The paintings I'd glimpsed in promotional materials featured a mastery of light and shadow that seemed almost supernatural, as if Bishop had discovered ways to manipulate darkness itself. Faces emerged from blackness with an unsettling intimacy, every subject caught in moments of profound revelation or quiethorror. They reminded me of something I couldn't quite place. Something I'd seen before I learned to look away.
I checked my watch. I had just enough time to shower and change before meeting the man who could either elevate my career or destroy it with a dismissive glance.
The hot water sluiced over my body, and I closed my eyes, trying to center myself. Instead, unbidden, the image of my mother came rushing back. I squeezed my eyes shut as images of her body suspended above the kitchen floor flashed through my mind. The overturned chair. The strange blue-gray of her skin. The absolute stillness that had seemed so wrong in someone normally so frenzied.
I'd stood there for nearly an hour, just watching her. Not screaming, not running for help. Just... observing. It was almost comforting to see the way death transformed her anxious features into something peaceful. In life, she’d been so sad, so busy, so…angry. But now, there was only peace.
I spent the entire long weekend in the apartment while she hung there. I slept on the couch where I could still see her, eating cereal dry because I knew opening the refrigerator door would disturb the scene. Even at eight, I'd known something was wrong with me, but I couldn’t help it.
It wasn't until Monday, when my teacher asked why I hadn't completed my weekend math worksheet, that I finally spoke the words: "My mom is hanging from the ceiling fan, and I can't reach her to cut her down."
I shook myself from the memory, turning off the shower with shaky hands. All the years of therapy, medication, and careful self-monitoring had taught me to function. To appear normal, even exceptional in certain contexts. My grandmother's rigid religious structure had provided a framework for containing whatever darkness had begun growing in me that weekend. Art had given it a sanctioned outlet.
And now Professor Bishop had seen something in my work that others missed. Something that made him choose me specifically from dozens of technically proficient graduate students.
That thought both thrilled and terrified me.
I dressed in dark jeans and the slate-blue button-down that my last boyfriend said brought out my eyes. After a glance around the room, I picked up my blazer off the back of my chair and shrugged it on before going to the mirror. I practiced my expression, the one that made people feel comfortable enough to maintain eye contact.
"Just be yourself," I murmured, then laughed humorlessly at the absurdity of that advice. No one wanted me to be myself. Not really. Even I didn't want that.
The campus quad was busy with first-day activity as I walked to the Fine Arts building. Students lounged on the grass, professors hurried between buildings with coffee cups and leather portfolios. Normal life unfolded all around, oblivious to the effort it took me to appear part of it.
The familiar itch crawled beneath my skin, the restlessness that signaled danger. Sometimes I imagined it as a shadow self, pressing outward against my carefully constructed exterior, looking for cracks. On bad days, I could almost feel it moving inside me, restless and hungry. Today it was especially active, perhaps responding to my anxiety about meeting Professor Bishop.
I entered his office precisely at 10:00, knocking softly on the open door. The space was immaculate. His white walls were adorned with a few pieces, most notably a small, haunting portrait that appeared to be an original Goya. Books lined custom shelves, organized by color. The desk was polished walnut, its surface holding only a leather portfolio, a silver pen, and a small, abstract sculpture that appeared to be bone or ivory.
The man himself stood by the window, his back to me, tall and still, a silhouette against the morning light.
"Micah Salt," he said without turning, my name in his mouth sounding like an invocation. "Your punctuality is appreciated."
He turned then, and the full force of his attention struck me like a fist, driving the air from my lungs. I'd seen Professor Bishop before, of course. At faculty exhibitions, in hallways, always from a distance. But never like this, never with his full focus directed solely at me.
His eyes were the pale gray of winter mornings, penetrating and unblinking. They didn't merely observe; they consumed. For one dizzying moment, it was as though he could see past bone and tissue to the very essence of what I was, what I'd always been, and found it not wanting, but worthy.
"Thank you for selecting me, Professor," I managed. "It's an honor."
"Is it?" The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, revealing the edge of a canine tooth. "Tell me, Micah, what do you know about my work?"
I'd prepared for this question, rehearsed an intelligent analysis that would showcase my understanding without seeming sycophantic. Instead, what came out was the raw truth.
"It scares me," I said. "Not because it's frightening, but because it feels... familiar. Like you've captured something most people never see or refuse to see." I paused, the words rising unbidden. "It's as though you've found a way to paint what exists beneath the skin of the world."
He went very still. The air between us seemed to crackle with a strange electricity, a recognition that transcended the boundaries of student and teacher.
"You see it," he said softly, the words more statement than question. "Most look at my work and see only technical prowess. Light and shadow. Composition." His lips curved intoa smile that never reached his eyes. "But you perceive what lies beneath."
He moved with liquid smoothness to sit behind his desk, gesturing for me to take the chair opposite. "Your triptych," he continued, "the one that caused such controversy last semester. Tell me why you destroyed the face of Christ."
I sat, grateful for the solid wood beneath me as the memory resurfaced. The night I'd completed that piece had been dangerous. One of the bad ones where the shadow pressed so hard against my skin I feared it might split me open.
"It wasn't destruction," I said carefully. "It was honesty. The face I painted was too... contained. Too peaceful. It felt false."
"False how?" His voice was neutral, but his eyes never left mine.
"Divinity isn't serene. It's terrible." The words felt pulled from some deep place inside me. "When Moses asked to see God's face, he was told it would kill him. He was only allowed to see God's back as He passed by. The divine isn't meant to be looked at directly."
"So you created the void."
