In a dark, swampy forest that sunlight never reached, past gnarled cypress trees and the hoarse croaking of bullfrogs, there was once a lonely mansion. The home of the happy Arcni family. Salem, the eldest. Vaughn, the middle. Lebetsa, the youngest. Three happy sisters.
Salem was strict and firm. The matriarch of the family, having taken the role upon herself following the death of their parents ten years prior. She oversaw most of the mansion’s affairs, and made sure her sisters were well-fed. Vaughn was flighty, a bit scatterbrained, but always sharp when the time came to focus on an important task at hand. The eldest sisters were painters, who believed to paint was to live, and to suggest otherwise was an insult to their family. Lebetsa, timid and shy, did not share their ardent passion. Mastering the piano, playing melodies that would move and inspire awe in the masses. She believed that was her calling, and wished to one day write and perform her own music. This was to the great displeasure of her sisters.
“Do you understand? Painting is our purpose. Our reason to be.” Salem would crow again and again. “If you cannot capture the essence of life on a canvas, what good is your life, then?”
Painting was the family’s tradition, and had been so since time immemorial. It was not uncommon for the work of an Arcni to receive the highest accolades imaginable, with the expectation that they would inspire countless artists for generations to come. Salem’s most recently finished abstract piece, “What The Fire Sees,” had been sold for a lavish price at a high-end auction, and Vaughn was set to have her “Melancholia” collection soon displayed in worldwide exhibitions. They believed that Lebetsa was meant for a similar life of greatness, and so every day for five hours at a time, they sat her down in front of a blank canvas and stuck a brush between her fingers. And every day for five hours at a time, Lebetsa mourned all the time she could have spent practicing songs, humming sweetly along to the tunes the keys would sing out each time she pressed them. But even so, she painted. She hoped to make her sisters proud.
In moments of instruction and demonstration, Lebetsa would watch the way her sisters held their brushes. Their motions were graceful, effortless. The colors blended magnificently, and they brought any matter of subjects to life with ease. Even young Lebetsa could understand she was watching masters of their craft at work. But she, on the other hand, was clumsy. Her hand, unsteady, her compositions, lacking. There was always something missing, a fact her sisters never failed to remind her of. Again and again, Vaughn would ask if she was truly paying attention, if painting was truly that important to her. Lebetsa answered with honesty every time.
“Yes, sister. I wish to make you and Salem proud.”
And every time, Vaughn would frown disapprovingly before resuming the lesson. Such unconcealed disappointment felt like a knife to an open wound in Lebetsa’s heart. The look in Vaughn’s eyes never left her mind.
“Why do they look at me like that?”
Lebetsa wanted to prove herself more than anything. She soon began a personal project, one she kept hidden from her sisters. She took notes during lessons, studied color theory, tone, and rhythm, and closely analyzed the works of famous painters. She continued to practice more and more, hoping to at least keep a steady hand throughout her efforts. Her lessons were already taxing enough, and she knew she was losing more and more precious time that could be spent on piano. But she believed such sacrifices would be worth it in the end, if only she could please her sisters with her work, if only she could be looked at as if she were more than a mere insect, if only just this once.
At last, the painting was complete. The title, “Happy Family.” It was a portrait of Lebetsa and her sisters, done primarily from memory and photographs, as to use her sisters as live subjects would ruin the surprise. She eagerly guided them to the studio, confident they would finally recognize her efforts. Upon viewing the finished work, Salem pursed her lip, and furrowed her brow. Vaughn’s arms were crossed, and she looked bemused. The silence in the air was suffocating. Lebetsa was grateful when Salem finally broke it, but her gratitude quickly vanished once she heard Salem’s words.
“Hm… I find it a bit pedestrian. As per usual, your colors are rubbish. And your choice not to use us as live subjects was a foolish one. You utterly failed to capture our likeness. I would suggest a do-over, Lebetsa.”
That selfsame look from before. Eyes full of discontent. The wound in Lebetsa’s heart grew in freshness and size. Yet still did she love her sisters. She truly did. A tiny part of her envied them, also. And an even tinier, so easily unnoticed part of her absolutely despised them.
That was why, when Lebetsa learned one fateful night that both of her elder sisters had passed away in an accident while on a business trip abroad, a thought crossed her mind. Only for a moment, and it left as quickly as it arrived.
“Ah, what a relief.”
Sickness with herself soon consumed her entire being. She wanted to vomit. How could she be so cruel? They were her sisters, who had looked after and cared for her since their parents had passed all those years ago. She was sure they loved her. They must have cherished her. But then, Lebetsa felt eyes boring into her skull, and thought of how they looked at her. That look. That look in their eyes, always so disapproving and full of disdain, always singing her inadequacies to the high heavens. Always, always, always disappointed. Even in their absence, Lebetsa could see it. Watching her every move.
Lebetsa held her head in her hands, pressed fingers deep into her temple, and felt something within her break. And thus did she make the decision to continue what was expected of her. She painted.
She painted, and painted, and painted. She painted until her nails cracked. She painted until her fingers bled. She painted until oil coated her hair and skin. The studio had become her new living quarters; to reside anywhere else was unthinkable. Every moment was one that was wasted if not spent on painting. Yet none of it was anywhere near enough. There was always a spot that needed touching up, always some tiny little error that ruined the composition. It was never, ever enough.
Eventually, the mansion itself had become her canvas. She grabbed every bucket or tube of paint she could find, and began to spread them out in every inch of the mansion. Anything within her sight was an opportunity to paint, to capture the essence of life, to express herself and her emotions. She forsook her brushes, and began painting with her hands. Paint had begun to seep into her dry, cracked fingers, but it was of no concern to her. A splash of mahogany on the dining table. Jade, for Salem’s study. Maybe a bit of lilac for the library? It mattered not. Indiscriminate, wild creativity was all she had left. Had she ever had anything else to begin with?
When she finished coating the parlor, she grabbed a poker from the fireplace, and dragged it against the fur carpet she had slathered in various shades of maroon, shuffling towards the piano her sisters had forbidden her from playing. She had once adored that piano, and remembered all the nights she snuck into the parlor to quietly play it. How sweet every press of a key felt, how joyous it was to initiate understanding and conversation between her and the music she played. And then she remembered Salem’s words when she was eventually caught, the scolding that haunted her like a ghost that clung to her heart.
“Enough with this foolishness. It isn’t meant for you. It never will be.”
Perhaps she was right. Perhaps it had always been nothing more than a decoration. A mere distraction, a reminder of what could never be. Lebetsa raised the poker into the air before swinging it down into the keys. The sound was horrid. Out of tune, out of key, never good enough. Lebetsa had heard it countless times before; she knew it well. She laughed, or possibly screamed, until her voice was hoarse, swinging the poker up and down again and again, transfiguring a mess of wood, strings and scattered keys. As the piano began to fall apart, Lebetsa made a wish deep within her heart. A wish that if only then, upon the destruction of the worthless thing, they would finally, finally stop looking at her like that.
She collapsed once it was over, heaving as she stared at the ruins of what was once her beloved piano. Scattered pieces of it had been splashed with color from the carpet. It could be likened to an abstract painting, the kind her sisters had painted in front of her again and again. Tears streamed down her face, and she smiled.
Lebetsa was sure her sisters would be proud.