In the room, two wax candles give the fire on their wicks permission to dance. They allow me to see my canvas; to see my subject. They allow him to see me as I work. Outside, the moon silhouettes the manor starkly against the foliage that surrounds it, as if scared to illuminate what lurks inside its corridors. 

I am a painter. I was hired to craft a portrait of the Lord’s son; it is to be hung in the dining room next to the portrait of the Lord, which is next to the portrait of the Lord’s father. Each is immortalized on this gray-bricked wall the day they reach twenty. Every day, just as the sun dips below the horizon, torches are lit to keep the room alive. To keep them alive. It is the only well-lit room in the manor. 

I expected this commission to be difficult—the townspeople talk of the secrets that lie here in the dark in the name of this family; of the innocents left to wander its halls forever. But the money was far too much to deny. What I did not expect was the way he would watch my hands as they moved. What I did not expect was the feeling I got when our eyes first met; like we had invented something new. He felt it too. I know this from the way his lips touched mine that very night. I know this from his whisper in my ear, paint the man they won’t allow me to be. Paint him, for he is more true than I. 

He refuses to be painted in daylight. I won’t ask why. With each upward glance, his eyes lock to mine. I am used to this pattern; this silent and forbidden dance of ours. 

“I am finished,” I smile as I complete the last stroke. But this time, as I look up, his eyes are behind me. Before I can turn my head, I am lifted off my stool with such violence I can only gasp; with such speed I can hardly make a sound. I am being carried away by two armored bodies—guards of the Lord’s manor. There must be a mistake. I look to the Lord’s son as I am dragged to the darkness; with my eyes I plead. Help. Help me. We’ve only just begun. Now he looks to me. His eyes are alight in the candlelight fire with regret. With a fiery grief. Yet a grin slowly unfolds on his face. “There is no room in this town for men like you. No room for heretics, abominations. Take him to the gallows.”

Nathan Rubin