A Gift in the Dark

Sketch

Sketch

Blood red oozed silkily from the brush as the colour of life and death was added to the faint pencil sketch on the canvas. The final brushstroke finished with a flourish, and he reached out to tug on the tasselled chord hanging to one side of his workbench.

The gentle tinkling echoes of the servant's bell had barely dispelled as she appeared at the door of her master's studio, and he looked up from his easel at the old woman who had answered his summons.

"Glenda, prepare my rooms for a visitor. In approximately one hour there will be a young lady calling. You will escort her to my study."

"Does the master wish to have supper before company arrives?"

"Something light, and stay out of the way for the evening."

"As the master wishes."

The old woman bowed and moved away, casting a surreptitious glance at her master's latest painting. Flashes of colour and detail drew the eye, and she quickly looked away again, not wanting to be caught, or to see any more than she had already. The master did not like being watched.

She limped down the hall, her twisted spine giving her a shuffling awkward gait and a hunched appearance. In the kitchen she prepared a light tea for her master, placing it next to his elbow on the desk, and retired to the kitchens to sate her own appetite. Once finished, she collected her master's leavings, reminded him he was expecting company, and checked his study and rooms to make sure he was ready to receive his guest.

On the hour, the doorbell chimed and Glenda moved swiftly: it didn't do to keep the master's guests waiting. A fluttering swirl of snow leapt into the hall as an elegant brunette swept past the servant. Closing the door, Glenda turned to receive the woman's fur stole and outer garments, and showed the guest to the study. She pretended not to notice the look of distaste the young woman gave her as she looked her over, but efficiently furnished the fashionable young woman with a sherry. Muttering assurances that the master would be along shortly, she left the room and moved into the hallway.

There was a faint creak on the stairs and she watched as he stepped gracefully down from rooms above. Elegant in silver and black, he moved like a panther, controlled, predatory, darkly handsome, and well formed. Narrow hips widened to powerful shoulders supporting a perfect face.

She avoided looking at his eyes.

Only once had she met his gaze in all the years she had served him. The livid lines whipped across her back still pulled where the scars puckered the skin and ached horribly in the cold. She shuddered involuntarily with the memory of both the beating and the dark windows of insanity she'd glimpsed that day.

Dismissed with a nonchalant wave, Glenda moved away as quiet conversation and muffled giggles permeated through the wood of the door. It would be a long night...

~

Cleaning, scrubbing, and polishing: it took so long. Glenda paused, her twisted back aching abominably as she stretched. She moved to the bath and emptied another bucket of filth down the drain, watching as the blood red liquid swirled in its evil little vortex of hate to the sewers below.

Blood was so difficult to remove, but the master would brook no marks. The punishment meted out for an unsatisfactory task would only result in more stains, more blood, more cleaning, more pain, and more scars.

That morning, she had awoken early to let the young woman out, the woman's pale flesh healed and unblemished, a vacant look covering the haunted depths of her soul. She would remember nothing, except in her dreams when the menace of the past would stalk her from the stygian gloom of the darkest rooms of her mind. There was evil in those rooms as she knew to her cost.