It's a hot day. A very hot day. The sun blazes in a blue-grey sky. Dust lies along the streets and hangs in the air. A limp banner outside the municipal art gallery, grey building that it is, declares the exhibition. More to the point, inside the building there will be air conditioning, and possibly cool drinks.
Chelsea walks up the stairs, into the building.
Inside there is indeed air conditioning, blessedly cool, and there is a small cafe. There are also rooms of paintings, varying in quality, the occasional viewer, and the odd twitchy figure whose nervous tension as one approaches particular paintings or collages betrays identity as the artist.
A young assistant takes her mind off contemplating her nail varnish to approach the clearly moneyed visitor, offer a drink, and ask if she's looking for any particular artists or forms of art.
Chelsea tells the assistant, "Portraits, and yes, I'd love a drink; iced tea, if you would?"
The assistant scurries off to return with a near-overflowing glass of fresh iced tea. Chattering about how honoured she is to be working with such fresh new vital talent (and similar absurdities) she escorts Chelsea to a corridor and three rooms full of portraits. Eyes squint from every wall. Noses jut out like canyoned beaks. Lips purse themselves in corners and draw back from overdone teeth.
Chelsea touches her forehead, pained. She asks, "Something more - classical, if you would? I can't have my patients seeing portraits like /this/."
The assistant hesitates, then leads the way round a corner to show off a few portraits, surrounded by landscapes and dramatic scenes. One in particular catches Chelsea's trained eye.
The picture in question is a 2 by 4 feet framed panel. It isn't precisely classical, but the lines of the subject's face are drawn with astonishing delicacy and style -- quite remarkably so.
The picture shows a young woman, apparently waking in some gloomy forest locale. The woman's clothes -- white leather jacket and skirt, and shocking pink top -- are perhaps deliberately anachronistic, and her blonde hair hangs in a bell around her upturned face. The woman's expression is an intricately drawn blend of fury and dawning horror, turned towards the light so that every bone in her face seems carved from ivory.
Chelsea pauses for a moment in front of the picture, then shakes herself, and moves on.
There is a brief tingle down her right shoulder and arm, as though something hot touched her momentarily.
Chelsea frowns, touching her arm.
The picture seems to move -- to flex -- as though the figure kneeling in it stirred and opened her mouth to speak.
Chelsea stops, swallowing. And stays by the painting. She glances around, to ascertain if anyone else has noticed.
The assistant doesn't seem to have noticed. She's wandering off to attend to another potential customer.
Slowly, very slowly, tears of fire begin to run down the cheeks of the woman in the picture, as she strains to raise her eyes and meet Chelsea's gaze.
Chelsea just watches, appalled, unable to pull her gaze away.
The woman mouths, as if caught in a bad dream, "Help me..."
Chelsea, unwilling to speak aloud to a painting, just watches.
With a tingling sensation, flames overtake Chelsea's hands, cold fire running up them and playing around her wrists, blazing like the wrath of God.
Chelsea screams at this, unbidden, shocked into terror.
In a moment, as though blown out, the flames are gone, and the movement is gone from the painting; it is merely a piece of artwork, unmoving, stable, paint on canvas.
There's a blur of noise from elsewhere in the building, quick conversation, as the assistant comes running. "Is something the matter?"
Chelsea says "I - " She searches, rapidly, for an excuse, "Migraine, sorry, I should be going.""
The assistant seems to take her word for it. Clearly hoping for a sale, she says, "Will you be wanting this one?"
Chelsea says, more firmly than she'd meant to, "No."
The assistant looks disappointed, but nods. "The exhibition will be open for another few days, should there be anything else you want to see, and there are plenty of other sites of interest here in Fort Smith. Have a nice day!"
Long distance to Jo: Maya nods.
On the way out, a young woman in unfeasibly goth garb brushes past her, black doc martens clumping under long black skirt, and black hair plastered in long waves down her back. There's a brittle, angry look to her face.
Chelsea ignores everyone and everything, intent on getting a taxicab as quickly as possible.
A taxicab can be found relatively easily, as the art gallery is fairly central.
Chelsea takes the cab back to her hotel.
The hotel is a relatively old place, stable, heavy, reliable, suitable for her image as an up-and-coming young doctor. There is alcohol available in the bar, or aspirin available in her room.
A couple of old portraits hang on the wall near her room, previous owners of the hotel or something like that. Their faces are oddly flat and lifeless, next to the memories of the painting of the woman at the exhibition.
Chelsea orders a cocktail to be delivered to her room, then follows suit herself.
The cocktail is brought up promptly, icy cold. Whatever else may be said about this place, it gives fast service.
Chelsea sits down on her bed, pulling off her blazer before she takes the drink in hand. She sips, slowly relaxing.
Slowly the tension goes away, the twitching, the sensation of burning, the memory of that sculpted face weeping fiery tears . . . it must have been some sort of hallucination. Or overwork. Maybe it was overwork getting to her.
Chelsea moves to the back of the bed, leaning against a wall; she flips on the television, idly.
The television flips on mid-sentence, showing some sort of historical documentary about the old slaughterhouse district in town. An overly cheerful voice babbles statistics, while cows and other livestock are herded through large doors in the background.
Chelsea barely watches, her eyes slanting closed as she sips her cocktail.
Slowly the babble in the background sinks into relative stillness... until the phone rings.
Chelsea starts, a little, then composes herself as she picks up the phone.
An unfamiliar voice says, "Ms Bateman?"
Chelsea says "Speaking."
The voice, a male one with a hard-to-place accent, says, "Or should that be Dr Bateman? I'm afraid we won't have met before. I'm your uncle."
Chelsea says "Dr. Bateman, yes." She pauses. "I haven't any relatives."
The voice says, "I am afraid that my side of the family had something of an argument with your mother, over her decisions. She broke off contact with us, and I had no idea that I had a niece until I saw that photograph of you in the Journal of Plastic Surgery last year."
The voice says, "My name is Arthur Videns."
Chelsea asks, suspiciously, "How is it you're so certain you have a niece now? Bateman is not an uncommon name."
The voice says, "I had a private detective look into it. Believe me, you have the family features. The photograph was -- unmistakeable."
The suspicion has not faded from Chelsea's voice; she asks, abruptly, "Well, what of it?"
The voice says, "I'd like to meet you. Since you are in town, when would be convenient?"
Chelsea seems to come to something like senses. "How did you find me here?"
The voice says, "When I started checking up on your background, to see if you were my niece, I found that you were registered to attend that conference last week. Since I had to come here on business in any case, I was delighted to find that you were also visiting."
Chelsea says, slowly, "I will meet you for coffee."
The voice says, "Sounds excellent. How about this evening? And where would you like?"
Chelsea says "In the cafe in the hotel here?"
The voice says, "That'll do. What time?"
Chelsea says "7?"
The voice says, "Excellent. I'll see you there." The phone goes dead.
---