TWO

The boy at the door looked even younger than Beth had expected him to be from his e-mail. He was quite wordy for his age. He couldn’t be much older than seventeen. He was dressed in faded jeans, Converse shoes, a Ramones T-shirt and a wrinkled, greasy flannel shirt. His hair was longish and uncombed. He looked familiar though. As she recognized him, she let out a little scream. Although in her painting a lot of his features were darkened it was in fact the very same person she’d just painted.

“What’s wrong?” the boy asked, worry clearly visible in his face.

She stepped back. “No, no… It can’t be…”

“Please… What is wrong? Why did I startle you?”

She pointed at the boy. “You… you… You cannot be… You can’t…”

“I am so very sorry I startled you. I meant you no harm… I e-mailed you, asking to speak to you, remember? The boy without fear?”

She nodded. “Yes, yes.” The boy was so full of wide-eyed innocence and worried about her, Beth calmed down a bit again.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, no. That’s all right. It’s just… You look very familiar.”

“Oh?”

“Just come in.”

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The boy followed Beth inside. They walked into her living room. Beth asked him if he wanted to have some tea. The boy said he would like that. She walked to the kitchen after the boy sat down on her couch. She went into the kitchen, leaning down on the kitchen counter for a moment, trying to process what she’d just witnessed. How could she paint someone she had never seen before? And why was the boy from the painting there just after she’d painted him. Thinking about it made her dizzy. She figured the best way to find out what was going on though, was to speak to him. So she just put the kettle on.

When she returned with the tea the boy was studying her paintings on the wall. He was especially intrigued by the depiction of a rotting carcass hanging from a cross. It was being tortured by a succubus-like woman with a whip. The succubus had a shapely female body and antler-like horns. She was naked, but covered in blood.

“Not one of my best works,” Beth noted.

The boy turned around. “It looks very real.”

Beth shrugged. “That’s what I’ve heard people say, yes. Have a seat, drink some tea and tell me what you need to know.”

The boy sat down on the couch again. He sipped some tea and said, “Like I e-mailed you I want to know a bit more of how you know what to paint. Where do these scary images come from? How do you know so well what scares them? What does…” The last part she couldn’t quite follow.

Beth held up her hands. “Slow down so I can read your lips better.”

“I’m sorry,” the boy said, blushing. He repeated the questions, slower. He seemed like a very polite and nice young man. The last part of the question was, “what does painting these pictures do to you?”

“It’s difficult to say. The images… They just pop into my head. I don’t know where they come from. I just know that I’m compelled to paint them. Sometimes when I look at them I feel uncomfortable. I don’t really like horrific things. But I just have to put them on the canvas to get them out of my head. I have displayed some of them so I can hopefully understand better where they come from.”

“That’s intriguing. So they are a mystery to you?”

“You could say that, yes.”

“Were you always so good at painting?”

Beth shook her head. “Didn’t pick up a paintbrush until I painted my first horrific picture ten years ago, just after I lost my hearing.”

“How did you lose that?”

“That’s a peculiar story,” Beth said. “But I will tell you.”