Love's Portrait
an excerpt

It still looks like a retirement home for vampires.
Marcy shook her head as she drove up to the house. Between her schedule and Van's, there hadn't been any time to visit over the last year and a half. Now the house loomed large over her. The old Victorian, with its wrap around porch and archaic decor held an ominous presence out to her. Why had she agreed to stay here?
Mark.
He didn't want to get married. He thought things were fine just the way they were. When Van asked if Marcy could stay at the old place while she and Jonathan went on a cruise, Marcy agreed quickly.
Looking up at the old Victorian house, she thought, “Maybe too quickly.”
She hoped her absence would give Mark time to miss her tremendously. As a plus, she would be able to paint again. Running the art gallery in Cleveland was a full time job and she felt guilty doing something she loved when she could use the time to improve The Gallery. Now she was taking two weeks off to sleep, eat, paint and lounge around--and then eat some more.
"Marcy!" Van shrieked as she ran down the steps to greet her friend, blond hair flying. Her long legs made short work of the distance between them.
Marcy loved Van so much. Even when they were separated by hundreds of miles or months on end, it was as if they had never parted once they were within five feet of each other.
Both women talked at once, then laughed, and then talked again.
As they were going into the house, Van said, "I cleaned out my old room just for you."
Marcy replied, "Oh, you didn't have to."
"Well, where were you going to sleep?" Van asked.
"I thought I could use one of those bedrooms down the hall from the kitchen. I could use the other one for my painting room. That way I would be right there if I got inspired in the night."
Van looked closely at Marcy.
"You're afraid to go upstairs, aren't you?"
"Van!" Marcy looked incredulous. Then she sighed. It was hard to lie to a friend who was psychic. "Okay. This house still gives me the creeps. If I don't have to go down to the basement or up to the second floor, I'll be much happier."
"It's alright with me, but Marcy, really, it's just a house now that Anna's spirit is gone and Jonathan is, you know, -- here."
"If you say so."
Marcy looked at Van, trying not to roll her eyes. Yes, she knew Jonathan was there. How could you miss him? If he wasn't one of the handsomest men Marcy had ever seen, she just didn't know. It seemed weird to think of him as a human being or even weirder that he hadn’t been one at one time. But that was Van's story and Marcy didn't really want to have a conversation about it just before she was left all alone.
Then Van asked about Mark. It was hard for Marcy to discuss Mark, too.
Van looked deep into Marcy’s eyes.
“Well, at least I know now why you agreed to stay here for a couple of weeks.”
“No, Van,” Marcy retorted, a little too quickly. “I just need some time.”
“You do? Or does he?” Van asked.
“Maybe both.”
“Hon, you can’t force a guy to love you.”
“Van, I’m not forcing him. He does love me. He just hasn’t figured it out yet.” Marcy tilted her chin up in a defiant gesture.
“After two years, he’s got to be figuring something out,” Van said quietly.
Marcy shook her head and turned away, picking up a suitcase, ready to carry it down the hall.
"Oh wait, before you do that. You have to see this picture I found in the attic. It was stuck behind a box. It looks really old, but I can't tell how old because it seems to have some kind of film over it. Makes it hard to see."
Marcy put her suitcase down.
Seeing Marcy’s acquiescence, Van left the kitchen, but came back momentarily with a huge painting. She leaned it up against the table and Marcy stooped to look at it more closely.
"I think it's a girl or woman. It is hard to tell." Turning to Van, Marcy asked, "Do you want me to restore it for you while you're gone? I could get some things from the gallery in Cleveland and work on it while I'm here."
"That would be so great!" Van replied. "How hard do you think it would be to do that?"
Marcy studied the painting.
"Pretty hard, but then you'd owe me big time."
Van laughed and then ran out of the room again. Marcy shrugged. She was used to Van's impulsive actions. She turned to look at the portrait again.
When Van returned a few minutes later, she had an old crockery jar filled with paint brushes in her hands and another slightly smaller painting.
"I found these, too. I knew you wanted to paint while you were here and these brushes were in the basement with this half painted picture of a guy on a horse."
Marcy took the jar from her and fingered the brushes. One brush caught her attention. It was carved in a beautiful, intricate pattern on the handle. Picking it up, she felt a strong zing of electricity arc and pierce her hand. The brush fell to the floor and bounced to Van. Van picked it up and when she turned it over in her hands.
“Do you feel anything?” Marcy asked quizzically.
“No,” Van replied. “You know, I don’t always get impressions. It just depends on the object, if it wants to tell me something.”
“Something like?”
Van looked at Marcy. “Did you feel something?”
Marcy shook her head adamantly. “I’m not the psychic here, you know.”
“Maybe you are and don’t know it,” Van laughed.
“No way,” Marcy replied. Then she looked at the brush in Van’s hand. “What’s that writing on it?”
Van turned the brush over again and found a name, Marcella Devlin. "This brush must have belonged to someone in Anna's family."
"How so?"
Van leaned over to show Marcy the inscription. "The carvings are like the ones on the box Anna's father made for her. How cool!"
"I don't think I can use that brush," Marcy said. "It's an antique. You should sell it and get good money for it."
"For Pete’s sake, just use it," Van said as she pushed it into Marcy's hand again. The brush only slightly tingled in Marcy's hand. She looked at it suspiciously. She didn't want to get zapped every time she picked it up, and she knew she'd feel terrible if she used the brush and ruined it somehow. She put it back in the jar. Carefully.
Van ignored her reluctance. "I bet whoever Marcella is, she'd be glad to have someone like you using it to paint those pretty cottage scenes, all that idyllic stuff."
Jonathan came in and told them that the car was packed and they were ready to leave. Marcy walked the happy couple out to the car, kissed, hugged, and said her goodbyes.
Waving wildly, Jonathan and Van drove down the long, winding drive.
Marcy trudged up the steps to the house. She shivered as she passed through the old oak door. She felt like it was going to swallow her whole.
When she entered the kitchen, she paused and looked at the portrait leaning against the table. Picking it up, she almost fell over. It was heavier than she expected and felt much bulkier. She looked at the back of it, but it didn't seem to have any additional hardware that would put that much weight on it. Puzzled, she tried shoving it. Trying to carry a picture almost as tall and heavy as she was, proved difficult. It seemed to get heavier every time she touched it.
How did Van carry it so easily?
Finding a throw rug, she put it under the picture and pushed it down the hall. She hefted it onto the table in the middle of the room. Going back to the kitchen to get the jar of brushes, she found the unique, carved one lying on the table.
"I thought I put it in the jar," she said out loud to Catwoman, Van's fat yellow cat. “Did you do that?”