“Er, no. I’m an astronomer.”
“Maeve has a personal interest in Smithers’ work,” Corbin said. “Her mother is the subject of one of his portraits,Woman in Citrine.”
Hendricks’ eyes lit up, and his whole face broke into a smile. “That is astounding! I can see some family resemblance. I am most honoured to make your acquaintance. As you no doubt know, Smithers drew and painted theCitrine Womanseveral times. Sadly, most of them are in private collections. We have one of the earlier portraits on display. I will show it to you. But first, allow me to delight you with some of the highlights from our collection.”
I gritted my teeth. I just wanted to get to the portrait and maybe solve the mystery for good. Corbin squeezed my fingers – I guess we had to humour our guide. We walked through a massive gallery. Every wall groaned under the weight of enormous canvases housed in elaborate gilded frames. They depicted scenes from the life of Christ, which Hendricks explained was because the Church had the money available to pay renowned artists to paint the complex works. He rattled off lists of names and facts with such exuberance that I worried he’d give himself a heart attack.
“This is the Impressionist gallery.” Hendricks bustled us into the next room. “Impressionists painted everyday subjects – scenes from city life, landscapes, people working and playing – in bold, visible strokes. This subject matter appears mundane to us now, but it was highly controversial at the time because before this it was thought these weren’t fit subjects for serious art. The impressionist movement started in France during the 1860s with a prominent group of artists?—”
Corbin and Flynn were rapt by Hendricks’ commentary, but I bit my tongue to keep from screaming at him to hurry up. Questions burned in my mind and I needed that painting to answer at least some of them.
We entered a long, narrow gallery. My eyes were assailed with vivid colours and bold designs. Hendricks swept his arms around. “This is our modern gallery. Here we display works by some of England’s favourite living artists, many of whom are reinterpreting or reinventing traditional techniques. Over there is a piece calledVixen, by the artist Ryan Raynard. I believe his family estate is not far from your address.”
“He’s actually our neighbour,” Corbin said. “Not that we’ve ever met him. He hasn’t left Raynard Hall in years.”
“Yes. He’s an enigma, one of the many in the art world. Speaking of enigmas, here is what you came to see – our works by Robert Smithers.”
I whipped my head up and froze, arrested by my mother’s gaze. Her vibrant blue eyes stared out at the room, the corners of her mouth turning upwards in that slight smile. Her radiant skin shone from beneath her flowing mane – deep brown like the oak trees that lined the gardens at Briarwood. She sat in the same chair in the library, although her posture was slightly different, and in this painting, she held a small book in her hands. Runes like the ones on Corbin’s and Arthur’s tattoos were gilded across the cover.
The same citrine jewels glittered on her body – the ring on her right index finger, the amulet around her long, angular neck, and the diadem sitting in the centre of her forehead.
She was so beautiful. Tears welled in the corners of my eyes. I felt like I had collected another puzzle piece of my past, but I didn’t know where it fitted or what picture it revealed. Was I staring into the eyes of a cold child murderer, or of a woman who sacrificed her life to save mine?
The painting itself was beautiful, but something about it seemed…off. It lacked the depth and radiance of the piece at Briarwood. Hendricks had said it was an earlier work. Perhaps Smithers was still refining his technique.
“We know her name was Aline Moore, and that she was a well-known bohemian – part of a New Age movement Smithers was involved in. From his letters and sketches, we gather they had an intimate relationship. You say she was your mother?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Corbin squeezed my hand and spoke for me. “Aline died during childbirth. Maeve was adopted as a baby. She has no memories of her Aline.”
“Pity,” Hendricks tsked. “Still, she lives on in the artwork. She must have been a remarkable woman.”
Must she?
I gulped, steadied myself, found my voice. “Can you tell me, has the painting ever changed? Have you ever noticed it looking different from one day to the next?”
Hendricks looked confused. “What do you mean?”
I tried again. “Have visitors ever said anything weird about this painting?”
“If you are talking about stories of haunted paintings and other ‘spooky’ things,” Hendricks used air quotes around the wordspooky,“then we’ve seen our fair share of such tales here at the gallery. But this painting has never been among them. As far as I’m aware, it’s a perfectly mundane – although beautiful – artwork that has never once said ‘boo’.”
He laughed at his terrible joke.
Corbin pointed to a series of three works on the same wall. “I see these are also by Smithers.”
“These are weird.” Flynn stepped forward and frowned at the paintings. “They’re very…erratic.”
That was putting it mildly. I tore my eyes away from my mother’s portrait and took in the others. The first showed a pack of black horses riding through fog. Cloaked, faceless riders leaned forward over their backs, urging their steeds faster. Tiny lights glowed in the fog, giving the piece an ethereal spookiness that chilled my blood. In the second piece, lithe figures danced naked. I gasped as I recognised the whirling dances, the green costumes and platters of food on bark plates, the rounded mounds in the background.
These are the fae realm. He’s painted the fae.
The third picture showed a slumped figure pierced through the heart by a long stake. Its limbs hung limply at its sides, and a crown of briar thorns encircled its head. More of the fae figures danced around the stake, sloshing food and drink everywhere as they enacted their frenzied dance. My breath caught in my throat as I recognised elements from the nightmare Blake and I shared.
Hendricks nodded. “Those are some of the last works Smithers completed before he committed himself. He was painting these mythological subjects then. It’s thought his deteriorating mental state accounted for the looseness in the brushwork and the abrupt change in subject matter, but so little is known about Smithers that it’s difficult to say. To answer your question, we hold several of his early royal portraits in our collection, but they’re currently on loan at the Victoria and Albert Museum. We also have some sketches for these and other portraits. The majority of his sketchbooks and letters are held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.”
Letters?My ears perked up.There are letters?If Smithers was a witch who was ‘involved in the New Age’ as Hendricks had put it, then maybe those letters would tell us about the kind of magic he did with the coven. It was worth a shot. “The Ashmolean?”
Hendricks turned to Corbin. “I’m surprised your father didn’t mention them – the Ashmolean is very protective of its collections, but he could probably secure you a viewing.”
