Mona Lisa

The old mansion, isolated all the way out in the hills, certainly suited the reclusive artist stereotype, but not the starving one. It had taken several back roads and then a final, switch backing hike up this hill to arrive at her front door. Few but the most esteemed members of the art world knew she lived out here, and having finally come upon that information, now I wasn’t even sure where here was.

The chimes of the doorbell rang throughout the many empty rooms, and it was long time before I heard a rattling on the other side of the thick, double oak doors. As soon as they were open a sliver, two bloodhounds shot out and began sniffing me. I bent down to let them have a good lick of my face, thereby not noticing my host stepping out to greet me.

Her studio must have been in one of the far back rooms, because she clearly hadn’t made me wait in order to change. She wore nothing but a pair of leggings and a smock over her front, unless you count the scrunchie tying back her jet black hair. Everything, especially her bared flesh, was flecked with paint and other fluids.

“Could you be… I mean you must be… unless you aren’t… the artist. I mean Vivian?” I stuttered.

“And you’re the art critic,” she said.

“That’s, um, what my badge says. I mean, art critics don’t have badges. But I got one made… for myself,” I said, cringing at my weak finish.

One of the dogs timed a huff perfectly to express embarrassment on my behalf. Vivian’s expression did not change, her black eyes piercing me from beneath her fringe. Without a response, she slipped back inside, followed by the dogs, and then me, dutifully admiring the ceiling.

The interior of the mansion did not match the magic of the outside, mostly due to the sledgehammers, masonry dust, trowels and pieces of plaster littering the room.

“Building works?” I asked.

“Perpetually,” said Vivian, although she didn’t sound too frustrated by it. “The walls might seem thick, but they’re hollow, merely plastered over.”

“Well, at least the neighbours won’t complain about the noise. You could play thrasher music while you work.”

“You’ve done your research no doubt,” she said, taking off towards a hallway. The unspoken command was absolute in its power, and I jogged slightly to catch up. “You know I demand an atmosphere of absolute silence while I work. I must be able to hear the subjects of my pieces. Sometimes they scream their way onto the canvas, sometimes they beg, but all speak to me, right up until the piece is finished.”

It wasn’t the craziest way I’d heard an artist talk about their creative process. Plenty of them felt like a muse spoke to them, instructing them how to bring out the image. There were two things, however, that separated Vivian from all the rest.

The first was her utterly impossible realism. Her portraits were so lifelike, it seemed as if her canvases were glad wrap, transparent moulds to which the actual person had been pressed, and the only paint she used was to highlight some edges. The corridor we walked was lined with at every few paces with her previous works, and I felt as if their eyes were following me, though not in the way people say that about another famous painting. These felt like someone was stalking me from an unseen vantage point.

The paintings at the start all had glassy eyes, but as we walked further through her recent works, there was a spark in many of the eyes. Only to be expected, as an artist improved, but Vivian had already far surpassed any of her modern peers. She had somehow managed to catch the consciousness behind the eyes.

I shivered. Those painted stares, eyes forever open, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. I kept glancing back over my shoulder to see if an actual person was watching us, and the realness of the paintings convinced me there actually was. Many of them, in fact.

The second reason Vivian had gained a reputation was because her pieces were all of missing persons. That’s all she painted. All these people had disappeared, with their last earthly remnants seemingly captured in the frames of this mansion.

This was why I’d come. My buddy Damian’s parents had gone on a local hike a few weeks back, and walked their way into thin air. We did all the right things, called as soon as they were overdue on their itinerary, and the search parties, helicopters and dogs all did their best, even as hope faded into grim determination to locate something for a funeral. But apart from their car at the start of the trail, there was nothing left of them. No blood, no tracks. I’d say they were too damn experienced for that, but they’d apparently proved me wrong.

Was I looking for answers from Vivian that might help the long dead search? Something to bring back to Damian perhaps, to help him either grieve or remember? Well, I didn’t get any of that. What I felt when Vivian opened the door to her studio, overwhelmingly and ashamedly, was awe. Awe at her talent, awe at the confirmation of her gift, given she’d surely never seen the Vostog’s before.

Frank and Connie stood before me, full sized, backpacks on, sticks in hand. They were on individual canvases, but were clearly companion pieces, Frank’s left hand reaching to the left slightly to pull Connie along, her tilting her body towards him.

“They look so… fresh,” I said, stepping into the room.

That wasn’t quite true. The Vostogs looked a few days dirty and beaten down, as you’d expect getting lost on a trail. But the paintings themselves were nothing short of Frank and Connie actually standing right in front of me. The detail in their faces, the depth of their forms, was incomprehensible. Better than a photograph. Better than my own memory of them standing in the kitchen a month or so ago, talking to me.

I stepped closer. Frank was a bit shorter than me in real life, but with the canvas lifted higher, we came eye to eye. I looked at him… and he looked back. It was like he was there, still in those eyes. I was locked with them, trying to communicate with the paint the way I would share a look with a real person. And he – the painting – was trying to say something back. How had Vivian managed to paint a fucking brain, a thought, behind those eyes?

Finally I pulled away, shuddering.

“You like?” asked Vivian.

“Yeah,” I said. “They’re good. Too good. It’s… you know the uncanny valley?”

For the first time, Vivian smiled.

“But worse, somehow. Worse because paintings should be… more like paintings.”

“Would you like to experience my next work, perhaps?” she asked. “It might help you understand how you’re feeling.”

She led me over to a corner of her workshop, where an unfinished canvas stood.

“It’s… a departure from what you’re known for,” I said, struggling to comprehend what I was seeing.

The canvas was mostly blank. There was the black outline of a man, with four tubes held in place temporarily with car ties. One exited at the oesophagus, one to the crook of an elbow, and two to the lower extremities. There were two carefully cut eye holes, I guess, given the placement, but you wouldn’t want to look through them. Fine needles lined the holes, sticking out towards the viewer.

“I guess I can see what you’re going for,” I said, my art critic hat coming out when nothing else stepped up to save me. “You paint dead people, and the tubes are connected to all the essentials of life. One’s a feeding tube, one for blood, two for… that business. And the eyes, well, I guess that represents them being open? The pain of consciousness?”

“Permanently!” Vivian cried. She was beaming now, growing more and more excitable with my every word. “Your only misstep was at the start. This is not a departure. I create art about life, not death. This is all that is necessary to sustain human life indefinitely. People have me down as a painter, but I think my actual technical title is performance artist.

With a flourish, she flipped the canvas. It took a few seconds to register what I was seeing, to put all the parts together. Then I threw up in my mouth. Then I turned and ran.

It was a painting of me. The exact clothes I was wearing right there and then, one hand on my chin as if I was studying a piece of art. I thought it was a mirrored paint at first. The only part missing, of course, was my eyes. The holes were waiting to be filled. By me.

“I’ve just cleared out a wall for you!” Vivian called after me.

I pushed past the portraits of the Vostogs, feeling their pleading gazes on me but unable to do anything to help them. I burst through the studio doors, but took a left turn. That corridor of judging eyes, knowing now what was behind them, and them knowing what I must just have witnessed, begging for an escape, was too much. I’m not proud, but what could I do?

I was blind to my next movements, my brain flooded with panic. I found myself out in the woods somewhere, probably the same woods Vivian lured the Vostogs from. I can’t see the mansion, have no idea where I left the car or how I came in.

But I can hear the howl of those dogs.