An excerptfrom the article Exploring Lyssa: The Story of Josephine Wyeth, written by Elise Sasini and featured in The San Francisco Light, May 17th, 2048—
The term Were is a source of much controversy. The first recorded mention of those afflicted with an archaic version of the LYS-93 virus is inThe Epic of Gilgamesh,when the titular hero refuses to sleep with a woman because her previous lovers were turned into wolves. There are many mentions of proto-Weres throughout history, and there has been renewed interest in the subject in recent years.
For much of history, the virus has been viewed as “man’s darkest nightmare.” Prayer tablets written on behalf of an afflicted person — clay or lead slabs inscribed with sigils and pleas to the gods — have been found dating as far back as 5,000 BCE. Madness, rage, insatiable hunger, and agonizing muscle spasms are but a small slice of the symptoms sufferers experience before their bodies begin to shut down. Sufferers have long been associated with wolves, ostensibly because their transformation echoes the lupine.
Up until 1860, it was considered a death sentence with a side of torture. And then came Doctor Joseph Wyeth and his daughter Josephine.
Vanessa, her youngest child, owes her entire existence to the virus that so many fear.
“What happened to my mom was horrific,” she tells me. Vanessa speaks with her hands, and when she says the wordhorrific,her right hand slices through the air with the swift menace of an axe strike. “It shouldn’t have happened. What my grandfather did— the lives he ruined? Countless. It will never be okay, but we have to adapt to the world he made.”
Vanessa takes a breath and leans back in her chair. “And to me— you know, it feels a bit like taking something back from him when I think about how grateful I am to be a Were. He wanted to cause pain, but without him, my parents would never have met. My mom probably would have died in the war. My dad, too. Lives have been ruined by him, but they’ve also been… I don’t know. I think we have to take our triumphs when they come.”
We’re both quiet for a while as we digest that fundamental truth: that power can be found in joy, even in the face of profound pain. Perhaps evenmorethan in the context of comfort and safety.
When the air begins to feel less heavy and Vanessa’s shoulders have relaxed again, I ask, “Is that why you chose to gear the exhibit toward your parents’ story and not Doctor Wyeth’s?”
“Yes,” she answers immediately. “Yes, one hundred percent. Why should he be the focus? He’s the villain. He deserves infamy, but not a spotlight. You know what deserves a spotlight? Perseverance. Hope. Beauty. Love.”
“Of course, it helps that your mother is a world-famous artist,” I tease.
Vanessa laughs. She’s the kind of woman who tips back her head and roars with mirth, and doesn’t care one whit about the looks she gets from other patrons of the restaurant. “Yes! It definitely helped sell the exhibit to the board. They wanted to call itThe Unmasking of JW Beornson,but I fought tooth and claw to getExploring Lyssa.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want it to be about this big reveal, you know? I wanted people to walk into the exhibit and think,Oh, I already know her!Everyone has seen her paintings. They’re hanging in museums all over the world. She worked on some of the most famous ad campaigns of the last century. A whole visual language is attributed to her work. There’s nounmasking.It’s an expansion — maybe even a reintroduction, like when you see a friend again after a decade.”
It’s rare that one meets someone as fiercely proud of their parents as Vanessa is. When she speaks, it’s with a rapidfire staccato, each word fired off at top speed for maximum impact. When she takes out her phone to show me a picture of herself standing proudly in front of a striking portrait done by her mother now hung in the Louvre, she nearly glows with joy.
“You’re terribly proud of her,” I say, unable to hold back my smile. “Does she know?”
Vanessa tucks her phone away and motions for the server again. After ordering enough appetizers to feed the entire editorial staff atThe Light,she replies, “Oh, she knows. You think I’m bad? You haven’t even met my father.”
ChapterSix
An excerptfrom the diaries of Josephine Wyeth generously provided by the Wyeth-Beornson family to the Fairmont Museum of Art:
September 2nd, 1868-
I am well aware of the fact that Papa only indulges in my art because it gives him something to hold over me. I do not care.
I let him think that regular deliveries of precious walnut oil and pigment, rolls of canvas and solvents, are the road to which he might gain my compliance. It is a benefit to me to let him think so. If I act accordingly, the paints and ink and brushes flow into my hands, but I am keenly aware of the fact that my compliance is not truly necessary. He will do as he sees fit regardless. It is merely convenience he seeks, and that which I grant him in exchange of every drop of oil.
Just the same, I would make art whether he allowed it or not.
One does not need pigments from Europe to make a painting, nor conté crayons to sketch a landscape. I have mixed my own paint from onion skins. I have thickened ash with wax to make crayons. I have shredded and soaked old newspapers to make paper.
And when my hands don’t work as well after a full moon, I forgo tools entirely. If I must, I will dip my aching fingers into coal dust and smear it on the stone floor of my room. Art is the one thing he cannot take from me, even if he believes otherwise. Perhaps especially because he believes otherwise.
When I am strapped to the table, I escape by examining the instruments, the tilt of my father’s head, the folds of Harrod’s coat. How would I render that? Mastering perspective is tricky business, and so there is a release from discomfort when I try to solve the puzzle of a beaker or a scale in my mind’s eye.
There is truly only one situation in which I cannot use art to soften my circumstances.
When I’m in the barn, there is no escape. It is a new height of cruelty, this scheme my father has finally been allowed to enact. At last, I am able to speak with those outside of his poisonous influence — and in so doing, I damn them.
ChapterSeven
It had beenat least five years since he last came within sniffing distance of one, but Otto’s animal would know a submissive anywhere.
