What is visual art? I define it as illustrations glued together with complex visions and emotions deeper than what the eye can see. It is the soul of a room, the color of a mood, and the reason behind my relocation.
I grew up in the city - its grey bricks towering tall into the sky stealing away the daylight's vibrancy and the night's mystery. It made me depressed as I felt like a prisoner in a monochromatic cell. Color was my life, my joy - since I was old enough to pick up a paintbrush, I painted the world. As I got older, art became more than a hobby to me... It became my passion.
My best friend, Phoebe, understood this and took me along with her on family trips away from the city to a small town surrounded by a dense forest. It was there where I fell in love with the peace, the trees' whispers and the kaleidoscope of color that the surrounding nature had gifted. Little did I know this place of wonders would soon turn into my worst nightmare that would haunt me for years...
"Come on Liora, we won't be long," Phoebe nagged. Phoebe was always very adventurous and wanted to explore the forest, and even though I admired its beauty I had a bad feeling that whirled in my stomach.
"Okay, okay Phoebe. Just stop nagging, please. I just don't think its a good idea to wonder off like this, I mean anything or anyone could hide within those trees," I tried to warn her, but Phoebe just laughed.
"Don't worry scaredy cat, I'll protect you," she continued giggling and grabbed my by the wrist, pulling me towards the door.
With every step we took I felt more and more on edge. Something was wrong.
"Liora, why the serious face? You look like my dad when he's out of cigarettes," she joked once more.
"Why don't you think of this walk as a walk of inspiration for your next painting? You know, it might be the one that grants you a scholarship into one of those fancy art schools you were looking into," she tried convincing me. I nodded, acknowledging that she may be right about the scholarship thing.
We continued our walk - the autumn air crisp as the trees created a canopy of yellow and orange above our heads, the sun glimmering through the gaps. Birdsong filled our ears with perfect orchestrated harmony, whilst the ground crunched and cracked beneath our feet. Suddenly the whole setting changed when everything went quiet. We looked at each other as if communicating with telepathy.
"I think we should go," I whispered, our eyes wide, our hearts pounding.
Phoebe nodded in agreement. As we slowly turned around on the path a man in a mask stood behind us. His clothes black as night, his intentions darker. We ran screaming for help - thorns scratching, branches breaking, shrills invading the peace.
Finally, with our breaths heavy we reached the clearing next to Phoebe's parents' house. I bent over with my hand on my heart, fatigued, when I noticed only one pair of feet... Mine.
Phoebe was missing, suddenly a bloodcurdling scream came from the forest. I ran into the house with tears and fright as an accessory hanging from my face. Phoebe's dad immediately knew something had happened, but unfortunately it was too late. Phoebe was gone.
I always carried that guilt with me, I could have changed the whole situation with a simple no. If I only listened to my gut.
Years have passed since the incident. I threw all my art supplies in boxes and didn't think about touching them again as it only reminded me of Phoebe.
"Sweetie, its been several years, you have got to let go of this guilt. It's eating away at you," my mom said as she sat down next to me on my bed. My mom was right, I lost so much weight and was in a state of full blown depression and PTSD, thinking and dreaming of that day over and over again.
"I don't want to push you, but Phoebe's mom reached out to me. She told me that there is an art festival happening where you used to go with them on their family trips. Apparently some big heads in the industry will be there, and she thought that it could be a huge opportunity for you, and I do too," my mom hopefully explained.
She stood up and reached at the boxes under my desk, gently placing them on my lap - dust particles jumped into the air from the impact. My mom squeezed my hand as we opened the boxes together.
And there it was, my old paintbrushes and paintings, eliciting a feeling of nostalgia. How I missed this. I cried in my mother's arms for quite some time and realized that the festival might just be the thing I need as going back to that place might give me some closure, and might reignite my love for art.
I packed my bags and with a heavy heart went to the festival where my paintings got somewhat recognized. It certainly did reignite my passion, but it also brought back so much memories. Funny enough, the memories were more good than bad - I remembered how Phoebe and I used to laugh together and how she encouraged my artwork. This made me realize that she would have wanted me to continue with it and that I shouldn't let anything hold me back.
On my drive home, just on the edge of the town, I saw a room to rent in an old estate. I drove up the dirt path out of curiosity to observe what this place had to offer. As I entered the front door the foyer was filled with paintings and sculptures. It turned out that the estate belonged to an old artist, Maverick Corvin, but due to his death a few years back, one of the daughters turned the manor into a boarding house and rented out the rooms for a very reasonable price. I saw this as a sign of hope in my state of hopelessness, as a way of Phoebe telling me to embrace life. And therefore agreed to rent.
I rented the attic room as it was the only one left. I moved in the following week.
The room, as the rest of the manor was far from a perfect condition as the age of the Corvins probably rendered it impossible to maintain. The room specifically had uneven floors, a slanted ceiling and one tall window which could not be opened. The scent of lavender and old books overwhelmed me as dry lavender flowers stood on top of an old wooden vanity with a mirror covered in black spots due to age. I threw out the lavender and placed a picture of Phoebe and I in its place. What I found to be quite peculiar was that the wallpaper peeled in such a way that it resembled certain shapes, almost like the outlines of furniture that once stood there.
Even though this was the case, it somehow felt that by fixing the room I could fix myself, find myself once again.
As I unpacked my clothes and art supplies, I heard a knock on the door. I quickly rushed over stumbling over a loose floorboard.
"Good evening," a sweet, soft voice said.
"I am Mrs. Lane, the landlady of the Corvin Manor. We spoke via text I believe," she introduced herself.
"You are so lucky to have gotten this room. It was my sister Maren's room. O how I miss her. She too enjoyed painting, what a shame that she was taken away too soon," Mrs. Lane said with a tear rolling down her pale cheek, peeking over my shoulder into the room where my easel stood.
"Nice to meet you Mrs. Lane. What happened to your sister?," I asked before I could catch myself.
Mrs. Lane looked down for a few seconds before replying. "Anyway, enjoy your stay and remember no parties!"
I waved, dumbstruck by what I just heard and the awkward reply that followed. After a while I brushed it off not wanting tall tales to trigger me even more than what I already was.
I continued to pack out my things and got to bed around midnight. Everything was in its place and ready for me to start painting in the morning. For the first time in a long time I rested with some sense of peace.
After a few hours I woke up to the sound of footsteps outside my room. A glimpse of a shadow could be seen from underneath my door, moving slowly as if swaying from side to side. A faint whisper pierced the silence of night. "It's probably someone that got lost within the manor's halls," I thought to myself and went back to sleep.
When I opened my eyes the following morning, I got a tremendous fright - everything in the room had been moved. The lavender that I threw away was placed back on the vanity, my art supplies was placed back in the empty boxes, a stack of books appeared next to my bed covered in dust, and a line that was drawn in a red substance was scribbled on the mirror.
I was in shock, I couldn't believe my eyes. I immediately called the landlady and confronted her as to invading my privacy as she was the only one who had a spare key to my room, and I was sure that I locked the door quite tightly before going to bed. She denied the accusation.
Later that day she came by.
"Hello Liora, I am so sorry for what happened, but I can guarantee you that I did not leave my room since six o' clock last night," she explained.
"Well then it must've been one of the other tenants, but either way someone was in my room after midnight," I said irritably.
Mrs. Lane assured me that she would look into the situation, but as she left, something caught my eye as it glistened from underneath the loose floorboard I stumbled over the previous day. I bent down and slightly lifted the floorboard to find a golden ring with the initials M.C. engraved in it. It must've belonged to Maren. I gently placed the ring on the vanity and found the same engraved initial carved within the wood.
Again I heard a knock at the door. "Liora dear," Mrs. Lane called me. I opened the door.
"Some of the books are missing from the library, it has green covers, have you seen them?," she asked.
I looked over my shoulder to find the stack of green covered books next to my bed. I then took them to her. "I don't know how they got here Mrs. Lane, but none the less here they are," I said while I handed it to her.
"O, and here is something I believe belonged to your sister," I said, handing her the golden ring. Her face dropped.
"How... Where did you get that? Maren wore that ring when she disappeared."
"I stumbled over a loose floorboard and found the ring underneath it," I explained. She took the ring and left without uttering another word.
Again the following day the green books had been placed next to my bed, and the ring underneath the floorboard. Everything was moved again exactly as it was moved the previous day. This went on for a month until I found something that I haven't noticed before:
In one of the books a note fell out with the initials M.C. on it. It looked like the page was ripped from Maren's diary. There was more writing on it describing how her sister, Elizabeth was jealous of her and how she feared her. I immediately paged through the rest of the green covered books and found a family picture of the Corvins. But something strange came to light as I closely analyzed the picture:
Mister and Missus Corvin stood next to their two daughters - Elizabeth and Maren. However, the peculiar thing was that Maren looked exactly like Phoebe, just a little shorter with curly hair where Phoebe had straight hair and was tall.
I lost grip of the photo which spiraled out of my hand, I got goosebumps everywhere - my whole body turned to ice.
Could it be that Maren was trying to communicate with me? Why did these two look exactly the same?
All these questions tumbled in my head, so in order to process it all, I left. I walked and wandered until I found myself in the exact spot where Phoebe and I encountered the masked man. Suddenly I heard a ghostly whisper:
"Look behind the flowers."
I was frightened and didn't know what this meant, but I headed back as nightfall crept its way through the canopy of trees, and I had to help Maren find peace as I couldn't protect or help Phoebe.
I ran into my room and locked the door. I laid on my bed, the whisper repeating in my ears. I sat up to find that the wallpaper was filled with dainty pink flowers. I ran over and tore through the wallpaper where it peeled. I found a painted picture, the same picture I have painted a day before the incident happened with Phoebe. I cried and sobbed the whole night until the room started moving in front of my eyes.
I fell into some sort of vision where the whispers grew louder, and the shadows grew more human... I saw Maren:
She cried until someone barged into the room.
"How could you?" Elizabeth screamed at Maren.
"He was mine, he was all I had and then you got engaged to him behind everyone's back! You are everyone's favorite, the perfect little princess everyone adores with your stupid little green books and paintings!"
"But Richard and I love each other, and you said that you were going to see someone else, how was I supposed to know that you still loved him?" Maren explained.
Maren probably felt something bad was going to happen as she watched Elizabeth's face glowing with hatred. She grabbed a red lipstick and started writing on the mirror, almost knocking the lavender off the vanity.
Elizabeth got even more infuriated, grabbed Maren by the shoulder to turn her around and pulled the ring off of Maren's finger throwing the ring to ground. She then pushed Maren who stumbled over a floorboard and fell out of the tall window to her death.
But something else was prominent in the vision: Maren placed a piece of paper behind the crack of the wallpaper...
I came to and immediately analyzed the painting I found behind the wallpaper. As I turned it around a note was written on the back:
"I hope you find this Liora, if anyone can I know it's you. I was kidnapped by the masked man and is held prisoner here, except I overheard a woman with the name Elizabeth telling the man to kill me as per his wrongdoing years ago as a sick type of revenge. The man's name is Richard Lane if that would help. He got engaged to the sister, who apparently looks identical to me. I don't know how long I have left, but know that you don't have to feel guilt, know that your paintings inspired me every single day. If you find this, your paintings would not just be an inspiration, but something that will save my soul from restlessness. Always in my heart, in living or spirit, Phoebe...
Phoebe placed that picture behind the wallpaper, not Maren.
I shook as I cried, my eyes burning as the tears started to feel like acid. It was Phoebe guiding me to this place, not only to solve one, but two murders. It was her that inspired me, it was her that brought me closure.
It was her that saved my soul from restlessness, hopelessness.
I called the police who then arrested Elizabeth. Richard had died of old age. It turned out she was so obsessed and driven by jealousy that she murdered everyone of her family after murdering her sister as the police found their remains in the other rooms. There were no other living tenants, only me.
From that day on I didn't stop painting, I was inspired by the room that remembered their death to show Maren and Phoebe's story to the world. My art got recognized all over, hanging in museums.
A few years later at an art festival I got a very interesting question:
"What is visual art to you?"
I answered, "I define it as illustrations glued together with complex visions and emotions deeper than what the eye can see. It is the soul of a room, the color of a mood, and the reason behind my tears... "
