely when you know how to place color into them. And if you don’t keep warmth in your heart, you will freeze inside of dark bleakness where there is no sun.”
They walked across the room and then rounded a corner. Betty looked back, startled. Where had that corner come from? And she found herself in another room. This one warmed by a crackling hearth. Two large leather overstuffed chairs that her grandfather would have appreciated, was placed in front of a fire. Above the mantle was an empty frame.
He bowed and gestured for her to take a chair. “Ladies first.”
She remembered when her husband used to do that. No matter the seat, whether it was a park bend or a squat stool. It was always ladies' first. She sat down in the stuffed chair and then a foot stool appeared and the raised her feet up. She couldn’t relax, though. The rage of the ocean was in her ears. She wondered if the ocean would swallow her up for her failures.
A mug suddenly appeared in front of her face.
“Now, now, you will not make a good painting in that state of mind,” said the watchmaker.
For a moment, she thought it was floating in the air, given everything else. But the steaming drink was held mundanely by his hand. She took it and the sweet aroma of delicious hot chocolate reached her nose. She stirred it in her mug and realized that it was thick. and wondered if she there was something to dip into it. And there beside her was a plate stacked with a collection of sweet biscuits. A collection of flavors presented in front of her. Almond, butter, poppyseed, and caraway. All her favorites. And things she hadn’t had since her second child was born. They were a treat when she managed it. As was the hot chocolate. She selected poppyseed, as that was her favorite.
“Now that we have our drinks in hand, we can find some inspiration,” he told her and pointed forward.
The painting above the mantel was not only of snow, but of ice. A glorious ice castle with a spire that rose into a sky with stars scattered across it. A long sleigh containing two forms being driven by reindeer. The stars that glittered silvery blue, red hued, and golden distance lights. It took her back to the days that she was in the mountains. She sitting in the sleigh beside her grandfather. A bear hide over her lap. Her little hand tucked in thick rabbit fur mittens.
He sang with the beat of the sleigh bells that matched the stride of the deer. In her mind, she was standing in the mountains. However, she wasn’t riding towards some palace. She was on her way home in a tiny village between two mountain that rose like giants. She saw her home village in front of her. The smell of smoke from wood burning in every hearth and stove made her eyes water but delighted her at the same time. It met warmth and everything familiar.
She imagined her grandparent’s house. Wooden and cozy, with woven mats on every surface and carvings of critters on the mantel her grandfather made. Her brother reading a book of tales long lost. Her mother complaining about how small a village it was. Her grandmother chiding her to be happy with the way her world was. She was loved, she had a roof, and she had family.
Those were things that Betty wanted in her future. She wanted a warm house of her own. Instead, her mind went to the small apartment she run from. She remembered the little drowned bodies on the floor. Her husband pointing a gun at her, giving her instructions on what to do.
She didn’t want to remember his words. His plan. His insanity.
“We can always have more children; we need money now,” were the only words her mind dredged up.
The painting in her mind became tainted. The town, the lights from the house, the smoke was replaced with ice and thorns. Three tombstones in the center with her holding his gun.
“This will not do.”
She heard a finger snap. It felt it ripple through her body. She was back in the white world. The painting was gone. Her hot cocoa had grown cold. Over the brown liquid was a sheet of ice. And it was creeping over the edge towards her hand. She screamed and flung the mug away from her. She sucked in air as if she had been running.
The watchmaker was at the side of her chair, looking up at her. His arms folded on her armrest. His bronze eyes took on a more human appearance. She saw whites in his eyes surrounding an iris with a pupil in the middle. However, his irises were still like polished bronze. Concern etched his brow.
“You must not look at the past like that. Helpless and hopeless. That doesn’t make a good painting. And see, you are already trying to freeze yourself. Maybe it will be easier if you think of that valley in the spring or the summer.”
She opened her mouth, but her tongue was stuck to the top of her mouth. He reached behind her chair and pulled back the end table that was between them. There a silver platter replaced the one with the biscuits and on it was a goblet of water.
“Drink.”
She took it. The sweet water filled her mouth, going down her throat. When was the last time she had drank water? She downed the large goblet and sat it on the platter.
“But it’s the cold I miss. I miss the winter. I miss being with family. In the winter, we would all be together.”
“I see,” said the watchmaker, once again assessing her unblinkingly to the point it made Betty uncomfortable. She shifted in her chair, leaning away from him. He became still, like a statue. She wondered if something in him stopped like a clock needing to be wound. He came to life speaking. Still not blinking. “That is what is broken inside of you. There is a loneliness inside you where no warmth and light reaches. Just bleak cold.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. How did he know anything about her? They hadn’t spoken before. She told him nothing. However, there was no disagreeing with him. All what she had left was taken away from her and she didn’t want to face that. That would mean she would have to acknowledge the sorrow she had pushed away to survive.
“You have to. This is your painting. The heart, to produce something comforting and warm out of snow, cannot live in darkness and cold,” he said.
She nodded her head.
“You can’t just forget it all the way and bury what has happened. It always has a habit of coming back. Like that ocean from before. He tried to forget, deny what happened, and run from responsibility. He didn’t care. Happened in his mind, was an inconvenience.”
“You had my wanted poster in your store. My name has been on the radio. You know I’m running,” she cried.
The Watchmaker rested his chin on his forearm and said gently, “Your story is written on your face. Etched into your soul. You didn’t take his life from him. He took it from himself. He let it drain out of him until it was all gone. What you saw that day, was just the remains. He gave up living long ago. And here you are still living. You had enough of a flame to see the phoenix feather. Now look up.”
She looked above the hearth and the painting had changed again. This time, something more peaceful. Something that she had never seen in her life. She didn’t live that far north. In the quiet paint were moving auras. Haunting green light moved across the canvas like curtains being blown gently in the breeze. Below them, not capped mountains. She remembered ever since she was a child, she wanted to see them. She heard stories about them being spirts of the dead making their way through the heavens. Her children would be mixed in. They would be happy. Maybe she could have them exist in her painting. Something that her children could watch as well. Could she have her children? Should she just replace them? She didn’t want to create more and to replace them as he wanted to do that.
Then she felt a vice gripping her hand. “Regrets will not make this painting. Unless you wish to live in a world of regrets. Yes, they are gone, just like he. In this world, you can have representation of your old life. But you are better off with new things that will build their own story.”
“Build my own story?”
“Yes, this is your world. It’s beyond the boundaries of what is material in your world. Beyond what a human can create for themselves. You can create a place of rest and of healing. You cannot do that outside.”
Betty hung her head down and did something she hadn’t been able to do for days and that was cry. When she soaked her hands, she then soaked his shoulder. For only a single instant, in the time it takes to inhale and exhale, she felt feathers pillowing her forehead and the warmth of a winter’s sun embracing her.
She stopped sobbing and pulled back. Bronze eyes greeted her, waiting patiently.
“Do you want to try again, or rest? Not every painting can be planned and executed in a single sitting.”
Betty didn’t want to rest. She didn’t know if she had time. “What if someone comes to your shop? You haven’t close yet. What if they saw me and come looking for me?”
“All you need to know it that time here and there isn’t the same. You have plenty of time here. How about we go into another room?”
She looked around the white space and couldn’t imagine there being another room. Once again, she stood, he took her around another corner. This time she watched and suddenly there was a corner, as if one had been there all along.
The new room was different. There were no white walls and blank hard floors. It was like they had stepped into a log cabin. The floor was made of boards covered in animal hides. Two of them were stretched out in front of another hearth. It was burning low with crackling deep red embers. She sat on the floor while the watchmaker rose, the wick of a lantern brightening the room until the shadows were pushed back.
It reminded her of her grandfather’s home when there was a blizzard out. But also, of those days that some travel could be achieved. Those days of traveling on tree-lined roads through the forest. Sunlight passed through the trees and highlighted the snow. In front of her was like a doorway to a smooth, bright snow for miles. As a child she wanted nothing more than to jump out of the sleigh and jump into smooth surface and disturb it. Roll in until the hood of her coat come off and her hair would mimic a raven’s in a snowstorm.
Beside her appeared a bowl of stew. She jerked away from it and looked behind her. The Watchmaker wasn’t there. He had vanished. She didn’t know if she enjoyed being alone in whatever strange room or realm, she was in. Then again, he was an enigma from the unknown. It was better if he wasn’t around. Her mind now cautioned her from eating the stew that was given to her. However, her empty belly came to life at the savory aroma of lamb and roots. She picked up the wooden bowl and spoon small bites in her mouth until it was all down. She even cleaned the bowl with some flat bread that manifested on a small plate.
It was things she used to eat as a child. In the mountain. Not in the city. The city was warm, people didn’t eat lamb or even mutton as she had. They were things she wished her children tasted. But where she was born and lived. There was nothing left. War had taken it.
She was lamenting again.
He had told her than she needed to move forward. But how could she? She had nowhere to go. No family to run to. Fire burned the trees of her home. Mortars destroyed the countryside and that smooth blanket of snow had blood pooling on it, just like under the body of her husband.
The embers in the hearth suddenly died. Nothing lay there but black coals covered in gray ash. The room became chilly, as if the fire had been out for hours. Then the lantern went dark, and suddenly she felt very alone.
Maybe she should be alone. The world had done its best to make sure she was.
The skins melted into the floor, becoming a sheet of ice. It spread to the wooden planks, and they moaned and creak from the transformation. For an instant, it was silent. Then a single crack ran from her in the ice, and spiderwebbed. Betty froze.
She went back in her mind trying to remember what she was told to do when on splitting ice. And her mind went to how she hated her name. But she didn’t want to remember the name her mother had given her. That name came with sadness. Betty was the name the immigration officer told her to use. She would blend in better if she didn’t carry the name of her people anymore. Betty, was simple. Betty, wasn’t a name that a refugee would have. A name of a woman to be forgotten.
Maybe she needed to be forgotten.
She let her children die.
Despite the sound of cracking ice and cold freezing water pooling by her legs, she didn’t move. Not out of fear or what she was told as a child, but out of resignation.
If the ice wanted her, then she should let it.
As soon as that thought entered her mind, the ice swallowed her. She screamed and tried to fight it as the air was knocked out of her from being stabbed by bone chilling cold. Her desperation for survival was cut off by thoughts of what she hadn’t done. Him telling her they could have more children. They needed the money now. His weekend spent at the racetrack.
She could’ve stopped him.
She should have left him.
And now the water had her. She watched the ice seal itself back up. She was trapped. She closed her eyes and accepted her fate. As the darkness on the edge of her vison formed, a shadow fell over the ice. Whatever it was, pounded the ice and then it became as bright as the sun. When it burst through it took the shape of a bird’s claw. Then Betty blacked out.
Tic tic tic was a sound that pierced Betty’s conscious. The nothingness she floated in to let up a little and she began to think again. She didn’t imagine that in death, she would hear ticking. What was beyond her, shouldn’t be at all like her mortal life. She then heard a horn of an airship and its engine humming above her, the walls vibrated in return. She cracked her eyes, seeing a blur of blue and brown.
When she squeezed her hand, soft fabric greeted her fingertips. That threw her off as she was used to rough sheets or hard floor. She was in a bed and one far too comfortable for the one in her apartment. Her eyes snapped open, and she saw blue wallpaper and the face of a clock. On the bedstand beside her was a tall mantle clock that reminded her of steeple on a building. The thin ornate hour arm pointed to the 10.
Betty sat up, wide eyes searching the room for answers. The window had dark drapes over them that were drawn still, with daylight streaming through the cracks. The room itself was neat. There was nothing much to see. The only thing telling was the mirrored dresser stained a dark color. On the surface of it was a collection of items. None of them looked particularly feminine. In fact, she saw a selection of men’s ties arranged across the top. She swung her head to a closet door. A man’s suit hanging from a hook as if it had come from the cleaners. Beside it on another hook, was a flat cap.
She was likely in the watchmaker’s room.
Betty covered her face letting out a cry for what? Her stupidity, embarrassment, and building fear? She didn’t know. All she knew the fact, she needed to get out of there. She didn’t need to back in her world. Her heart was in her throat, and she immediately searched for her things. The carpet bag that held what was left of her life was in front of the chest at the foot of her bed. The clothing she wore was folded on top of it.
She patted her chest. She didn’t pack a night gown. Her gaze traveled down to the pink fabric. It was new. She was speechless and saw her wide eyes revelation in the mirror. No, no, no, she didn’t need this and would have to worry about it later. She scrambled upright and worked to get her blouse and skirt on.
It was when she pulled her skirt to her waist, the door open.
She gaped at the watchmaker. He stood with a platter of food in his hand, once again, his eyes hidden behind smoky lenses. There was no look of surprise from him by the way his face remained flat. He sighed and continued onward in the room, ignoring her backing away towards the bedstand and eyeing the door. He dropped the platter on the dresser. The plate and tea pot rattled. She turned her back against the closet door and looked for something to defend herself with.
“You, Mrs. Pulman, are a menace,” he said, with his back still facing her.
“Why,” she demanded, her voice as high as a panicked songbird.
“Perhaps I need to explain it better. Where you were last night, that realm response to your emotions,” he said, turning around to face her. He stared at her with severe disapproval. “You claim to come here desperate for a place to go.
Instead, you have a death wish!”
Betty blinked. She felt like she was being admonished by her father. Or what she imagined being admonished by one’s father would feel like.
He leaned against the dresser, letting out another exhale as if expelling his anger. When he spoke again, he sounded as mildly as before.
“That won’t do. You cannot make a painting with thoughts like that. It almost killed you last night. I had to pull you from the ice. Being a creature of the sun, that’s not always easy for me to do. The ice, the cold, the snow needs to be created with warmth not with the light inside of you flickering and dying. It will bury or encase you.”
“How can I have warmth and light as you call it,” she cried. “I’ve no family, no children, my husband— this was all because I-I-I…y-y-you know what happened.”
He looked at her steadily with unjudging eyes. “I know what the radio claims. And I know what the police believe. However, you touch my quill and saw its true colors, so there is more in you than lonely bleakness. So, tell me, what do you truly want? You don’t get to have what was lost to you, which is what you are thinking about. Loss and regret. You don’t want yourself to have anything because you feel like you failed.”
“Because I did fail. I fail at everything,” she returned sharply.
“Mrs. Pulman, a person cannot predict every outcome of all their actions. You cannot control the world or others. You can only control yourself and trust everyone else. The wrongs committed by your late husband is not your burden to bear.”
“But I feel ice is what I deserve,” she muttered.
“Your heart is broken. Some of the most beautiful paintings can come from a broken heart. That is because there is hope there. You need to want a future for yourself. Now. Eat your brunch. Stay away from the window. It faces the street. It’s been busy day out there. I’ll see to you at noon.”
He exited the room and left her alone.
She sank onto the bed. She couldn’t come to terms what was happening. Why would he care? Some being from the Unknown, creating paintings for people out of magic and emotion and collecting them. Surely such a being wouldn’t care if one of those people begging for his services killed themselves. He didn’t seem to care about that businessman. Why did he care about her? There was no answering that. The only way was to ask him, and she wasn’t going to do that. He wasn’t human. There was no way she would understand.
Betty finished dressing and walked over to the dresser to see a simple breakfast sandwich, fruit arranged in a bowl, and two custard pastries. While munching on the sandwich, she and poured herself some tea and wished there was something to explore. There wasn’t, and she didn’t want to touch anything. She was too scared to peer out the window. So, she laid back down on the bed and slept.
Two hours went by quickly and the door to the room opened slowly, and the watchmaker’s bald head appeared. This time, he greeted her with a smile.
“Good, you’ve been resting. And you’ve eaten. I think now we can discuss things in a bit more. I didn’t think you were on such a rocky ledge.”
She came to the edge of the bed, expecting him to sit beside her. Instead, he sat on the floor in font of her. He took off his glasses and laid them on the bedstand. With them off, eyes that tried their best to be human, but failed revealed themselves. They weren’t the bronze she had been seeing, but the crystalline quality of polished amber in the sun.
“Where to begin to help you understand,” he said, pausing with his arms crossed. His eyes wondering in thought before his gaze snapped back to her. “Let’s start at my realm. That is a pocket you stepped into. And one that reacts to thoughts and emotion. It’s not predictable and the stronger an emotion is, the stronger it reacts. So, you must be mindful, or something like last night will happen. Your broken heart manifested that ice and combined with the fact you don’t value yourself at all. It would’ve been death for you.”
Betty blinked at him. None of that made sense. Well, it did, but things didn’t work that way in life. How was she supposed to know what would happen?
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a guest and you appeared to handle the fantastic better than most. I should have kept a sharper eye on you. That was my fault. I apologize.”
Betty opened her mouth, shut it. She wanted to tell him there was no need to apologize to her. However, he continued before she properly formed the words.
“Now, I know what I’m asking you to do is difficult because no one gets over what happened to you in a week. You’ve been hiding in and out of corners and shadows without time for it all to sink in until now. However, I want you to know that your life isn’t so worthless that you throw it into the ice. You are still valued. Mainly by me.”
She frowned at him, shaking her head. “You just want my painting.”
“No, I want your story. What do you think those paintings are? They tell stories. And humans tell the most interesting stories.”
“Why? I’m not interesting at all.”
“Because you aren’t like the other humans. You all bustle around trying to carve and shape a life for yourself and the easiest thing to do is jump into this fast-moving stream everyone is part of. However, like a rock in a river, you lose a bit of yourself rushing through it all. Now the interesting ones, they break away from the stream. Either by choice or happenstance. They catch my attention.”
Betty would rather the normal life. The better part of her life hadn’t been normal. She had what she thought was a normal childhood until it was blasted away. Then everything was different after that.
“Happenstance pushed you out and I think it pushed you too far,” he said, once again studying her a long time, unblinking and unmoving, before he suggested. “Perhaps I should modify your contract.”
She watched him this time. She wanted to see if the self-rolling contract popped into existence. It didn’t. The only thing that happened was an impromptu staring contest between him and her. He broke his unblinking gaze first. His eyes shifted to beside of her.
She looked and there was her contract. The writing on the paper was normal mostly except several lines were struck through with a glowing red line and the new writing was underlined with a glowing golden line.
“I have a suggestion. I’ve taken out you are living the rest of your life in the painting. You are to live in the painting for a decade’s time. When that time is up, I will give you a choice of remaining there or you may come out and live out here again.”
Betty’s eyes widened. “But ten years, if I’m found, I will still be arrested.”
“You might be surprised. Times may change by the time you come back,” he told her.
“But why can’t I live the remained of my life in there as before?”
“You didn’t give up on living before,” he returned. “I can leave the contract as before. It’s your decision to make.”
“But if I come out, I will be alone, and I don’t want that.”
“Then you can stay in the painting if that’s what you wish. However, you can stay with me while you decide if that is what you truly want.”
She looked down at the contract. There was no point to reading it. It was a struggle the first time. There was only thinking about it. She didn’t know what was best, but, maybe, she’ll would know in ten years’ time. That would give her time to think. Something she hadn’t really done. At that point, all she had been doing was reacting. She wasn’t living. Maybe the being in front of her was wise and not just a collector of unique things.
“I want the revised contract.”
The watchmaker blinked, and the contract rearranged the letters and sentences and rolled up in the air again.
“Now that’s decided. I want you good and ready for tonight. We are going to paint.”
Betty nodded in agreement. And he left the room, leaving her alone. She decided she had more sleep to catch up on. She prayed for a black sleep like the one the ice provided her. No bodies, no blood. Nothing but peace and rest.
When she woke up again, the room was dark from it being late afternoon. She sat in the room alone until the sun went down. As promised, he returned, motioning for her to follow him.
He led her downstairs into the shop. It was dark. The lights were off and the drapes in the windows were drawn. She realized that he had carried her up the narrow stair and into his room. That had to be difficult. She felt terrible and embarrassment for what happened. She should apologize for him having to do that.
“No apologies needed, Mrs. Pulman. I’m used to a little extra service every now and again.”
“Surely you want more than just my painting for what you have done?”
“No, that is all that I require,” he told her and opened the swinging door to the back of the counter. Once again, her ears popped, the air rippled this time as if a droplet at fallen into water. They stepped into the gallery and back in front of the easel. There were canvases there of multiple sizes to choose from. What was missing from it all was the ocean painting. It had been removed.
“Now pick a canvas,” he instructed. “Since this is a landscape, pick a nice one that’ll fit everything.”
Betty sat her carpet bag down and laid her coat on top of it. She picked through the assortment of canvases and found one that was longer than the rest. It wouldn’t be a tall painting but a long one, she decided. She saw a spot for a cabin and the pond she wanted.
“This one,” she held up.
“Perfect,” he said grinning and handed her a paint brush. However, there was no paint for her to use. There wasn’t even a palette there. “This is the instrument of your creation. Imagine what you want to see in this painting and touch the brush with the canvas when you’ve a clear picture in your mind. I will help it along.”
Betty nodded. She was good at imagining things. She would daydream often as a child, getting her in trouble with teachers and even as an adult during quieter moments. She hadn’t daydreamed much in the last handful of months. Life had gotten difficult.
She studied the canvas going in her mind what her ideal cottage would look like. She figured a stone and wood cottage would do. Gray stone as she like it better. A bedroom for her and a loft for someone one else, a kitchen that was spacious enough, and a place to sit, eat, and talk. Since it was cold, she needed a nice stack of firewood under a shed for long winters.
The bed she wanted would not be the shabby thing she shared with his children some nights. She imagined the vanity she always wanted and a cute little shelf for books and she pressed in her mind. She wanted the ability to read words like a normal individual.
She pressed the brush to the canvas and the cottage appeared there. She smiled at the oil paint that appeared as if her hands had done them. Well, a masters hands with the nicest brush in the world. She poked at the canvas where she wanted her blue berry bushes and the regret settled in her hear. She told her children that one day, they would leave the city and live in a country cottage with a yard to play in. No loud neighbors. No bad air. And snow that was white.
She lied to them.
“Mrs. Pulman. Move forward, please,” encouraged the watchmaker.
She couldn’t help but feel bitter about it. And to the side, under a tree, she pressed the canvas and two gravestones appeared there. She heard the Watchmaker catch his breath.
“They might not be there, but a piece of them can,” she said, and didn’t bother putting in a third. He didn’t need to be there; he didn’t deserve to be there. And out around the grave, suddenly thorns appeared.
“Bitter feelings like to manifest in a painting. They’ll lessen over time if you don’t grow bitter,” he told her. “Now, you wanted a pond.”
She did want a pond. One that had a sugar maple tree at its edge. A small dock and a little boat for her to sit out in and enjoy the summer sun. Beside that she made a little garden for herself. For vegetables and flowers. It was covered in a blanket of snow, but in the spring, she would plant what she wanted.
“Now that you have the foreground, what about the background.”
She imagined a town. A town of her people, untouched by war. They would have dances in the spring and then in the fall, bonfires and kite flying. There she imagined a forest for them to hunt and mountains to forage. There would be lads who could help her with firewood. Ladies to be her friend and they could all tell stores and be a what she missed. The city wasn’t like that, people always moving, they didn’t talk, and didn’t help. They would fuss and fight and look down on her. No one would do so there. They were all her people.
She decided to set the time of day at night and imagined a sky scattered with stars and the green curtains of the auroras overhead. And the two moons just like she had grown up with. She took a step back and looked at the painting. Mostly the ice-covered pond. She heard it crack.
“Ignore it, or it will consume this painting,” he warned. “I want you to imagine this world in spring.”
She did so, and it became daytime, and everything turned green with the first flowers and tree blossoms everywhere.
“Now, imagine it in the summer.”
She did and her garden was full of vegetables and the blueberry bushes was specked with blue. To the side where the tombstones were, they changed a little. The twisting briars rescinded. They were still there though, just not as thick.
“Now imagine autumn.”
Autumn was colorful. The mountain side was a collection of different hues of yellow, orange, and red. The maple tree at the pond was golden and leaves scattering in the in the water. It seemed so quiet and so peaceful. And then the painting turned back to into the winterscape.
The watchmaker took the brush from her and tapped each corner of the canvas, and then drew a rectangle surrounding in the air. A gilded frame appeared. At the corners was a bird that looked a great deal like a peacock in the head and body, but it didn’t have a train like one. It was something different. Maybe a pheasant, maybe not. She didn’t know. The feathers did have eyes like the feather on the quill she used to sign his contract.
He brushed across the surface of the painting, brightening to lovely shades of dark blues for shadows, silvery light touching the roof of the cabin and the smoke rising from the chimney. The village in the distant lit up from lights lanterns inside of homes and lamps hanging from poles along the street where it branched into a path running to her cottage. The painting took on a sparkling quality as if painted with the world clearest varnish.
The watchmaker took a step back and nodded with approval.
“Now that I sealed your painting, the last thing for you to do is imagine yourself there and touch the painting where you want to be.”
Betty picked up her coat and pulled it on, making sure she was bundled up. She took out her mittens from her pocket and pulled her hood on. The carpet bag felt heavy in her hands, and she wondered if she was making the right decision. Yet her hands instinctively picked out the path to her home from the road so she could walk there herself.
She licked her lips and imagined herself there and touched the paintings. All at once the air changed. It felt thinner and cold, very cold. Her breath rose in front of her only touched by the light of the moons. She gawked in amazement. Her brown eyes widen with wonder. Above her, the sky was emerald and amethyst. She made it.
She took a step forward and her feet sank and crunched in the snow. She walked forward slowly in shock all the way to the door and opened the cabin. Warmth greeted her from the hearth. With a rocking chair in front of it. She walked to the small round table and saw there was a platter on it with a letter and a feather the color of flame. She picked it up the letter and the feather going to her bedroom. There was a lit lantern there and all what she wanted. She dropped her bag on the bed and dug out her books. She made the motion of placing them on the shelf but stopped halfway. Instead, she sank down on her bed.
It was so soft and firm, she flopped down and just lay there. She felt dizzy, as if everything was too good to be true, that she was in a dream. If it was a dream, then she wanted to sleep as long as she could and not wake up. Her mind wondered to the apartment she snuck out of in the middle of the night, leaving everything. She couldn’t go back there. She didn’t even know how to explain things to the police. Why she didn’t call after he was shot? Why she told her neighbors not to worry about it? And sat on her floor crying. And doing something she felt like doing since she was 18, runaway.
She heard the ice groan outside of her window. The words of the watchmaker echoed in her mind. She ignored the ice and focused on going forward. She sat up and opened the first book her brother had written.
She chose a random page and found the printed words looked like words. Individual words. Not pressed together, forming a single unreadable word with no distinction or space. They were words she had learned. Words her teachers trying to force her to memories and again and again she failed. Now there were there, and they were beautiful.
Tears sprung up in her eyes. She could read his poems and stories now. She could read anything including the letter she had taken from the platter.
She picked it up and unfolded it. Written in the plainest of all handwritings it read:
Sarnai, as per our agreement, I will come for you in 10 year’s time. I will be easy to spot.
-Cato
She blinked at the name as she nearly didn’t recognize it as being her own. It had been years since anyone called her that, let alone wrote it. How did he even know it?
-end