What Lies Within

Faces Behind the Portrait

The first night, I didn’t sleep. I lay on my childhood bed with the quilt pulled to my chin, staring at the ceiling where the plaster cracked like veins. Every time the house groaned, my heart leapt. Every time the wind rattled a shutter, I thought it was footsteps. But the worst was the silence that came between—the stillness that felt too deliberate, too heavy, as if the house was listening for me to make the first sound. When the dawn finally came, pale light pressing through the curtains, I felt more tired than when I’d closed my eyes. My throat was dry. My palms still stung from the splinter. I rose and dressed, though the air was cold enough to sting my skin. I wandered the hall, trying to remind myself this was just wood and paint and plaster, not something alive. But the portraits made that impossible. They lined both sides of the upstairs hall, tall frames stretching nearly from floor to ceiling, gilt dulled by dust. My mother had covered the furniture in sheets before she died, but not these. Never these. They had remained exposed, each face staring down with gray eyes, sharp noses, thin mouths. When I was little, I used to run past them with my eyes squeezed shut. If I looked too long, I felt dizzy, like the faces weren’t still at all but leaning forward, their expressions bending as I walked. I told my mother once that I thought they were watching me. She’d pressed her lips thin, that expression she wore when I had strayed too close to forbidden things, and said only: “They are family. Show respect.” Family. I stared now, older, knowing the word meant little when it came to the Langleys. There were too many secrets in those faces. One portrait stopped me cold. It was of a young woman, perhaps no older than I was now. Her dark hair fell in waves around her shoulders, her pale dress simple but elegant. The artist had caught the light in her eyes, silver-gray, so startling it seemed they were alive. She looked like me. Not just a resemblance—a mirror. The same slope of the cheekbones, the same curve of the jaw. Even the mouth, soft and unsmiling, seemed stolen from my reflection. I stepped closer until my breath fogged the glass that covered the canvas. My heart thudded hard in my chest. There was no plaque beneath the frame. No name. Only her, staring back at me. I whispered before I could stop myself. “Who are you?” The air shifted. A faint creak came from behind me. I turned, but the hall was empty, the shadows still. I laughed nervously, too loud in the silence, and the sound echoed back down the hall as though someone had laughed with me. I moved on, though I couldn’t shake the image of that woman. Her face clung to me as I descended the stairs, as I walked into the parlor where the rocking chair waited. The portraits had followed me down. I could feel them pressing at my back. I opened the curtains, letting light spill into the parlor, dust dancing in the air. The rocking chair creaked again, the sound sharper in the light. My mother had spent hours in that chair, staring out at the road. I used to wonder if she was waiting for someone. I wondered now if it had been the woman in the portrait. The rest of the morning passed in a haze. I made tea but left it cooling on the table. I drifted through the house, my footsteps muffled on the rugs, my fingers brushing walls and doorframes as if to remind myself they were real. But each time I passed the stairwell, I looked up. And each time, the silver-eyed woman seemed to lean a little closer, watching. By evening, I couldn’t bear it anymore. I pulled a sheet from one of the furniture covers and draped it over her portrait. The air seemed to ease slightly, though my hands shook as I tucked the fabric around the frame. That night, I dreamed of her anyway. She stood in the hallway, her pale dress glowing faintly in the dark. She reached out a hand to me, and when I tried to move, I couldn’t. My body was heavy, rooted to the floor. She smiled, just slightly, and whispered a name. I woke with the sound still in my ears. Clara.