2.3 Monsters and Magic

It was eerie being inside my own painting. Two summers ago, Jeffrey had taken the family on a whirlwind visit to Paris. Inspired by our visit to the famous Pere Lachaise Cemetery, I painted my own reenactment of the burial grounds. A cobblestone footpath led a foggy, moonlit trail through stately rows of headstones and mausoleums. The moon was a white ball in the navy horizon and the trees were crooked fingers reaching for the sky. Half frozen, I shivered, rubbing my arms through my nightgown, promising to go to bed next time in my winter jacket and boots.

I followed the path, marveling at the realism - my painting, in a dream come true. How was this possible?

I had painted a catacomb at the end of the trail - a menacing door through a peaked stone grotto leading to god knew what. The skull engraved over the archway warned away intruders but the faint sound of music beckoned me forward. I approached the door and turned the knob, staring into the blackness ahead, wondering what dreams lay in wait...

The music was clearer now - a slow, sultry version of Doin' Time that led me down the tunnel like a trail of breadcrumbs. My only company was the burning torch I had lifted from one of the wall sconces. The firelight threw bizarre shadows across the walls, frightening shapes that bore down on me with fiery eyes and reaching hands. The first time it happened I tried to run back, and discovered the door was locked.

Each room I passed was lined with the remains of the fallen - skulls and bones and stacked in tall, artful piles. I took a chance and ventured inside one, running out with a scream when the bones arranged themselves into laughing skeletons, jaws clacking as they chased me out.

"If you're trying to scare me, congratulations!" I yelled, turning in an angry circle. "You're the one who needs me, remember!"

There were no more skeletons after that.

Eventually the tunnel widened. The air turned cooler, the yellow lighting dimmed, the music was at its loudest. The singing voice I followed was hauntingly beautiful, seductive enough to keep me following the path to doom.

Rounding the corner of a steep bend, I stopped short at the entrance of the largest catacomb yet. Instead of bones and skeletons, the hall was filled with living corpses I recognized from their fancy, disheveled dress - Jeff's donors and constituents. The same men and women who had gathered at the Fairway were now dead, dancing in clumsy, shuffling steps, expensive clothes offset by black fingers, gaunt faces, and cloudy eyes. I started in horror, reminding myself aloud that it was only a dream, only a dream, when I caught sight of my mother with Jeff. He tipped his head back and drank from a wine glass, the liquid leaking through holes in his grimy tux.

As I entered the hall, the crowd seemed to part with a mind of its own, revealing the night's musical entertainment. Dark Dorian, his demon face as ghoulish as that of his dead companions, was shredding the keys on a glossy grand piano, his provocative, clear voice filling the ballroom with notes of harmony. Head on her hand, skin and lips blue with death, the girl who once served my martini now sipped her own. She lounged on the piano top, mesmerized by Dark Dorian, who only had eyes for me. He left the piano, still singing, the keys striking their own tune as we met in the middle.

My heart stuck in my throat. The closer he came, the more I wanted to run the other way -  but I knew he couldn't kill me. Not until he was free. Dark Dorian needed me, and I needed answers.

Like a gentleman, he extended his hand; I hesitated, then accepted. Drawing me close, he serenaded with me song and dance. With his free hand at the small of my back, we swayed to the music like old lovers, my steps guided by his. Dark Dorian gave me a twirl, my back pressed to his front as he sang in my ear. Eyes closed, I could almost dismiss I was dancing with a monster.

Soon the lyrics ended and we danced to the instrumental.

"Splendid timing. So happy to make your little jamboree, Amelia. Enjoying yourself?"

"Are you kidding? Everyone's dead."

"It's not my dream, it's yours."

"This isn't what I want."

"Ah, but you want them gone, don't you--your family, your friends. You're sick of obligation, and why shouldn't you be? They aren't freedom, they're a burden. They hold you back. All those pesky inhibitions tying you down--does it ever get tiresome?"

"You're tiresome--you and your head-games!" I pushed him back. "The world isn't painted the way you see it. It's not all black and white, Dorian!" It felt wrong, calling him by that name.

The music cut, the corpses froze; Dorian laughed in the emptiness. Chills crept down my spine when I saw the dozens of sightless eyes planted on mine.

He sneered. "I pity you. You humans, you're all so limited, caging yourselves with simple-minded notions of what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's evil. When the truth is, there's darkness in us all. The very best of you are rotten like fruit."

Mouth dry, I shook my head. "That's not true. There's good in Dorian, which means there must be good in you."

He shrugged. "I suppose I have held back." He closed one eye and pinched his fingers.  "A little. I could've killed you when my better half took you for that silly, romantic ride through the unicorn fields. Ah, to blacken his joy with pain..." He clicked through his teeth. Accepting a martini from the doting waitress, he cupped her rotting cheek then brushed her aside. "His sins weaken him but they only make me stronger. Your death, Amelia, would be his greatest transgression. Well, second-greatest. No one could ever take dear Sybil's place. Hmph." He toasted with his glass, wicked blue eyes flashing as he smirked and took a sip.

"And is that what you would do if you escaped the painting? Use your freedom just to make Dorian suffer? How limited."

Dorian cast the martini glass aside; it shattered on the ground. Red eyes deadly as hellfire, he bore down on me, driving me backwards through the crowd.

"How dare you mock me?" he thundered. "I spent a century trapped in a prison of his making! At his whim! Rest assured he will suffer dearly." He recovered, exhaling through his teeth, holding back when I knew he wanted to release every bit of his frustrations through violence. "No world, no planet, no dimension is big enough for the two of us. I will destroy him..." Dark Dorian's voice lowered, becoming soft and dangerous. "And it will all be because of you. Dreams don't lie, my dear, and I have slept scores of lifetimes."

I opened my mouth to rebuke him but was silenced by the sudden pounding in my head. My brain was on fire, liquefying from the heat trapped inside. Wailing, hands at my temples, I fell prisoner to the red memory surging in my mind's eye...

"Your secret is a painting?"

"Not just any painting. It's a dark object, the manifestation of my curse. The reason I shall always live and never die."

"Show me."

Dorian pulled the sheet from the easel, and there he was, staring back at me... The monster from my dream.

The full-length portrait was 18th century, featuring Dorian in a powdered bag-wig and tricorne hat. His long waist-coat and knee breaches were black, apart from his stockings and the white, frilled shirt beneath his coat. The walking stick in his hand was topped by a raven's skull, silver as the buckles on his shiny leather shoes. Despite his demonic, decrepit features, he was glorious.

He was the devil, and he was beautiful.

"It's him," I whispered. My fingers smoothed across the aged paint, brushing his face. "He came to me, in my dream. He wants me to set him free."

Dorian cast the sheet over the easel, hiding his true face once more. "He is the accumulation of all my wrongdoings - two centuries of sins captured on canvas. He's the epitome of evil, and he must never escape. Opal can never find him."

Released from the agony of the induced memory, I stood rooted to the spot, shaking in pain and fear. Dark Dorian had the coldest of smiles.

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here. Why not enjoy the ride?" He backed away, hands lifting to the cobwebbed ceiling. As he lowered his arms, the corpses lifted theirs, stumbling their way towards me, closing in on all sides.

"No... No!" I turned and turned, searching for escape...

But there was nowhere to run.

I awoke in a cold sweat.

It seemed like ages had passed but it was still the middle of the night. Skittish, angry, I walked to the sink and rinsed my face with water, jumping out of my skin when I saw Dark Dorian in the mirror, reflected behind me. When I turned and realized nothing was there, I knew he had gotten the best of me. He wasn't just in the painting anymore, he was in my head...

The next afternoon, I texted Vanida to meet me near the picnic tables at the edge of Tinder Park, where the green of the trees and the warmth of the sun could combat the ugliness of last night's dream. To hell with Daniel. I needed my best friend.

"I got your S.O.S. What's wrong?" Van enveloped me in a tight hug.

"Everything. Everything is wrong."

She followed me to a table and we both sat. I told my story from beginning to end, starting with the first dream and ending with the second - leaving out nothing in between.

"And you're positive the dreams aren't just crazy hallucinations?"

"I wish." Exhaling, I pushed back my leather jacket and rolled up the sleeve of my shirt. The bruises were ugly but fading.

Van gasped. "He did this to you?"

"Dark Dorian did this." I slid my jacket back in place. "Somehow he has power over my dreams. He's a monster, V. And if he gets out..."

Van risked her manicure chewing on her thumbnail. "And you haven't once considered that maybe handing both Dorians to Opal might not be the worst thing?"

"Of course I've considered it. But Dorian is different now--he wants to do good. Killing him wouldn't make me any better than his darkness. Besides, I'm not even sure they can be killed. Opal's already tried a million times. Nothing works."

"The painting is what connects them. It must be the key. Lucky for Dorian she doesn't know it exists."

"What if she does? Yesterday, at my mother's garden party, Opal said she was meeting a clairvoyant for a reading. Then, last night, in my dream, something happened while I was with Dark Dorian. It was like a memory was being ripped out of my head, a memory of a conversation I had with the real Dorian--the one where he showed me his painting. What if Opal's clairvoyant somehow found a way to access that memory?"

"Then that would mean..."

I swallowed. "She knows." I dragged my fingers through my hair, feeling sick.

"Have told you Dorian?"

"That Opal might have found the key to his destruction and that Dark Dorian was right all along--that it's all my fault? Not exactly."

"Jesus, Amelia! You have to tell him! She could be on her way to him right no!"

I covered my face with both hands. "I really screwed things up, didn't I?"

Van gave me an empathetic smile as she rubbed my arm. "We just discovered that magic and monsters exist. I think we're allowed to screw things up a bit."

My own smile was thin, but I was grateful. No one put things into perspective like V.

When my pocket vibrated, I removed my phone, glancing at the screen.

"It's him," I signed. "It's Dorian."

Wide-eyed, Van motioned for me to hurry up and answer.

Dorian, who preferred pen and paper, couldn't abide the idea of cell phones as communication. We'd only exchanged numbers out of necessity.

"Dorian? Hey, what's up?"

"I'm afraid we have a problem." He exhaled. "The painting, I'm afraid it's gone."

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