Behind the Canvas (22 page)

“Exactly. She knows there are threats that can emerge through a canvas, and she's careful not to expose herself to those threats.” He wiped his face on his shirttail. “But in my wanderings, I heard rumors about
Artisti
who have separated themselves from their wills and hidden them here in the world behind the canvas. They are separated but remain tethered or anchored to their wills. Because things don't age here—at least not things from our world—their wills do not weaken or diminish. And therefore neither do the
Artisti
. It's just a rumor, but I suspect that is how Granny Custos has clung to life all these years.”

“But if she can do that, why does Nee Gezicht need to reap wills? She could just do the same thing.”

“Ah,” Pim replied. “By separating yourself from your will, you lose your connection with magic.”

“So you wouldn't really be an
Artisti
anymore?”

“You would not be able to access magic like an
Artisti
, no.”

“But Granny Custos uses magic. She made the canvas-crossing ointment.”

Pim smiled. “That wasn't magic. That was cooking. She just followed the recipe. Anyone could have done that.”

“But…” Claudia's mental image of being sent to this world by a powerful magician deflated like a balloon. She was sent here by an eccentric chef who had hidden for ages from the roving eye of Nee Gezicht. If Granny Custos didn't have the guts or the power to take on Nee Gezicht, what did Claudia expect to do against the witch?

They marched on across the parched earth. Sweeping dunes of sand (
Arabia,
she thought) intermixed randomly with stretches of red, hard-packed dirt (
Texas?
). They saw no sign of plants or animals until they came across a blindingly white cow skull resting freely on the ground. Several large, blossoming roses surrounded it, each cut at the stem and as white as chalk.
25

Why hadn't the roses withered in the cruel sun? She bent low for a closer look. They appeared to be made of cloth, like something you would find at an arts and crafts store. She reached out to stroke the petals.

Pim's hand suddenly latched onto her wrist. “Let's not disturb that. Okay?” Pim pulled her forward and she reluctantly followed.

She glanced back at the mysterious arrangement. Did it mark a grave, the flowers placed by someone who cared? Or was it something else entirely? A warning, maybe, to those who were stupid enough to travel this direction.

They marched onward. Soon the tower—no, there were two of them—began to increase in size with every step. Enormous shadows stretched toward them across the sand like knobby fingers.

They were close enough now to make out details in the towers. “The huge statues from the Dalí painting—back in Chicago. That's what they are, aren't they?” she said.

“Yes.
Archeological Reminiscence of Millet's ‘Angelus
,'” Pim replied.

“They aren't any happier up close.”

The towers took the forms of giant stone statues, decrepit and bowing slightly as if in prayer, just as she had seen in the Art Institute gallery. One had a long, thin neck and the other had no neck at all. They were featureless—not male or female, not young or old, void of faces—just outlines that suggested the human form. They were as tall as skyscrapers, and carrion birds circled their heads. It seemed ironic that figures bowed in prayer could send shivers down her back.

They came closer and closer until the structures loomed over them and the travelers plunged into the shadows. The relief from the sun felt good, but stepping into the ominous shadow made her skin crawl. At the base of the statues were other structures—arches and pointed domes—that might have been beautiful when they were first built. The stone was aged and crumbling, even blackened in some places, as if by fire. They passed through in silence.

At last they came to the base of the taller of the two towers, the one with the long neck. A wooden door was set into the stone. Like the towers, the door was weathered yet smooth from the windblown sand. A thick slope of sand was pushed halfway up the door, as though it was trying to keep the door from opening. As if it didn't want it to be discovered.

Pim stepped forward and grabbed a brass handle. It turned with a creak, but the door didn't move. He turned the handle again and this time threw his body against the door. It creaked louder but didn't budge. He stepped back for another go, and this time Cash charged at the door, too. They smashed into it together and it flew open, dust powdering the air. Pim and Cash tumbled into the opening.

Claudia hurried in and helped them to their feet. She looked around. The entryway opened into a small room with a stone floor and two sets of narrow stairs—one leading up and the other down. She carefully leaned over the wall of the twisted stairway going downward. The way became dark after the first few steps. But a faint light descended from the upward stairwell, illuminating the motes of dust hanging in the air. There was an eerie reverence about the place, like an abandoned cathedral.

Or a tomb
.

“And I thought the Southern Forest gave me the willies,” Cash muttered. He tucked his tail between his hind legs and flattened his ears against his head. “They got nothing on this place.”

“Good,” Pim said. “You can stay here and be the guard dog.”

Claudia swatted at Pim. “You don't have to, Cash. You can come with us. It's okay.”

“I'll stay. I like being where I can see the exit.” Cash shot Pim a look. “I'll make sure no one tries to sneak out the back.”

“Be more afraid of what might come through the other side of the door,” Pim said. “If anything comes our way, let out a howl … or whatever it is you do.”

“We'll be back soon,” she added.
Maybe
.

Pim nodded toward the stairwell. “Up we go.” He led the way and Claudia followed, glad they weren't taking the stairs heading downward. Somehow
up
seemed safer.

The spiral stairs, like the walls and the exterior of the statue, appeared to be carved from one enormous piece of brown stone. Thick veins of crystal ran through the walls, similar to the cave Claudia had come through the day before. Up she and Pim climbed without speaking, accompanied only by the sounds of their labored breathing and the grinding sand beneath their feet and … something else. A humming, like the wind or like people talking in the distance. And then they climbed a little higher, and it all made sense.

Window-paintings. Just like the ones in the cave. The first window they came to was dim, with barely enough light in the scene to make out a fancy living room beyond the etched image on the window. The second window showed the room of an ornate art museum, people filing by to stare at the painting. The windows lined the stone walls of the stairwell as far as she could see. An art gallery, a library, another art museum, a home. The muffled sounds of people and places on the other side echoed hauntingly through the stairwell.

Up and up they climbed. The window-paintings doused the stairs in multicolored rays of light, like a giant prism. Then Pim came to a stop and stared at a window-painting embedded in the wall. It was dark, like an empty well. Yet the canvas-textured glass had the faint etching of a woman with braided hair, holding what appeared to be a bowl of fruit.

No. A bowl of tomatoes.

“This is it,” Pim said.

Of course it was. She felt it in the pit of her stomach before Pim even spoke the words. She reached her hand toward it but stopped short as something occurred to her.

“If Granny Custos doesn't have any paintings in her house, why does Nee Gezicht?” she asked. “Isn't she afraid someone might, you know, come in and steal her staff or something?”

“She is indeed. There are two paintings into her manor. One hangs high above her fireplace. It's through that painting that I would speak with her when I … Anyway, that window-painting is found at the very top of this tower. You cannot appear in it without Nee Gezicht knowing, and it is protected—no one can enter with magic paste or otherwise.”

“And this is the other? Why is it dark?” It was a question she wanted to whisper, but she raised her voice to be heard over the incessant ghostly murmurs from a thousand locations.

“The painting is buried away in her attic with mounds of other junk. It's been covered for centuries.” The hope was plain on Pim's face. “I think she forgot about it a long time ago.”

Claudia creased her eyebrows. “But it's not protected? It doesn't have an alarm on it?”

“She wasn't nearly as paranoid when she packed it away. She had fewer enemies back then. But I looked at it before I reclaimed my will—before I lost my connection to the magic. It was clean. We have to hope it still is.”

The thought of being spit out of a dark painting with no idea of what's on the other side …

She brushed the window with her fingertips. Cold. Rough. This is what she had come for. To find what lay on the other side of this canvas. A flutter of fear ignited in her stomach and she tried to quench it. She had faced a dragon, the Fireside Angel, and two near-executions. There wasn't anything more to be scared of, was there?

“What if she's there?” she asked. “What if she's there in her house? What do I do?”

“She won't be. I looked through the other painting earlier. I've also made a few … inquiries with some old acquaintances. Nee Gezicht is traveling. Now's the perfect time.”

“Old acquaintances?”

Pim smiled wryly. “The Cubists aren't the only ones with a good intelligence network.”

“Right.”
See? Nothing to worry about
. “Okay. A staff.”

“Black walnut.”

“Right.”

“Gnarled. About a meter and a half long.”

“Um … how long is that?”

“Four and a half feet.”

“Right. Wait … won't she have it with her?”

Pim shook his head. “No, she used to travel with it but not anymore. Her
raccolta
keeps spells and enchantments in place—thousands of them. And each one adds weight to the staff. After a while, it just became too heavy to carry around. It's in her house. Somewhere. I think.”

“Right.” The house strangers aren't supposed to be able to enter. She opened her backpack and pulled out the mustard bottle. “Right.” Why did she keep saying that? It sounded so stupid. And nervous. She twisted the lid and pointed it at her hand.

Pim placed his hand on hers and she looked up. She couldn't remember a boy ever putting his hand on hers before.

“If you don't wish to do this,” Pim said, “even now I will gladly lead you back to your own window.”

Her own window. Home. It would be easier that way. But she had seen too much. “Nee Gezicht can still hurt a lot of people, can't she?”

“Yes. She can.”

“And there's no other way for you to escape.”

Pim was silent.

His hand felt so warm on hers.

“Right,” she said.
Ugh
. “I mean, I'm going in. Your job is to figure how to get us home when I come back.”

Pim flashed a smile as warm as his hand. “Thank you, Claudia.”

She squirted the cool paste onto her palm, carefully outlining her hand without using any more than necessary. There were still several trips in their travel plans.

Pim took the bottle and zipped it up in her backpack. She turned with a courage that she didn't really feel and faced the darkened window.

Then she gently placed her hand on the glass-canvas surface.

 

C
HAPTER
20

C
LAUDIA TUMBLED
, turned, fell, and soared. Then with an intense warmth, a million little hands pushed her forward, out of the world behind the canvas. She found herself lying facedown on a cold, hard floor.

She gasped and dust filled her lungs, making her cough. But the dust on her tongue tasted like dust and not paint. Something large and light rubbed against her backpack and legs. She rolled over to find a large framed canvas practically on top of her.

It must have been facedown on the floor
.
That's why the window looked dark
.

She pushed it up and came face-to-face with a fair-haired woman, practically life-size, painted against a backdrop of tomato vines. The woman was gorgeous—the shine in her hair and the perfection of her face were magazine model–worthy. But one eye was hard and cold, void of emotion. The other was covered with a black satin eye patch strapped to her head with a leather band. The silk-and-taffeta dress and the bowl of tomatoes placed the artwork immediately in Claudia's mind. Pim's first story may have been a lie, but Verspronck's painting wasn't. This had to be Nee Gezicht, several hundred years ago.

Claudia stared into the painted eye a moment longer, trying to ignore the fear clenching her throat. Then Pim's face appeared in the background of the painting. He nodded encouragingly.

She scrambled to her feet and propped the painting against a wall. She looked around. Dusty wooden floors and a vaulted ceiling with exposed rafters made up an enormous attic the size of a school gym. It was like a warehouse crammed full of … everything. From an ancient spinning wheel in one corner to a grandfather clock in another, heaps of stuff surrounded her. The floor was completely covered—there wasn't a clear path to be seen. Dim light issued through several tiny circular windows near the ceiling on the far wall. Dusk or dawn, perhaps.

She looked at the mounds of junk again. “It could be anywhere. Where do I start?”

Pim chewed his lip in thought. “Not here,” he whispered. “She would need to access it on occasion. Start downstairs.”

“Right.” She scanned the walls of the attic. There had to be … there. A door set into the far wall. “I'll be back.”