Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 122946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
“They were delivered today,” I said, standing beside him. “And how did you get in here? Please tell me you didn’t use your vampire speed. There are cameras—”
“I do not understand.” He frowned, turning to face me. His whole face was completely puzzled. “What do you mean they were delivered today? How? By who?”
“I don’t know by who. They were just delivered.”
“That is not possible,” he whispered.
I browsed the paintings then looked at him. “And yet, here they are.”
“And here they should not be because they should be in Ankeiros where I last left them.”
It was only then that I understood. “These are yours?” I questioned.
He just nodded, moving to them. Even though they belong to him, watching him touch them roughly with his bare hands made my art-history-nerd heart scream. I wanted to throw gloves at him as quickly as possible, but he just looked at the images.
Ring. Ring.
“Hello?” I spoke into the phone, still watching him out of the corner of my eye.
“Druella, it’s me.” Simone sounded a little bit more relieved. “So, I thought to check in some of the boxes, and there I found a note. It says, “I still hold that it is nonsensical to give you work on your birthday, but I couldn’t deny you anything. Happy Birthday. - Theseus. Wasn’t your birthday yesterday? It would have been brought down then had I not taken the day off. Do you know a Theseus? I swear if this is some game to get back at me for getting the promotion—”
“Simone, I’m going to have to call you back.” I hung up without further comment as Theseus looked back to me.
“I do not recall penning such a letter,” he said starkly before pointing at two paintings in front of him. “Nor do I recall painting these two, but I am sure it is my work.”
In that moment, I felt very much a vampire because I didn’t breathe, or blink, or even move. All of me was still.
Yet, at the very same time, I felt sick. I didn’t know it was possible to feel nauseous, but that was exactly what I felt. My eyes tingled with tears that I didn’t let fall as I stared at the bigger of the two paintings in front of me.
“This one…why…how…how did you paint her?”
“Who is she?” He examined the painting, still without a clue.
“My mother.”
Chapter 7
It looked so real.
Almost like a memory I had forgotten myself.
My mother and I sat on a picnic blanket in the middle of the park, the grass the most beautiful shade of green. I couldn’t have been more than five or six. My curly hair was in pigtails, and I wore jean overalls. She sat in a long white skirt that went to her ankles and pink blouse. Her hair was just as curly as mine, and she didn’t hold it back. She was laughing, while I had my mouth open, leaning in to take a bite of the yellow cake in her hand. All around us, people were going about their day, but their faces were blurred like nothing else was in focus but us, and we didn’t care about the rest of the world, either. We were just a mother and daughter enjoying a day at the park.
“Do you remember this day?” he asked softly.
“This day never happened.” But I wished it had. So badly, I did. “My mother died giving birth to me.”
At that, his grey eyes focused on me, and I was torn between walking closer and staying farther away.
“How could you have painted her? How do you know my mother? I don’t understand.” The sickness was gone, and now panic remained as I looked at the other paintings. They were all of me, as a young girl, maybe eight, and then me at sixteen and eighteen and twenty-two and, me most recently as last year at my twenty-sixth birthday. In all, I did the most ordinary and mundane things. Sitting at a coffee shop. Swimming in a pound. Shopping for a birthday cake. They all looked so real, just like the painting of my mother and me.
“I would say you’ve been stalking me, but stalking doesn’t seem right because I hate cake. I never learned how to swim, and I…”
“You hate cake?” he asked softly.
“I don’t celebrate my birthday, and even if I did, I wouldn’t buy a cake for myself. That would be sad.” I looked from the paintings to him. “Why did you paint these? Why are they here? You sent a note?”
He opened his mouth and then closed it again, showing me just how ridiculous my habit must have looked to other people. The frown on his face was severe, and he could only look back to his art. “I honestly do not know. I recall painting you only once, and that was as my mother described what you looked like over my shoulder. These—they are as strange to me as they are to you.”