by Sarah
Hilary © 2007
The lake is a glass half-full of mountains, topped with a froth
of clouds and sky. A jaunty red sailboat hangs at the lip of the lake,
its shadow a small oil-slick in which the corrugations of brushwork
can be seen in sharp relief.
The painting screams, ‘Old!' Its frame is the colour of cinnamon,
the wood acned by worm, or more likely by a dart, one of the tools
of the faker's trade.
Ed dislikes the painting on sight, and on principle. It's trying
too hard and she's been taught that's how to spot a forgery: ‘Either
the varnish will be over-cracked, or the frame too distressed. The
worst of these old frauds stick phony cobwebs between the stretchers
at the back. Originals are easier on the eye. They don't scream. They
whisper.'
A strand of red tickles Ed's cheek and she takes a moment to twist
it back with the rest of her hair, pinning it out of the way on the
back of her head. Pinching the latex gloves loose at her fingertips,
she completes her examination of the canvas before lining up the camera
to X-ray the bones of the painting.
“The camera never lies,” she whispers to herself, smiling as she
shoots.
Beneath the glassy lake laced with cloud, she spies not bones but
a ghost; the spectre of another painting. The washing of a man's hands
in a transparent room of statues. “Rare,” the ghost whispers, responding
to her smile. “Priceless. The lost Vermeer.”
Sarah's stories have been published in The Beat, Neon, SHINE, Bewildering
Stories, Velvet Mafia, MYTHOLOG, HeavyGlow, Twisted Tongue, Static Movement,
Kaleidotrope and the Boston Literary Magazine. Her short story, On the
line, was published in the Daunt Books 2006 anthology. She won the Litopia
"Winter Kills" Contest in 2007. Sarah lives in the Cotswolds with her
husband and young daughter. Website: www.writewords.org.uk/sarah_hilary/