Behind the Canvas (9 page)

“Got it. I think.”

“Good,” Pim continued. “Nee Gezicht keeps a painting in her attic. I know where the window-painting for it is here in this world. So right now we need to find a painting that will bring you into this world at a point close to Nee Gezicht's painting. But it also needs to be close enough to the window-painting I'm standing at now that I can travel there to meet you. Do you understand?”

It took a moment for Pim's words to register, and Claudia's heart sank. “You're going to leave me?”

“Claudia, Nee Gezicht's hand reaches far into the world behind the canvas. She has an army of spies here. She comes here on occasion herself. Once you enter this world, she will know it before too long. And once you're seen with me, she will suspect something. The less time you spend here, the better.”

“An army of spies?” Her mouth went dry. “What kind of place am I going to?” She had the sick feeling that there was so much more to this adventure than she had bargained for.

“I've told you before.” Pim's voice seemed distant, faint. “A place both wonderful and terrifying. Beyond imagination. No, that's not true. Everything in this world has been imagined by somebody, at least once. But not every painting is a rolling landscape or a gentle gondola ride. Many other things have been put on canvas. Violent things. Evil things.”

She placed her fingers on the edges of the frame in her backpack, wishing she could hold Pim's hand. “And those things … are there, too? And Nee Gezicht's spies?”

“Yes.”

Claudia felt a tap on the shoulder. “Hey, kid.”

She jumped and spun around to face a chunky man in a bright blue suit coat and tie. Her eyes were just level with the patch on his coat that read
ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO—SECURITY
. In the center of the patch was a lion head, reared and roaring. She took a step backward. This was it. She was busted. Toast. However they found out, it was over.

The security guard pointed at her backpack. “Backpacks and large purses need to be left in the checkrooms.”

“Backpack?” she stammered, looking down as though she hadn't noticed the large yellow bulge on her stomach. “Oh. Right. Thanks. I'll go tell my mom.” She left the gallery as quickly as possible without running. She didn't look back but could feel the security guard's eyes on her the whole time.

Even with the close call, Claudia knew she couldn't leave her backpack in the checkroom. The ointment, Pim's painting, her food. She needed it with her. So when she reached the main stairs, she headed up to the third floor.

Another guard stood at the entrance to the next gallery. Claudia turned away from the guard and pretended to study her map. And study it. And study it.

Maybe she should look for a gallery without a guard. The place was crawling with them.

Finally another patron approached the guard with a question. Claudia dived into the gallery, map spread open over her backpack. No voice called from behind as she walked along a wall full of artwork.

“All right, Pim,” she whispered. “Let's find my painting.”

*   *   *

Haystacks. Lilies in the water. A Sunday picnic made of dots. An orange bed in a blue room. A bald farmer with a pitchfork and his wife.

After walking in and out of galleries for nearly an hour, Claudia's head swam. At each painting she stopped and waited for Pim to make his judgment call. Sometimes he gave an immediate no. Sometimes it took longer as he mumbled to himself over the distance from one window to another. One of the paintings he said was a possibility. Others he simply didn't recall or couldn't remember where they were located.

He amazed Claudia with his familiarity with the hundreds of paintings they passed.
He really has spent centuries lost in these paintings
.

Eventually they came to a gallery that was more ornate than the others. Richly carved wood trimmed the ceiling and the floor. The room spanned twenty yards from one end to the other. A plaque on the wall said it was reserved for paintings on loan from other museums.

Claudia was thrilled to see a painting by Rubens, his rich scene depicting a man—Saint George—fighting a dragon. The serpentine creature writhed and twisted and reached for the muscular knight as he raised his sword to hack at the dragon's head. A woman stood in the background, calmly watching the action.
12

As they crossed the wide gallery to the corner opposite the Rubens, Pim let out a sudden gasp. “
Eureka
. Not right next door as I'd hoped, but we probably won't find one any closer. Yes … it should do. This is your painting, Claudia. The Dalí, on the right.”

Claudia stared at the painting next to the gallery exit, entirely unimpressed. So many of the paintings they had passed used bold brushstrokes to tell fascinating stories. But this one was flat and ominous. A pair of brown stone statues rose up out of a barren wasteland. They vaguely resembled two people with heads bowed toward each other. The sky was gray and dreary, letting through just enough light for the statues to cast haunting shadows across the landscape. Tiny birds of prey hovered above it all as though waiting for something to sink their talons into.

It was depressing. Just looking at it made Claudia want to lie down and give up. But it was also kinda … weird. The plaque beside the painting read,
ARCHEOLOGICAL REMINISCENCE OF MILLET'S “ANGELUS” BY SALVADOR DALÍ
.
13

“Not very cheerful, is it?” she said.

“No, but that's common for the Southern Tier. Listen, Claudia, I should go. Now. It will take me several hours to get there. You'll need to wait until you see me in the painting before you use the ointment to cross the canvas.”

“Several hours?” She glanced over at the security guard standing by the gallery entrance. “The museum closes in an hour. I'll have to find some place to hide. Then I'll come out when everything is empty.”

“Perfect. Claudia…”

She took off her backpack and turned it around to see Pim through the mesh fabric. “You've given me hope,” he said. “No one has ever given that to me before.”

A lump formed in her throat. She couldn't think of anything to say.

“I'll be in that painting in two hours. Be ready,” Pim said. Then he disappeared.

“Excuse me, miss.”

Claudia jumped at the voice and spun around, once again coming face-to-face with the stitched lion on a security guard's blazer. The owner of the blazer, a woman with tight black curls and tight red lips, looked over her glasses.

“You need to take that backpack of yours down to a checkroom and leave it there. It's not allowed up here.”

“Okay. Sorry.” She walked quickly from the gallery. Alone.

She finally paused when she reached an empty foyer with elevators lining the walls and a set of stairs leading downward. She couldn't keep wandering around with her backpack—eventually they would either take it from her or kick her out. She also needed to stay close to that creepy painting. And she needed to hide for two hours while the museum shut down.

“Yeah, right,” she mumbled to herself. The place had more security guards than a bank. Would they leave when the museum closed? Which would scare her worse—being completely alone in a dark museum or being alone in a museum full of security guards?

An elevator opened and two men stepped into the foyer. They wore matching blue uniforms, and the shorter man pushed a custodial cart loaded with rolls of paper towels and cleaning supplies.

“Did you get the toilets up here?” asked the taller one.

“Nah. Let the morning crew take care of those. I'm outta here.”

The taller one pulled a set of keys from his belt and opened a narrow door tucked in the corner of the foyer. He held it open while the other pushed the cart in. It clattered forward and stopped with a thud. The two men turned and walked around the corner, not even glancing at Claudia.

And the door to the custodial closet slowly pulled back into place.

Claudia leaped across the foyer and stuck her foot in just before the door pulled tight. She made sure she was alone and then peeked into the door crack.

A large closet, lined with shelves and boxes and enough toilet paper to supply her downstairs bathroom for a year. And there was plenty of room to hide. She turned the knob. The door could open from the inside.

The cleaning guys had mentioned “the morning crew.” That probably meant no one would bother with the closet until morning.

The elevator dinged, ready to open.

Claudia slipped inside the custodial closet and pulled the door tight behind her. Darkness and the smell of clean bathrooms. She fumbled along the doorjamb until she found what felt like a light switch and flicked it on. A dim yellow light appeared that barely reached the surrounding shelves. Somehow it made her claustrophobic where the darkness hadn't.

Her breathing was rapid. She cleared a spot to sit on a stack of paper towel boxes and tried to calm herself. She was hungry. She opened her cereal bars and tore into several in quick succession. The chewy sweetness took the edge off her hunger but didn't touch another sensation in the pit of her stomach. The sinking feeling that what she was doing was somehow … wrong.

Illegal.

Criminal.

She had lied to her mom, lied to her aunt, sneaked into a major museum, and was right this moment hiding so she could slap a goopy hand against an ugly but priceless Dalí painting. If that wasn't criminal, what was?

She leaned back against the boxes and closed her eyes, trying not to think about what she would tell her mom if someone found her here. She played through various scenarios, none of them turning out well. Finally she began to trace a painting in her head. The three Dutchmen from the Florence museum. A line here. Deep shading there. The darks and the lights. The form and the substance.

The stuffy warmth of the closet settled on her like dust, and the lack of sleep from the night before tugged her downward.

*   *   *

Footsteps.

Clicking footsteps that echoed in the distance.

Claudia jolted awake and nearly tumbled from the paper towel box. She glanced around the closet, but everything in the dingy light still looked the same as when she—

She'd fallen asleep.
Dangit!
What time was it? She needed to find a clock somewhere in the museum.

No, her cell phone. She pulled it from her pocket and clicked on the screen. Three hours. Nearly three hours had passed since Pim left. She was supposed to have met him after two.

She pulled out the yellow mustard bottle and zipped up her pack. It was showtime.
Past showtime
. Hopefully Pim was still waiting for her.

Slowly, so slowly she wondered if she was even moving, she turned the knob and inched the door open. The foyer was empty. And silent. She stepped hesitantly forward and left the safety of the custodial closet.

The halls and galleries had changed from day to night. The normal lights in the ceiling and above the paintings were dark, replaced by scattered secondary lights that deposited shadows in every corner and in pockets along the walls. She crept to the corner of the first hallway leading out of the foyer, trying to recall the exact path to the Dalí painting.

The evening sounds of Chicago played in the distance. Traffic. Crowds of people. Air hissed through the vents and ducts in the ceiling like the breath of a monster. And … footsteps. Again. Softer, muffled, clicking against the wooden floor of the galleries. Claudia glanced back at the custodial closet, the door pulled tight.
Now or never
.

She moved into the hallway, placing her feet quickly. Quietly.

Right turn down another hallway. Nothing looked the same in the dim light.

Left turn through a gallery and out the other side.

She paused, listening to the footsteps, trying to decide where they came from, where they were headed.
Stick close to the walls where the shadows are thickest
.

Right turn down the hallway. Dead end. Backtrack.

Left turn down the hallway.

The footsteps now sounded close, growing louder. She ducked into a gallery and pushed herself against the wall.

Just outside the entrance, the footsteps approached. She felt the presence of another person. And then the footsteps trailed off.

She crossed the gallery, keeping her head down. She passed into another and stopped. The gallery with the wood trim. This was the one. Just in front of her was the Rubens with the knight and the dragon. That meant on the opposite wall at the other end, by the gallery exit—

A familiar strain of Beethoven's piano sonata played loud and clear, its electronic tones echoing like thunder in the silent museum.

Her phone!

She smacked her hand against her pocket in disbelief. She poked and jabbed at the phone through her jeans until something she hit finally silenced it.

“Who's there?”

A man's voice rang through the third floor. Claudia couldn't quite tell where it came from or how far away.
Stupid!
Why didn't she think of turning off the phone?

She needed to work fast; she had only seconds. Twisting the cap on the mustard bottle, she squeezed the paste out onto her hand, hastily outlining each finger and her palm. She tensed her legs, ready to dash across the gallery toward the Dalí.

A security guard stepped into the room. Claudia ducked under the railing that separated patrons from the paintings and threw herself against the wall under the Rubens. She froze there, mid-squeeze, hoping she was masked by the shadows.

The portly guard in the blue blazer pointed his flashlight quickly around the room. Claudia felt the piercing eyes of the lion on his patch tracking her in the darkness. She crouched lower, waiting for the bright beam to fall on her.

But instead it swung around as the guard hurried from the gallery.