Highland Portrait by Shelagh Mercedes Read Free Book Online

about it.”
    “I’m so glad to hear that.  I’ll be back with you in about a week to see how things are going.  If you need anything just call.”
    Feeling contrition seep through her bones she got up, swinging her long legs onto the floor and called for Casper.  She wondered if he was still sitting outside the studio door whining.  Still dressed in her clothes from last night she got up and opened her bedroom door.
    “Casper.  Hey buddy, where are you?”  She walked down the hall but found no sign of her dog.  “Casper!  Come on, boy, time to go outside and pee.” 
    She heard him barking, but the sound was coming from the studio.  She stood in the hall outside the studio staring at the door; Casper was barking from inside.  She had slammed that door shut last night and Casper had been out here in the hall.  Stella touched her fingers to the door, and shook her head listening to him barking to be let out. 
    Gingerly she opened the door and Casper came bounding out headed for the back door.  She turned and went with him to let him out, then walked back to her studio.  She stood in the open doorway, flipped on the light, and slowly reconnoitered the room. 
    All seemed ok, just as she had left it last night…all except her canvas.  She forced herself toward it not believing what she was seeing.  Her heart was slamming against her chest now as she looked at the image she had worked on so diligently last night. Shawn’s image, with the painstaking attention to every detail of his face, was gone and in its place was another.  A warrior still, but no longer Shawn.  This warrior did not have a perfect face, he was not ungodly handsome, nor was he buffed and shiny.   This was not a pretty-boy warrior, but a man in the heat of battle.
    His face was unshaven with rivulets of blood and dirt, the dust of battle and horses having found purchase there in his beard.  Dark blonde hair loosened from its queue was matted to his skull, slick with sweat, his lips a thin line of grim determination.  His eyes were angry, with dark circles, the lights in them having dimmed from a burden carried too long, a deep sadness hanging heavy in his soul.
    He held a broadsword in one hand, a smaller dirk in the other.  He was dressed in trews and a tunic with a baldric across his chest and he was running toward something, brandishing the sword, ready to strike.
    Stella looked closely at the face and felt a faint recognition.  She was sure she didn’t know him, but a vague familiarity tugged at her memory and once again she had the uncanny feeling that someone – something, was here in the studio with her. The sketches still littering the floor did not move, she felt no breeze or draft in the room, but something was here.  She slowly walked to the canvas, splayed her fingers and ran her hand down the body of the image. The paint was dry and felt warm.  Delicately she leaned into the canvas and smelled the image.  It smelled of sweat and blood not oil and turpentine.  She wrinkled her nose and backed away from the canvas.
    The lights flickered and dimmed.  Stella could still see the canvas, but the studio was now cast in a soft blue glow.  It was not as frightening as she would have imagined, but ethereal and calming.  She could hear a slight, low pitched pulse, like a heartbeat. 
    “ T’is me, a moment a’fore I died, lass.”  The deep male voice was so close to her she jumped and swirled around to see who had come into her studio, but no one was there. Stella edged away from the canvas toward the door.  She put her hand on the door knob but heard it lock.  It was him, he did that.
    “Don’t leave me, lass.  Stay.”  The Scottish brogue was at once terrifying and soothing.  She knew she should not be hearing voices from her canvas but she had called upon the magic and it had answered.   She was on the edge of something she was too frightened to experience and too excited not to. She wondered if that,