by Lara Parker
He took her hand. “I did wish for it. I was vain, and longed to remain young. But the painter’s bargain was not my bargain. You must be careful what you wish for because there are powers ready to pounce, willing to fashion your fantasies to your heart’s desire, but not for free. Oh no, there is always a price.”
She said simply, “Yes, I know that all too well.”
Quentin became animated. “Tate desired nothing less than immortality! He wanted his paintings to hang in the Louvre, in the British Museum, in the Prado, and he slaved away day and night for perfection. At first I thought the portrait was a miraculous gift. But I was wrong; its beauty was a curse.”
“A curse? What a strange word. How can you say that when it preserved your youth? Even if—”
“I will tell you why. When I first met you, you were a beautiful, pampered child.” Elizabeth lowered her eyes. “As you grew, I remained the same, and every day you became more lovely. My God, I was so smitten.” Again, he grasped her hands. “I adored you, your willowy body in those sheer dresses, your charming laugh! When we became lovers—yes, the tenderest of lovers—we seemed close to the same age, but I was already much older, and I knew as soon as I fell in love with you that I would never be able to keep you.”
He searched her face for sympathy, but he could see, as if for the first time, from these close quarters, time’s caress, the fine lines around her eyes, the softening jowls. He dropped his head and kissed her hands.
“Oh my dear Quentin,” she said, “if only…” But her voice trailed off as he blundered on.
“Oh, I know I have a reputation for breaking hearts, and there have been many lovely girls, their names and faces like water swirling down a drain. I searched the world for my beloved before I met you, and, after I possessed you, you were the one I longed to find in all the rest. You ruined me. You were the only woman I ever truly loved.”
Elizabeth was silent, her head bowed, her fingers twitching, lacing in and out. When she looked up at Quentin, her eyes were flooding.
“But … what happened to us?”
“The portrait became my flesh and blood, growing old in my place, absorbing and, yes, revealing all my sins. But when I saw the magic at work, I wanted something else. If I could not have you for a lifetime, I wanted one year with you, one year when you would be mine alone. You remember … we decided to run away—to France, to Provence, to live in a country house.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Of course I remember.” She smiled faintly. “In a château surrounded by fields of lavender.”
Quentin took her hands again and, falling to his knees, kissed them over and over, turning up the palms and kissing again. His tears flowed freely as he placed his head in her lap and held her thighs. She could not resist running her fingers through his dark hair, and she spoke softly.
“How did you make that happen?”
“It was Tate. He had chosen the Devil’s side, you see. He lived in the world of the unexplained because he had sold his soul. He knew of a gypsy woman called Magda who cast spells, and he took me to meet her.”
“Magda! The gypsy!” And her face grew dark. “But I knew Magda!”
“She gave me a potion that I was to feed to you in a glass of wine. Afterwards, you would be willing to follow me anywhere.”
“Yes, I remember now. But I never drank it. There was no need. I was ready to go with you. And what did Magda want in return? I do not think she would have helped you for nothing.” Her eyes clouded as though she was revisiting a painful memory.
“Magda asked for my promise to marry her sister, Jenny, when the year was out.”
“What? To marry someone else?”
“I was besotted, you see, too much in love to know my own mind. There was no bargain I would not have made. I told myself I would live with you for one year, and it would be the happiest of my life. After that year, I hoped that things would change, that I wouldn’t be forced to keep my bargain—”
Elizabeth shook her head and said in a bewildered voice, “But why then did we not spend that year together? You disappeared so suddenly, and my world was shattered.”
Quentin sighed deeply. “It was your father. The night before we were to leave he accosted me in the foyer. He told me that a marriage—or even a love affair—with his daughter was out of the question. You see, he had known me when he was but a boy and I already a grown man, and so he always knew my secret. He pointed out to me the one obstacle I had never considered.”
“What?” Elizabeth gripped Quentin’s arm. “What did he tell you?”
“That you and I were both Collinses. That we were related. That, in fact, we were wickedly close. You were my niece.”
Elizabeth sucked in her breath and shook her head. “But what did that matter? Cousins often marry. We had already … we were already under enchantment.”
“He thought, if there were a child—”
Rising from the bed, Elizabeth paced, holding herself and shivering. “Fate is so cruel. We did not deserve any of this. We loved each other.” She stopped and turned to Quentin. “And did you marry Magda’s sister?”
Quentin sighed miserably and turned away so that she could not see his face. “Yes, but my life became a disaster. It became obvious that Jenny was insane; she was violent and unpredictable. She was hysterically jealous, and she had raving tantrums. Being with her after my time with you … I couldn’t bear her crass ways compared to your gentle ones. It became necessary to lock her up, and when Jenny died, Magda knew I had killed her. In grief and fury, she put me under a second curse. A werewolf curse.”
“A what…? A werewolf? No! How— She possessed that kind of power?”
“Powers both potent and lethal. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? I thought she was only a gypsy, a peasant, her spells primitive, even a joke. I never worried because I had become complacent. And the painting protected me. It assumed the werewolf ’s nature like all the others, and I was left unharmed.”
“This is unbelievable. I can’t understand it. And why are you so anxious to perform the séance?”
“The portrait has disappeared. Can you believe that? I have been searching everywhere for a month in vain. It has vanished. The full moon hovers at the horizon. In a few hours I will become a monster. The only way I know to escape is though the séance.”
Shaking her head slowly, Elizabeth stared at him, her dark eyes swimming in tears. “Not a werewolf … I cannot believe that. Quentin, you are confused, delirious…”
Slowly, with effort, he stood and drew her to him. “Come, Elizabeth, there is no more time. Let us go down to the library. You know you long to live it all again. Escape this mundane life—the guilt—and all these morbid incriminations. Return to the past, recapture passion—both of us so desperately in love—”
“Quentin, I—”
“Don’t speak. Don’t turn your back on such a chance, even if it is only for one night. Close your eyes and imagine it. We’ll ride in that gorgeous car to the edge of the cliff, and there we’ll watch the moon rise over the water. Our hearts full, we’ll be young, our bodies … aching with desire. I’ll make love to you—in all the ways we dreamed. I’ll worship you, caress you, remove your clothes one piece at a time, and then I’ll kiss you until you cry out as you did when you were a girl. Say yes!” And he clasped her hands. “Oh, please, I’m so frightened, Elizabeth. Say you will come.”
He reached around her waist and pulled her close to him, looking down at her. With tenderness he kissed her softly, but she pulled away. “Don’t, Quentin, we are not young anymore, I am old now, you mustn’t, please … stop…”
But he would not listen. He slid his fingers into her hair, and turning up her face, he kissed her more passionately, bending her body against his. Rapturously he lifted her off her feet and, her toes barely touching the floor, he kissed her again and again. For long moments she responded, limp and melting in his arms, and then she sighed and pulled away. Reaching up, she stroked Quentin’s hair, his che
ek. Her whole body was quivering, and when he looked into her face, searching for her response, she said, “Oh, I want to come. You know how much I want to. I was happiest with you. You knew me as no one else did.”
Quentin’s heart lifted.
“Yes, we were so alike,” she said, her words coming in bursts. “We were reckless, foolish—nothing frightened us. I always thought, even today, if I could have chosen to spend my life with one man, it would have been you.”
Overjoyed, Quentin pressed her to him, felt her warm body as she spoke, her damp face against his chest. “Even with all my fame, I have not had a happy life,” she murmured. “It has been so much pretense, keeping up a good front. Fate robbed me of my dreams, and even though I achieved success, and I was admired, I have never known love—not like the love I knew with you.” She looked into his eyes and caught her breath, then burst out: “Oh, I’m so glad that I can tell you this. I have always wanted to tell you. My days with you were the happiest of my life.”
His spirits soaring, Quentin led her toward the door.
“Then come. We’ll escape to our youth. We deserve to live it all once more.”
But her eyes grew dark. She stopped, pulled back, and shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice breaking into sobs. Her cheeks were wet. “I cannot. It’s too many years. We can’t go back. We had our happiness, but don’t you see? It was over long ago.”
“But, my darling—”
“Please don’t ask me to go through it all again. The shock. The sacrifice. I— I haven’t the courage.” She choked and covered her mouth with her hand.
“Just the beginning,” he insisted. “We won’t relive it all.”
But she shook her head, her hand quivering, her eyes flooding. “Please, please forgive me.”
Quentin backed away, his throat tight, a dead feeling in his chest. “Then I will go alone,” he muttered. “I will find you there, and I will love you. And I will never return.” Then, with head lowered and not looking back, he walked unsteadily to the door and silently closed it behind him.
* * *
Jackie was saving the eyes until the last. She had patched the portrait from behind with a piece of canvas torn from one of her own paintings and fixed it with pig glue, then, fearful of puckering, weighed it down with heavy books until it dried. Now she was working on the trim of the waistcoat, and after that the medals, both requiring rose madder and cerulean blue. Manganese and ivory black had served for the velvet jacket, which now appeared soft and sleek to the touch, reflecting the light in such a way that it revealed the muscles of Quentin’s chest. It had taken several tries with the lace jabot until she had finally settled on titanium white to highlight the intricate pattern.
She had carried the painting up to her room where she could work in private, surrounded by her charcoal drawings and watercolors hanging on the walls. Her many renditions of David in his various moods looked down upon her with affection and gave her courage. Barnabas, too, stared out at her with his mysterious gaze. Many times she had sketched or painted them both, just finishing one before she had felt compelled to begin another. She had discovered a way to draw life to the subject of the painting so that it seemed to stare into her soul, and often she found herself mesmerized by her own work. She had painted many still lifes as well, bottles and fruit, flowers caught in the moment of perfection, and she had just completed a landscape of the full moon rising behind Collinwood and silvering the turrets and towers. But it was Barnabas who seemed to watch her at night before she fell asleep, and he drifted into her dreams.
She turned to Quentin’s portrait, and she began to work on the face. Her confidence grew as she painted the slender aquiline nose and the sensual, finely shaped lips; her body grew warm and she was keenly aware of her remarkable skills. She hesitated, feeling the tingling vibrations of a spell rising, and she pushed them back down. She did not need magic, as this was her gift. She told herself she would restore the portrait, and Quentin would be saved, and when her mother returned, they would be happy together. As Quentin’s face slowly emerged from the canvas, vital and breathing with life, her brush had a power of its own, caressing the paint and carving out shadow and light.
The eyes frightened her and she was afraid to set her brush to them. She turned to the curls of the hair and the sideburns, spending time capturing the sleek locks and the wiry facial hair, enlivening the black with Prussian blue. Each time her brush touched the canvas, her hand quivered and the sable tip caught fire. For the flesh tones she would need chrome yellow over the burnt umber shadows of the scars. The face was difficult, and she almost despaired, hesitating before she painted in the wrinkles and pustules, using cadmium red and flake white, and then a light flesh tone wash over them, obscuring them—leaving the smooth unblemished skin, as flawless as a boy’s.
As she worked, the painting took on vivid details, and she barely breathed as she drew in the fine hairs of the brows and the lashes, each one laid upon the next as though they had grown from the skin. She seemed to remember a yellowish tint and was placing ochre in the sockets beneath the lower lashes when she realized she had forgotten the color of Quentin’s eyes. Were they hazel, green, or dark brown? She couldn’t remember.
She reached into the paint box for blue cobalt, but when she unscrewed the cap she found the paint had hardened and she could not squeeze out a single drop. It was the same with the manganese violet. Frustrated, she set the tube on her palette and hammered it with her fist, and then she took up her palette knife and fiercely cut into the tube, finally extracting a chip of paint, and mixed it with a bit of medium, linseed oil and turpentine, to soften it. In her exasperation, she held the brush tightly, and as she touched the tip to the canvas, she felt another hand close over hers and grip her fingers, forcing the brush to move against her will in awkward jerky strokes.
Leaping up, she cried out and shook her hand, letting the brush fly, and it clattered to her palette. Her palm was burning. Taking a deep breath, she reached for the brush a second time. Again, icy fingers enclosed her fist and she had no power to resist. Guided by an unseen force, her brush flickered over the eyebrow, rendering it perfectly. She jerked away again and threw the brush to the floor, crying out, “I don’t want a spell! Why did it come when I did not summon it?”
She could hear Barnabas’s voice saying, Jackie. The thing you say you have inside of you—something evil—you must fight it. You must not give it power over you.
She stared at the painting, wondering—if she were to stop now, how would she fill in the eyes? Something was hindering her progress. Why had her paints dried up, and what was the icy hand that guided hers?
Frustrated, she rose from her easel and stepped back to look at the painting; it was breathing, glowing with vitality, all but the eyes. They were hollows of madness that seemed to echo Quentin’s soul, and they defied her skills.
Exasperated now, she left the easel and walked to her window. As twilight settled, a blue light hovered over the snow, turning the trees and grounds a pale azure. The sky was sapphire, and a few stars pierced the darkening canopy. There would soon be a moon, a Blue Moon, the second full moon that month. She must finish the painting before the silver disc rose on the horizon.
She found herself remembering the evening she had lain on David’s bed while he searched through the book for the Duesenberg and she had read about the moon from the encyclopedia. She had tried to lure him away from his fascination with the miraculous automobile, but he had been consumed with excitement, and his excitement had filled her with an unexpected longing. She thought of his laughing eyes, russet with copper flecks in them, and the way his soft curls fell over his brow. She remembered unfamiliar stirrings, being drawn to him in a way that surprised her. How thrilling it had been to be alone with him, both with their books, wanting to touch but still afraid, the air between them alive, and their lives stretched out before them.
Turning back to her easel, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror of her
vanity. She stiffened, cold chills snaking over her body. She was there in the glass, but hovering behind her was another image, the woman with golden hair and turquoise eyes. Jerking away, she moved to her wardrobe, and again that mirror gave back a double vision, one pale and frightened and the other gloating with merriment. Then she heard the laughing, like the music of a tinkling harpsichord, up and down the scales. She put her hands over her ears, shook her head, and found herself staring down at the silver hand mirror on the dresser. When she saw the wicked face dancing in the small oval, she caught it up by the handle, lashed out with all her strength, and shattered the larger glass. “Leave me!” she cried in a harsh voice. But long slivers of mirror fell to the floor, each with its own grinning likeness of the woman with yellow hair.
“What do you want with me?” Bewildered, she turned to see the same face reflected over and over in the dark of her windows. “Who are you?”
An amused voice answered, “Don’t you know?”
She shook her head.
“I am Angelique.”
“Angelique?” She thought of the statue in the graveyard. “Why do you haunt me?”
The tones were sweetly caressing. “You need me. Without me you would have no powers. You could not save yourself. You could not fly. I am the reason you remember living before. In Salem. In Martinique.”
“And you are the evil that makes me offer myself to the vampire? The evil that would take over my life?”
The image in the mirror smiled. “Don’t you want to finish the painting?”
“Of course.”
“Then let me help you.”
“But why must I turn to you for help? I am the artist, not you.”
“Silly girl, don’t be presumptuous. Every great artist sells his soul to the Devil to create his masterpiece. That is the price of fame, as all men know. It’s a bitter truth proven again and again throughout history. Do you know how this painting you seek to repair was first conceived? The painter gave up his soul. If you want to be the artist who can create this enchantment, you must do the same. I will teach you.”
