The air in the upstairs gallery had a peculiar smell; something like hot dust. It caught in the back of Jamie’s throat and prickled. A PA system nearby crackled into life and a polite voice asked visitors to evacuate this section of the building – something about a fault with the air conditioning – but Jamie wasn’t listening, because there she was.
The girl from the steps, striding through the room full of Raphael’s paintings – impossibly confident; her coat flying behind her like a battle flag. She swept past him without a second glance and disappeared into room sixty-one.
Jamie watched the tourists shuffling past him in the opposite direction, heading back towards the stairs. And then he looked at the empty doorway she had walked through.
“Once again, we request that all visitors please evacuate this section of the building via the nearest exit. This area of the gallery is now closed. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
With one last look at the exit, Jamie took a deep breath and headed for room sixty-one.
The girl had stopped in front of one of the Busati oil paintings. If she heard him come in, she didn’t show it. Jamie cleared his throat, not entirely voluntarily: the hot dusty smell was stronger in this room, and the air felt thicker and heavier – like the morning after Bonfire Night.
She still didn’t seem to know he was there, and it didn’t look like she was planning on leaving any time soon; she was studying the painting closely, while pulling on a pair of delicate red leather gloves.
Jamie cleared his throat again. “Hi…” he said.
She looked round at him, her long dark hair flowing across her back as she turned, and she smiled. “You might want to get down.”
“I’m sorry…?”
“Get. Down.” She pointed to a bench in the middle of the room as she turned away again, her attention already elsewhere.
“The bench? You want me to… What is that?”
He’d been hearing a faint hissing noise since he stepped into room sixty-one. Mostly he’d ignored it, assuming it was something to do with the faulty air conditioning… But now, it was louder. Nearer. And it didn’t sound so much like air, as like sand running through an hourglass.
“Actually, I really think you should leave.” Her back was to him, and her floor-length coat blocked his view of most of the painting – but not all of it. And even from where he was standing, he could see what was happening.
One of the two little cherubs painted at the bottom of the panel was…disintegrating. There was no other word for it – as he watched, pieces of it seemed to crack and collapse, turning to dust and tumbling out of the frame to land in a neat pile on the floor.
“The painting…” He couldn’t manage any more than that: his voice simply stopped working. But the painting! Something was wrong with the painting – it bulged outwards in the centre, as though the paint was trying to pull itself away from the canvas it was bound to.
As though something was trapped behind it, and was forcing its way out.
“Are you still here?” She had to raise her voice over the noise now, which had climbed from a hiss to a steady howl. Jamie opened and closed his mouth in protest, but nothing came out.
The girl shook her head and reached under her coat, pulling out a small, battered brown leather pouch on a long cord which she slung around her neck and across her body. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you…” She tugged the little bag open and reached in, pulling out a handful of black powder that trickled to the floor from between her gloved fingers.
The painting bulged even further; the roar around them was joined by the sound of splintering wood… And as Jamie dived for cover under the bench, the girl threw her handful of powder into the air.
When, later, Jamie looked back at what happened in that room, he could never explain it – not even when he knew precisely what she’d done. Because the first time he saw Lizzie at work was the first time he ever believed in magic.
The black powder hung there. It did not fall or drift; it simply stayed, even in the wind that seemed to have come from nowhere and was whipping her hair out in long, straight lines. From his spot under the bench, Jamie watched her lean into the gale, pull out another handful of dust from her bag and launch it into the air – where, just like the first, it hung motionless – and he watched the painting creak outwards, a long split appearing down the centre of it like doors waiting to open.
This can’t possibly be real. It can’t.
And just when he thought it couldn’t get any stranger, she started to draw in the air; her fist making huge, sweeping strokes through the black cloud as she moved. It was like watching a dance, like watching an artist sketch on a giant canvas. She whirled this way and that, and everywhere her hands touched the air, it lit up.
The dust sparked, turning from black to brightest white until the air was thick with stars – a whole miniature cosmos hanging in the gallery – and, in the middle of it all, she stopped, and glanced over her shoulder…and winked at him.
And then she clapped her hands and everything – the room, the world, Jamie’s whole life until that point – was lost in blinding, blinding light.
Piecekeepers is Haydn Swift’s debut novel. Haydn enjoys reading, writing and spends most of his time travelling between Bath and London.