Immortal Sins

With a shake of her head, Kari changed the subject.

She was feeling much better when she left for home later that evening. Spending time with her folks and her two older sisters and their husbands always grounded her in reality and was fun besides. Kari and her sisters had had their share of squabbles when they were growing up but they were all the best of friends now. Kaye was a kindergarten teacher, Kristina was a legal secretary. Kaye had a two-year-old son, Tommy; Kristina was expecting her first child in a few months.

Driving home, Kari convinced herself that the man in the painting had been nothing but a figment of her imagination created out of stress, boredom, and some kind of perverted wishful thinking. Tomorrow, she would put the painting up for sale on eBay and see if what Trish had said was true, that it really was worth a lot of money.

Humming softly, Kari parked the car in the driveway. She stood outside for a few minutes, gazing up at the starry sky. The air was fragrant with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and honeysuckle. It was a beautiful night, the kind they wrote songs about. If only she had someone to share it with.

Going into the house, she turned on the lights, tossed her handbag onto the sofa, switched on the TV, and glanced up at the Vilnius.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him waiting for her at the front of the painting. His gaze met hers, his smile melancholy.

If she removed the frame, would she discover the secret of how he moved from place to place? Or would he leap off the canvas? She laughed softly. No matter how handsome he was, what on earth would she do with him when he was only ten inches tall?

"You're not real," she murmured. "Do you hear me? I know you're not there, so just go away."

But he didn't disappear.

Standing there, she saw a number of small details she hadn't noticed before, like the jagged crack in one of the upstairs windows of the castle, and the gray squirrel on the branch of one of the trees. Funny, she hadn't noticed those things before. Had they always been there? Or was her overly vivid imagination sketching them in?

The man sat cross-legged on the grass, his gaze focused on her face. Sometimes she thought he was trying to speak to her, not verbally, but mentally. An absurd notion, to be sure. And yet, she had heard a voice in her mind....

Sitting on the sofa, she shook the disconcerting thought away.

Hours passed but time had no meaning. There was only the man in the painting. She knew he was sad and wondered why the artist had painted him that way, and what magic canvas he had used, to give his creation the ability to move about and express emotion. Sometimes she was sure the man was in terrible pain, though she had no idea what made her think so. Or maybe it wasn't the man in the painting who was sad and in pain. Maybe what she was feeling were the thoughts and emotions of the artist. That hardly seemed likely, she mused, since she wasn't the least bit psychic or telepathic, but tonight she could believe almost anything.

Kari could hardly believe it when she looked at the clock and saw that it was after midnight. Shocked, she scrambled to her feet. She had to get some sleep. She had to go to work in the morning.

Reaching up, she pressed her palm against the glass that enclosed the painting, whispered, "Good night," and went to bed.

She dreamed of him again. Tonight, she wore a gown of pale, pale pink that made her feel like she was a princess in a fairy tale. Hand in hand, they walked through the verdant meadow. The horse trailed behind them, its white coat gleaming like liquid silver in the light of the moon. The dog frolicked at their heels, then ran ahead, sniffing the ground.

She was acutely aware that she was in the painting. Strange, that she didn't feel small or one-dimensional. Walking along, she felt a vagrant breeze caress her cheek, the spongy sod beneath her feet. She was equally aware of the man at her side, of the latent strength of his hand holding hers. Her whole body tingled at his nearness. Oddly, neither of them spoke, but there was no need for words.

When they reached the edge of the lake, she sat down on the rock and he sat beside her, his arm slipping around her shoulders as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Leaning forward, she trailed her hand in the water, surprised that it was cool and wet. It was only a picture of a lake, after all, yet, like everything else, it seemed so real.

With a shake of her head, she leaned against him, content to sit there in the moonlight with the wind blowing softly on her face. The breeze rustled the leaves of the trees and made gentle ripples on the surface of the water. She laughed softly as the dog splashed along the shore, threw up her hands when it bounded toward them and then stopped abruptly to shake the water from its fur.

She looked at the man beside her, thinking how handsome he was, and suddenly she was lying on her back on the grass, his body covering hers, his kiss gently driving all other thoughts from her mind.

With a sigh, she closed her eyes and surrendered to the magic of his touch, the exquisite taste of his kisses. A part of her knew it was only a dream, yet it felt more real than the world she had left behind. Perhaps this was reality and everything else was a dream. She wished fleetingly that she could stay here, with him, forever.

She gazed into his eyes, trying to find a way to ask if there was some way she could stay with him when, suddenly, she was sitting at the castle window, alone, seeing what he saw, hearing what he heard, feeling what he felt. What he felt...her whole being was consumed with rage and frustration at being trapped inside a stagnant world where outside sounds were muted and the view of the universe was limited to wherever the painting was located at the time. And overall, a never-ending, all-consuming hunger unlike anything she had ever experienced. She felt it in every fiber and cell of her being, a pain far worse than anything she had ever known, an agony so great she knew it would consume her, body and soul, if she couldn't escape.

Fear rose up within her, hot and swift. She had to get out, had to get away before it was too late. She was smothering, unable to breathe, unable to move.

She woke with a start, wept tears of relief to find herself in her own bed, in her own house.

He was in her thoughts all the next day at work, whether she was talking on the phone with a client, adding the final touches to a presentation, or sending a fax. What did it say about her life that her dreams were more exciting than her reality?

She went to lunch with several of her coworkers but she was scarcely aware of the conversation around her. All she could think about was him and how wonderful it would be if he were made of flesh and blood, muscle and sinew, instead of paint and canvas.

She hurried home after work, eager to see where he would be. For some inexplicable reason, it no longer seemed odd that he should flit from place to place. It was simply the way it was. She had made a game of it on her way home from work, trying to guess if she would find him walking in the forest or sitting in the castle window or reclining near the water. She no longer wondered if she was crazy; she just accepted that she was. Not stark raving mad. Not a raving lunatic. Just a little bit insane.