Behind the Canvas (20 page)

He took a few steps toward her. Cash bared his teeth and growled a warning, and Pim stopped short. “Thank you, Claudia,” he said.

“You're welcome.” She folded her arms. “Now, start talking.”

 

C
HAPTER
18

C
ASH'S GROWL
intensified, his eyes fixed on Pim.

“It's okay, Cash,” Claudia said. “This is who I was looking for. This is Pim.”

Cash barked viciously. “I know who he is. This chump owes me money. Has for a long time.”

Pim looked at Cash skeptically. “Your puppy dog can talk.”

“Watch yourself, buddy. My bite is worse than my bark.”

“I'm sure it would be if you had a step stool high enough to reach anything,” Pim retorted.

Cash crouched and bared his teeth. “Listen here—”

“Cash!” Claudia snapped. “This isn't helping.”

“Don't listen to anything he says, kid. He's a witch-son, this one. Can't trust him.”

She couldn't trust him. That's what her mind told her, too. But her heart needed to hear what he had to say. “Why don't you give us a few minutes, Cash?”

The dog looked up at her doubtfully.

“I'll be okay,” she added.

He gave one more fierce growl in Pim's direction. “This time I don't let you outta my sight 'til I collect. Right, friend?” He then retreated halfway to the edge of the clearing, where he lay down.

“I see you've made some friends,” Pim said.

“I had to. You said you'd be with me the whole way. That didn't quite happen.”

“No, it didn't. When I saw you enter the Rubens painting, I knew it would be difficult to find you. For you to have made it this far—I'm very impressed.”

She didn't say anything.

Pim continued. “I take it … I assume you've heard a few things about me.”

She squeezed her fists, poking her nails into her palms. It was time to find out the truth, for better or worse. “Everyone has something to say about you around here. Cornelis, Rembrandt, Cash—”

“Cornelis? You met the three Dutchmen? Well, then you must have quite the picture painted of me.”

“Is it true? The things they say?”

Pim's gaze wavered, then fell to the ground.

To Claudia, his reaction was as good as an admission of guilt, and like a fist to her stomach. “Why did you lie to me?” she whispered. “Why did you bring me here?”

Pim's jaw tightened and he closed his eyes. “I did warn you, Claudia. I swear I did.” He looked at her, eyes moist and wild. “I told you not to get tangled up in my story. I should never have let it happen.”

“Are you my friend? Or was that all a lie?” She couldn't keep a tremble out of her voice.

“Our friendship was never a lie. Never. I only lied to you once. I tried not to. After so long … to be so close … I couldn't help it. But there are as many ways to lie as there are to mix paint. It wasn't the lie I told you that made the difference, but all the truths I didn't tell.”

“What lie did you tell me?”

He ran his hands through his hair. “At Granny Custos's house. When I told you my story. I didn't actually…” He took a long breath and began pacing back and forth. “We were painting Nee Gezicht's portrait, Master Verspronck and I. She was a powerful woman. In her presence it felt like she could crush you with a glance. I wanted to know her secrets. If what people whispered at their windows was true—if she really could command magic—then I wanted to learn.

“When we finished her painting, Master Verspronck took the money and never looked back—didn't dare. He didn't realize that she knew more about art—the deep secrets of art—than he would ever know. But
I
went back. I told her I wanted to learn from her. To be her apprentice. She kept me on for a few weeks, testing me. Then she told me I was ready to learn more. That was when she sent me here.”

“You mean she trapped you here?”

“No. Not at first. I came willingly.”

Claudia stared at him, trying to work through his story. “But the tomatoes … you tripping … Nee Gezicht's curse?”

Pim stopped pacing and closed his eyes. “That was my lie to you. I am sorry.”

Her throat tightened. She had heard and seen too many things for it not to be true. But to hear it from Pim himself … She felt her face flush. Anger seethed beneath her skin. “You really do work for her, then?”

“I did for a long time, yes. But—”

“How could you do that to me?” she shouted, not caring if the whole forest heard her. “How could you trick me like that?”

“Claudia—”

“You pretended to be my friend. I cared about you. I came here to help
you
.” Tears stung her eyes. “I can't believe I did that! I thought you were my friend.”

“Claudia, our friendship was never a lie; I promise you that. It means everything to me.”

“Oh, sure. How many times have you used that line?”

Had there been others? Had he lured others into this world, too, like a spider in a complex web?

But their friendship had seemed so real.

“Please, listen,” Pim said.

She snatched up her backpack. He didn't deserve any more of her time. She took a few steps toward Cash, then paused to look back at Pim.

“You don't have anything I want to hear.”

His desperate eyes pleaded with her. She had the mustard bottle in her backpack, and she was headed home.
Adiós
.
Au revoir
. Good riddance.

“Please,” he whispered.

Why had he brought her here? Her curiosity pestered her like an unscratched itch. This would be her last chance to get some answers from him.

She dropped her backpack. “Make it quick. I have a painting to catch.”

“Thank you, Claudia.” He eagerly sat down. He stared at his hands for a moment, as though collecting his thoughts. “When I asked to apprentice with Nee Gezicht, she was willing to take me on because she suspected something I couldn't even fathom. That I was an
Artisti
.”

She sat on the edge of the chair opposite Pim. “You? Like Granny Custos? And Nee Gezicht?”

“Not one of the Renaissance
Artisti
, but an
Artisti
nonetheless. Nee Gezicht had found a way to reap the will of an
Artisti
. Your will is—”

“Yeah. Rembrandt told me. The will is connected to magic. She can take their will and it makes her more powerful. It makes her live longer.”

Pim nodded. “She had done it once before, with another
Artisti
. Reaped his will. She made the
Artisti
powerful, although he was always under her control. And to have your will in the hands of someone else—for a body of flesh and blood, it drains the life. Sucks it dry. When she finished with the young
Artisti
, he was only a hollow shell.

“But I was an experiment. She took me in, taught me secrets. Traded me power for pieces of my will. And she sent me here. I didn't know it, but she believed that if she placed an
Artisti
in this world—where a body doesn't age, doesn't corrupt—that she could live off their will forever. Never reaping all of it, always leaving some to grow, to regenerate, like seeds in a garden bed.”

The hairs on Claudia's arm prickled. “She has your will. You mean she controls you?”

“If she had controlled me completely, then my heart would not be so heavy. But she had only part of my will. She had great influence over my actions, but in the end, they were my own.”

“And what did you do for her?”

“When I first came here, it was still a new world, so much smaller. I brought her news of how things were growing, expanding. And I spied on people in the real world through the window-paintings. Sometimes important people, sometimes other
Artisti
, often her enemies. Nee Gezicht is not some hermit oblivious to the world around her. She has gained wealth, controlled governments, even influenced wars. And I did everything she asked of me. I only wanted to please her, to have her teach me, give me power. With that lust, it was so hard not to allow her more and more pieces of my will.

“But in time I grew tired of this place. So tired.” He looked down at his hands. “There is no sleep here, you know.”

“Yes,” she said, remembering the night before. “And the food…”

He nodded. “And the food. Sleep and food aren't needed for us to survive in a painted world, but my body has never forgotten the memory of it. I am trapped here, Claudia, there was no lie in that. I can leave only by her magic, or by seeing her magic broken. And I asked to be released, many times, but she wouldn't hear of it. Instead she enticed me with power and promises of freedom and gave me other tasks. Darker tasks. Less of my time was spent spying on royals through their paintings and more of it spent focusing on this world. On conquest.”

“Conquest?”

“Behind the canvas, in the Southern Lands far from here, at least at first. Nee Gezicht will rule this world entirely in the end—immense as it is. I have done terrible things, Claudia. I have stolen and bullied and hurt. I have fought battles, led armies, burned villages to the ground. I had such a command of magic that I could hurtle boulders with a mere thought. Arrows couldn't pierce me. Rivers parted at a touch. I wanted power and knowledge and immortality, and that's what Nee Gezicht gave me. But all they've done is create a monster in the painted body of a twelve-year-old boy.”

She shook her head, trying to take it all in. The Dutchmen were right—he really was a witch-son. Nee Gezicht may have influenced him, but the actions were his own. And Balthasar's description had just scratched the surface. How could she trust someone like that? How could she be a friend to someone like that? Heck, why wasn't she running as fast as possible to the nearest window-painting to get away from him?

“There were other
Artisti
, as well,” Pim continued. “Young ones, usually. I would find them through their paintings, and Nee Gezicht would entice them and reap their wills and send them here just like she did me. And if they wouldn't be enticed, she would capture them and take their wills by force.”

“Are they still here?”

“No. Some were too weak and couldn't bear to be separated from their wills. They eventually … faded. The others died doing Nee Gezicht's bidding.”

A thought chilled her heart. “And me? What did you want with me? Why did you bring me here? So you could hand me over to her?”

“I brought you here for recompense.”

“Recompense?”

Pim rubbed his face. “Many years ago, Nee Gezicht wanted a demonstration here in the North. Something to show her presence, to put fear in the hearts of the people. There was a gathering one night in the Lady's pavilion. A concert of sorts. Everyone in sight of her pavilion attended. While the houses were empty, we set fire to several farms. Barns, houses, fields, everything.”

Claudia pictured the charred farmhouse below the Lady's cottage.

“One of the houses wasn't empty, unbeknownst to me,” Pim continued. “A young woman was ill that night and didn't attend the concert. She slept in her bed.…”

Pim stared at his hands. “Her name was Emilie. I had seen her before in my wanderings. She was beautiful.”

Claudia gasped. “Emilie? Cornelis's Emilie?”

“Yes.” He nodded absentmindedly. No wonder the horseman hated Pim so much. “That night, it was as if someone held a mirror up to me. I saw what I had become. A monster worthy of Nee Gezicht's right hand. I hated that vision. I wanted to destroy myself. And I had the power to do so—but not the will. I could do nothing until my will belonged to me once more.”

Pim closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, lips pursed and brow furrowed, as if in concentration. Then his chest began to glow with a bluish light just below his neck. An object followed the light, passing out of his chest and through his clothes as if the fabric was only a mirage. Pim held up his hand to catch the object, which hovered an inch above his palm.

Claudia's breath caught in her throat. She couldn't guess what the glowing object had once looked like. A glass teardrop, maybe, or a sphere the size of a golf ball. Now it was shards of broken blue glass smooshed together into a single clump, as if they were magnetically attracted to each other. Beautiful and tragic.

“It was whole once,” Pim whispered. “My will. Never very strong, perhaps, but whole. I broke the pieces off by myself. Nee Gezicht took every shard I traded her and hid it here in the world behind the canvas, where it would never age, never deteriorate, but where she could draw from it always.

“After that night when Emilie died, I began searching. It took me years to find them all. And even more years to learn how to make them mine again. I started subtly at first, and she didn't notice for the longest time. Such pain. Incredible pain. And I had to sever my connection to all magic. But in the end, not long ago, I reclaimed the last piece of my will from her. It is fractured and weak, but it is mine.”

Claudia studied Pim's face, illuminated softly by the glow of his will. “You mean Nee Gezicht doesn't … influence you … anymore?” A glimmer of hope kindled in her heart.

“No. Except that the very thought of her fuels my hatred.”

Pim cupped his hand and pushed the shards of his will into his chest. It passed through without any resistance and disappeared.

“I cannot make complete recompense for all that I've done under her tutelage, but I can bring her down. Prevent her from committing more evil in this world or the other. And that is why I came to you.”

“Me? What are you talking about?”

“I have no strength left. I can't fight her alone. Her magic still keeps me a prisoner here. And no one in this world will trust me. So I began watching through the window-paintings, searching for one person in particular.”