10/17/2024
"Here," says the curator, pulling you back to the image of the chair in the pines. He reaches up and removes it from the wall, hands it to you so you may look closer.
You run your fingers gingerly across the surface of the work. It has a semi-gloss finish and catches the light like a photograph would, but its detail is stunning. It's definitely printed on the canvas, and the work itself has a texture similar to the ebb and flow of brushstrokes; the ink feels like paint, slightly oily to the touch.
"There's no artist named on any of them," the man states. "But I suspect they're all by the same hand."
"What's this?" You ask, pointing to a bit of chalk-white chicken scratch etched in the bottom right-hand corner. The curator shrugs.
"I believe it's the title of the piece. But who's to say, really."
You bring the picture closer (it's hard to read in the faint light) and make out three words.
"The Faerie King?" You say aloud and give your host a quizzical look. He chuckles.
"And The Dread Queen," he says, pointing at the picture to your right. You hand him back The Faerie King and move on to the next one.
It stops you at once.
The image is bleak and haunting, less beautiful than the last. A large, ominous tree, grey and naked and clearly dead, stands in the middle of a dusty, amber field while in the hazy distance, rust-red mountains rise to greet the sky.
And there in the foreground, perched on the body of a dead man, is a pale woman in a white prairie dress, her attire stained in crimson, a bloody yet beautiful vulture. And though her face is bowed away from you, hidden by her raven hair, you still feel as if you can see her searching eyes, black and ravenous in their pursuit of… something… someone...
Me?
"The Dread Queen," you whisper, repeating the title of the piece. You see then that she holds in her hand something tissuey and oozing and red, something vital. A fruit? A heart?
Your eyes swim across the photograph as your mind grows fuzzy, unable to focus, and you swear you can hear beating like the cadence of a gallows drum, repetitive and precise.
"Where is this?" you utter, pointing to the picture, your voice strange and airy. "I've seen this place before. In a dream, maybe."
"I knew they'd speak to you," your host says quietly, anticipation in his tone.
His voice is muffled now, carried away on an old western wind. "It's why I brought you back here—why I drew you here in the first place.
"We're kindred spirits, you and I."
But you barely hear him now. Instead, a ringing permeates your ears, drowning out your other senses. The ticking of the watch intensifies, filling your head.
"I call these works IMPRESSIONS," says your host, leaning in, quieter still. "They give you a glimpse into another life, a scene playing out in some other realm. And a mind as alive as yours, well... it just fills in the rest..."
Fills in the rest? You think. What does that mean?
But the question barely registers now, your thoughts little more than dreams fleeing the sunrise. The image—the impression—has its hold on you...
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gmbrlyn/the-dread-queen-impressions-volume-1
