On the morning of the first fairypetal bloom, an illness overcame Kahriah.

“I can’t go today... I--” she said, lying in their bed.

“It’s all right. I’ll go,” the painter interrupted. He left the house as he had for the past several hundred days and ventured out to find his son. Just like every day before, he returned home at dusk with nothing to show for it.

Kahriah was sitting at their small table when he walked through the door that night, looking gaunt but not ill. She sat facing the front door, as if waiting for her husband to return. He explained he hadn’t found anything and sat down with her.

“I’m leaving,” she said after a haunting silence. The painter’s eyes drifted, and he noticed a bag packed with a few belongings. It stood out in the otherwise barren room. For the better part of a year, they had sold whatever they had to buy sustenance so they could continue the search. Every painting that had hung on the walls was now gone, sold to anyone who’d take them for whatever price they would pay. Just empty nails and a giant splatter of sunshine remained.

“He’s gone,” she said. “Call it a mother’s intuition...but I’ve known for some time.” Her voice faltered as she spoke. “I can’t stay here. With you, or in town. Around Kinney, I’m just the poor mother who lost her boy. And every time I look at you, I see him. I can’t do it anymore.” She leaned across the table and put her hand on his cheek.

Pity, blame, sadness, warmth, and resentment all resided in a single look. Kahriah had always said how much the painter and his son looked alike. This was the first time either had touched the other since she’d slapped that same cheek back in late autumn. The husband wanted to protest but didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He respected her greatly, and knew she was probably right. Suffering the rest of her days, living with the reason for their son’s disappearance, was not something he wished for her. He slumped into his chair and cupped his head in his hands. Kahriah wiped a single tear from her face and left. She was only a short distance down the road when she heard a cry of agony from behind her.

He frantically looked around the house before finding a blank canvas tucked between two cabinets. He yanked it from its nook and slapped it onto his easel. In the next cabinet were his paints and brushes. They hadn’t been touched since his masterpiece. Half-finished premium paints weren’t worth much in a small village like Kinney, or he’d have sold those, too. He thrust the paint on the table and angrily poured his palette. A painting was started for the first time in over half a year, though it didn’t seem like he himself was painting. It was his arm holding the brush, but something else was guiding it. It was similar to the trance he’d felt when he’d painted his masterpiece, but this time, it was a different sensation. Darker.

In a couple of hours, his work was complete and he sat back down in the chair. The brush fell out of his hand onto the floor while he stared in disbelief. There on the smallish canvas was the pristine pond glimmering opposite the ominous clouds, either creeping in or retreating. It wasn’t just similar; it was identical. Every stroke in the same place, the contrast of light and dark captured expertly, just like it was before.

How can that be? It was a masterpiece... You don’t get two, let alone do the same one twice...

It wasn’t a masterpiece, you fraud. It was no better than some huckster at a market.

An anger, similar to the one that had sent Thesdon running, filled the man. The hearth fire roared when the broken canvas was cast into it. Then it was gone.

The house was uncomfortably silent when he awoke the next day. After a few seconds of rummaging, he found another blank canvas stuffed under his bed and prepared his palette like the night before. He wasn’t in control, and after a few hours, he sat gobsmacked in front of another copy of the original.

His masterpiece, the culmination of his years of toil, experimentation, and honing his technique, had just been recreated two days in a row. It tore him up inside to look at the piece. He felt shame for being so proud of something that wasn’t miraculous. Guilt for taking Kahriah’s life away from her, through no fault of her own. Deep, burning regret for Thesdon.