Ariadne Hawthorne reached out to the brass knob of her bedroom door. She pulled the heavy wooden door open without looking up. She stepped out of her room onto the worn carpet of the hallway. She glanced up at the portrait hanging on the wall opposite her door.
Her mother had been stunning. Ari stopped for a moment to really look at her. She and Ari shared the same long dark hair, nose and chin shape. The major difference between them was the deep violet eyes her mother had vs Ari's dark brown. Her mother was seated by herself, wearing a black dress and hands folded in her lap. She had sat there for as long as Ari could remember. The little hairs on the back of her neck slowly stood up. What was it about this painting today? There was definitely something off with it... Ari squinted at it, she had heard in her art class earlier that semester that squinting can change the way something looks.
Then, a glimmer of silver in the haze of light and color. Opening her eyes wide, there was a pendant on her mother's neck that Ari was dead sure wasn't there before. Well, but of course it was there the whole time. Right? It wasn't like someone had changed the painting.
Ari stepped back to leave, her mother's eyes followed her movement. Ari leaned from side to side at the waist to see if the eyes still tracked her or if it was an optical illusion. Those violet eyes stayed fixed on her face. Ari took a big step to the left then the right. Her mother's head turned with Ari's movements...
Ari took a half-step back towards her room with a shudder, ready to run.
"Dad?!?" Oncoming panic tinged in her voice. Ari gripped the door frame of her room with white knuckles.
Her father appeared having run up the stairs from the kitchen.
"What's up Ari? You ok?"
William stood in the wide hallway his grey eyes concerned and breathing a bit heavy from his trip up the stairs. Looking at her father gave Ari just a half second of reassurance that she was ok. She looked back at the painting.
Oil and canvas again. No movement. Her mother stared straight ahead.
"Dad I swear…!" Just oil and canvas? How? Heat began burning in Ari's cheeks. The lines around his eyes deepened. What did she see exactly anyway?
"The pendant is new and the eyes… they were… they were following me."
William scratched his head unsure if this was a joke or not. "Ari, you ok? Are you just messing with me? What pendant?"
Ari looked back at the painting to point it out. It wasn't there. Great. Now she definitely looked like she was having a breakdown. Ari mentally clamped down on the welling panic that was starting to tighten her throat. Her palms were clammy. Just sign her up for two more weeks at that "Rest Retreat" she had just gotten out of courtesy of Dr. Palmer.
"Dad! I SAW it! It moved!"
"Ari, that isn't possible. Its just a painting. Have you been having those nightmares again?"
Yes, but she had stopped bringing them up once he had started making noise about going to see Dr. Palmer again. No way was she going to sit through another session of hers about how "sometimes we grieve what we didn't know we missed." Not ever again.
"Dad I'm… yeah I'm just messing with you." Ari forced a laugh, but she flushed even deeper with the heat of the lie.
William didn't look convinced. He chuckled back. It was flat, fake. Dr. Palmer was in her very near future if she didn't move fast.
"Sorry, it seemed a little more funny when I had the idea. Guess they can't all be winners, right?"
"Right," William seemed to relax a bit. "Maybe we don't joke about your mother though, ok?" For as little as he talked about her, Ari knew he still mourned the loss of her mother.
"Got it. No more dead mom jokes."
William winced and turned to go back down the stairs.
"Sorry!" Ari called after him, "that was the last one, I promise!"
Alone with the painting, Ari studied it carefully, the panic she had swallowed down in front of her father was rising again, filling her like cold water, slow and certain.
"I saw you." Ari took a deep trembling breath. "I'm not crazy." The words were forced, like telling a lie to someone who knew you were lying. "Am I crazy?" her voice shook slightly. Why had it changed? It felt deliberate, like it was just to discredit her.
She balled her fists. Anger swept over her, leaving Ari hot and with sweat prickling on her forehead. This was ridiculous. Sane people definitely did not speak to inanimate objects.
Was it her imagination after all?
What could she even say? It was impossible but she had seen it! Frustration boiled in her chest. "I've had enough of all of this crap. If you are really able to move, you do it right now and tell me if I'm crazy!"
The painting seemed to fix its eyes on Ari's. Was that sympathy in those violet eyes? Then her mother deliberately shook her head as if to answer her.
Ari's breath stopped.
The hallway spun under her feet and Ari could feel the blood leaving her face threatening her with unconsciousness. Ari's body swayed causing her to reach out and grab for something solid. Anything. Her hand connected with the painting's ornate frame.
The wood felt hot like a branding iron. Then came the electricity. A shock of energy burned through her hands. Her hands clamped down on the gold and wood frame. She couldn't let go. Her body slammed against the wall bringing her closer to the painting with enough force that the air was knocked from her lungs. Her mother stood from her chair, approached Ari, and again shook her head. She reached out her hands toward Ari's face. Ari's head slammed hard into the painting. There was a force trying to pull her into the painting itself. The world started to shrink down to specks of light in Ari's vision. She tried to scream but choked in her throat, all that came out was a low whimper.
Violet sparks began popping off of the antique frame while her mother was face to face with Ari. Her violet eyes bored into Ari's. The electricity that traveled through her body was locking her joints in place with every muscle tensed. It owned her completely, teeth grinding, caging a scream she couldn't release. Ari's forehead was grinding against the oil canvas, against her mother's forehead.
"Ppplease, please let me go." Ari stuttered out through her clenched teeth. "You're hurting me!"
Her mother looked at her sadly. The voice came back into her mind, "He holds us both." Her mother pushed back from the frame and staggered with effort back to her painted chair. "You are starting to see."
Her mother then froze back into her original position on the canvas. The electric shock stopped. Ari's hands released from the frame and she dropped to the worn brown carpet. Her whole body burned with the aftermath. Half sobbing she backed herself up to the wall and slid through the door frame of her bed room and the safety within. Kicking the door shut with her foot, Ari clamped both hands over her mouth to hold in the screams welling up inside her. She was never going back to Dr. Palmer or that rest camp. Never. Even if she was going crazy.
Panting, Ari launched herself to her feet. She began to pace the room, her hands still holding in the sobs that threaten to break out from her control. As she paced she slowly began to release her hands from her mouth and took a choking deep shaking breath. The faded plush carpet pushed between her toes, grounding and calming her. Her pounding heart began to slow and the afterburn in her body started to fade. Shaking out her arms, the sleeves of her brown woolen sweater slid down over her hands. Ari gripped the fabric in her fingers grateful for the soothing sensation on her tingling hands.
Ari flopped down into her window nook. She placed her book down on top of one of the piles of books that lined the inside of the window seat. Drawing her knees up to her chest under her sweater Ari hugged them to herself tightly. Staring out the window at the early morning light, she could feel the earth waking. Ari took a deep calming breath. Today was going to be fine. Shakily blowing out the breath, she twisted off of the thin cushion of the window nook and stood. She forced herself to walk to her closet to put her school uniform on, her fingers tracing the rumpled sheets on her bed as she walked by.
This was going to be fine, she thought to herself. There weren't any weird paintings at MapleTree High. Ari tugged the white button up shirt of her school uniform on over her head. Her arms slid into the cotton shirt smoothly with the experience of many years of practice. Not even snagging her mother's silver bracelet on her right wrist or the charms dangling from it.
Ari had found the bracelet in her mother's things last year while moving a bunch of old boxes to the musty attic when getting ready for her 17th birthday party. It must have fallen out of one of the boxes because Ari hadn't even noticed it until she stepped on it with her bare foot. The crescent moon charm had stabbed her hard enough when she stepped on it, it had drawn blood. Ari smiled at the memory of how she had gone hopping and cursing around while pulling it out of her foot. Her fingers traced the outline of the charm as she studied it. The wolf and the raven were pretty too, but the crescent moon had captured her somehow.
"Ahem." Her father had come up into the attic after her, arms loaded with heavy boxes as well. "Where did you find that?" His tone was distant.
"I stepped on it actually" Ari had chuckled. "Where did it come from? I don't remember buying this?"
"It was your mother's. But I had thought that it had been lost. I looked for it."
"Oh, well here it is," Ari held it out to William. He took a half step back. Realizing what he had done he readjusted the boxes in his arms to make it seem like they had thrown him off balance. "No, it chose…. I mean you found it. It's yours now."
Now as Ari studied the individual charms feeling the weight of each silver piece with her fingertips, it was the raven that drew her attention. The amethyst eyes seemed to draw you into their depths as if the raven was watching you, while you were watching it. She had thought about adding a new one for her upcoming 18th birthday in a month, but every addition she looked at felt wrong. Like trying to mix the wrong colors, they just didn't match.
Brushing the thought aside, Ari slipped into the scratchy heavy wool skirt with the blue and green plaid of her school colors. She needed to get downstairs for breakfast.
Crossing the room her hand hesitated on the brass knob, remembering what had happened earlier with her mother's portrait. Squaring her jaw, she opened the door with more force than she had intended to and stopped. Her father had hung a cloth over the painting. Didn't take it down, didn't move it but had covered it with a heavy blue piece of velvet. Dismissing it from her mind as nothing more than a crazy powerful daydream, she walked to the top of the stairs and skipped down them two or three at a time. The bus will be here soon.
Downstairs, her father was back at the stove, flipping pancakes with the practiced ease of someone who'd been cooking for his daughter for years. The kitchen was warm and familiar, filled with the scents of coffee and breakfast. It was their routine—William made breakfast while Ari got ready, and they ate together before she caught the bus to school.
"Morning, Ari," William said without turning around. His voice was carefully neutral, as if he were trying to pretend nothing had changed. "How did you sleep then?"
"Well enough," Ari covered, sliding into her usual chair at the small kitchen table. The table was covered with a cheerful yellow tablecloth, a jar of wildflowers in the center. It was the kind of detail her father always remembered—little things to make their home feel warm, even though it was just the two of them.
William set a plate of pancakes in front of her, then poured her a glass of orange juice. "I'm worried about you," he said finally, taking the seat across from her. "These nightmares... they're not normal."
"I know," Ari said, cutting into her pancakes. "But what am I supposed to do? I can't control my dreams."
"Maybe we should see someone. Dr Palmer, or someone else. Maybe—"
"Dad, I'm fine," Ari interrupted, lying yet again. "It's just stress. Senior year, college applications, all of that. Once I know what I'm doing next year, I'll be fine."
She hated lying to him. They had always been honest with each other. But what good would worrying him do?
William studied her for a long moment, his expression troubled. "You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Anything at all."
"I know," Ari said, forcing a smile. "But there's nothing to talk about. I'm fine. Really."
The silence hung between them. Ari could see the worry in her father's eyes, but she didn't know how to explain what was happening to her. How could she tell the person she loved the most that she was starting to think she might be losing her mind? Hey, you know how you lost your wife? Yeah, I'm actually going insane so I'll be gone soon too. Yeah, that was going to help things...
They finished breakfast in silence, the only sound the ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room. When Ari stood to clear her plate, William caught her hand.
"Ari," he said, his voice soft. "I love you. You know that, right?"
"Of course I do," Ari said, her throat tightening. "I love you too, Dad."
His grip tightened slightly in a quick squeeze before letting go, "Always."
Ari wondered if he was just worried or just thinking about her mother. She tossed William a quick smile, then gathered her backpack and headed for the door. As she stepped outside into the crisp morning air, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was different about the day. It felt more... alive somehow. Ari shrugged it off as nerves from the weird painting hallucination.
The school bus was already waiting at the end of their long driveway, its yellow form a familiar sight. Ari jogged toward it, her backpack bouncing against her shoulders. Inside, she found her usual seat near the back.
In her first period English class, Ari tried to focus on the lecture about Shakespeare, but her mind kept drifting. The words on the page seemed to shift and move, and for a moment, she could have sworn she saw symbols—the same symbols from her nightmares—carved into the margins of her textbook. She blinked, and they were gone.
By the time the final bell rang, Ari was exhausted and she felt sharp shooting pains like electricity in her hands from keeping them clenched. She'd spent the entire day fighting to stay present, to focus on her classes, to pretend everything was normal. But the effort was draining, and she could feel herself drawing further and further inside herself. It was better this way. Sharing what she was thinking or experiencing would have been a fast track to Dr. Palmer. No way was that going to happen. Again. Ari stepped into the girls bathroom and pulled a prescription medicine bottle from her backpack.
Ari stared into her own dark brown eyes in the dirty bathroom mirror that was scrawled with all sorts of teenaged profane angst. She tilted back her afternoon medication and chased it with a drink from her steel insulated water bottle. The noise in her head would go away soon and life would be flat and meaningless for a few hours before the pills wore off and it all started again.
Ari stretched out like a cat on her bed and her book flopped closed.
"Ouch."
As the blood flooded back into her muscles, Ari realized that she had been reading for hours. With William away on an overnight work trip, she had heated some leftovers when she got home from school and grabbed her book. Uninterrupted reading time was one of her favorite things.
Walking to dresser Ari selected clothes to change into for the night. Dropping her school uniform into her hamper, Ari slid into her shorts and pulled one of her Dad's old t-shirts over her head. The shirt did nothing flattering for her athletic build, but it was amazingly comfortable and that's all that matters anyway.
Ari wandered to her bedroom picture window nook. She slid onto the cushions that were fashioned into a seat on the sill. The full moon hung impossibly large in the night sky, casting the meadow behind their farmhouse in silver light so bright it rivaled dawn. The tall grass rippled in the gentle breeze like waves on a metallic sea. The silver field was ringed by dark trees that seem to stand as guardians against the outside world protecting the peace of their property.
Something about the moonlight called to her, a siren song that vibrated in her bones. Before she could question the impulse she was padding down the stairs sliding on a comfortable cardigan over her oversized t-shirt and sleep shorts. Her bare feet were silent as she passed down the worn wooden steps. The farmhouse had seen many years, long before she and her father had ever arrived, even though all of her memories from childhood were in this place.
The screen door creaked as she pushed it open, the night air caressing her skin like cool silk. The grass was damp beneath her feet as she stepped off the porch, tiny droplets of moisture clinging to her ankles.
But it was the moonlight that stole her breath—it seemed to pour over her skin like cool liquid silver, sending waves of sensation cascading through her body. Where the light touched her skin, she felt a humming energy, a connection to something vast and ancient that she couldn't name.
Ari closed her eyes, tilting her face toward the moon. The sensation intensified, pleasure bordering on pain. She had the sudden wild urge to strip off her clothes and let the light touch every inch of her bare skin. The thought shocked her even as it compelled her. And yet it seemed as though it would be completely natural. As if she belonged somehow to this light. To become one with it became an overwhelming desire. With trembling fingers she released the cardigan she had been hugging around herself, letting it fall open. The silver light washed over her as the cardigan slipped from her shoulders. Her bracelet slid out from the sleeve as the garment dropped to the ground. It glinted in the liquid light and Ari thought that she could feel it humming on her wrist.
Ari ran her hands up her neck and to her hairline as if to bathe in the light, her eyes closed as she ran her fingers through her dark long hair. Her head tilted back to face her to the moon and she breathed in the cool air as though she was drinking in the moonlight.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the feeling vanished. Ari's eyes snapped open.
The air around her grew cold, carrying a musty scent like disturbed earth and decay. The moonlight was just light again. Something was wrong. Very wrong. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and an instinct older than thought screamed at her to run. But not with her back turned to the woods that edged their property.
Not with that clawing feeling of darkness that was reaching for her in the absence of the strength that had been brought by the light.
Ari leaned down and snatched her wet cardigan from the ground and began backing toward the house, cursing herself for not wearing shoes as sharp pebbles bit into her heels. She kept her eyes fixed on the tree line, where shadows seemed to move with purpose between the ancient trunks. Trees that once seemed as if they were guardians now seemed to harbor some unseen menace. Something evil. She shivered, surely it was her imagination running away with her. Her heel caught on the edge of the porch, nearly falling before catching herself on the railing. Slowly she continued backing through the doorframe that promised safety and security.
Once inside, she slammed the solid door and threw the deadbolt with a click that sounded like chambering a rifle. Collapsing against the solid wood, her heart threatened to burst from her chest. What had just happened? Why had the moonlight felt so... alive? What had been watching her from the woods? Why was every nerve in her body screaming? The dark had never scared her before. Even as a young girl she wasn't afraid of it. This was different, there was something malicious and evil in that murkiness that had threatened to engulf her.
With shaking hands, she pushed herself away and up from the door. She needed the safety of her room, the familiar comfort of her own space. As she placed her hand on the stair railing, placed her left foot on the first cold wooden step and looked up, her blood froze in her veins.
At the top of the stairs, peering from the darkness, gleamed two eyes—reflective as a cat's but much larger. Much more intelligent. The eyes floated in the air, or was there some shape morphing and undulating behind it? All she could focus on were the eyes. Luminous, large and white gold, they blinked once, and Ari's breath caught in her throat. She blinked back, and they were gone.
But she knew what she'd seen.
Gripping the railing with her left hand and white knuckles, she forced herself to climb the stairs, one trembling step at a time as the stairs sank away beneath her feet giving her feelings of vertigo. Her other hand clutched the hem of her t-shirt, twisting the fabric as if it offered some protection. When she reached the top step, she scanned the hallway frantically. Empty.
She stood at the top step only a moment before terror sent her sprinting down the hall to her bedroom. Her bare feet still wet with the dew from outside threatened to slip out from under her as she ran. She was never going to reach that door, it was flying away from her outstretched hands. Her foot skidded out from under her, slamming her into the ground hard enough to knock the air out of her lungs. Eyes watering and gasping for air Ari looked up to see she was in front of her open bedroom door.
As she scrambled on all fours through the door, she swore she could feel claws on the calves of her legs. Standing, she didn't dare look back down the hall for fear of what she might see. She slammed the door and leaned against it, sliding to the floor as her legs gave way.
Sleep was no longer an option. Not with the memory of those eyes, not with the lingering sensation of the moonlight on her skin. Ari scrambled to her desk and with fumbling fingers pulled her anxiety drugs from her backpack. Throwing two of them back into her mouth she swallowed them dry. She knew she hadn't missed a dose but she didn't care.
Outside, deep in the woods, a figure moved silently between the trees. Moonlight glinted off the blade in its hand. The metal absorbed the silver light like a black hole. The figure paused, turning to look back at the farmhouse, at the window where a light had just come on. Then it melted into the deeper shadows becoming one with the darkness.