"It's one of his unfinished works," Oskar informed me.
"His?"
"Richard Upton Pickman, of Boston. An obscure artist, but one who has attained a spectacular underground reputation. A majority of his works were destroyed by his father, just before the old man's suicide in 1937. This is one of the incomplete pieces that were discovered in an old section of Boston that was razed and used as a site for warehouses. One of the antique dwellings was apparently used by Pickman as a secret studio." Draining his glass, Oskar set it on top of an antique dressing table that served as bedside stand, and opening the table's single drawer he took from it an old sketchbook. "I found these and the painting in a shop in Salem some years ago."
We sat on the bed and I took hold of the ratty sketchbook. "So you're one of his fans?" Oskar shrugged. I slowly flipped through the pages of sketchings. Pickman had a fine sense of line, but his subjects were nauseating, just as disturbing as the abhorrent painting. "Ugh," I moaned, "the guy was really obsessed with that image of the hanged woman. But it's weird, because in all these other sketches he's drawn a semicircle of jackal things that resemble the freak in the foreground. There's no working sketch showing the three, whatever they are."
Oskar took the booklet from me and spoke in a cautious kind of way. "Yes, I think the Three Sisters, as I call them, are original to this one unfinished painting. The one completed oil is hanging in a bookshop in a valley town in the Northwest, and it's magnificent. It shows the semicircle of that dingo brood."
I stood again and studied the painted ghoul. "I've never seen such nauseous colors in oil. They're ghastly. How the hell am I supposed to sleep with that thing drooling over me?"
"You must admit that it's unique, Hank. Pickman followed the now discarded tradition of composing his own pigments. The effects are startling, I agree."
He was flipping through the sketchbook when a photograph that had been wedged between two leaves escaped and fell to the floor. I picked it up and studied the cuss's ugly mug. "Is that him?"
My new friend nodded. "Taken just before he vanished."
I whistled. "Damn, he looks just as creepy as his artwork. He must have toyed with trick photography, no one could really look like that. What was his family background?"
Oskar took the photograph and admired it. "I once went to a showing of his work that was held at a disabled asylum in Arkham. The brochure mentioned that Pickman came from old Salem stock and supposedly had a witch ancestor hanged on Gallow's Hill in 1692."
"Ah, that explains his idée fixe. The hanged wretch is his greatgreat-granny." I watched as Oskar placed the photo back into the booklet and then return that volume to its drawer. Suddenly quite sleepy, I yawned.
"You're exhausted. You'll find some pajamas in that chiffonier. Pleasant dreams." Mischief played upon his sickly face, and I lightly laughed as he turned to cross to the door. He hesitated for a moment, as if there was something else he wanted to express; but he must have thought better of it, for he quietly opened the door and slipped from the room.
I went to the high and narrow chest of drawers and found a pair of bright yellow sleepwear. Whistling nonchalantly, I undressed, threw my clothes over a chair, and put on the very comfortable cotton nightclothes. The song of windstorm drew me to the room's one window, and going to it I peered at an eerie sight. The grove across the roadway was bathed in tinted moon light. High above it a pale band of illumination arched above the woodland, resembling the scene that had been crafted in the painting I had observed in the sitting room. I scratched at the window pane with fingernails, certain that the lunar bow had been painted onto the glass; but no flakes of paint rubbed off, nor was the surface rough with artistry. Wind raged just outside the window, and beneath its ululation I could just detect the irregular squawking of distant crows, such as I had heard earlier when Jesus had discovered me beneath the oak.
I yawned once more, found the switch that shut out the room's dim light, then climbed into bed. Looking up, I could just make out the dark shape of the ghoul in the feeble light that filtered through the window. "If I see you in my dreams I'll rip you to shreds," I promised the bogey, pulling the covers over me.
I awakened to a sound that I took to be the moaning of the wind, until I realized that it was coming from the hallway outside my door. Had I in fact heard such a noise, or was it a revenant of dreaming? No matter. I had to piss, and so got out of bed and wandered into the shadowed hallway, hoping that there was a toilet on this floor. Spying a pale light coming from one narrow door, I went to it and saw that it was indeed a water closet. The toilet was a relic, and to flush it one pulled a hanging chain. I ran cool water over my hands and wiped those hands on my face and through my hair. Feeling refreshed, I re-entered the hallway, and seeing another door that was partially ajar, I sneaked to it and paused to listen. Someone inside was happily humming, and a smacking sound suggested feeding. I was hungry, and so I pushed the door with my toe and gazed at the room beyond.
The chamber was smaller than my own, with a modicum of furniture. Most of the walls were covered with wallpaper designed in black and red squares, but I saw that the wall space directly behind the bed had been painted red, except for one large black rectangle just above the headboard, where in every other room I had seen had hung a painting. In one corner, standing before a credenza, stood a tall figure with a shock of wild gray hair. He was bent over what looked like an antique casserole dish, from which he was plating a repast. When he turned to smile at me, I saw that it was the guy from the photo that copied Friedrich's Raven Tree.
"Enter, Hank Foster," he sang in a high nasal tone. "You must be famished. Here, take this, and I'll fill another plate for myself."
"Thank you," I said, taking the plate and examining the webbed meat and potatoes smothered with a kind of bechamel. The funny old guy motioned to a small table and two chairs, where two settings of sterling silver and napkins had been assembled. When my host sat down to join me I saw that his wide eyes were lined with red. Either he was a lunatic or flying some delectable high. Or a combination of both. Taking up fork and knife, he sliced his food with dainty precision, in continental fashion. Lowering my nose to the food, I took in its rich aroma. Gingerly, I cut into a piece of meat and popped it into my mouth. It was delicious, and suddenly famished I began to chomp. "This is great."
"'Tis our daily staple, so it's a good thing you like it. You'll get little else during your stay."
I didn't feel the need to correct his presumption of my staying around. Truth to tell, I hadn't given the outside world much thought since I arrived at this cuckoo nest. As if to qualify my thoughts, a cuckoo clock across the room struck five. "Is that the time?"
"Almost dawn. Sleep well?"
"Like a log."
"No dreams? No? Ah, lovely oblivion." He happily goggled at me, and I couldn't refrain from asking:
"Dude, what are you on?"
He hooted laughter. "What exuberant light shines in your eyes.
Ha, ha!" He raised a finger, floated out of his chair, and went to a small kitchenette with which his room had been equipped. Opening a cupboard, he took out a glass, which he filled with water at the small sink. "Rinse away your food, and then place this beneath your tongue." From his shirt pocket he produced a little tin, which he opened and from which he took out a small red tablet. Taking the glass, I did as he instructed. The tablet had no flavor, and I was amazed how quickly it dissolved.