The Witch's Patron

Chapter 3

Perhaps it had been the surprise and the grief that clouded Noori's mind the day of the funeral. She hadn't been able to conjure a single idea of what the late Mrs. Ladwick would have bequeathed her then, but standing before it now, she couldn't fathom how she didn't figure it out sooner.

"It's stunning," her father said with a quiet, starry-eyed reverence. He was standing beside her in their small parlor, hands on his hips and gazing up at the framed painting that now hung over their mantel. "Truly remarkable. I can see why you liked it."

Noori bit her lower lip and hummed a wordless, non-committal response. She recalled being just as enamored with the artwork as her father, but something about seeing it in her home — already hung where a dusty old stuffed marlin had hung for as long as she could remember — unsettled her in a way she couldn't quite explain.

Her father patted her shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "You alright, Pup?"

Pup – like a baby sea lion; he had been calling her that since she was too young to recall.

"Yes," she answered, though her voice came out unsteady. "Just thinking about her."

This was sort of true.

Her father hummed as he draped his strong arm over her shoulder and pulled her into his side. "I know it hurts. She was a good one. Sure loved you, she did." He motioned to the painting with his fingers. "Nice of her to leave you with something to remember her by."

Noori was a bit too lost in thought to be having this conversation with her father, but she was lucid enough to know that if she didn't respond he would start to worry. He would assume her grief was dragging her inward and he would think it his fatherly duty to fix things somehow. But Noori didn't need fixing, so she leaned her head into his shoulder and hugged him around his middle.

"Yes," she agreed, smiling so he would hear it in her voice. "She was something else."

Their old grandfather clock in the hallway chimed; it was getting late.

"I guess I should turn in," her father said, giving Noori's shoulder one last rub before he pulled away. "Do you need anything before I go? Tea, perhaps?"

Now Noori smiled for real. "I'm fine, Papa. Go, get some sleep."

Not one to turn down sleep, he didn't argue. With a kiss to his daughter's temple, he took his leave and ascended the creaking staircase to his bedroom. Noori stood in the parlor, stone still so she could hear when his door clicked softly closed. Then, when she was satisfied that she was alone, she sank down into her father's well-worn armchair and let her gaze return to the painting.

A conflict of emotions, memories, and questions battled for her attention as she took in the artwork. On the canvas, the artist had captured a dramatic scene: a vessel being rocked by an angry sea. One of its three masts was snapped like a broken bone, sails torn and flung uselessly asunder. The bow was tipped perilously low and the deck was taking on too much water. Noori knew this ship was on the verge of sinking, but not just because of its sorry state; the scene the painting captured had actually happened.

But that fact alone wasn't what made the painting so extraordinary. After all, artists painted historical tragedies all the time.

No, what made it extraordinary — eerie, even — was that the painting predated the events it immortalized with uncanny detail.

Shuddering, Noori cast her mind back to the first time she laid eyes on the artwork. She let herself remember the way it had enchanted her then. Much like her father, she had found it stunning, too.

It was nearly two years ago on an uncharacteristically cold summer night. Rain lashed at Fernweh's shores for days on end. Soaked to her skin, Noori had stood warming herself at Mrs. Ladwick's crackling hearth when her eyes found the painting. It was unframed then, canvas stretched over a skeleton of wood. Noori recalled feeling scandalized that something so exquisite had been left on the floor, casually propped against the plush chair usually occupied by Charles Ladwick.