Legacy Of Terror

it?”
    He said that it was. Half of her face had been painted in, while the other half was still in sketch form and pasteled over with a pink- brown stain.
    “I thought you were bad at portraits,” she said.
    “Funny thing is, I am. But with my mother, and now Celia, I haven't had any trouble.”
    “You must love her a good deal.”
    “Celia? Not at all. She's a fine girl, but I don't have those emotions for her. It's just that-that I seemed only to be able to paint the faces of those who have fallen under the misery of the Honneker legacy of madness. I have two other portraits, of the babies. They turned out not as well, for they were too young to have distinct images, individual faces.”
    “I see this is done in tones of orange,” she said.
    “Except for the blood,” he said. “When I paint the blood, I'll make it red. Very bright red. Celia did not see death as a beginning, but as an end. She wasn't mad.”
    He picked up a palette knife and tested it against his finger.
    It was not sharp, but long and flexible.
    And pointed.
    He picked at a section of the canvas he didn't seem to like, peeling away the coarse peaks of the oils.
    “It will make a nice set-this one and the portrait of my mother.”
    “Yes,” Elaine agreed.
    She saw that, now, he was standing between her and the door, and she did not know how she could have let that happen.
    Stop it! she told herself. You are acting like a fool, a silly, empty-headed fool.
    He squeezed some paint onto the palette and began mixing it with the palette knife. It was scarlet paint. It clung in lumps to the silvery tool like-like-
    “Blood,” he said.
    She started, though he did not notice, and she said, “What?”
    “I want to see how the blood will work against that orange pallor of her skin.”
    Be still, she told herself. There is no need to be afraid. He is only a man, and you have learned how to deal with people. But she also knew that he might be mad, as mad as Amelia Matherly had been, and she realized that she could never cope with anything like that. Madness had no place in her world of logic and reasonableness. Madness was complex. She wished for everything to be simple.
    He held the knife up, staring at it as the red paint ran slowly down toward the handle and his fingers.
    “It looks good,” he said.
    The rain beat more harshly upon the skylight, larger drops that sounded almost like hail.
    “Well,” she said, “I ought to be going.”
    He continued looking at the knife. “But you just came.”
    “Nevertheless, your grandfather-”
    “He didn't like the first painting-the one of mother.”
    His voice seemed so distant and unconnected to the moment, that she did not understand just what he meant. She said, “Who didn't?”
    “Grandfather,” he said.
    “Why not?”
    Dennis twisted the knife, forcing the paint away from his fingers and back up the blade. He said, “Grandfather took one look at it and refused to examine it in detail. He said he never wanted to remember anything about that afternoon and what he had seen- and he said that my painting was too vivid, that it was too true for him to study it calmly. He's always been interested in my work, genuinely interested, but he never could stand that painting. And it's the best I've ever done, I think.”
    “I liked it.”
    “Thank you.”
    “And your grandfather's reaction might be interpreted as praise rather than rejection.”
    “I suppose so.”
    She said, “I think I'll be going now.”
    He wiped the red pigment from the knife.
    “Do you mind?” she asked.
    “He's your job,” Dennis said.
    “Yes he is. And I can't leave him unlooked after. I thank you for showing me around your studio. Your work is very interesting, and that is the truth. Well-”
    Some of the red paint had gotten on his fingers. He stood there, staring at it, as if he saw something on the surface of the crimson blob, some image which he would have to use in a painting of his own.
    She took a step away from him.
    He did not turn.
    She walked to the door, certain that he would come after her any moment now.
    When she reached the door, she looked back, and she saw that he was painting crimson droplets on Celia Tamlin's face. He seemed to have forgotten that Elaine had ever been there.
    She took the attic steps two at a time, even though she realized that he might hear her panicked flight. She opened the bottom door, stepped into the corridor, and closed the door behind her.
    Her breathing was fast and ragged. She sucked each breath deep into her lungs, as if