The suggestion was reasonable. Yet beneath it, I sensed something more. The practical part of me knew I should decline. But another part—the part that had watched my mother's transformation with fascination rather than horror, the part that destroyed my own best work to access something deeper—leaned toward his offer with hunger.
"I'd like that," I said, the words becoming a refrain between us, a surrender thinly disguised as choice.
As we finished breakfast, Ezra reached out to press gently on the knot of muscle at the base of my neck. "You tense your shoulders when discussing your own work, as if preparing to defend against attack. Try to be conscious of that tendency."
I straightened automatically under his hand, responding to the implicit command in his tone.
"Good boy," he murmured. "Much better."
The praise affected me more than it should have, warming something cold and lonely inside me. The shadow within me responded to it, unfurling with almost sensual pleasure at being seen and acknowledged.
After breakfast, Ezra led me toward the studio. As we passed through a corridor, my attention was caught by a door unlike the others. While the rest of the house featured sleek, modern design, this door was older, heavy wood with an unusual lock. It seemed out of place, as if belonging to a different building entirely.
"What's through there?" I asked.
"Storage. This house is older than it appears from the renovation. That door leads to the original cellar. Nothing of interest." He placed a hand lightly on my lower back, guiding me forward. "The studio is this way."
The studio was as spotless as I remembered. But something had changed. The black cloth that had covered the canvas on the easel in the corner had been removed.
I stopped in the doorway, stunned. The painting depicted a human figure in transformation, skin peeling away to reveal something luminous beneath. The technique was unlike anything I'd seen before, areas of the canvas possessing a dimensional quality that seemed to shift as I moved.
"This is..." I struggled for words.
"A study for the final piece in my exhibition. Still incomplete."
Up close, the textural elements became more apparent. The strange glow I'd noticed in his living room paintings was even more pronounced here.
"How do you achieve this effect?" I asked. "It almost seems alive."
"Because it is, in a sense," Ezra replied, his voice dropping. "Or was. That's the technique I wanted to show you today." He moved to a cabinet, unlocking it with a key. "True art isn't created, Micah. It's transformed."
From the cabinet, he removed a small jar containing a fine, pearl-gray powder. "This is where conventional materials fail us. They're dead, inert. They can mimic life but never capture its essence."
"What is it?"
"Bone ash," he said simply. "But not commercial grade. This is prepared by hand through a specific process that preserves certain properties."
The powder caught the light strangely. I should have been repulsed. Instead, I found myself captivated. "Animal bone?"
"Human," he said, watching my reaction carefully. "Ethically sourced, of course."
I should have been horrified. Instead, I felt a terrible familiarity, an echo of the fascination I'd experienced watching my mother's body change over those three days.
"You incorporate human remains into your art," I said, confirming what I'd already sensed in the strange glow of his paintings.
"I transform what would otherwise be wasted," he corrected gently. "Each specimen provides something unique, a quality that can't be replicated artificially. Does this disturb you, Micah?"
It was a test of how far I’d follow him.
"No," I admitted. "It makes sense to me."
His smile sent a shiver through me. "I thought it might. You've been seeking this your whole life, haven't you? Since those three days with your mother. A way to capture transformation, to make permanent what's inherently temporary. Would you like to try?" he asked, indicating the jar.
"Yes," I said, the decision both terrible and exhilarating. "Show me."
Ezra mixed a small amount of bone ash with oil. He guided my hand, showing me how to apply it to a prepared canvas. His fingers enclosed mine, warm and strong, gently directing my movements.
The powder clung to my fingertips like ash from a holy fire. It reminded me of the flaking skin on my mother’s hands near the end—fragile, shedding like something becoming unmade.
