Chapter 16.1

 

The kettle clicked off with a soft metallic sigh, but Roisin didn’t move to pour it. She stood at the counter, hands braced on either side of the mugs she’d set out, staring at the faint swirl of steam rising from the spout. Her breath felt too shallow. Her skin too tight. The pulse — faint now, but still present — felt like an expanding bruise beneath her ribs, as it she’d been punched by Mike Tyson from the inside.

Behind her, Paul and Steve waited.

Paul sat a little away from the kitchen table, elbows on his knees, watching her She could feel his gaze as a kind of worried intensity of the sort she usually expected from late‑night phone calls from an unknown number or the unexpected arrival of a pair of police officers at the front door. She could feel the intensity of his worry like another presence in the room and by golly she’d had enough of those for one night.

Steve leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the back door. He already knew pieces of the story but she hadn’t heard him say it out in one coherent passage. She felt like she was trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle when he’d hidden half the pieces and mailed one from the middle to an unknown box office somewhere.

Roisin finally took a deep breath and turned. “I went back to the gallery today.”

Steve didn’t move.

Paul straightened, frowning. “The one with the weird bird‑wing paintings? I thought we were going to take it a bit more slowly, but obviously things have escalated.”

Roisin nodded “Yes.”

“And the assistant who looks like she hasn’t slept since 2012?”

Roisin almost smiled. “Yes.”

Paul nodded slowly. “Alright. And?”

Roisin swallowed. “The paintings weren’t just paintings.”

Steve’s jaw tightened.

Paul frowned. “What does that mean?”

Roisin moved to the table and sat opposite him, angling the chair so she could see Steve at the same time. She wanted to see his reactions but his stoic expression wasn’t giving anything away. Her hands trembled slightly as she folded them together. “They were changing. Not like… not like an artist updating a piece. They were shifting. Moving. Like they were alive.”

Paul stared at her. “You said they were moving yesterday, but how can they be alive?”

Roisin shook her head. “Not properly alive. Not breathing. Not blinking. But aware. Like they were listening.”

Paul let out a short, incredulous laugh. “Listening? To what?”

“To me,” Roisin whispered.

Steve stepped forward. “Roisin—”

“No,” she said, looking at him. “Let me say it.”

He hesitated, then nodded.

Roisin turned back to Paul. “When I looked at the third painting… something looked back.”

Paul’s expression softened into concern. “Roisin, you’ve been under a lot of stress. Maybe—”

“It wasn’t stress,” she said sharply. “It wasn’t imagination. It was real.”

Paul opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked at Steve as if asking for backup, but Steve didn’t give it. Instead, he spoke. “Tell Paul about the artist.”

Roisin felt her throat tighten. “He came into the gallery while we were there.”

Paul frowned. “The artist? The guy who painted the wings?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

Roisin looked down at her hands. “He didn’t walk in like a person. He… appeared. Like the room had been waiting for him. One moment it was empty, the next he was just there.”

Paul grimaced. “What does that even—”

“He spoke to me,” Roisin said. “Not to the assistant. Not to anyone else. To me.”

Paul’s voice rose into a sing-song tone. “Like a Star Trek transporter, I suppose.” He caught Steve’s eye and reddened, his whole face turning a deed mauve. “Sorry. What did he say?”

Roisin swallowed. “He said I’d seen them.”

Paul frowned. “Seen what?”

“The paintings,” she whispered. “But not the surface. Not the paint. The thing behind them.”

Paul leaned back slowly, rubbing a hand over his face. “Okay. Okay. This is… a lot.”

Roisin nodded. “I know.”

“And you’re sure he wasn’t just talking bollocks? Artists are specially trained to do that.”

Roisin shook her head. “Trust me. I can talk bollocks with the best of them. No. He wasn’t being cryptic. He was being literal.”

Steve stepped closer. “Tell him what happened when you got home.”

Roisin hesitated.

Paul looked between them. “What happened when you got home?”

Roisin pressed a hand to her chest. “Something followed me.”

Paul froze. “Followed you from the gallery?”

“Yes.”

“That whatever-it-was knocking at the door?”

Roisin shook her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t see it. But I felt it. And it… tried to get through the door.”

Paul stared at her. “You’re telling me something invisible followed you home and came through the door like a sodding ghost?”

Roisin didn’t smile. “It didn’t get in, mostly thanks to Steve.”

Steve added quietly, “And it wasn’t a ghost.”

Paul turned to him. “You’re not helping.”

Steve ignored him. “Roisin, tell him the rest.”

Roisin took a breath. “It wasn’t just outside. It was inside as well. At the same time. It had those prims we talked about, and when Steve tried to fend it off it pulled them out of me instead. Like part of it was inside me like two magnets trying to pull toward each other.”

Steve shook his head and crossed the room to the back door. He put his ear to it as if he were listening to something outside, then turned back to them. “More like two halves of a neutron bomb trying to meet each other halfway. If I hadn’t been there.” He shook his head and used his hands to illustrate an atomic mushroom in the air.