“Thank you,” my mom murmurs, but I know she’ll never take him up on his offer. Once her supplies arrive, she’ll keep to herself and her art, like she always does. Until something sets her off and she decides we need to run.
“Come on, then.” Assuming we’ll follow, the old man turns to the stairs and starts up. When we reach the second floor, he pulls out a large ring of skeleton keys and uses one to unlock the first door we come to. “This ’ere’s the flat.”
The door swings open, and he steps inside a room that smells like it hasn’t been aired out in at least a decade.
With a wet snort, he looks around the sparsely furnished apartment as though approving of what he sees. I can’t imagine why—the apartment looks like it was last lived in about fifty years ago. “The other bedroom is this way,” he says. Without bothering to make sure we’re following, he heads farther into the darkened flat.
We follow him back through a narrow hallway lit by the strange and ghostly glow of more gas lamps and up another staircase so narrow, we have to climb single file. At the top, though, we find a room that is surprisingly airy. Here, the ceiling follows the sharp point of the roofline, and windows line the far wall, helping to make the space feel more open. Even with the overcast skies outside, this room is by far the brightest place in the house.
A studio, I realize. Because my mom will need the light to work.
The lower level of the apartment had been decorated by someone who had a thing for avocado green, but the décor in this room might be original—it looks Victorian and seems to have been untouched by any previous tenants. The walls are washed in a soft blue, and a large bed stands against the back wall. A massive carved fireplace that now houses a small heating unit takes up most of the wall to the right.
On the wall opposite the fireplace is a large and intricate mural. Time has faded its colors, so the design is barely an impression of its former beauty, but even so, it’s striking. Wispy figures that look like they might have once been beautifully rendered fairies dance beneath flowered trees as bright, starlike orbs swirl around them.
“What is that?” my mom asks. I’ve heard her sound less horrified with the lizards we lived with a few years back. There’s a strangled quality to her voice, like her panic is already wrapping its fingers around her throat, even as she tries to pretend she’s calm.
It hasn’t even been an hour. Our boxes haven’t even arrived yet.
She turns on the landlord, her eyes fierce. “Is this some sort of joke? Because it’s not—”
“It’s just a painting,” I tell her gently, touching her shoulder before she can finish.
She flinches away, her words forgotten. She never wants me to touch her when she’s like this—I should know that by now. Still, her rejection stings.
“This room used to be a nursery.” I can feel the old man lurking too close behind me. “Course, it’s been a lot more since, but no one never could bring themselves to get rid of the wee folk.”
My mom turns back to the mural. “I can’t stay here,” she whispers in a ragged voice. Her unease feels like a living thing snaking through the room, but I don’t understand her reaction. The mural is beautiful, charming even. “And I can’t work here. Not with them watching and—”
“Mom,” I say gently, before she can work herself up too much more. “It’s okay.”
She turns on me, her eyes wide and wild, and I sense Olivia stiffen beside me. She knows my mom can be eccentric, but I’ve managed to hide most of this from her. Two years, and Olivia has only ever seen the aftermath. She’s been there when I turn up exhausted and at the end of my rope, and she’s never asked the questions I know she wants to ask when she lets me stay the night at her house.
“You see them, don’t you?” my mom asks me in a strangled whisper.
“I see them just fine,” I assure her. “We all see them. It’s a painting. That’s all it is.”
She shakes her head, her mouth set tight as her eyes dart between the mural and me. “I can’t work here,” she says again. “Not until they’re gone. I won’t stay here.”
“You don’t have to.” I try to reach out for her again. “We can go back to Westport. It’s not too late.”
“No.” Her eyes are hard and almost accusing as she takes another step back, jerking away from me again. “It has to be here. It’s been arranged. But this room . . .” She’s no longer looking at me. She has eyes only for the wall, and I know what she’s thinking—she needs to work. Hers might never be calm or easy paintings, but those canvases are the way she keeps herself centered. She needs to create, or she will lose herself bit by bit to her fears and delusions.
“I can’t,” she whispers over and over as she shakes her head, and I know that if I don’t stop this, things are going to get bad, fast.