From Black Rooms by Stephen Woodworth Read Free Book Online Page B

The face was hers, as was the unbuttoned man's shirt, but the grim set of the mouth and the cold incandescence of the eyes belonged to Edvard Munch. The woman in the portrait curled a hand around the left lapel of the shirt in an ambiguous gesture. Was the artist peeling back his male veneer to reveal to the viewer the femininity beneath, or was he hastening to hide the female heart he had unintentional y exposed to the world's derision?
    Natalie was so transfixed at watching the master at work that the sketch was nearly complete before she noted the reflection of the bedroom door in the mirror. She had made sure that Munch shut the door when they came in, but it now stood ajar, with two inches of darkness between it and the jamb.
    I think that's good enough for today, don't you? she interjected, now acutely aware that she stood there with her bra bared for al to see.
    Munch spat some Nordic curse from her lips and
    slapped the chalk back in the rack. "It is not even close to being finished!" the notorious perfectionist grumbled in French. "We must complete the sketch tomorrow, then begin the painting immediately thereafter." Of course, monsieur. Tomorrow. The bedroom door hovered at the periphery of her vision, and Natalie monitored it with apprehension as she recited the Twenty-third Psalm.
    The second the protective mantra had swept Edvard Munch from her mind, she held her shirtfront closed with one hand and rushed to yank open the door. The gasp and scuttling footsteps in the hal she heard confirmed her worst suspicions.
    "C allie!"
    Her nine-year-old had made it as far as the top of the stairs and teetered on the top step as if debating whether to pretend that she hadn't heard her mother's cal . She evidently decided that bolting would only get her in more trouble, so she faced Natalie with her most
    winsome expression. "Grandpa sent me up here to look for you," she said quickly, brushing brown bangs out of her violet eyes. "I'l tel him you're busy--"
    "Wait." Before her daughter could escape, Natalie stalked down the hal , fumbling to button enough of the shirt to keep herself decent. She knelt until she was eye level with Cal ie. "How long were you watching?"
    "I just got here." Her gaze strayed.
    Natalie grew stern with her. "Tel the truth. How long?" Her daughter's mouth wriggled. "Only a couple of minutes. Jeez."
    "W hat did you see?"
    A worry worse than getting in trouble aged Cal ie's smal , round face. "You were drawing a picture... Natalie felt the stone in her stomach grow heavier.
    "And?"
    "A Who was inside you." This time, Cal ie peered straight at her mother, eyes bright with anxiety. "It sounded like a bad Who."
    Natalie nodded, her head drooping in guilt. Cal ie's favorite storybook had always been Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who! about the elephant who could talk with tiny people no one else could see. Cal ie thought of Horton as a Violet like herself, and the Whos were like the souls who knocked and sometimes inhabited her. Not al of the Whos were nice. Some, like Vincent Thresher, were very bad indeed. The serial kil er had only possessed Cal ie on a couple of occasions, but the taint of horror and perversion that he'd left in her mind had driven the girl into counseling with Dr. Steinmetz. Her therapy had lasted three years so far, with no end in sight.
    Natalie groped for a way to explain the difference between Vincent Thresher and Edvard Munch. "It was a Who," she began, "but not a bad one."
    "Was it someone you know?" Cal ie's face brightened with misplaced hope. "Someone like Grandma Nora?"
    "Not exactly." Natalie heaved a sigh. She had gone out of her way to keep her little girl from witnessing her work, hoping that Cal ie might grow up to enjoy a relatively normal existence--one that did not require her to lasso ghosts for a living. In training her daughter to cope with her Violet abilities, Natalie avoided teaching her about spectator mantras and summoning. Cal ie herself had figured out how to