Violet Mortis's Arc

Chapter 5 of 6

Violet set the whiteboard against the wall and turned back toward the open room. The floor creaked under a new weight. Footsteps came up the stairs, slow and even. She did not move. She watched the doorway and waited. The blonde man stepped inside. His hair was the same color as the painting. His eyes were the same blue. He looked tired and worried, his shirt wrinkled, his hands open at his sides. He stopped in the doorway and looked at her like he had been looking for a long time. "Violet," he said. Her name. He knew her name. He had not asked. She stepped back. Her shoulder hit something on the wall behind her. She turned. A framed portrait hung there, small and clean, a dark-haired woman's face with two words written below in red. My love. The frame was not dusty. Someone had hung it recently. Someone had been waiting for her in this room before she ever walked in. The man reached into his coat. He pulled out a small album and held it open toward her. A photograph of a girl with braids stared up from the page. Her own face, younger, softer, kept inside someone else's hands for years. He stepped closer. "I have been looking for you," he said. "Since before you forgot." Violet did not take the album. She did not run. She picked up the sister's journal from the floor and held it against her chest like a shield. She would not trust memory tonight. She would learn this man the way she had learned the sister — by looking. She sat down on the floor and opened a blank page. "Stand still," she said. "Let me see your face." He stood still. She began to draw.