The house had gone silent.
No ticking clocks. No settling beams. Only the faint hiss of candlelight, burning with a patience that felt older than fire.
Simon stood before the unfinished painting, his breath fogging in the chill. The woman on the canvas — Elise Whittemore — was still incomplete, her eyes pale outlines in a face that should have been radiant.
But the air around the canvas was different now — charged.
He could feel it on his skin, like static before a lightning strike.
A single brush rested in a jar beside the easel. Its bristles were dry, yet when Simon picked it up, a droplet of wet gold shimmered at the tip.
The moment he lifted it, the candlelight dimmed. The portraits of the dogs on the walls — the noble beasts of the Whittemore line — seemed to turn slightly, as if every eye had shifted toward him.
He didn’t mean to move his hand, but something guided it. Slow, deliberate, graceful. The brush touched the canvas.
And Elise’s eyes opened.
They were not painted. They were alive.
Light poured out from them — soft and golden, spreading across the canvas like dawn chasing away night. Her figure shimmered, gaining detail and form, until Simon could almost hear her breathing between the strokes.
Then, the other portraits began to change.
Sir Reginald lifted his chin.
Lady Genevieve’s pearls gleamed anew.
The Labrador’s velvet cloak rippled in a breeze that did not exist.
Beau’s eyes, once mournful, now glowed like twin embers.
And the German Shepherd stepped one paw forward — its movement echoing faintly on the marble floor.
They weren’t just paintings anymore. They were witnesses.
“Elise Whittemore,” Simon whispered, though he didn’t know why.
Her gaze met his, steady and sorrowful.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she said — though her lips never moved. Her voice came from everywhere at once, soft as a sigh, but heavy with centuries.
The brush fell from his hand.
“This house kept us,” she continued. “Bound in oil and pigment… every stroke a promise we could not break. The family sought immortality — and found only reflection.”
Simon stepped back as the golden light began to bleed from the painting, spilling across the floor in liquid radiance. It flowed around his boots like living paint, swirling into the cracks of the wood.
The portraits around him began to fade, one by one — the colors draining as though absorbed by the light. The noble hounds bowed their heads in quiet relief.
When the light reached Elise’s feet, her painted self-turned to look once more at Simon.
“Now,” she said. “We rest.”
And the entire room exhaled.
Every candle went out at once.
When Simon awoke, morning light poured through the windows. The easel stood empty. No painting. No portraits. Just blank walls and the faint smell of turpentine.
But on the floor, in the dust where the painting once stood, were various small prints — each one a different shape and size — leading out the door and vanishing into the sunlight.