by Sandy DeLuca
“Place looks deserted now,” I said, as I pulled away. I hadn’t noticed a sign swaying in the wind, weathered wood, announcing the best deals in Providence, established 1948.
Andrea clutched her bag. “These supplies. Maybe Charlie put a hex on them, and we’ll raise the dead…”
We both laughed, but something was off. “That guy was weird. You gotta admit it,” I told Andrea.
“Lots of things are lately,” she said, watching windshield wipers slicing through rain.
I drove to the highway, moving past deserted factory buildings and empty lots. I wondered how Charlie’s place survived, devoid of customers, existing in a barren part of town. I told myself it didn’t matter. We’d gotten good deals.
I looked to Andrea. She whispered, “Maybe we’ll raise the dead.”
Maybe we would…and maybe that’s what Charlie wanted.
8
Andrea rushed past me, breathless and shaking, when I opened my door. She gazed at me with wide eyes, her hair soaked from rain, and clothes clinging to her.
Fog rose from the street and sidewalk, and the sky had turned pitch-black. Thin strands of vapor seemingly followed her, climbing my front stairs, moving toward my threshold, and I quickly closed the door.
Andrea wiped moisture from her face. Her breathing became ragged as she went to my front window, peering outside.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Mr. Creeley—he’s dead. Somebody killed him, Donna. He’d gone to a downtown bar, late at night, and he’d parked his car on a side street…” Andrea’s hands shook, and she began to pace the length of my living room floor, soggy footprints leaving wet marks on my rug, droplets streaming from her hair and clothing.
“That’s horrible. Do they know who—?”
“I’ve been dating a cop involved in the case, Andrew Mansi. He told me the killer tortured Mr. Creeley, cut off his fingers—sliced off his eyelids before he bludgeoned him to death. Creeley’s head was half-gone, hit dozens of times with a hammer. Oh, my God, Donna. I cursed the guy, wished him dead when I failed my math exam.”
“You don’t believe you’re responsible?” I rested my hands on her shoulders, shaking her slightly.
“You never know, Donna. You just never know. I think they listen.” Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Who? What the hell are you talking about?”
She pulled away from me, moved to the door, her eyes moist. “The kids.” And she left me, gone with undulating fog, and the sound of her car engine roaring to life, and her brakes squealing.
The news of Mr. Creeley’s murder had been horrifying, leaving an unsettling feeling inside me, but Andrea’s behavior disturbed me as well, and I wondered if my friend had been falling apart, losing her grip on reality. My heart ached for her.
That night, I dreamed of Mr. Creeley, standing outside my window, waving fingerless hands, blood streaming from lidless eyes and he whispered, “…and surely evil is the price for which they sell their souls…”
Words from the Quran—verses spoken by Lena in the still of night many years ago.
* * *
“I’m sure some of you knew Mr. Creeley. He was a good guy, a great colleague, and we’ll miss him here.” Alex’s face was somber as her eyes scanned the classroom. “We’re taking up a collection for his family. There’s an envelope in my office, and if you guys want to take a moment of silence, I have no objections.”
People folded their hands, lowered their eyes, and some whispered prayers. Alex stood there, silent, eyes distant, looking to windows, shaking her head. When the moment ended, she waved a hand, as though bringing us out of a sorrowful spell, but an aura of mourning and horror remained.
Wind battered art studio windows, and lights flickered. Alex smiled. “Good atmosphere tonight. Use those imaginations.” She checked her watch, and then took attendance. Everyone had been accounted for, but Andrea. Alex looked my way, shrugged, and then shook her head once more.
“The Expressionists were macabre, inspired by war, pain and suffering.” Alex began to lecture about Max Beckmann. “Severed limbs, figures displaying deviant behavior, all symbolism for anguish he expressed…” She stopped when Andrea burst through double doors, storming into class, moving in front of Alex.
Andrea removed her coat and tossed it on a chair. Next, she slipped a small canvas from her bag, setting it on a nearby easel. She plucked paint and brushes from a plastic case, and then quickly began to make thick brushstrokes.
“You could at least excuse yourself,” Alex snapped.
“Sorry,” Andrea said softly. She continued to paint, even though Alex’s lecture had not ended. Faces evolved, eyeless, deathlike. Andrea moved as though in a daze.
“Where have you been?” I whispered.
“It’s a secret.” Andrea smiled slyly.
“We haven’t kept secrets since we were kids. Why now?”
“You wouldn’t understand, not now anyway.”
“Are you seeing a new guy?”
Andrea shrugged, ran a hand over her blouse, and then I noticed blood spattered on white cotton, and a deep gash on her left hand.
“Are you all right?” I asked
Andrea smiled slowly. “Yeah, I’m all right. I caught my hand on a nail in the gallery, helping the director hang art.”
“Maybe you need a stitch.”
“It’s not that bad. Just let me paint. Please?”
“You should at least get a Band-Aid…”
“I’m fine.”
The painting evolved, as Alex now spoke about deviant paintings on display downtown, and a newly crowned icon of underground art. “You’ve all heard of Mada?”
A few students chuckled, several shook their heads. Alex smiled shrewdly, and then placed her hands on her hips. Leaves fluttered by windows, papers and smoky mist floated by outside. “Hey, nobody knew what to make of crude stone sculptures found in walls. Right here.” She pointed to the sculpture behind her. “So, the department head dubbed the thing Mada. Said it must be a god of modern art. It started as a joke, but it wasn’t long before people in the city were talking about the damn thing, fabricating details. That’s how urban legends start.”
Now everyone laughed, but Andrea.
Alex continued talking, mischief in her eyes, voice bubbly, seemingly attempting to ward off darkness. “Now they’re saying Mada demands sacrifices from artists. For fame and all that, you know? It’s inspiring…even if it’s a bunch of crap.” The class burst into laughter again.
“Heard you guys light incense and candles around Mada,” said a young man named Tom Bingham.
Alex smiled wide. “You heard right. We do mock rituals to Mada, at Hellixa’s—just for a kick.”
A few people chuckled. One girl rolled her eyes. Most of us had grown accustomed to Alex’s eccentricities when she bragged about donning a black robe and meeting her friends at Hellixa’s.
Andrea seemed mesmerized, not by Alex’s words, but by paint and canvas. Dark corridors appeared. Phantom faces grinned eerily from windows. A male figure, dressed in a tattered coat, hovered above smaller figures, walking down darkened halls. She stopped for a moment, looked at me. “You know they found bones in those walls, too?”
“It’s just part of the Mada story,” I told her.
“They showed me,” she whispered, and then dipped her brush into crimson paint.
“Who?” I asked her.
“They’ll show you, too. They’re watching you.”
“Stop it. You’ve been listening to Alex too long. Next thing you’ll be dancing around a cauldron at Hellixa’s and communing with Mada.”
Andrea didn’t answer me, and I wondered where she’d really been, as a little girl’s face manifested on her canvas…leering, horrifying…dead.
9
Andrea and I remained when class ended, and Alex exited to her office, speaking softly on the phone, and she laughed, low and sultry, rubbing a finger over Mada.
Snow began
to fall, sticking to windows, shining like gems. The faculty lot below emptied, except for Alex’s car. A few people walked downhill, huddled close together, probably catching a bus down the road.
Andrea continued to paint, blood dripping from her wound, and spattering canvas, eyes distant, as though peering into a terrifying alternate world. She’d abandoned the first canvas, retrieving an extra from her bag, and another painting evolved; a nurse wearing a white uniform, holding a child’s hand, both ghostly, eerie.
“The nurse was pregnant and single—like committing a crime back then.” Andrea’s face remained without expression.
“Is that where you got the idea for this painting?”
Andrea stopped suddenly, looked at me as though she’d just realized I’d been there. “Not sure. I see things in my head, and it’s the kind of stuff Alex wants.” She clutched her hand. “I’m not feeling so good. I’ve been acting like a bitch. I’m sorry. Mr. Creeley’s murder…I…”
“It’s all right. The whole school is in mourning. Alex even had a moment of silence before you got here. Do you want me to walk you to your car?”
“No, I’ll be okay. I need to get some air.” Andrea reached for her coat. She seemed like herself again, smiling slightly. “Can you lock up my stuff?” She looked to her canvas and scattered art supplies.
“Sure.”
For a moment the distant look returned. “I went back to that place.”
“What place?”
“The art supply store.”
“Without me?”
“I called. Joe said you were asleep.”
“Yeah, that’s right. He left me a note.” I remembered a sticky note taped to my fridge.
“I couldn’t find the damn place. I drove up and down those streets. I found a small graveyard…where the art store should have been…”
“You must have gone the wrong way.”
“No, it was Walden Street. I remember that.”
“We all make mistakes. Maybe it wasn’t—”
“I got out of my car and checked gravestones. Only one had a name, guy named Charles Beaumont, died in 1966.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Why should it?” She turned, and then slowly walked away.
I gazed into Alex’s office, and she looked my way. A shadow moved behind her, and for a moment—a flash—a figure hovered there—a child, transparent and ghostly, and then it disappeared just as quickly when Alex flicked on a desk lamp.
“Get some sleep, girl,” I whispered to myself; then I turned to my canvas. A face—dark, twisted, with yellow eyes—stared back at me. I didn’t remember painting it. I should have left and never returned to Castell…
I should have done so much.
10
“What do you fear, Donna?” Alex asked. I hadn’t realized she’d left her office, and was now standing beside me, watching me paint. “That’s some face you’ve created.”
“The thing just evolved.”
“Happens a lot. Subconscious takes over. Lots of abstract artists experience the phenomena. Well? What scares you?”
“I’m not afraid of much.”
“Oh, come on, tough girl. There’s got to be something you’re afraid of. You’re human, aren’t you?” Mischief burned in her eyes.
“Mr. Creeley’s murder makes me afraid.”
Alex lowered her eyes, and then her voice took on a grave tone, “Makes us all afraid. I hope they find whoever did it, and quick, but what about you?”
“Maybe getting old. Being without somebody to love…”
“We fear loneliness because it makes us vulnerable. We’re weaker by ourselves, and that’s when dark things find us.”
“Are you joking around with me, Alex?”
She laughed softly. “Not everything I say is a joke. Mr. Creeley was alone when he was murdered.”
“I know.”
Her face grew serious. “Those childhood fears never go away. They find you outside of dreams—in night. Think about it. Do you know this building’s history?”
“A little…”
“Kids died here, and some didn’t go easy. Doctors believed rest and fresh air cured everything. They put kids out on enclosed porches, where windows had no glass, or screens, even in winter, with snow coming down. The ones who died of exposure, or pneumonia, were lucky, because the medical staff experimented on others.”
“How?”
“Method called pneumothorax, where they surgically collapsed a lung, believing it would heal; and thoracoplasty, opening up the chest and removing ribs, so the lung would have more room to expand, and heal. And there were other horrible experimental methods, but none worked, and all of them caused more suffering. They say ghosts are still here…looking for revenge…and maybe people who worked here tried conjuring other things. Ever hear of Enriqueta Marti?”
“Murdered prostitutes…around the turn of the century. Why?”
“She murdered children, too, used their remains to make salves and ointments, claiming they cured tuberculosis. They found copies of her papers in an operating room here…details about how to make those concoctions…”
“Are you trying to frighten me?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Look, I stopped believing in boogeymen when I was little.”
“I think you still believe in bad things. They’re inside you. So go inside yourself, feel them. Think of how those poor kids suffered, right here, by these windows.” She smiled slowly, and then left me.
I swore each class would be the last. Yet I returned. Night after night. Andrea returned, too, and together we fell deeper into terror.
11
Days went by quickly. I’d been busier than usual at my job, and with elective studies at school. Joe hadn’t been home much, working longer hours and weekends. I wondered if he had met someone else, if he’d been unfaithful, too.
I anticipated art classes, despite Alex’s strange questions, her dark humor…and she terrified me at times.
Temperatures remained warm, despite deep winter. It rained most of the day, and thick fog floated past the art studio windows, casting an eerie spell on the pavement below. Alex’s lecture had ended. She’d instructed us to paint a monochromatic landscape. Mist and darkness served well for inspiration.
Andrea had been late again, rushing into class; face flush, hair a mass of tangled curls; coatless, her jeans spattered with paint and torn at the knees. Excitement spread across her face when she spotted me.
She reached into her oversized bag, removed several pieces of rolled canvas. Next she knelt on the floor, spread each piece out, carefully flattening them with her fingers—crudely painted images and primitive skulls piled around a massive boiler with children levitating above.
“Alex is going to love what I’ve done.” She smiled wide.
“I hope so. Looks like you’ve been working hard.”
“Can’t wait to hear what she has to say.”
Alex made her rounds, stopping to speak with each student. She moved with ease, chatting, writing in her little green book. She slowly approached Andrea, put her finger to her chin as she surveyed each piece, taking her time, making mental notes. “Good ideas, Andrea.”
“Ideas, Alex? They’re finished pieces.”
Alex shook her head. “You need to build more texture. Your colors are off, and you need to work on execution.”
Andrea’s face turned deep red. “Why don’t you praise me like you praise her?” She pointed to me.
“Her work is together, that’s why.”
A tear streamed down Andrea’s face. She threw up her hands, and then gathered her art, shoving it into her bag. She stormed out of the studio, canvases hanging haphazardly, bobbing up and down as she stomped away.
“Well, she’s determined.” Alex folded her arms.
“Are you going to show her work?”
“No, I want the best hanging in my new gallery. I put a lot of time and money into it. I’m determined
my first opening will consist of strong contemporary work.”
“I understand. This isn’t just another student show.”
She nodded. “I want your work hanging there.”
“Thanks. That means a lot.” It did mean a lot, but I felt sorry for Andrea.
Alex remained pragmatic, icy. “I’m not about to give anybody false hope. Look, Andrea’s ideas are cool, but she lacks color sense, has no clue about composition. Crude and childlike is fine, but an artist needs to know how to pull her ideas together, and some just don’t have it.”
“That’s brutal.”
“It’s reality.”
Alex moved to my side. “Just let go, Donna. Go with what you feel, what you want, and it’ll work out.”
I wanted to please Alex, but for different reasons. I wanted her to be more than my teacher, so I created with fervor—with passion—for her.
Andrea disappeared that evening. At first I thought she’d run off, and would be back with dozens of new canvases, but hope waned with each passing day. It became evident, after a week, something bad had happened. I beat myself up for not going after her, for staying behind with Alex, and for dismissing the pain Andrea must have felt. I wondered if I’d ever be free of guilt…and forbidden feelings.
12
I didn’t hear from Andrea the following day, but figured new projects consumed her; too busy to pick up the phone, or to check in with me.
I drove by her apartment, noting only darkness. I began to worry after three days, so I continued to call her, cruising by her apartment on my way home from work, and on the way to school. A week went by, and then I went to her mother’s house.
Sylvia Fortin told me, “She’s gone. Don’t know where. I called the cops. Her friend Detective Mansi came by…not sure what he can do.” She closed the door, leaving me in the cold with unanswered questions and a broken heart.
