The Picture

Lynnette jumped in surprise, as her cat Kippy lunged into the air, landing on her sketch book. He began to swat at the freshly sharpened pencils in a pile on her bed, causing her to giggle. 1

“Don’t touch those! I need to use them.” She kept laughing. It was so difficult to stay mad, when her cat was looking up at her with those eyes; wide and greenish-yellow, filled with fire. 2

Kippy jumped down and left the room, and she sighed with relief, going back to her drawing. 3

The girl’s golden hair, fell in waves and limp curls down her back, covering just the top of her Victorian style gown. Lynnette loved history. Her favorite was the French Revolution. She didn’t know why, but she was drawn to it like a negative to a positive.4

She closed her eyes, trying her best to remember what she was going to draw before she had been interrupted, but it wouldn’t come back to her.5

“Lynny? Can you help me, please?” Her little sister Ellie asked quietly from her doorway.6

“Not right now, I’m busy. Maybe later.” Lynnette put down the HB pencil in her hand, and exchanged it with a softer one, a 2B. 7

“But mommy said you had to help me now. Not later.”8

She moaned. Her mother never really got it. She loved art, but it was stronger than that. It was a life fulfillment thing. If she didn’t have art, she wouldn’t be anything at all, just a dust particle floating around in the atmosphere. Her life wouldn’t mean anything. 9

“Alright. I’ll come help you in a few minutes.”10

Her sister seemed to be okay with that answer, as she quickly turned around and walked back down the hall. 11

Lynnette was nothing like her mother. Her mother believed in money. She always told Lynnette that in order to be happy, you need to have money, so she encouraged her to marry someone rich. 12

She lifted her pencil from the page, and took a second to take it all in. She had drawn a woman’s silhouette, a woman from the Victorian era, with long golden hair and a wide skirted gown complete with corset and bodice. 13

“Are you coming?!” Ellie was calling from her bedroom next door, her impatience rising.14

Lynnette snatched up all her pencils and pants, and quickly stuffed them into the drawer.15

“I beg your pardon?”16

She spun around, searching the empty room for someone that belonged to the eerie voice. 17

“Hello?” She spoke, but all that she received was ear static. 18

Lynnette shrugged it off, and bent over to put away her sketchbook which was resting in the middle of the floor.19

When she returned, she walked immediately over to the drawer, pulled out her pencils again and reached on top of her dresser to get her sketchbook. 20

“Now I can finish my picture.” She said quietly to herself.21

It was getting late, and she didn’t have much time before she would have to get ready for bed. She flipped the book open , and grabbed a pencil. 22

The page was blank. 23

Thinking she might’ve turned to the wrong page by accident, she flipped through the remaining pages, hoping to catch a glimpse of the silvery drawing.24

But after going through the entire thing, she still hadn’t found it. 25

Lynnette was dumbfounded. 26

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw it. Someone had torn it out, and thrown it on the floor next to her closet. 27

But it was no longer the same picture she had drawn a half hour ago. The girl with the long golden hair was gone, and in her place there was nothing but a great void. She trembled with an internal fear. 28

Two minutes later, she heard voices coming from down the hall; her sister’s bedroom. But it wasn’t just her sister’s voice that she heard. Someone else was talking to her. Someone whose voice she didn’t quite recognize.29

“Lynny, I found a friend!” Ellie stood aside “her friend”, her smile so wide and bright, that Lynnette almost thought she was a robot for a second, and not her sister. 30

“Yes my dear friend, we shall be inseparable.” The friend grinned, but noticed she hid a hint of malice behind it. Something wasn’t genuine about her, and Lynnette didn’t like it.31

Suddenly, she recognized her. The girl that was standing next to her sister wasn’t just any girl, but the young woman she had drawn in her picture with the long golden hair. 32

“How did you-?” She paused without finishing her question, as she tried desperately to send Ellie a message with just her eyes. Unfortunately, they weren’t those kinds of sisters. 33

“Wanna play a game?!” Lynnette was as motionless as a sculpture at this point. She barely heard her sister’s words, all she could see was the dingy bottom of the woman’s skirt, staining it a musty grey instead of crisp white. She sensed something peculiar, and it was making her sick to her stomach. 34

That’s when she saw the shiny metal blade behind the woman’s back, it’s keen edge penetrating the air around them all. She hoped that was all it would penetrate. 35

“Sure we can play a game.” The outline of her body fading with every word, as her eyes darkened, and the grin resurfaced. “We can play my game.” 36