Alisha Dempsey

The Black Canvas

As I push aside the heavy, oak door, I hear the creaking of the hinges attempting to support its weight. 

The mid afternoon sun cascades into the room like a floodgate opening, and particles of dust are kicked up by the slow draft of wind that joins it.

The scent of decay fills the air, but not the kind of decay from a corpse – it was a stillness, as though the atmosphere of the room had been sealed for more than a hundred years, and the sudden oxidation of the furniture had let off a musty odour. 

I pull back the curtains of the ten foot high bay windows, and the room is illuminated. I return to the old oak door and softly close it, shutting off the outside world, and hearing the gentle click of the latch, confirming I am, finally, alone.

Having had my back to the room whilst shedding light onto it, I hadn’t previously had the chance to take a proper look.

Turning around, the first thing I see are two sinister looking armchairs facing towards a grand, stone fireplace. I take a seat in the one on the left, inhaling the smell of the late 1800s, amazed that this place had not deteriorated at all, but rather aged like a fine cabernet.

Above the fireplace hung a large, dark charcoal canvas.

I thought it rather suspicious that there was nothing else on it – usually, in a house with such a stately manner, and in a house this old, there would be a portrait of the owner of the estate. I expected a distant ancestor of mine, as this house had been built by my bloodline in the 1600s, but when my great-great-someone-or-other passed in 1890, none of the family wanted it. I had always been curious as to why no one had wanted the house – after all, it was enormous, there was no mortgage or rent to be paid, and above all, it was a gleaming, hidden diamond, nestled in the valley of our borough. 

It had remained untouched since its previous owner – a book sat on the table beside me with a page still marked, and a teacup accompanied it, now empty from the years that the tea took to evaporate. 

I hear a soft tapping from the room above me. 

Rising from the chair, I notice that the canvas seems to be darker now. I chalk it down to the sun which was now descending over the moor.

Climbing the staircase, I hear the shuffle of feet, human feet, scurry off towards the adjoining room – the library – and thought perhaps I should just stay in my car for the night, until morning arrived and – has the canvas gotten darker again? – the setting sun wouldn’t be playing tricks on my eyes, and my anxieties would not cause my ears to deceive me. 

But I am a curious soul – why else would I have accepted living in an abandoned house? – so I venture on instead. 

The library was still full, still as glorious as the day someone last laid eyes on it. Between the bookcases hung portraits of previous occupants – supposedly, my great-great-grandmother, who I had seen pictures of and would recognise immediately, and who had lived in the house before her untimely death.

Cautiously, I reach out my hand to brush away a cobweb that had settled on the name plaque at the base of the first painting I came to – “Florence Evans”, from whom I inherited my name, “and daughter Clara Evans, who had disappeared before her twentieth year”, leaving behind my grandmother. 

But it was bizarre – there was only one subject in the painting. Where was Florence?

Suddenly, there was a dull thud from the living room.

I run through the open doorway and discover that the chair has been knocked over, and is now laid on its back. 

A soft scratching noise is now distracting me to my right, and I turn, thinking something is in the chimney, but realise that the canvas above the fireplace is now so black that it’s a void, and there’s a gentle wind, an almost magnetic pull, dragging me towards it. 

I hold my breath, I feel so faint, and I – 

I awaken, paralysed. 

At first I thought it was fear, but then I look down at the living room – at the sunlight suffocating the floorboards, at the chair laid on its back, at the empty teacup on the dusty table, and then finally, the gleaming plaque on my frame. 

“Florence Evans, who disappeared before her twenty-third year.”