Chapter 2 - The Portrait Gallery
The heavy oak door of the estate's disused west wing groaned in protest as Julian pushed it open, the hinges screaming into the midnight quiet. Clara hovered anxiously behind him, clutching the white apron to her chest, while Elena trailed a few paces back, her face a mask of calculated panic. Julian stepped over the threshold into a room that smelled heavily of turpentine, charcoal dust, and dried lavender. It was a space he hadn't entered in years, a forgotten corner of the sprawling mansion where old furniture sat draped in white sheets. But the center of the room was different.
Easel after easel stood in a neat, obsessive semicircle, facing away from the door. Dozens of sketchpads lay scattered across a long wooden work table, their pages fluttering slightly in the draft from the cracked window. Julian walked forward like a man sleepwalking, his hand reaching out to brush against the smooth back of the nearest canvas. His breath caught in his throat.
"Julian, please, don't do this," Elena warned, her voice losing its icy edge, replaced by a frantic plea that only deepened his confusion. "Some doors are better left bolted shut."
Without answering, Julian stepped around the first easel and looked at the canvas. It was a charcoal drawing of his own profile, rendered with breathtaking precision. The lines captured the slight crook of his nose, the way his brow furrowed when he was deep in thought, and the exact slope of his shoulders in a tailored suit. But the drawing was dated four months ago. He walked to the next easel, then the next. Every single piece was a portrait of him—sitting at his desk, walking to his car, tying his tie, looking out a high-rise window he didn't even own yet.
"How?" Julian whispered, turning to face Clara. "How could she draw me like this if she's never seen my face?"
Clara swallowed hard, her eyes darting to the floor before rising to meet his desperate gaze. She pointed a trembling finger toward the far corner of the attic studio, where a narrow spiral staircase wound its way upward into the shadows of the vaulted ceiling.
"From the high windows of the estate's east wing," Clara explained, her voice barely a whisper. "And from the old photographs she found hidden in the estate's administrative archives. She pieced you together like a mosaic, sir. Every single day for three long years."
Julian felt a strange, heavy ache bloom behind his sternum. A daughter. He had a daughter he had never known existed, living under his very roof, studying his silhouette from afar like a ghost haunting the corridors of his own home.
"What is her name?" Julian asked, his voice thick with a sudden, overwhelming tide of emotion.
May you like
Elena stepped between Julian and the staircase, her burgundy gown rustling sharply. "Her name is Maya, Julian. And she is violently, dangerously ill."
---
