by Lindsey Hart
Most of all, he hated himself for giving in. He’d finally surrendered to desperation and loneliness. His hands, stilled these past five years, once again ached to pick up a brush. He didn’t need to work. He had enough money to last him three lifetimes. It wasn’t the money. It was the long, horrible, lonely hours. The memories. The constant haunting of his past.
He couldn’t leave the house behind. He couldn’t leave her memory. It had been their hope and dream, the rebirth of the ancient monolith in place of the child they couldn’t have. They’d purchased the old place, intent on her restoration. It was a place they could live and laugh and love each other. Maybe adopt a child one day. He’d have his studio and Ginny, she’d have her garden, her kitchen, her indomitable spirit.
She’d have her damn flowers and the perfumes she made and sold online. Ginny was scent. She was life. Until she wasn’t.
And so, for the rest of his days, Joe McAllister would always hate scent. It betrayed him. Aroused dormant senses, gave him false hope. Sometimes in his dreams, he could still smell her. He’d wake up, his face covered with slippery, aching tears that unmanned him, expecting her to be beside him. Of course, she never was. The constant ache, arms that ached to hold his wife one last time, was the result of an unexpected ending to a love that should have lasted a lifetime.
The stranger, this new woman, this invader into the darkness that belonged to both him and the ancient house, turned slowly. She blinked long, feathery eyelashes the same incredible hue as her hair.
“Is it through here? My room, I mean?”
Joe realized he’s stopped in the middle of the hall. They’d passed through an ancient sitting room. The place was unrecognizable as a home. The rooms were filled with dust, dirt even, from outside. The mice weren’t as bad as he led her to believe. The spiders on the other hand, made a mess of everything. Ancient chandeliers, their sconces made for holding candles, stood empty, covered in a mass of the fine silken threads.
The furniture there had come along with the sale of the house. Ginny had been so excited to discover all the antiques. He’d like nothing more than to lump them up in the yard and burn the things. The buffets and sideboards, the old, gothic cupboard, pantries, the ancient sofas and settees. It would have amounted to a small fortune if sold, but he didn’t want anyone else to have it either. Not when Ginny had loved them so much.
Some people couldn’t remember their loved one’s faces. The curve of their cheek, the tiny bump in the bridge of the nose, the angle of cheekbones and jaw. Joe knew every line, every measured angle of the woman who had been his muse. Some days he would give anything to forget.
“I can still see her touch there. On that couch.” He pointed down the long hall, past the faded floral wallpaper and the ancient, dirty wainscoting, his arm parallel with the old, splintery floorboards, to a massive green upholstered couch. It sagged in the middle, the fabric hanging in twists and chunks, other spots threadbare.
“Whose?” The woman asked, her porcelain brow creasing in confusion. He watched a visible shudder sweep up her spine.
In the near darkness of the hall, Joe realized he could make out a few freckles here and there, smattered over pale cheeks that he hadn’t seen in the sunlight. Odd. Unless I’m imagining it. He blinked and he realized he was. Imagining those spots, the same way he imagined Ginny sometimes, moving about the house. No, in the same way his mind saw her.
“My muse,” he finally mumbled. Embarrassed, ripped apart inside, he turned and continued down the hall.
The woman moved after him. He didn’t even know her name. Her damn portfolio had been emailed to him at the library in town. There wasn’t a secret to be kept in the forsaken tiny community of a thousand. He’d once been welcome there. Now, when he went about, the town came alive. He fed the fires of their gossip. He was a relic, an oddity, just like the house he should have burned down the night Ginny left him.
“This is your room.” He shoved into the first room he could find. It was never used. Not by himself. Not by Ginny. He thought he’d put her here, this nameless stranger, the product of a moment’s weakness.
“Thank you,” she mumbled. She glanced around, shivering slightly though it wasn’t cold in the house. It wasn’t warm either. Not much sunlight filtered through the closed-up shutters. It was enough to make it dingy, enough to see by. For a set of sightless eyes like his, a life led more sleeping than waking, it was more than enough. “Uh… I’ll set my bag down and you can show me the rest?”
I did say that I would, didn’t I? He vaguely recalled their conversation out on the porch. He’d exited the house at the long-forgotten sound of a vehicle. There hadn’t been anyone here in years. He was amazed he still had the ability to converse at all. He half expected his voice would be dried up and shriveled from disuse.
“Yes.” He nodded firmly. “I… I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name.”
“A true artist.” She smiled, and the room seemed a little less dark. She had pale pink lips. He was already imaging trying to get that hue right when he painted her. No color could do her justice. He’d received numerous profiles and hers had intrigued him. She was exotic looking, a face that was one in a million. The face of a muse. Not his muse, but someone’s. It was a face that belonged on canvas and so he’d done the unthinkable and paid a small fortune to have her here. All on a whim. A crazy feeling he couldn’t banish.
“What do you mean?”
“An artist looks at the face. Hands. I imagine so at any rate. You must have decided you liked what you saw. My name didn’t matter. I’m just a thing. A stand-in for what you really want.”
Her words were far wiser than she ever could have known. A stand-in. Yes, she’s that. For what I’ll never have again no matter how much I want it.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m like that. Too blunt. Everyone says so. Anyway, my name is Charity. Charity Dunn.” She looked like she considered sticking out a hand and he was relieved she decided against it. He couldn’t imagine touching her, feeling the smooth satin of her skin, the life pulsing just below the surface.
“I…” his throat closed up and his heart hammered out a painful rhythm. Fool. Did I honestly think I could ever move on? Whether he was ready, the woman, Charity, was here now. In his home. Waiting, one light colored brow slightly arched in question, for him to take the lead. “Come on. I’ll show you the house.”
She followed him, a shadow dogging his footsteps. The only difference between the invader and Ginny’s shadow was that this one was living and breathing. Joe sucked in a breath. The force of the love he’d once felt for his wife was still with him. It had changed shape, morphed into a grief that was all consuming.
He showed her the room that served as his kitchen. She was surprised to see a small bar fridge and a tiny cooktop.
“I have a generator out back. You can hear the buzz if you listen. It powers the stuff I need powered. I don’t use it for anything else.”
“What do you eat?” She blushed instantly, one of her self-proclaimed blunt responses. She rushed on. “I can almost imagine people in here, throughout the ages, cooking meals. Apple pie.” She inhaled deeply. “Yes. Definitely that. Do you ever think about them?”
“Who?” He asked guardedly. He thought about people all the damn time. The ghosts of the house, but he was afraid to let her know it. He could tell what she already thought. That he’d gone mad living alone here.
“The people who lived here. Don’t you ever imagine them? Their lives? Their joys and tribulations, their neighbors and their celebrations and their memories? Their lives and deaths?”
“No,” he said thickly. “Or rather, I have. I don’t do it anymore.”
Charity seemed to accept that. Her eyes swept the kitchen once more. “Where are the lights? I know you said you don’t have electricity but surely you need them.”
“I don’t bother with lights.”
“But you must, for paint
ing. Or do you paint outside?”
He turned to study the upturned face, so eager to please, her pale, strangely colorless eyes boring a hole right through his aching soul. “I’ve never painted here, so I don’t know. I suppose outside, at first, until I open some of the shutters and figure out what kind of light I want, what time of day.”
She blinked, clearly shocked. A painter who doesn’t paint. “Come on. I’ll take you to the top floors.”
Though he wanted to, he kept nothing hidden. Most of the doors were closed up anyway. The room that had been his and Ginny’s was nailed tightly shut, untouched since the day after the accident. The day, when, driven insane with grief, he’d driven a hundred odd nails into the door and through the frame.
He showed her nothing but a glance into unused rooms, the furniture draped long ago with cloths that he had never bothered removing. The house only had nine bedrooms. The sitting room, living room and dining area were all separate, but she’d seen those areas when she came in.
The kitchen was a completely different room. It had been added on, he figured, in the forties or fifties, almost as an afterthought in a vain attempt at modernization. The floor was white and black tile, the ceiling some kind of plaster that was stained with leaks and cracked in spots. There was a small bar fridge, where he kept the essentials when he felt like having them. A diesel generator outside powered it when he wanted to run it. The stove was ancient, run on propane. It too was seldom used. Food was just another thing, like everything else, that needed to be consumed only for the sake of staying alive. It meant nothing. A hand pump protruded from the wall with a metal basin below, a crude type of sink. There was a pump in the yard as well, both so hard it nearly took his arm off to crank them.
He could tell from the wide-eyed looks Charity gave him, the whispers of awed breath, that she found the place hauntingly beautiful. He once had too. Now it was just haunting. The finishings were all from another lifetime. The wainscoting, wallpaper, floorboards, wrought iron railing on the curved stairs, it was all built to withstand the passage of time.
The passage of lifetimes. As Charity alluded to.
“It’s beautiful,” Charity finally whispered when they were back on the main floor, in the living area, standing under the dusty, unused huge chandelier. The ceilings were tall and the thing was large, but didn’t manage to look out of place. The rest of the room was as dust covered and cobweb infused as the light fixture. “If you’ll forgive me for saying it, this is the strangest place I’ve ever seen. I don’t honestly know why you gave me the job. You paid a small fortune for a model and for some reason you chose me. I don’t get many jobs. You said you haven’t painted here, but I’m going to assume you’ve been here for a while.” She swallowed hard, her eyes darting about nervously. “It is just for painting you want me, right? We aren’t that kind of agency otherwise.”
It had been years since he laughed. The bark of sound that erupted from his throat was strained from disuse, horrible sounding, not at all mirthful. Charity took a step back, her lips parting in shock or fright.
“Good lord.” Joe ran a hand through his long hair, fully aware what she thought. “I know it’s strange. I’m as much a relic as this house. I’ve been… through a lot, we have together I suppose, the house and I, these past years. I bought this place intending to paint here. I’m an artist, as you already know. Have been my entire life. I can’t remember starting to paint. I was famous by the time I was twenty, hosting galleries and making a fortune. I came from a family who gave me everything. I was their only child. They nurtured my talent, naturally. I made them proud. They’re still there. My parents. Still in Manhattan. I think so. I haven’t talked to them in years. I’ve lost myself here. I… I don’t know what made me decide that I was finally ready. I just woke up one morning and couldn’t take another day not painting. I- I’m ashamed to say I haven’t tried it. Haven’t worked up the courage. I’ve ordered everything. New paint since the rest was dried up. New brushes. I have my canvas. I just- can’t. I need to, but I can’t.”
Charity blinked. He imagined he could actually hear the sweep and rustle of her long, sunset-tinted eyelashes. Yes, that’s what the color of her hair reminded him of. The sun setting on the wheat fields, a muted tone, but it was that golden orange to be sure.
“I think I understand. I’m sorry, you seem to have been through something awful. At least, I get the feeling that this house isn’t a happy place for you. It should have been. I can see that now. I’m sorry. I didn’t actually think that you’d want me as- uh-” she coughed and looked away, towards the green sofa. “I just had to be sure. You can only imagine what I think, showing up to a place like this, in the middle of nowhere. It literally looks like no one could survive here.” Her face softened and there was a shred of pity in her eyes. He could only stand it since it was overruled immediately by compassion. “I didn’t have the easiest childhood. My mom raised me herself. She gave me everything, so I won’t say I wanted for anything. It was… stifling though. She was always at me to look a certain way. She has issues with that herself. Perfection. I had to get away. I took the job because it paid well. Like I said, I’m not the agency’s first choice for jobs. I actually have a graphic arts degree. I took this mostly because I needed the money and partly because I wanted to be close to art again, even if it’s not me doing it.”
“You’re right.” Joe breathed in, for the first time noticing how musty and dusty the air was. The house was closed in, grimy and dank. He’d survived there for years, walking through life, not truly living it at all. It wasn’t possible to move forward when you were entrenched so deeply in the past. “I can only imagine. I don’t want you to be afraid. I… haven’t spoken this much to another person in half a decade.” The way she looked at him, like he was half a relic, half a curiosity and half an enigma, all overlaid with a sheen of beautiful, heartbreaking compassion, stole his breath. “I would really like it if you would keep the job. We can start tomorrow. I’ll have everything ready. The lighting. Everything.”
“I can’t see just sitting there being worth the fee you paid for me,” Charity admitted. Her eyes roved over the room slowly, gently, not at all accusatory. “I know it might be hard for you, but would you let me clean up a little? Open some windows, like you said, get rid of some dust and some spiders? I would feel better not having to bunk in with them or sit down on them.”
“This house wasn’t made for living,” he said huskily, hardly aware of what he looked like. God, it had been weeks since he’d even glanced in the mirror. He couldn’t imagine what expression was on his face, in his eyes. This woman, she was something special. She had to be, to walk into the middle of his personal hell and not run screaming. It wasn’t just the money. That wouldn’t have been enough to keep her there, he could tell.
Charity frowned. He didn’t like the way her lips thinned out. Those lips, full and that perfect, mysterious pink, were made for smiling. “Please? Just a little?”
He tensed, his shoulders squaring, bracing for the impact that never came. He didn’t die at the suggestion. His heart didn’t physically stop beating. “Alright,” he finally muttered, sweeping a hand over the room. “Do as you like. If you need help, let me know. If not, just please, quiet is all I ask from you. Hopefully, you brought books or can venture outside. If not, there is town ten odd miles down the road. You probably passed it when you drove in.”
“Yes.” Her eyes flicked back to his face and there was a strange, almost otherworldly light burning in the colorless orbs. No, not colors. That grey was like her lips, utterly undefinable. The artist in him clawed to get out, to mix paints, to find just the right shade.
“Go there for books. Or for socializing, if you want to. Other than that, we’ll figure out meals and work hours as we go. You can already see I’m not a normal man with a set schedule.”
“I didn’t expect you would be. Artists never are.” Those eyes of hers flashed with knowledge. Not just knowledge of painting or dr
awing or graphic design, as she’d mentioned, but the knowledge of what it truly meant to be an artist. The ache, the churning insides, the mind that never stopped thinking. He knew that she knew. She understood what it was like.
“Artists never are,” he echoed before he turned and left her alone in his living room. In a room that hadn’t known the touch of a woman, the kindness of another human soul, in a very, very long time. He left her and stalked up the stairs to his own small room. It wasn’t until he was shut away, safely in the darkened space, behind the solid wood and plaster of walls and door, did he feel like he could finally take a breath.
CHAPTER 3
Charity
The next morning dawned as bright and sunny as the day before. The heat was already close and oppressive, even at ten in the morning. The afternoon held the promise of scorching heat.
They started outside, as Joe had said. After the strange meeting the day before, Charity doubted they’d be doing any work at all. She was lying in bed, planning out how to fill the long hours of the day, when footsteps sounded on the stairs and scraped past her door.
It only took her half an hour to ready herself. She never had needed any makeup and figured Joe would like her face better without. It was honest then and pure. She too had an artistic soul and it was what she would have preferred.
Charity hadn’t expected Joe to actually be ready to paint. She’d donned a shorter yellow sundress, short but still decent, and slathered sunblock all over her shoulders, neck, exposed back, arms, legs and face. The process took the better part of twenty minutes and she felt a little silly for not having been up and ready.
After searching the main rooms in the house, Charity made her way through the kitchen and out the back door. Sure enough, the strange, reclusive man who was her boss, stood off to the side in the massive backyard. Crumbling bricks underfoot gave a hint as to the beauty the yard used to be. He wore the same shirt and pants, or perhaps just the same style, as the day before. His long, wheat ripened hair was uncombed and fell in a tangled mess about his shoulders. She couldn’t meet his eyes, afraid of what she’d see in them.
