In the room's light, the picture seemed to be watching him. Half-hidden in shadow, its eyes followed every movement he made with a quiet intensity that unsettled him. He had always found the painting fascinatingly strange—its subject, a woman wrapped in a pale gown, standing beside a door half ajar, staring out as if caught between moments, neither entering nor leaving. Behind her was a faint image of a child almost washed out but with sharp, piercing eyes. Now, though, something more ominous hovered in the air as though the woman in the frame knew something he did not, as though she were waiting for him to notice. Yet it seemed to him that she had a purpose; it was the child that unnerved him.
He had never noticed the child before. Strange, considering the painting had hung in the dimly lit hallway for years. Only when he had the room's light replaced did the child emerge—tiny, almost imperceptible, lurking behind the woman. But it wasn’t the faded face that unsettled him; it was the eyes—razor-sharp, too alive for canvas, watching him with an unnatural focus. The picture hung in the living room, but he felt the child's look even in the kitchen or as he slept.
For weeks, he tried to ignore it. He avoided the living room, busying himself with work, pretending that the child’s eyes weren’t pulling at his thoughts. Yet the more he tried to forget, the more the child seemed to come alive in his dreams—always silent, always watching. Like a peripheral shadow, always there but never present. A few times he felt like the child was straining to look directly at him - but he forced himself to dismiss such wild beliefs.
This silent, paranoid torment led him to a fateful decision: he would have the painting restored. Perhaps it was just damage, he thought, some distortion in the varnish that made the child seem more than it was. Perhaps there wasn’t even another child there! The disquiet might vanish if he could restore the painting to its original beauty.
A few days later, the restorer arrived, an older man with careful hands and a practised eye. As he worked on the painting, the man spoke of the layers beneath the surface, of lost details brought back to life but to himself. It was as if the restorer had fallen into a trance of some kind, mumbling to himself and even apologising to the painting. The owner did notice, however, that when the restorer looked at the women, a look of disgust came over his face. An unbridled hatred that is rare in humanity. Days passed, and the restorer had slept beside the painting, almost fawning over it, without even agreeing to it with the owner. The restorer refused to leave until the work was done, never leaving it alone, eating or drinking. It was him, his easel, and the painting. As the painting was gradually uncovered, so was a new terror.
The child’s form sharpened, its pale face gaining depth. But the more detail that emerged, the colder the room seemed to grow. One night, as the restoration neared completion, he noticed something horrifying—the woman’s expression had changed. She had always seemed to be confident. This air of confidence had allured him to purchase the painting - if she were a real person, it would have been akin to love at first sight. He had an affinity for confident women. However, her once confident gaze had turned to one of pleading as if warning him. But of what? He would ask the restorer if he had manipulated the painting, robbing him of his aesthetic pleasure.
The restorer completed his work the next morning, oblivious to the growing unease in the house. He triumphantly unveiled the fully restored painting to the owner. The owner was taken aback - this was a different painting. The woman he was enamoured of was no longer in the doorway; she had been shifted to the left, revealing the child in the doorway. Her hair was black; only by squinting into the dark doorway could the hair be ascertained. Her face was pale. Seething black eyes accompanied a wry grin. The face didn’t belong in the painting, yet it had overtaken it - it felt incomplete without it. The restorer mumbled something about not wanting payment and left abruptly, gently sobbing as he went.
That night, the dreams changed. Once passive and lurking, the child stood at the forefront, its mouth twisted into a cruel smile. And then came the whispers. Faint at first, they grew louder as the night wore on until they formed words he could no longer ignore.
"She cannot protect you now, you belong to me."
When he awoke that morning, he immediately went to the painting to see if the child was still there or if he was imagining the horrible affair from last night. The child was more prominent, and the woman was washed out. He couldn’t take this anymore and went to remove the painting. That’s when the child, with the pitch-black eyes, looked directly at him. The previous owner is now nothing more than a story, but we know that this painting never had a man in the doorway when it was here 20 years ago.
A quietly creepy story nicely written and executed.