Warped (Maurissa Guibord)

against the walls. A low table held jars crammed with brushes, their variety of tufted and fanned bristles making weird floral-like arrangements. Crumpled tubes and jars of paints were piled in shoe boxes beneath.
    "You can stay here for now," Tessa said, turning to Will. "Until we figure out what to do." Her voice echoed against the vaulted ceiling overhead and came back to her, sounding small and uncertain.
    The echoing was no different. But when she was little, she'd always thought the echoes in the studio made it sound big and important. Now it just sounded empty. The smells were still there too: the sharp whiffs of oil and varnish and turpentine and, more faintly, the hint of sawdust from the wooden frames her mother had made. They were stacked in the corner with their taut skins of canvas stretched tight. Waiting. All waiting.
    "My father never comes up here," Tessa said. "It will be okay," she added under her breath. She tried to keep her eyes forward as she strode to the middle of the room, but they were drawn, as if by an invisible summons, to the dusty, half-finished paintings that lined the walls. She took in the colors laid down in confident, swirling strokes. An elegant line swept a weeping willow branch over shadowed water. A roughly sketched portrait caught a young girl on a swing in midflight. With a start, Tessa recognized herself as the little girl and tried to remember that moment in the air, with her mother watching her. She found she couldn't. Tessa took a deep breath, or tried to. The air didn't seem to go all the way in.
    "You can sleep there." She pointed to a sagging couch in the corner, draped with a crocheted granny-square afghan. "I'll bring over some more blankets and a pillow. There's a bathroom with a shower back there," she added with a nod toward the back of the studio. She ignored Will's perplexed expression, turned away and unlocked the window. She needed air. The wooden frame screeched as Tessa pulled it up and a fresh, sharp breeze blew in. But somehow the cool air wasn't enough to ease the tightness that had taken hold in her chest. A sudden eddy of wind lifted a sketch on the drafting table nearby. It rolled over on itself and tumbled to the floor.
    She shouldn't have been there. Not there, among all her mother's things. It felt as if her mother might walk in at any moment. But that was impossible; she was gone. The pain in Tessa's heart swelled up and throbbed in her chest, in her throat, as if it would burst out of her.
    "Tessa. What is wrong?"
    She didn't answer but brushed past Will, ran to the door and pounded down the stairs. She didn't look back.

    Gray Lily let out a shriveled sigh at the sight of herself in the mirror. "Rejuvenating cream my ass," she muttered, and hurled a jar of expensive facial cream into the trash. She tapped her bony fingers on the bureau. A selection of hairpieces, lotions and cosmetics was strewn before her. "None of this helps. Fine clothes look ridiculous on old bones. I'm decrepit. Practically decaying in Givenchy."
    She turned to Moncrieff, who sat at a desk some feet away. His stubby fingers wielded a computer mouse as he selected the Transfer Funds option from Lila Gerome's online banking portfolio.
    "I need the unicorn back, Moncrieff. Now."
    "Yes," said Moncrieff absently, typing in a dollar amount that would cover the cost of running a small city for a year.
    "Yes, what ?" snapped Gray Lily, twisting to face him.
    Moncrieff stiffened. "Yes, my lady, " he said, immediately swiveling the chair toward her and dropping his head to his chest. His heavy blue eyes fixed on a spot on the carpet near her feet. His employer preferred this old-fashioned form of address.
    "You mustn't forget your manners." Gray Lily's voice creaked. "I would think your most recent lesson would be fresh in your mind."
    Moncrieff made no reply but swallowed reflexively, and nodded. His posture of obedience seemed to mollify Gray Lily, and she went on.
    "This girl," she said, turning to look into the mirror once more. "Was there anything unusual about her?"
    "No," Moncrieff replied. "Just a girl." But he frowned, and his blue eyes took on a distant look, as though there was something about Brody's daughter that had puzzled him.
    "But you think she was lying about the tapestry," Gray Lily pressed.
    "She was lying," Moncrieff answered. "I'm sure of it."
    Gray Lily's small black eyes slid in the mirror to watch him. "Then she must be the one. She must have released the