The Monster Who Wanted a Portrait

How it begins

The monster had turned every mirror to the wall. Leila Moss noticed this before she noticed the teeth. As a portrait painter, she considered it the more useful information.

'You were told what I am,' he said.

'I was told you wanted a portrait.'

'They usually mention the other thing first.'

His voice came from several places at once, like water moving beneath a bridge. He stood beyond the long table in a coat made for shoulders that changed their mind about where to end. One hand rested on the chair back. It had too many joints, but someone had polished its nails.

Leila put her paint case down. 'Where would you like to sit?'

The creature looked toward the covered windows. 'Does it matter?'

'Very much.'

'Nobody has asked me that either.'

She opened a shutter. Marsh light entered, gray and luminous. Vey stepped into it reluctantly. His skin took on the color of wet slate. Beneath the collar, a pattern moved like reeds seen through deep water.

Leila began with charcoal. Not the teeth. The line where his hand rested on the chair, a careful line, its pressure restrained. She had drawn three strokes when he made a sharp sound.

One of his fingers had changed. The extra joint was gone.

'What did you do?'

She set the charcoal down. 'I drew what I saw.'

'What did you see?'

'A hand trying not to break a chair.'

The room grew quieter. Vey looked at his finger with something between hope and suspicion. Leila had painted flatterers, grieving husbands and people who wanted their portraits to become arguments. She knew the danger of a face being useful.

'We should agree on something,' she said.

'Price?'

'Permission. Before I draw another line.'

Behind him, one of the backward mirrors gave a small crack, as though it had been listening harder than the glass could bear.