Early Summer, The Portrait I Do Not Remember Painting

I uncovered one of the older canvases tonight despite having promised myself that I would leave the western hall undisturbed for a while.

That corridor has become increasingly uncomfortable to walk through over the past few weeks. The covered paintings lining the walls possess a peculiar stillness that is difficult to describe. Each draped frame gives the impression of entering a room where a conversation has only just ended, leaving behind the quiet certainty that someone had been there moments before you arrived. I usually avoid looking at them altogether, but this evening curiosity proved stronger than good judgement. Perhaps loneliness played its part as well. I am beginning to suspect the two are not entirely different things here.

The rain finally ended today after nearly four days of storms, and the Archive felt warmer than it has in some time. I carried a pot of tea into the western hall shortly after dusk intending only to move a few of the older canvases away from the damp outer wall before the frames suffered any lasting damage. It seemed like the sort of ordinary conservation work that would occupy both my hands and my thoughts for an hour or two.

Clio accompanied me, although with noticeably less enthusiasm than usual.

She lingered near the entrance for some time before reluctantly following me farther inside, never quite relaxing in the way she normally does. Muninn refused to enter the hall altogether. I saw him watching from the rafters outside, but he made no attempt to follow us.

The painting drew my attention almost immediately because it was resting against the wall with the canvas turned inward, unlike every other portrait stored there.

Before I removed the cloth, I found myself overcome by the peculiar certainty that I had seen it before.

Not recently.

Long ago.

The feeling resembled those moments when an almost-forgotten memory begins to return without yet revealing itself completely. I could not explain why the canvas felt familiar beneath my hands, only that it did.

When I finally uncovered it, I discovered an unfinished portrait.

At least, I believe it was unfinished.

The lower half remained little more than charcoal construction lines and muted underpainting, yet the face had been completed with remarkable care beneath layers of varnish that had darkened gently with age. The subject was unmistakably me.

Or someone remarkably like me.

The face appeared younger, although that may not be entirely accurate. It seemed less burdened somehow, wearing an expression of quiet contentment that I struggled to recognise as my own. I cannot remember the last time I looked so entirely at peace.

I remained seated before the portrait for quite some time.

The longer I studied it, the more unfamiliar details began to reveal themselves. A simple ring rested against one hand, though I have no recollection of ever owning it. Behind the figure, warm lantern light reflected across wet stone as though the portrait had been painted somewhere beneath the Archive rather than within it. Woven carefully through my hair were small black flowers unlike any I have ever preserved in the conservatory.

They resembled the flowers described throughout the old botanical journals.

The ones that bloom only below.

Clio never approached the painting.

Throughout the evening she remained quietly near the doorway, watching me with the same attentive concern she often shows during violent storms. Several times I called her gently, but she seemed unwilling to come any closer.

Eventually my attention shifted from the portrait itself to the brushwork surrounding the lower corner of the canvas. There, beneath the final layers of dried paint, I noticed faint scratches pressed into the underpainting before the oils had fully cured.

They were words.

Written in my own handwriting.

Only two.

Third descent.

I do not know what they mean.

That is the explanation I continue giving myself.

Unfortunately, another part of me seems less uncertain than I would like to admit. The words possess the uncomfortable familiarity of something once understood so completely that only the understanding has been lost while the feeling remains.

Near midnight I covered the portrait once more and returned it to exactly the place where I had found it, facing the wall like the others. I did not feel as though I were hiding it. The gesture felt more like returning a sleeping thing to its rest until another day.

The western hall has remained unusually quiet ever since. Clio has scarcely left my side since we returned upstairs, while Muninn finally appeared only a short while ago carrying several black flower petals still damp from the evening rain. He placed them carefully beside my teacup before disappearing into the upper galleries without making a sound.

It was only while writing this entry that another detail occurred to me.

The portrait was completely dry when I uncovered it.

Not merely dry enough to touch, but aged in the quiet, unmistakable way that oil paintings become only after many years. The varnish had yellowed slightly, the darker pigments had settled into the weave of the canvas, and the surface possessed the gentle craquelure I have spent centuries learning to preserve.

It is not a recent painting.

I cannot explain how old it truly is, only that it is considerably older than I expected it to be.

The face, however, was unmistakably mine.

I have been trying to reconcile those two facts ever since.

— M