The Secret of Lions (4 page)

9

Barbara stared at the painting as Lucy
wandered near the sculptures. She was much more interested in the
erotic ones.
The Secret of Lions
hung inside the gallery,
near the back of the first floor, just as Professor Blake had
described. The painting was magnificent, glorious, far better than
the slide that Blake had of it. Barbara became intoxicated by
it––drawn to it.

10

The entire next week Barbara thought about
the painting while she avoided her roommate’s hints about rush
week.

“Get ready,” Lucy said. “The girls are
coming for you.”

Barbara didn’t want to deal with the
sorority girls. The only thing she wanted to concentrate on was the
painting. She spent her free time in the library, reading anything
that mentioned it.

Thursday night was windy. Her class ended a
few minutes early, which was typical of Professor Greene. She
always ended class early. Some of the other students joked that she
was secretly dating one of the students. The reason why she ended
class early was to meet up with him across campus. Barbara wasn’t
sure about that, but she was glad to get out early.

Barbara walked out of the Liberal Arts
building and headed toward the commons. She wanted nothing more
than to eat a pizza from the little Italian pizza place that her
mother used to take her to in Brooklyn. It was called Ole Stone
Pizza.

She began her trek to the library. The wind
picked up even more than it already had. The leaves on a small oak
tree rustled vigorously. The tree grew out of a humble garden which
rested in the darkness in a desolate alley.

Out of the darkness, Barbara heard the
rustling as it grew louder. When she had nearly passed the alley,
she heard a faint word. “Barbara,” whispered out of the
darkness.

It was nearly silent, but she was certain
that she had heard her name.

Barbara turned back to the alley. “Is anyone
there?” she asked.

“Barbara,” a voice whispered.

“Hello?” she asked. Cautiously, she inched
toward the edge of the darkness.

There was no answer from the whispering
voice. Barbara moved a little closer.

Suddenly, a figure leapt out toward her. The
figure opened a dark, burlap sack. Quickly, the sack covered
Barbara’s head. Before she had a moment to struggle, she felt
multiple hands gripping her tightly. The hands restrained her, and
she was helpless.

She felt them lifting her body up off the
ground. She began to kick her feet, but it was to no avail. The
sorority girls had her now. She would have to endure their hazing
rituals; there was no amount of kicking that would stop them.

11

Barbara stood with her hands down by her
sides as if she were in the army. The burlap sack was gone. Barbara
could see, but the room was only dimly lit by an array of candles,
as if for a secret, cultish ceremony. The scene reminded her of the
furtive masons.

Barbara wasn’t sure where her captors were,
but she knew that the room was large, probably made of stone. Every
word that was uttered echoed high into the darkness, bouncing off
rock walls.

“Sister. Sisters. Sisters. Today you have
been abducted from your old lives,” a very attractive girl said.
The girls who stood in front of Barbara were known as the inner
circle. They were the leaders of Lucy’s sorority. Every girl wanted
to be a part of their sorority house. It was the nicest house on
campus, but more importantly, it had an abundant number of
successful alumni.

“Your old lives are over. Forget about them.
Leave them behind you. Each of you has been chosen for greatness.
You have been rushed to become our newest sisters.”

“Get on with it,” Barbara murmured under her
breath.

Barbara glanced to her left. Two other girls
stood next to her, awaiting their hazing.

She felt uneasiness in her stomach about the
entire prospect.

“We have a very special challenge in store
for each of you. Each of you has been nominated by a fellow sister
to be here among us. Each of us assisted in devising a tailored
ritual for you.”

The sorority’s blond leader was like a
siren––beautiful and seductive. Not even Barbara could resist her
calls. Every word that she uttered sounded practiced, rehearsed,
and for some reason, sensual. As the leader stepped closer to the
line of rushes, Barbara was stunned by just how attractive the
leader was.

The blond stopped just in front of
Barbara.

“The first challenge is for you, Miss
Howard,” the leader said. Her gorgeous blue eyes gazed into
Barbara’s with a gravity-like grasp.

Suddenly, Barbara realized that three other
sisters stood directly behind her.

“What do I have to do?” Barbara asked. She
was reluctant about joining, but she felt a sense of duty to Lucy,
to her mother, and to herself. She was here. She had made it to a
prestigious art school. Few women were ever admitted as graduate
students at the college, and she was among them. Barbara had
overcome many obstacles to get to the point where she was. She had
come too far to be intimidated by a British sorority and its sexy,
blond leader.

“Take your clothes off,” the leader
said.

“What? Why?” Barbara asked.

“Sisters,” the leader commanded.

Forcefully, the girls standing behind
Barbara grabbed her by the arms and waist. The leader moved closer
to her.

“I’ll do it for you,” she said. She grabbed
a tight hold on Barbara’s dress.

Before she could protest, Barbara was stark
naked. The girls had stripped her bare. The dark room they stood in
was freezing.

“What am I supposed to do now?” Barbara
asked. The shivering was apparent in her voice.

The leader’s only reply was a deviant smile.
Suddenly, Barbara regretted being Lucy’s friend.

12

Deep in the campus, the art gallery usually
resided in a silent, blanket of darkness. Tonight, however,
something stirred inside it. Barbara’s new sorority sisters
carelessly fumbled about the halls of the gallery. They brought
Barbara to her obsession, to her muse, to the painting
The
Secret of Lions
.

“Here is your precious painting, Barbara,”
the leader announced.

“Wha...wha...t am I s...s...supposed to do
here?” she asked with a shiver in her voice. The ceremony Barbara
had participated in earlier had taken place upstairs in a secret
room in the art gallery’s Italian Renaissance exhibit. The rooms in
that exhibit were decorated with Botticelli’s
Primavera
and
Michelangelo’s
The Last Judgment
.

She didn’t have to walk far in the nude, but
the art gallery was freezing. The air was chilly and felt like the
cold isolation of an empty grave. The floors were a desultory
combination of brick and hardwood. Each texture amplified the
coldness on the bottoms of her feet. On the path to
The Secret
of Lions
, Barbara slowly exhaled each breath to distract her
from the cold sensations that surrounded her.

“We are told that you have an obsession with
finding the artists who created this painting. We are going to
leave you here for about an hour. Your assignment is to remain here
in front of the painting for the next hour. You are not to move.
You must stand. And you must remain naked. We will return to
retrieve you. Then you will be a full-fledged sister to us.

“Your clothes will rest on that bench. If
you choose that warmth is more important to you than membership,
your pledge will be forfeited. Any questions, pledge?” the leader
asked.

“No,” Barbara said.

13

Barbara was alone. She stood staring at the
painting. The black lion looked out over the horizon, his muscles
clenched, his body poised; his fur fluttered in the breeze.

Barbara had been alone in the gallery for
approximately forty-five minutes.

The sorority sisters left her a single
candle. She grasped it tightly, but her shivering forced the flame
to shiver and convulse as well. The air was chilly, but she had
grown used to the cold. Still, she ached for the sisters to
return.

“They’ll come through those doors any
moment,” she said to herself. “I am waiting here for the sorority
sisters to save me. To save me.”

14

Evan stared at the ceiling of his flat. He
lay on a platform bed with tattered, black blankets. He peered down
at his shirtless body. He stayed in great physical shape out of
necessity. His torso was muscular but not bulky. It was important
to his survival to stay lean and agile. He had learned that a long
time ago from his training. Often he tried not to think about his
training, but it was imperative that he never forgot it.

Evan stretched his arms out; his fingertips
reached for the ceiling. Afterward, he ran his fingers across a set
of long, deep scars across his torso. The scars brought back
memories of the black lion, the creature that had left the physical
gashes across his chest and abdomen. It was a creature that had
haunted his dreams.

The night air spilled in through the cracks
in the wall above the window. Evan’s flat had a living space that
he painted in and a small, creaking staircase that led up to a
loft. Only his bed was at the top of the loft.

Evan looked out the window at the cloudy,
moonlit sky. His view was slightly obstructed by the top of the
neighboring building.

Evan couldn’t sleep. He rarely slept longer
than four hours a night. Bored, he gazed at his watch. It was time
for a nighttime stroll across campus.

He climbed down from the bed, pulled a
hooded, long-sleeved shirt on, grabbed a flashlight, and headed out
the front door.

15

Barbara still waited in the cold of the art
gallery. It had been over an hour; she was certain. She stopped
looking at the painting. She spent more time looking at some
Holocaust paintings across the hall. Holocaust art was a macabre
movement in which the images were mostly graphically violent.

Often they portrayed dead people with lots
of blood and gore. Suddenly, a thought fired through Barbara's
brain. She remembered that Professor Blake had shown her the slide
of Hitler with
The Secret of Lions
. She wondered why it was
placed in this part of the gallery. Why across from the Holocaust
artwork? The department must have thought that it was more than
just artwork to Hitler. Somehow he might have been connected to
it.

“Barbara?” a voice whispered in the
darkness.

She felt frozen. Naked and once again
shivering, but not from the cold, but out of fright, she stared off
into the darkness beyond the reach of the candle’s light, beyond
the painting.

“Who’s there?” she called out. “Sisters? Is
that you?”

There was no answer, but she could
definitely hear breathing. She squinted her eyes and studied the
darkness, trying to make out any sign of movement.

“Come closer,” a voice whispered.

As she moved closer to the edge of the
candlelight, she made out a figure watching her. Abruptly, she
froze again. The shape was a man’s. It was not Lucy’s sorority
sisters.

“Who are you?” she demanded. But the fear in
her voice was apparent. She trembled. Her arms and legs shook under
her weight.

“Who are you?” she repeated. Slowly, she
backed away from the figure in the dark. Her fear grew. Quickly, it
turned into sheer, white terror. The figure dashed toward her. A
gust of wind from his attack blew out the candle. She dropped it
and fell to the floor.

Barbara barely missed her attacker’s grasp.
She instinctively jumped to her feet and fled the gallery. She felt
her pursuer closing in on her as she ran. Her bare feet let out
muffled clopping sounds. She could hear the intruder’s heavy shoes
stomping on the floor as he ran.

He got so close to her that she heard his
breathing.

She hit the front doors hard, barreling them
open. She fell past the foyer of the gallery, outside the doors,
and hit the pavement outside.

She looked up to see the sorority sisters
standing in the walkway. The blond leader stood in front, staring
down at her in shock.

“What are you doing, Barbara?” she asked
with a dropped jaw.

Barbara peered back into the open doors to
the gallery, but there was no one there. The figure had
vanished.

“Barbara?” Lucy said as she stepped out from
behind the group of sorority sisters.

Some of the girls were giggling at the fact
that Barbara lay on the pavement, stark naked, but Lucy was more
concerned with the frightened look on her roommate’s face.

Again she said, “Barbara. Are you okay?”

16

Barbara realized the gallery was not a place
to be at night. There were stories of campus muggings and hoodlums
attacks.. The campus police had been sending out bulletins and
warnings to all of the departments for weeks, warning students to
be on the lookout for suspicious visitors.

Barbara didn't report the attack on her in
the gallery to anyone because she wasn’t supposed to be in the
gallery at night. The sisters had broken into it. Naturally they
didn’t want campus authorities knowing that they were breaking into
school buildings at night and making their rushes stand naked in
front of school property.

For her discretion about their activities,
they rewarded her with membership to the sorority.

For safety reasons, she decided only to
visit the art gallery during early morning hours. Every other
morning, she found herself alone with the painting, but at least it
was daylight outside.

She sat on a bench across from the painting,
staring at it. Her sketchbook rested on her lap. She made multiple
sketches of the painting throughout the sketchbook. She had drawn
the painting from almost every angle that she could achieve. She
tried to draw as well as the artist did. She didn’t feel that she
would ever match his skill.