The Conjurer's Wife: A Short Story by Sarah Penner

Author:Sarah Penner [Penner, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: 2025-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

The art gallery is at the back of the house. Either Olivia is the first to have found it, or no one else is in the mood for art.

She walks slowly from painting to painting, waiting for something to catch her attention. She’s less interested in the artists’ subjects and more intrigued by their choice of medium. Watercolor is her favorite: it’s the most defiant of all mediums. The artist may do what he pleases with his brush, but he cannot control where the pigment drips and bleeds.

Ahead, a painting catches Olivia’s eye. It is undeniably watercolor, all reds and blues. She steps closer, settling her gaze on it.

It’s a painting of three women, standing shoulder to shoulder at the very edge of a cliff, looking out over a tiny, bustling village. They are so close to the edge one woman’s toe is hooked over the rocky lip of it. In the distance, the artist has painted a calm aquamarine sea.

They are barefoot, all of them wearing simple white frocks. It takes Olivia a moment to realize the artist has not painted their dresses white; rather, he painted everything else around them, so the dresses simply reveal the blank canvas on which he worked.

Olivia chews her fingernail, wondering what the artist hoped to convey with this negative-space technique. Nevertheless, it is beautifully ironic, how the women appear clothed from afar, yet up close they do not wear so much as a single brushstroke.

She studies the rest of the painting. The women stand so close that locks of their hair intertwine in the breeze. The artist has deftly infused the image with intimacy and devotion; Olivia feels sure that if one woman slipped over the edge, the others would go after her.

This stirs her far more than her conversation with the women in the corridor moments ago. This is the kind of closeness, and loyalty, she seeks.

As she studies the painting, the watercolors begin to swirl and blur in Olivia’s vision. Teal bleeds into white, red into orange.

It takes Olivia a moment to realize she is weeping.

She wipes her cheek on the sleeve of her gown and composes herself. When she turns her attention back to the painting, Olivia notices that all three women have vibrant red hair. They wear necklaces, too, but they’re like something a child might make, stranded with seashells and coral fragments and pumice rocks. No gems or gold to be found on them.

A strange sensation tugs at her, like she is on the cusp of remembering something. Her heart thrums harder—she can feel it in her tender wrist, the rhythmic pulsing—and then her eyes fall on the tiny inscription in the bottom right-hand corner of the canvas. Le streghe del mare di Positano.

The witches of Positano.

She gasps, touching her fingers to her lips. Quickly, she peers over her shoulder. The gallery remains empty.

She delicately removes the painting from its hook on the wall and turns it over, pleased to see a tiny, faded envelope affixed to the back.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.