12.4

 

“What do you mean, they’re not alive anymore? How can you possibly know that?”

“I think the paintings are showing the decay of the people they’re depicting. Their bodies, I mean.” Roisin exhaled, steadying herself. “I think the bodies of the people painted are slowly rotting and the images are reflecting that in real time. Don’t ask me how, I haven’t done any science since before I took GCSEs, but if I had to guess, I’d say there was something mixed in with the oil paint that makes them decay.”

“The actual paintings are decaying, you mean?” The assistant looked horrified. “Are they dangerous?”

“Maybe.” Roisin moved to the next painting, one which was reminiscent of sunlight seen from beneath the surface of a murky pool. A hooked line in viridian and sage could easily be interpreted as a forearm and hand, reaching languidly upward, the half circles of lighter paint indicating ripples on the surface above. Looked at from the perspective of a submerged corpse, she found the painting slightly erotic, though she elected not to say that aloud. “Have you been feeling anything? Anything unusual?”

“Such as? Presences in the room, you mean? Things moving about of their own accord?”

“Well, I suppose so, but I was thinking more of feeling unwell.”

The shop assistant stepped back as far as the desk area would allow. “Are they infectious, then?”

“I don’t know.” Roisin shrugged her shoulders. “I’m as much in the dark as you are. I just happened to notice the mould in your coffee cup and your scarf on the back of the chair.”

“My scarf?” She stepped forward again and pulled it up. Her fingernails went through the fabric. “Damn. My sister gave me that.”

 “Can I see the back room?”

The assistant blinked. “Why?”

“I just… want to know if anything else was left. Or taken.”

The assistant hesitated, chewing her lip. “I’m not really supposed to let customers back there.”

Roisin met her eyes. “Please.”

Something in her tone—urgency, or certainty, or something the assistant couldn’t name—made the girl relent. She nodded slowly.

“Okay. But just for a minute.”

She led Roisin toward the doorway. The gallery lights flickered as they passed, a brief dimming that made Roisin’s skin prickle. The assistant pushed the door open.

The back room was small and cluttered. Boxes were stacked against the walls, canvases leaning in haphazard piles, some smaller pieces covered in bubble wrap, a kettle on a low table. But Roisin’s eyes went immediately to the far corner where she could see three large canvases were turned to face the wall.

“I was in here when you came in. Those weren’t here.” The assistant shifted position so that she stood behind Roisin. “How did they get in here? The back door’s bolted and you would have seen them come in through the front.” She plucked at Roisin’s sleeve. “Is this what you meant abut ‘supernatural activity?’”

“I didn’t say anything about supernatural stuff. That was all you.” Roisin couldn’t stop the gooseflesh from erupting all over her body, though, despite her words. There was definitely something weird going on. She stepped toward the paintings, her pulse quickening. She reached out, fingers trembling, and turned the first canvas around.

Her breath caught.

It was another painting by the same artist—same style, same palette—but the image was clearer, more defined. A torso, twisted. A hand reaching upward. A face blurred into streaks of colour, as though caught mid‑dissolution.

She turned the second canvas.

A spine. A ribcage. A suggestion of wings—broken, or forming, she couldn’t tell.

She turned the third.

Her heart lurched.

This one was different. The colours were softer, the shapes gentler. A figure stood in the centre—neither whole nor broken, neither alive nor gone. The face was indistinct, but the posture was unmistakable.

It looked like someone in the moment of becoming something else.

Roisin stepped back, her breath unsteady.

The assistant whispered, “What are they?”

Roisin didn’t answer. She couldn’t. The truth pressed against her, heavy and luminous.

These weren’t paintings of decomposition.

They were paintings of transformation.

And the artist—whoever they were—had seen it happen.

Roisin felt the room tilt slightly, as though the floor had shifted beneath her. She steadied herself against the wall.

The assistant watched her, wide‑eyed. “Should we… tell someone?”

Roisin shook her head slowly. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because they wouldn’t understand.”

The assistant swallowed. “Do you?”

Roisin looked at the paintings again. The colours seemed to pulse faintly, as though responding to her gaze.

“No,” she said softly. “But I think I’m supposed to.”

The assistant shivered. “This is creepy.”

Roisin didn’t disagree. But beneath the unease was something else—something like recognition. Something like inevitability.

She turned back to the assistant. “Has anyone else been in today?”

“No,” the girl said. “You’re the first.”

Roisin nodded. “Lock the door.”

The assistant blinked. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

The girl hesitated, then obeyed. The click of the lock echoed through the gallery.

Roisin stood in the centre of the room, surrounded by canvases that felt like windows into something she wasn’t ready to name.

The assistant whispered, “What happens now?”

Roisin exhaled slowly.

“I think,” she said, “we wait.”