The portrait of the English Bulldog hung in the manor’s smallest room — the smoking parlor. It was an odd choice. The space was narrow and low-ceilinged, filled with the stale scent of tobacco that had somehow survived the years. The painting itself, however, felt strangely alive.
The Bulldog sat squarely on a tufted velvet chair, his posture commanding despite his size. A deep burgundy robe draped over his shoulders like that of a gentleman at rest, his jowls sculpted in layers of shadow and soft light. Behind him, the faint outline of book filled shelves, dimly lit by the flicker from the fireplace, depending on where one stood.
The name plaque read simply:
“Bartholomew.”
Unlike the others, Bartholomew’s story was well-documented. He’d belonged to Gregory Whittemore, the estate’s patriarch during the turn of the century — a man both respected and feared for his temper. Gregory had been known for his love of cigars, whiskey, and quiet dominance. He trusted no one except Bartholomew, who, according to staff, followed him everywhere and growled at anyone who dared to speak too loudly in his presence.
After Gregory’s sudden death in that very parlor, his will left strict instructions: the Bulldog was to be “immortalized in paint” before burial. Yet when the artist arrived, Bartholomew was gone. Vanished, like Margaret’s golden Harper years before. The painting was completed anyway, based on sketches and memory.
But there was something off about it. Visitors described the dog’s gaze as unsettling — too direct, too knowing. His painted eyes seemed to follow movement, not in the typical parlor-trick way of old portraits, but with awareness, like a creature assessing whether you were threat or kin.
A century later, when restorers attempted to clean the canvas, the varnish refused to lift. Even solvents failed to dull the sheen in Bartholomew’s eyes.
It was during one of these cleanings that an apprentice noticed something unusual under the right armrest of the painted chair — a small, smudged reflection. Enlarged under light, it revealed a hand resting on the armrest. A human hand, painted so faintly that it had escaped notice for decades.
The next day, the apprentice reported hearing scratching behind the panel wall where the portrait hung. When she returned with the head conservator, the sound stopped, leaving behind only the faint smell of cigar smoke and the soft crackle of cooling ash.
By the following morning, a new note had appeared beneath the painting, scrawled in charcoal across the plaster:
“Four still wait. Two yet to come.”
No one ever admitted to writing it.
And upstairs, the piano began to play again — the same haunting nocturne, steady and unbroken this time, as if someone, or something, had finally found the rhythm.