‘So, what do you think we’re looking for?’ Remi asked as she dug into the sleek black handbag tucked under her arm.
She swapped out the headphones on the recorder she’d been given and passed Nicole one earbud. Nicole noted a supernatural family using one, who wore matching dark coats, perhaps enchanted to disguise their petal-like skin beneath.
‘A painting of a flower?’
‘It’s as good a guess as any. Since we know what our background context is though, and what we’re really looking for, perhaps it’s best to also search anything to do with Empyreals, Sirens, Pre-Raphaelites, and Irish myth? And – anything you sense that’sdifferent.’
Remi nodded. ‘Okay, a little of everything.’
As Nicole slotted the earbud in, Remi clickedplay.
The first room was a modern exhibition, but the second brought them face to face with a Rossetti painting.
‘She looks familiar,’ Remi said.
The room was full of Victorian paintings. On the right was the Ancient Greek poet Sappho, an enormous Leighton painting, and a few by Evelyn De Morgan. Nicole scoured each for a painted flower or floral details in the frames. As they passed, some paintings’ varnishes shimmered like lenticular cards. Not so protective and pane-like as the one on theDantepainting, which had needed complete removal to see beneath. These allowed supernaturals roaming the gallery to see through them easily while humans remained oblivious.
In the next room, Remi paused.
‘This one gets my vote,’ she said as they stopped before a seven-foot-tall painting that filled the height and almost width of the entire wall.
Nicole didn’t need to read the plaque to know the subject.
‘Odysseus and the Sirens,’ she mused, stepping closer. The plaque readThe Sirens and Ulyssesby William Etty.
Remi was right, the painting had a palpably disturbing aura, something that made her Empyrean instincts stir in interest.
‘Sirens, of course,’ continued the recording, ‘are not winged as human myths proclaim. Humans developed this lie of being “seduced” to justify their hunting of the winged and clawed creatures. Here, though, we have one of the first artistic depictions by a human painter of—’
‘There’s definitely something about it,’ Nicole mused. ‘But maybe it’s a distraction. Or—’ She thought of the way her flesh was crawling. ‘A trap? Let’s do a full scope first, in case we miss anything. Besides, if we’re going off everything the Muse said, she specifically mentioned Nymphs, not Sirens.’
‘She also mentioned Helen of Troy and Aphrodite.’
‘But she only called one of them “secret-keepers”.’
After a full circuit, they were back to the first room and the Rossetti. Unlike the Muse, this bold female figure had dark hair.
The painting next to it, though …
Nicole approached.
She recognised it immediately as John William Waterhouse’sHylas and the Nymphs. It wasn’t as large as she’d always thought it wouldbe. In fact, it was smaller than life-size, but perhaps the large antique dresser in front of it visually shrank it.
It didn’t have an easy varnish to peer beneath, so short of robbing it, she wasn’t sure how she’d be able to glean any of its secrets, at least not in the way her mother had given them clues so far.
So she looked deeper.
Mythological and art historical details glowed to life in her mind, highlighting each aspect of the painting in gold as she took in the composition, the light and the palette: the dusky greens and celestially pale Nymphs. There were seven in all, their eyes like dark moons, their bodies so pale in the inky water they glowed.
Delicate fans of lily pads floated on the emerald surface and covered their lower bodies. They all shared that blood-russet hair, threaded with different types of flowers. Some were tiny white speckles, some sun-gold and unfurling like the one in the hair of the central Nymph who was drawing Hylas gently down into the water.
‘What are you thinking?’ Remi murmured beside her.
One element stood out above the others. The theme of alure… the epic, destructive power the Muse had. The very thing that reminded Nicole so much of the power inside her: the lure of those Empyrean impulses, the lure of desire. And Remi – the lure of her Siren song. It was painted in every stroke of Hylas’ body as he leaned closer to the Nymph whose upturned face had enraptured him.
Nicole couldn’t help but be more convinced by this piece and itsquietlure than Etty’s flagrant naked Sirens and their beach of bones in the other room.
This painting called to her.
