Demon's Hide

Linnaeus the Living Statue

Female Main Character x Male Monster

My father was one of the best artists in the world. His works were featured all around the globe, and his expertise was sought after. The day he died was a sad day for art. Although for me, I never thought about art that day. All I thought about was how I was going to miss my father. Even when collectors and museums called wanting to buy his artwork from me, I didn't know about it. I just hung up the phone. I wanted to remember my father, all they wanted was to cash in on his legacy.

It wasn't until months later that I went back to his studio. Everything was there, just the way he left it before he died. All the canvases and all the projects, a lifetime of work all in this one little place. His final work was still standing in the center of the room, surrounded by tarps and sheets there were smeared with blue paint. He had been countless hours into this work, and there he stood, unfinished. I called him the Gentleman since my father had yet to name him. He stood dapper in his spot, high top hat on his head, cane in his hand. His body was all white save for the blue details all over him that made him look like Delftware. He was a tribute to my grandmother who collected Delftware. Now, it was an unfinished mark to my father's name.

The Gentleman had no face, it had been what my father was working on and was never satisfied with. He wanted to make a face that was wholly original, but he could never create one that appeased this. So for now, where the Gentleman's face was supposed to be it was smooth where the eyes would be, just rough clay there, and then a gaping hole for the rest of the face. It was sad to see him this way, I know my father would want him finished. I just don't know I have the skill to do such a thing. So, for the time being, I drape a sheet over the Gentleman until I know what to do with him.

I clean up the studio, sorting the paintings and his sketches. I neatly put away the sculptures and figures, tucking them into foam and sealing them into boxes. I'll decide what to do with it all later. The collectors and museums are like vultures, they call constantly, and even some of the more daring have shown up to the front door of my mother's house. Needless to say, they make that mistake once. She has shot out several tires these last few weeks.

There is so much here, so many things that the public hasn't seen. I have enough to build my own museum for my father. But what would he say? What would he want me to do? I look around at the studio, seeing there is so much more I need to put away.

"Annemieke," my father would say. "Take care of yourself and your mother first. I love my artwork, but I adore you more."

How could I bear to part with something he put so much of himself into? I go upstairs to the loft and find even more canvases. He really never stopped. I then notice some of the canvases are mine. They are the work I did as a child when he was teaching me his craft. I thought for sure he had gotten rid of them, but every poor scrawling, every well-meaning attempt was there. I could see the progress of my painting to what it has become now. I am not the talent my father is, but I am better than most. I sit there smiling at my first canvas. My father wrote on the back "Annemieke's first painting" along with the date. He was so proud of me! Yet I don't understand why. All I can hope to be is a girl standing in his shadow, and that is all the world will see.

I come down from the loft with the stacks of canvases and see that the sheet has fallen from the Gentleman. I go to cover him back up, but I notice something strange. His hand looks different. Before his hands were clasped over his hand, and I thought for sure, it was the left hand on top of the right. But as I look at him now, the right hand is on top of the left. I reach out, touching the cool figure and then frown. I take the sheet and drape it back over him.

"Better not change again," I grumble under my breath as I walk away.

In the back of the studio, there is a small bedroom. My father would stay there when he worked late, and he didn't want to come home to wake mom and me. I'm staying there now until I can get everything sorted. Luckily, no one but my mother and I know about this place. Everyone just assumed my father worked at home, so he never corrected them. I would be unbothered here.