The painting- fiction friday

I’ve really struggled to get anything written this Friday since I spent the whole of yesterday cooking and I just always seem to be busy at the moment!!   However, I did love this weeks prompt and have a few ideas about this pice.  Let’s see what I can get written before my lovely husband gets back with our 6 month old daughter!!

Tilly couldn’t help but stare at the painting.  Despite the noise of excited bidders and the shouting from the auctioneer the painting seemed to transport her somehow.  The grey white topped mountains and the vast sky above.  The deep green of the valley below with the fresh smell of spring- she was sure she could hear the sound of birds and the timid step of a deer.  Her eyes were drawn to the log cabin again.  Just as they were last night before she’d spoken to her Mother.  There seemed to be a life inside the cabin- she’d tried to comprehend what she had seen.  She was sure that if she’d stare for long enough a person would walk by the window.  It had happened just before supper last night, she was sure it had.  She had tried to tell her Mother that the painting was magical in someway and that it shouldn’t be sold.  Her Mother had had the painting valued and she had explained,’ It’s worth a great deal of money Tilly and goodness do we need it.  We had no idea that we even had an Uncle Albert and for him to leave something of so much value to us we can’t just very well keep it’.  Tilly’s eyes had welled up because she knew that her Mother didn’t believe her, perhaps her eyes were playing tricks on her.  And now outside the auction room perhaps her Mother was right.

Tilly looked over to the lot number being held up by the auctioneer, ‘Next we have lot 179.  A very beautiful chest of drawers from the….’.  Tilly looked at the painting’s lot number,’ 183′.  Only 4 more lots to go.  They would need to wheel it away soon.  Why did it feel so real to her?  The painting was real, it felt real.  She lightly dusted the painting with her fingers.  It felt cold.  Ice cold.  She drew her hand away and frowned.  A boy came out of the log cabin.  Right in front of her eyes, he had come out!!  Tilly’s eyes got wide and she sheltered the painting from view.  Could this be happening?  She could see the boy beckoning her with his arms, he looked to be trying to say something to her.

Tilly looked over her shoulder quickly.  She could see her Mother making her way into the auction room, they would need the painting any minute.  Tilly couldn’t let that happen.  She knew in that moment that her whole life would change.  She had to stop the sale of the painting no matter what it’s worth.  She took hold of the wooden frame and began to lift it from it’s stand.  It felt incredibly light in her hand and a soft breeze from the valley moved her hair away from her ears. Where could she hide?  There were so many people around she started to walk slowly towards the entrance trying to remain calm.  Out of nowhere a man with a long brown beard stepped over to Tilly and the painting.  ’Can I ask where you think you’re taking the painting young lady?’.  Thinking on her feet all Tilly could reply with was, ‘I need to show it to an auctioneer, I think the frame may have been chipped on the way here-it…..it may have altered it’s value’.  The man frowned, ‘Let me have a look and I’ll tell you if it’s value has changed’.  All Tilly could do was hold the painting towards the man.  He held out his hands waiting for Tilly to give him the painting, but she couldn’t.  It was stuck.  Literally stuck to her hands.  The man tried to pull the painting from her but it wouldn’t budge.  His eyes became angry as he tried to shake the painting from her, ‘If you’re not careful you will end up in a lot of trouble young lady, now give me the painting!”  Somehow her feet were out of her control, just like her hands, and all she could do was run.

And so she did.  Backwards.  She ran and ran and before she knew it she was out of the door and in the street staring at the painting and out of breath.  All she could whisper to herself was ‘and what will mother say?’

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