Enga mellom fjella

Bells, paint and glass [282] 291 words

Bells rang the hour. Time for supper. Glasses clinked as lamb, neeps, leeks and mint leaves steamed... as if this were the very Last Supper.

For some... perhaps it was.

Semple was leaving at the strike of 12. I'm free, he thought. Liberated. He went up to his room one last time. He came with nothing. He would take... nothing.

"Have you checked everything?" Corinne Pudlowski had been there when he arrived, 6 years old and starving. She had tried to fatten him up on pierogi but failed. She had tried to soften his heart with hugs. And failed. He was 16 now... and free to leave.

She brought out a notebook and pointed to a page. "This is what you had when you arrived." Semple laughed. "I came with nothing." She read. "Black britches, blue shirt, shoes, underwear." She picked up a box. You may take them if you wish. "Nah, don't want those nasty rags." Corinne sighed. "There's one more thing. I'll go get it."

Corinne disappeared. They heard her moving a dresser and then her footsteps going up stairs. "Where's she going." "Taking the back stairway, I guess." "There's a stairway?"

The painting waited in the back stairway. Its shroud of faded black was surrounded by peeling chartreuse paint.

She had tears in her eyes as she placed it in front of Semple.

"What's this."

"We hid it so you'd stop having nightmares. But it's yours to take or leave." Everyone stared at Semple as bells rang. An hour had passed.

Semple sneezed. "It's dusty."

He removed the black cloth and stared at the face behind cracked glass.

He shrieked.

"Who is this monster?"

Corrine grimaced. "She's the one who brought you here."

© 2021 Kåre Enga [178.282] (7.desember.2021)