He waved toward the paintings on the wall. “We’ve got a show going up Friday. I could use your help with the layout. Think you can hang a canvas?”
“I’ve hung bigger,” I replied, keeping my tone even.
He laughed again, louder this time, and gave me a once-over I didn’t appreciate. In fact it made my skin crawl, like ants walking in a straight line, marching on towards sugar that had been set out too long.
“Nice. I like a woman with a little fight in her.”
I didn’t respond. I was starting to feel like I needed a shower.
The rest of the morning was fine, if slightly uncomfortable. I catalogued new pieces, helped rearrange a sculpture display, and reorganized some inventory in the back room. Randy kept drifting in to “check on me,” his eyes always a little too low, his compliments always a little too personal.
By lunch, I made an excuse to get out of the gallery. I found a small sandwich shop nearby and ate at a patio table alone, watching people drift down the street.
Something about the town felt… frozen. Like a postcard from a decade that hadn’t moved on. People smiled politely, but didn’t linger. There was a friendly vibe in the air, and I found myself wondering if I could live in Roanoke full time, make friends even.
When I returned to the gallery, there was a card on my desk from the receptionist, Beth, who seemed to have disappeared from her desk. “I hope your first day is going well. Let’s do dinner and drinks soon.”
My eyes roamed the gallery looking for any sign of her, sifting through some of the people that were ogling a new installation from a New York photographer. As the seconds ticked by, Ifigured she must’ve slipped out for her own lunch break and I’d see her later.
By the time I left the gallery, the sun was starting to dip behind the ridge. I didn’t like the idea of driving that road in the dark again, but I also didn’t want to stay a second longer than I had to.
As I reached the parking lot, behind the gallery, the hairs on the back of my neck danced up, causing me to pause in my tracks. Slowly, I turned around, my keys gripped in my hand, only to find nothing there. The sensation remained… The sensation of being watched.
I heard something then, and my head whipped back in the direction of my parked car just as a cat meowed in the dark.
“Lena, get in control of yourself,” I shook my head and hit the unlock button to my vehicle.
I picked up speed and jumped behind the wheel of my car, and realized I was shaking slightly.
It wasn’t until I was walking through the cabin doors did the shaking cease, some of the tension fading. Dropping my keys in a little dish by the door, I walked over to the fridge and mentally kicked myself. There would be no dinner tonight; I still needed to get groceries.
I kicked off my boots, grabbed a granola bar, and curled up in the armchair with my sketchbook and a mug of tea, one of the only things I’d packed in my luggage. Drawing usually calmed me down, helped me sort through the thoughts in my head. I flipped to a fresh page and started sketching. Before I knew it, I was letting the lines come without thinking and the eyes of a wolf appeared on the page.
The eyes seemed to leap off the page, stalking me as I stared at them intently.
When I was halfway through the drawing, I stopped.
Something wasn’t right.
I flipped back through the earlier pages, looking for the sketch I’d done yesterday before I went to bed. A profile of a woman with antlers, dreamlike, a little haunted.
Only now, the page was gone.
Not torn out. Not crumpled.
Just… missing.
I flipped forward, then backward again, heart picking up speed.
Then I noticed it.
The page before it, the last one I’d drawn on, had a faint smudge. Charcoal. But not the kind I’d used. This one was… thicker. Oily. Like a fingerprint.
I closed the book.
I checked the doors. The windows. Every lock, every latch.
Everything was secure.
