“Was this part of it?” asked her father. “You hear of these artists doing mad things.”
“She didn’t say she had anything planned,” said Lily, stepping closer and running a finger along the edge of a slash. Samara felt her touch.
“Could it be because she lost?” Trust her mother. “She always had tantrums when she didn’t get her way. She’s been…” She took in a deep breath. “She’s been a mess this week. Ah Lily, love. If only you knew what’s been going on with her.”
“She didn’t want us here today,” added her father. “She made that clear. The way she looked at us when we sat down…”
Done with her inspection, Lily lowered her hand.
“It got weird.” Dale pushed his glasses further up his nose and squinted at the painting. “I don’t get it.”
“I don’t think we can get it,” Lily replied, never looking away from the torn face of the picture. “I think that might be the point. She laid herself bare. Shouldn’t that be enough? This was never about the damn award. I think…” Lily studied the detail of the exposed heart, colour rising in her cheeks. The grim pallor of death had eased from her skin, and she scratched the side of her throat, now whole and perfect. She peered in closer, taking in all the intimate details of the terrors lurking in the dark recesses of the painting. They lurked in the shadows between ribs, peeked around veins and arteries. “I think she just wanted us to see the real her.”
She reached forward and pressed a hand against the canvas.
Samara gasped from the touch and opened her eyes, immediately squinting against the downpour. Her wrist throbbed just below the ball of her hand; blade still embedded. As her blood emerged from the small incision, it washed down her forearm in a diluted stream. She jerked the art knife free and dropped it to the ground. Another tally. Another marker for the depth of the spiral.
Hair plastered to her face, she peered up at her counterpart.
The girl had floated so close that Samara could lean in and kiss those elongated lips the colour of bruises. Outside. Inside. An obsession. A confession. Most of all, an admission.
The girl snaked her hands up Samara’s arms, the black, hooked nails lightly scratching over the scars.
Samara closed her eyes once more, weeping into the rain. She pressed her forehead against that of the girl, arms reaching around her, embracing the void, clutching it tightly.
The girl did the same. Her sharp talons slid over Samara’s drenched back, pulling her closer.
Shivering in the dark, the girl outside fell to the cobbles, alone in the filthy alley.
Epilogue
Outside, as often was the case in this part of the world, the wind held a frosty nip. It carved agitated troughs across the grey sea; the waves reflecting weighted clouds of the overcast sky. The water crashed onto the beach with a surge of foam and eased back towards the depths: an icy hand trying to reclaim the weathered-smooth pebbles.
Despite the chill, a man and boy played on the stony beach, daring the unsure footing to linger on the edge of the reaching sea. Covered head to toe in boots, jeans, thick coats, and woollen hats and scarves, they plucked wide pebbles from the beach and threw them into the water.
Samara had been chewing the end of her paintbrush and realised that the scene had once again distracted her from her work. The cottage stood on the slopes leading down to the beach, and the window of her studio offered an exquisite, bleak view. She enjoyed sitting in here late into the evening, with Caiden asleep after a bedtime story, and Lee catching up on his own reading, feet up in his favourite armchair. With the house silent, the rhythmic lull of the waves relaxed Samara, cleared her mind of the constant buzz and cycle of thoughts. If she could bear the cold, an open window provided a fresh salt breeze, with the dank, mineral underlie of the pebbled shoreline. A pure and simple existence.
A third figure had appeared outside, standing on a short, grassy hillock a little way up from the beach. A woman, judging from her wild dark hair that blew about her head, caught in the wind. She faced away from the cottage. Samara peered through the glass, fixated on the lonely figure that watched her son and husband frolic at the edge of the water. Not many people ventured down this far. Usually the family had this stretch of isolated paradise to themselves.
Samara turned away from the window, scolding herself. They’d lived here long enough that even the tiny fragment of Scottish coastline felt like it belonged to her. People could come and go as they pleased. She had the cottage, which was sanctuary enough.
“I shouldn’t be so…” Samara sighed and shook her head. “Isn’t that right?”
Woe neither agreed nor disagreed. The creature stared back at her from the canvas, a hint of the terrifying beauty looming over the New York City skyline. Not quite how Samara would have designed the image, personally. The studio wanted a retro aesthetic for the reboot; thus her particular skills had been employed rather than some digital knock-up job. Relinquishing a slice of artistic freedom was a fair price to work on the project. It had been a genuine thrill to open the express package and slide out the glossy stills. The test make up shots of the new Woe were currently pinned up around the canvas. Another benefit of living away from civilisation: Samara could leave the photographs on display on her studio, confidentiality agreement be damned. The studio wanted to keep the reimagined design of the cult favourite under wraps until the movie release. Thus Samara’s current project: the skyline, about to hit by an imposing storm that had taken on the vague form of a face. The challenge had been to capture the youth of the new actress within the clouds. The box art for the original Fright Night and Return of the Living Dead were also pinned up by the canvas for inspiration. Times had changed, and while Samara would never see her dream realised, of having her artwork splashed across video cases and posters in Blockbuster Video, her employment for the media campaign was close.
A glance out of the window showed that the woman had ventured closer still to Samara’s family. She had wandered down onto the pebbles.
The pair, apparently grown tired of flinging the round stones into the waves, turned and headed up the beach, back towards the cottage. Lee playfully tugged the child’s woollen hat down over his eyes, and Caiden grinned, righting it.
The woman stood motionless, the only movement her hair still whipped into a frenzy.
Samara watched on as darkness seeped from her, bulging out from between her knees, a solid mass of shadow escaping from the confines of her long coat. Samara recognised the shape and smiled. A black dog, perhaps not even a year old, was testing the limits of its leash. The woman bent to give the canine a rough stroke on the back and let it run free. The excited dog immediately dashed away and bounded along the beach, occasionally pausing to sniff something of interest amid the pebbles.
With a wide grin, Caiden pointed, but ever the protective parent, Lee shook his head. Could never be too careful around strange dogs and women. He appeared to greet the woman as he passed her, and all three took a moment to watch the cavorting pup.
This isn’t getting any work done, thought Samara and returned to the canvas.
She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, attempting to calm her mind. Listening to the waves and the wind gusting about the house like a forlorn spirit. Her slowed thoughts seemed to sink a little inside her head, finding a slower pace, descending to a darker level.