The Dragon’s Throne 1

“Is this the one that you did next?”

“It is.  It’s the same girl, and she is in the forest playing, and there I am, so close to where she is if you’re looking down from a crow’s nest, but miles apart through the woods.”

He walked her through each painting, and she was aware that he was watching her, waiting for something, but she didn’t know what that something was.  She took her time with each painting, really studying it and hoping that whatever he was looking for from her would come.  There was something important, but he wasn’t going to give her the answer.

When she got to the last painting that was displayed, Eli opened a closet, rummaging around while talking.

“This is the last painting I did, almost ten years ago, when I was fifteen.”

“Why did you stop?” she asked while he looked through the closet for the painting he was hunting.

“Because this one haunted me for a long time.  Eventually, I hid it, and when I moved here, it was the only one I couldn’t have out all the time to look at while I worked.”

“Why not?” she asked as he carried the square canvas toward her. 

“Because of this,” he said, flipping it around and showing it to her.

Anna’s hand went to her mouth and her eyes grew wide.  She touched the canvas in several places, looking at her finger. 

“It’s dry,” he said.  “I didn’t paint this the other day after I saw you; I painted it almost ten years ago when I was just over fifteen, like I said.”

“How could you have done this?” she demanded quietly.  “I thought you have never been to Festival.”“I had never been.  And I’ve never been to Aldeia.  This all came out of my dreams.”

She took it out of his hand and held it out, looking it up and down, her lips trembling as she tried to come to grips with it.

Her hair was down, the deep red that she’d lived with her entire life almost jumping off the canvas it was so radiant.  Her piercing green eyes stared back at her from the painting, as she trailed her fingers down the painting.  The delicate, hand-embroidered butterflies were exactly as they appeared on the mint green dress, the pinstripes so tiny that she could only see them if she turned the canvas just right so that the light hit the pigments that he’d blended so expertly. 

At her throat, the butterfly pendant that he had bought her the day before, with the exact colors of the one that she wore in that very moment. 

She was shaking, turning over the painting and reading the inscription on the back.  Shaking her head in disbelief, she went to each of the paintings, reading the backs of them, her hands visibly shaking now, her breathing ragged.

“This can’t be happening,” she said.  When she got to the first painting, she turned it over and scowled.  “I don’t understand,” she said. 

“Which part?” he asked, his voice maddeningly calm as she struggled to hold herself together.

“You painted all of these on December fifteenth.  Not in the same year, but always on that day.”

“I did,” he confirmed with a nod.

“Eli, you painted these on my birthday.  You painted these on my birthday.  And the last one you painted on my fifteenth birthday ten years ago this winter.”

“I did,” he said again.

“Why would you only paint on my birthday?”

He shrugged.

She went back to the last painting; the one that showed her exactly as she had been when Eli had saved her from the villagers in the forest, flipping it over and reading the inscription again.  There was something written under her thumb that she hadn’t noticed before.  Curious, she used one hand to hold the canvas so she could move her thumb and read the word that was there. 

She almost dropped the painting when she did, looking up at him with tears that were a mix of fear and awe.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“How did I know what?” he pushed, though it was obvious that he knew exactly what she meant.

“How did you know that my real name was Annabelle?”