Solo The Spiritual Art

[Madeira Dusk]

89th of Fall, 517

Madeira rapt the knocker smartly on the door of the squat little manor. It was a heavy brass thing made to look like a snarling, highly stylized gargoyle, set within a handsome mahogany door edged in filigree. Perhaps Ionu shared her opinion that the whole thing
was ostentatious, because the knocker made a squeaky noise like a rubber duck at her knock.

Almost immediately the heavy door flew open.

"Oh Miss Craven! Thank you for coming!"

A pretty human woman around her own age, dressed in a bonnet and a maids starched uniform, ushered her in with a hasty bow. She took the cloak from her shoulders and hung it on a stand by the door, but the Spiritist silently insisted on keeping her rucksack on her. The inside of the manor was quite as over-the-top as the exterior. The foyer was a riot of colour. From the paintings in elaborate frames that hung from every available wall space, to the soft furnishings and decorative plants that were all draped in discarded pieces of flamboyant clothing, as if the wearer got bored of them halfway out
the door.

"May I get you some refreshment? Some tea, perhaps?" she continued, and Madeira couldn't help but notice the way her hands trailed nervously over the fraying edges of her long brown braid.

"No, thank you, that's quite alright. Perhaps you should be announcing my arrival to the master of the house?" she pointed out gently. “I'm expected."

"Oh." at this the maid's ears began to glow a startling shade of red. "Oh. Actually, he doesn't know you've been summoned. I- I was the one who sent the letter..."

Madeira stared. The maid began to fidget even more uncomfortably under her pale gaze. Finally, the Spiritist stuck out her hand to shake.

"I think I will have that tea after all, Miss...?"

"Abagail." the maid smiled in relief and shook her hand. "The parlour is this way. We won't be disturbed, the master is painting in his studio..."

Word Count: 335

[Madeira Dusk]

Several chimes later Madeira had arranged herself on an overstuffed armchair, her teacup balanced on her knee and her notebook open across her thighs. Abagail sat across from her on a threadbare poof, nervously chewing on the end of her braid and shooting furtive glances to the ceiling, where the muffled sound of pacing footsteps echoed.

"You're Master, Mister Bottiroli was it? He's a pretty prolific painter, it looks like." Madeira started, trying to ease gently into the conversation. The parlour was just as crammed with art as the foyer. "I think I might have heard the name..."

Abigail fidgeted, her tea growing cold and untouched beside her.

"Well, I doubt you've heard of him. The thing is, Miss, is that the master is not a very good painter." She smiled nervously at her own boldness. "He never sold a single painting, not until last season. He's inherited this house, and me, from his late parents. And a fair bit of money, so I understand..."

"But he sold one last season?" she prodded.

"No, he sold dozens last season." Abigail leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "It just... happened. He was suddenly, well, good."

"Thats unusual, but not exactly suspicious. Could he have just gotten better at painting?"

"That's what everyone thinks. But Miss, something is wrong. He was fine at first. I mean, he's always been obsessive, but nothing was really out of the ordinary. But a few weeks ago he just kind of… stopped. He doesn't leave the studio, he hardly eats. He hasn't
finished a single painting. He's just been painting and scrapping this same artwork, over and over again."

Smiling sadly, Madeira closed her book and set down her tea.

"You're worried about him, I understand. That's really alarming behaviour. But Abigail, I see nothing here that I can help with. Perhaps you need to speak with someone at the Mercy? I'm sure they can help with his-"

Sensing she was losing her guest's interest, Abigail spoke over her.

"No, no, you don't understand! He talks to his 'muse', like it's a tangible thing! He's been painting the walls, his body, his guests-. Miss Craven please don't go!"

Madeira was already on her feet.

"I'll see if I can find the Mercy today and speak to a healer there. If he won't see them maybe I can convince them to make a housecall..."

"He-he's forcing himself to eat paint!"

Madeira stopped. Abigail was on her feet now too; her brown eyes wide and her hands half extended like she was about to snatch at her last retreating hope. The Spiritist narrowed her eyes at the teary maid, her expression calculating.

"What do you mean, he's forcing himself to eat it?"

The young maid pressed her advantage, speaking fast.

"It's like his hands just do it automatically", she explained, and Madeira could tell she was sensationalizing it to try and keep her attention. "He'll just be standing there, talking to me and painting, and the tube will be halfway to his mouth before he realizes what he’s doing. And he'll try to spit it out, or turn his head away, but he’ll still be squeezing it into his mouth at the same time."

Madeira paused, thinking hard. "...Have you ever asked why he does it?"

"Afterwards... Afterwards he says he needs the colour inside himself. To feed his muse."

There was a long, loaded silence.

"I think your mister Bottiroli and I need to chat."


Word Count: 581

[Madeira Dusk]

Several chimes later, Abigail was knocking tentatively on a heavy door in an upstairs corridor while Madeira waited behind her.

"Master?" she called through the keyhole. "Master, theres someone here to see you..."

"No!" came a muffled voice from the other side, sounding frustrated and distracted. "Tell whoever it is to beat it. I'm a busy man!" There was the sound of ripping paper and a vicious string of curses.

"But sir", Abigail continued doggedly, shouting over the stream of profanity. “She's here to help you with your... With your problem, sir! If you would just-"

With a sigh, Madeira put a hand on the girl's shoulder and gently steered her away. And before Abigail's horrified eyes the Spiritist threw the door open and barged uninvited into the studio.

"Hello, mister Bottiroli." she strode forward, offering the painter her hand and a genial smile. "My name is Madeira Craven."

It looked like a bomb had gone off in the large, high ceilinged room. A bomb filled with paint and half a dozen angry cats. Paint speckled up every wall, and whatever colour the floor might have been was lost under smears of a million different colours. The three tall windows were boarded with black paper, leaving the room bathed in the lights of an elaborate crystal chandelier and the hundred colourful candles crammed onto every surface. And everywhere was the same picture in various stages of completion; a ballet couple caught in a sweet and innocent kiss. Every one shredded and mutilated.

The painter himself was hidden behind a scruffy two-week beard that covered a youthful face. What might have once been a fashionable, elaborate hairstyle had grown long and greasy. He was barefoot and shirtless, covered only in half-dried oil paint and long linen pants. He was standing in front of a blank canvas that was just starting to bloom with colour under his loaded brush. And he continued to paint unimpeded even as he was staring at Madeira's offered hand like it was something foul.

"What are you doing in my house? Craven, was it? You people think you can just barge into people's houses now, huh? Huh?! Well get lost. I’m busy!" He turned resolutely back to his work, as if she were no longer there.

Madeira was not discouraged, but retracted her hand and took to wandering around the room instead. She bent low over the destroyed bits of art and studied them curiously. There did not seem to be any deviations in colour or angle or subject. It was the same painting, done a hundred times. She brushed some scraps of canvas off a paint smeared end table tucked against the wall and put her rucksack down.

"Sir, there are some people out there who are very worried about you. They think you might not be under your own influence." Madeira said evenly as Abigail scurried into the room. "I suspect your recent surge in talent might be the work of a ghost."

"Well, those people", he shot a dirty look at his maid, "should mind their own business. I knew the doubters would come! I am finally being recognized and appreciated as the artist I am, and people like you are coming to tear me down!" he accused the Spiritist with a dramatic waver in his voice. "Say that again and I'll throw you out! Craven or not, nobody speaks to me that way in my own house!"

"Ok." Madeira stepped closer, within arms reach of the livid painter. "Throw me out."

"What?"

"I'm taking you up on that threat." she explained patiently. "Throw me out."

His hands continued to flourish across the canvas, pausing only to dip into the pallet in his left hand.

“I’m busy", he hissed under his breath.

"No, you can't." Madeira huffed, exasperated. “You're possessed, Bottiroli. Whether you want to believe it or not." She turned to the maid, who looked equal parts worried and vindicated.

"Abigail, can you fetch some things for me?"

"Oh, yes, of course!" she looked startled at being addressed, but stepped forward eagerly.

"I need alcohol, the medical stuff. Or the drinking kind, if that's all you have. As well as a mallet, a sturdy length of rope and a heavy blanket. Can you do that for me?"

If she was puzzled by the strange request, she didn't show it. Abigail nodded once and hurried away, the sound of her sensible shoes fading down the hall. Madeira turned to her rucksack and pulled out ten heavy iron nails and a jar of black dough.

"Has the spirit tried to speak to you?" she asked the painter, ignoring the waves of loathing that radiated off his hunched shoulders.

"I'm not possessed!"

"Maybe you've been speaking in languages you don't know?" she continued, ignoring him. "Or finding objects in your house in places they shouldn’t be? Anything out of the ordinary. Cold spots, unusual smells, anything?”


Word Count: 820

[Madeira Dusk]

At that, he actually laughed. It was loud, booming bark of a laugh that echoed back off the high ceiling, ferociously gleeful.

"No! Nothing! You're wrong after all!"

And he sounded so sure that Madeira was taken aback. Was her first instinct correct, and the man was just afflicted with the artists sickness? Consumed with doubt, she fished distractedly for a lumpy sphere of black dough from the jar and pushed it into her mouth. From behind her came a sound of ripping canvas.

"No, no, no no." the artist snarled, slicing his barely begun painting with a pallet knife and flinging it aside in disgust. He muttered mutinously to himself as he dragged a fresh canvas onto his easel.

Working the sour dough around her mouth, Madeira retrieved the abandoned painting. It was the same dancing couple, or what was just becoming them. It was no more than a suggestion of colour and form, but she could easily see the resemblance to the discarded litter around them. She swallowed her mouthful of dough nosily, her pale
eyebrows moving together in a crease of confusion.

"Why do you throw these away?", she asked, dropping the unfinished painting in her hand and examining one that had been a bit closer to being finished. It was beautiful, and somehow sad. The background was done in thick strokes of blurred colour, as if the setting could not matter less. The focus was on the young couple and their tender kiss. They seemed to glow from within, radiating peace in the chaos of colour.

"An artist's mind is a complicated, many layered thing", he scoffed. "I do not expect a mundane mind to understand."

Madeira closed her eyes and gathered herself, letting her irritation simmer down before beginning the process of making soulmist. She gathered her strong, healthy soul around the dough in her gut, let it leech into the carefully prepared solution. As her concentration centred on this process, she let part of her mind wander back to the candlelit room and disturbed artist. It wouldn't do to get him angry and defensive again. He was unbearably proud. Perhaps he would be weak to flattery.

"Of course", she conceded gracefully, though she rolled her eyes behind his back. "I just mean to say that these are all... Well, they're all lovely. It's a waste to see them like this."

"I don't work with lovely" he huffed contemptuously. "I bring disaster and light and joy and hate and give them form! I am an illustrator of the extraordinary! This- this thing is a blight on my illustrious work!"


Word Count: 434

[Madeira Dusk]

"Mh-hm", she hummed noncommittally. Her mind was turning inward for the last, crucial part of the soulmist production. The detached piece of her soul soaked into the dough was dying. Not longer attached to her living body it was turning to the etherial mist that ghost were made of. A chilling coolness pervaded her belly, and she knew she was done. Bringing her hands to her mouth she gave a wet, hacking cough. A swirling, half-corporeal and gently glowing substance came away in her cupped hands.

She brought it to the little table and began imbuing her nails one by one.

"If you detest it so much, why do you keep painting it?"

"Girl, an artist's mind is-"

"Unfathomable, I'm sure", she replied shortly, unable to keep the frustration out of her voice. "But maybe you can explain it to me in words I can understand. Maybe I can glimpse these greater workings that people like you dwell on..." Worried she was laying it on too thick, she looked up from her work. But he seemed to be taking her probing interest as admiration, and consider her words before answering.

"Art cannot be forced. You must sit back and let the muse take hold of you. It requires a certain blankness of mind, an emptiness so that the beauty and darkness can reveal itself to you!"

Madeira stared hard at his back, her interest piqued. That sounded awfully familiar...

"But when that artistic passion, that muse, takes hold of you, you relinquish control. I can barely bring myself to stop once it takes hold. I must bring the art to fruition, not for my sake, but for the sake of my craft!"

Possession, she realized. He was describing ghost possession. But to be a successful medium took years of practise! How did this nobody artist not only completely skip the trauma of having his soul violated, but not even realize it was happening? Still happening?!

"But my passion, my muse, has taken me to strange places. This scene, this-" his lip curled, "lovely work has been in my hands for weeks. I can't get over it, can't move on..." At once the artist seemed to deflate before her. For the first time, he looked tired. "But I am master of my art. Something will come to me. Something else. I must persevere!"


Word Count: 392

[Madeira Dusk]

Grades Awarded!

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Madeira Craven

Skills

• Socialization: 4xp
• Investigation: 3xp
• Leadership: 1xp
• Spiritism: 1xp
• Persuasion: 1xp

Lores

• Socialization: pleasantries
• People: Abagail the maid
• People: master painter Bottiroli
• Spiritism: signs of a possession
• Investigation: using leading question
• Investigation: finding clues
• Leadership: delegation
• Persuasion: appealing to vanity

Awards & Retribution


Notes