Behind the Canvas (32 page)

The tunnel was dim without the moonlight. Only the soft glow of the crystal veins remained. But light or dark, it didn't matter. This wasn't right. She was supposed to be somewhere. Somewhere back the way she had come. She needed to go. To go now.

Go now!

She whirled her fists up and around, striking at whomever held her. The person cried out and released the grip just enough for Claudia to slip out and tear away into the darkness.

Back the way I came. Back the way I came.

The person who had held her called out from behind. “Claudia!” The cry echoed through the tunnels. That was her name. How strange for that person to know her name.

Back the way I came. Back the way I came.

It was hard to see straight despite the glow surrounding her. She felt for the wall and found it, cool and rough. Footsteps echoed in the distance. There was an opening on the right, a sharp turning in the wall, and she took it. Immediately there was another turn and she took that one also.

She had to get back to … to what? Why couldn't she remember?

The crystal veins thinned and the light dimmed as she continued, and before long she moved in the dark. On she rushed, frantic now because everything was black, even her mind, and she knew it. No light, nothing familiar.

But what about Pim? The thought came upon her unexpectedly.
Pim!

“Pim!”

The shout leaped from her lips, and the image of Pim's smile emerged through the fog and wavered at the front of her thoughts.

Yes!
She had been with Pim. They had come to this cave together. Where had he gone? Why did she want to leave so badly?

“Claudia!” It was Pim's voice, faint and remote.

Another shout was on her lips, but it died when a different voice filled the dark tunnel like thick smoke. It echoed across the walls and through the air, piercing Claudia's mind.

“Sun, moon, withering star,

How foolish little children are.

They run and think they can be free,

But in the end they'll come to me.”

Icy fingers. There were icy fingers wrapping slowly around her will, pulling at her heartstrings, making her feet shuffle forward again. She had to move, back the way she had come. She wanted to get back to the cave entrance. Wanted it so badly that her ears hurt, a sharp, stabbing pain. Her thoughts spun—like particles of paper and goop in an ancient blender she had once seen on a dining room table. Somewhere.

She was supposed to meet someone at the cave entrance. Someone important.

Is it Pim?

Pim! Where was Pim?

Her shoes pounded the ground as she tore through the darkness in a mental blender of her own, now slamming into walls where the tunnel turned, now tripping and crunching her knees into the ground.

“Pitter patter little feet run;

Now strikes the witching hour.

All they do shall come undone

When met with greater power.”

Again the voice rang across the walls and into her head. Rhyme. The voice was speaking in rhyme. Speaking to the witch's enemies. The mental fog gained a red tinge and a burst of anger rose in her throat like bile.

And why should she care about Pim anyway? She'd shown him friendship. She'd never reached out to anyone before, not to a friend. And what did he do? Put her in danger. Tricked her. Lied to her. For all she knew, he was still lying to her. Like that deception in Nee Gezicht's house—

No. That anger wasn't hers. It came from someplace else, somewhere outside of her. She had drunk the tea. Why had she drunk the tea? The icy hand was grasping her will, gripping, crushing. And, oh, how her ears hurt!

But she had pried the hand off her will before, hadn't she? She could do it again.

Mentally she pulled at the fingers, but they burned at the touch and barely gave way. It was stronger than before. The Sightless One must be desperate. Nee Gezicht was putting everything she had into bringing Claudia back to her. She knew Claudia—the
Artisti
—was about to slip through her grasp. And she suspected that Claudia knew … what? Claudia had figured something out. What was it?

Curled into a ball on her knees, in the darkness, she cried out again. “Pim!”

Her ears rang with a flash of pain. Stars danced before her closed eyes. And footsteps, there were footsteps.

Someone was suddenly kneeling before her. A hand brushed her cheek gently. “Claudia,” Pim whispered, “you can do this. You beat her before, you can do it again.”

“No,” she moaned. “Not this time. It's too strong.”

His hands were on her shoulders, shaking her. “Focus, Claudia. You can do it! She can't take your will completely unless you give it to her. Fight back!”

Claudia took a deep breath and inwardly pried at the icy fingers once again. But the fog in her thoughts grew darker, more dense. She had no strength left. If she got to her feet, they would take her back to Nee Gezicht and it would be over. All she could do was crouch on the cold painted ground and wait for fate to find her.

“I'm so sorry,” she breathed. She watched the black fog roll into the crevices of her mind and waited for Pim's footsteps to echo away from her, waited for the approaching
swish
of the Sightless One's black silk gown.

But instead she felt Pim grab her arm and yank her to her feet.

“I'm sorry, too, that I ever brought you here. But it doesn't end like this.”

He turned and plunged back through the tunnel, dragging Claudia with his hand firmly clamped on her arm.

All of her thoughts were obscured by the black fog in her mind and she didn't know what to think and so she thought nothing. But her body fought back. Her feet refused to move and her arm jerked in resistance to Pim's pull.

But his grip was solid and he pulled her along swiftly through the tunnels, turning right, then left, then descending a grade so sharp that they had to run to keep from falling over. In the back of her mind she heard other footsteps, not far behind.

And then without warning they turned and burst into a narrow passageway bathed in the soft glow of a hundred different locations.

Window-paintings generously lined the walls, arranged carefully as though in a museum gallery and not deep beneath a mountain. The murmur of noises from around the world filled the tunnel. Veins of glowing crystal once again wormed through the stone walls around the window-paintings.

Claudia's body still struggled against Pim's hold, her fingers clawing clumsily at his grip and straining to break away. But the sudden plunge from constant darkness into light stirred the thick fog in her mind like a gust of wind, allowing a few rays of clarity to shine through.

“Paintings,” she whispered. She had sat for hours and hours staring at paintings and drawing them. That was before—

“Pim!” Her body involuntarily lunged away from the boy who held her tight.

“Almost there,” he said, moving swiftly with her in tow, glancing briefly at each window-painting. “We'll get you home, but we need to do it before Nee Gezicht catches up with us. She can't know where you've gone.”

Nee Gezicht. Claudia was supposed to meet her, wasn't she? Back the other way. Why was she letting this boy pull her around? She had to get away, had to break away.

The tunnel opened up into a cavern with a high ceiling and wide, rounded walls like a circular gymnasium. Rough stone pillars stretched from floor to ceiling, interspersed with massive stalactites hanging from above.

“There it is!” cried Pim, dragging her toward a window-painting on the far side.

A familiar voice sounded once more. It seemed close, although Claudia couldn't tell if it echoed from the walls around her, or only in the walls of her own head.

“As hope descends with every breath,

Ne'er again shall it be risen.

For here's a fate far worse than death,

In this, your canvas prison.”

A vision came out of Claudia's thick mental fog. The Sightless One would reap her will—she had already begun—and neither Claudia nor Pim would be able to stop her. Pim she would destroy, and Claudia she would keep there behind the canvas, slowly feeding on Claudia's will for hundreds of years. It was inevitable.

The dark fog in Claudia's mind congealed into fear and then hardened into hopelessness. There was nothing she could do but take her place beside Nee Gezicht—and she was coming. She was almost there.

Pim was rooting around in her backpack with one hand, the other still holding tight to her as she strained against him. He pulled out the yellow mustard bottle and spun Claudia around, clutching her wrist.

“I'm so sorry, Claudia.” His voice wavered as he squeezed the paste onto her hand, outlining her fingers. Her body tried to tug her hand away, but he held firm.

“I'm sorry it turned out this way. I never wanted you to get hurt.” Paste spurted onto her last finger. “After you go through the painting, run. Get out of sight. I don't know how long she can keep her hold on you, but the farther you are from a painting, the better.”

She was hitting at him now with a curled fist, trying to wring her other arm free.

“Good-bye, my friend.”

He pulled her wrist over toward the painting with the hand outstretched, ready to touch paste to canvas.

Behind the fog and fear and hopelessness, Claudia glanced up at the window-painting. On the far side was a gallery, dark but familiar, with a large cushy bench in the center. And etched into the canvas-glass were three men in wide-brimmed hats and rapiers drawn.

The three Dutchmen. She had come full circle. She had first seen Pim in that painting.

Pim.

Granny Custos. Cornelis. Hendrik. Balthasar.

Rembrandt.

Cash. The Lady. Pablo the Cubist. Colossus.

Pim. Dear Pim. She had come to save him.

Her friend.

Her goopy fingers inches away from the canvas-glass, Claudia wrenched her wrist from Pim's grasp.

Pim, my friend.

The icy hand around her will no longer had fingers but had slowly become a case of solid ice. It constricted tighter, pulling against the sinew of her muscles and the threads of her thoughts and the very roots of her will.

I came to save him.

Her will flexed, pushing outward in all directions with an explosive force. The icy hand cracked and then burst into shards that instantly melted.

The dark fog in her mind suddenly became raggedy, as rays of light—insight, inspiration, illumination—came pouring in.

And my will is mine!
she shouted in her head. A thrill of excitement shot through her veins because she knew it was true. It was her will that had brought her there, her will that had driven her forward, and her will that would save Pim.

And she knew how.
She knew how.

She turned and threw her arms around Pim.

“Claudia—” he exclaimed.

“It's okay. It's me. She's not going to take my will without a fight.”

“You need to go.” Pim pushed her back.

“I came here to save you, Pim. And I know how.” She tore the worn yellow backpack from her shoulders.

Laughter rang from the stone walls. Nee Gezicht passed through the low entryway into the cavernous gallery, her staff tapping against the floor. “Save Pim? That's so precious, child. You can't even save yourself.”

Pim whirled around. “Go now, Claudia!”

Nee Gezicht grimaced and swung her hand across her body. Pim flew off his feet and slammed into the cavern wall like a doll. His head knocked against the stone and he crumpled to the ground.

“Pim!” Claudia leaped in his direction, but she was caught mid-stride by an invisible force snatching her left wrist and holding it firmly in the air.

“Let's clean you up a bit,” Nee Gezicht hissed.

The ointment Pim had placed on Claudia's hand now rapidly peeled from her skin. It hung suspended in the air for a moment, like oil in water. Then Nee Gezicht flicked her fingers and it, too, smashed into the cavern wall, bursting into a fine mist.

The force released Claudia's wrist as her backpack slid violently away from her feet and skidded across the cavern floor. It spun, her cell phone and art history book flying through the broken zipper. It came to rest at Nee Gezicht's feet.

There was no sign of the nail polish remover. It was still tucked away.

Good. Claudia was going to need it.

She locked eyes with Nee Gezicht.

The Sightless One brought her hands together as if in prayer. “Your mistake, Claudia, is that you placed your trust in a fool.” She glanced at Pim.

Claudia followed her gaze. His chest still rose and fell.

“A fool who was as greedy as he was blind,” the witch continued. “Great power does not a man make. And now he is a weakling. A shell.”

Claudia's thoughts raced. She needed the staff. She needed the nail polish remover. She needed to keep Pim safe. She needed to not get killed.

Nee Gezicht's eyes returned to Claudia and she smiled tightly. “It's time we got to know each other better, child. Come to me.”

Claudia braced herself, waiting for a tug in her mind or fingers around her will. But she felt only a stifling breeze coming from the direction of Nee Gezicht, and that was all. Her will was her own.

Nee Gezicht's eyes widened. “Come to me.” Her commanding voice rang through the cavern.

“Not this time,” whispered Claudia.

The witch grinned. “An
Artisti
so young, so ignorant and untrained. And yet so powerful. This is too delicious.”

Nee Gezicht had connected with objects—the backpack, Pim, Claudia's wrist—pulling their threads to make them move, just like Claudia had done with the rope at the viaduct and with the stone horse. Maybe she could do the same here and now.