Chapter Text
Statement of Alice Dancy regarding their work as a picture framer. Statement begins.
People don't think about picture frames that often. I tend to drive my mates up the wall whenever I talk about my work because they just don't seem to grasp how important they really are. The print or painting or any other assorted type of media is only made important by the fact that it is protected, shielded from the world in a way as to keep it on display.
I've worked here since I was young. Weaseled my way into a job that was by all intents and purposes a family business. When the patriarch got old, I began working full time. Thinking it over, I find it bizarre that I chose to keep working there. I had art school intentions but those were quickly squashed when the leaving cert results came back. I had pidgeonholed myself, and the worst part was that I enjoyed the work.
The feel of the wood in your hands, cutting the glass and, my favorite part, sealing the frames; it all felt so authentic, so real. My family had been carpenters so I might have taken on a bit of their preference for hands-on work.
Anyway, that's just set dressing—you want a real shocker, right? Something to read over later and think “how fascinating,” before shoving the file into some alphabetically organized cabinet. I have one for you, two even, and the first happened years back.
I was young. The woman who came was pretty. I remembered that because it struck me how someone so beautiful could find value in this piece. My boss, Benji, struck up a conversation with her, going over the types of frames you could use on a canvas, if she wanted glass or not, the usual. My eyes were solely focused on the piece.
It was a loose canvas sheet, the painting clearly years old and done in oil. It was a man—a dead man, rotting. It was only a bust, but the face and its pockmarked flesh was done in pale yellows and sickly greens. There was a layer of red under it all, giving the wounds a deep look. What really irked me was the eyes, which were just sockets, but whose gaze I could feel as I looked over its surface.
The woman picked out her frame options—plain dark wood, classic—and left before I could ask any questions. I knew schedule wise that the frame would probably be done and handed over before my next shift, so I insisted on doing it myself that day. Benji was baffled as to why I'd purposefully want to work on something so hideous but I just blanked. It called to me in some indescribable way, and he let me go ahead with it.
First I had to stretch the sheet. It was simple; cut the wood for the canvas, then stretch and staple it to the wood before framing. Typical work. I cut the wood then grabbed the sheet to stretch it.
It was sticky. I hadn't touched it before that moment, Benji doing most of the heavy lifting during the acquisition, but it felt heavy, wet still. I know oil takes a while to dry but it felt fresh. I nearly dropped it but reeled back in enough to remember how much trouble I'd get in if it was damaged.
I stapled it once to secure it to the frame and as I did, a spurt of brownish liquid shot from the staple wound and onto my apron. At this point I had to push through; clearly this woman had brought in some manky old frame from some dank basement and didn't think to clean it beforehand. I tried not to think about the feel of it in my hand, how warm it felt, how the sockets of the man in the frame looked accusatorily at me.
I shot ahead, each staple eliciting the same fount of vile water until it was pinned and done. I was going to put it to the side before I remembered that it was custom to trim off excess canvas paper. Benji did it to make the piece look more professional, and I gulped as I took the stretched canvas into my hands again.
I flipped it, so that the canvas face and the man were facing down on the desk. I didn't want to see him. In case he did something.
I took the utility knife from my stained apron pocket and pushed it into the thick canvas paper, drawing the blade down the wooden frame. As it cut, the canvas began to bleed.
It wasn’t the same muddy water that had shot at me while stapling; this was a thick, crimson mess, dribbling down onto the table and staining our cardboard workmat. It got on my hands and I couldn't stop shaking, my cuts becoming jagged. I felt my ears go out, all noise from the street outside and Benji upstairs gone in a slow build up as the blood seeped into my skin.
I felt the pressure built in my head until finally, my blade swiped free, off the canvas board. All at once it was gone, and I was too relieved to realise I had cut my finger as I drew the blade away.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I immediately ran to the bathroom and threw up. I scrubbed my hands nearly clean and when Benji came down I said the blood had been all mine. He almost called an ambulance but I talked him out of it. For the most part the canvas face itself remained intact and unaltered, other than the man's rot seeming to have progressed slightly. Light yellow marrow was visible in some parts of his face. It freaked Benji out but by this point I had experienced the paintings more… unnatural qualities.
Although that was my last time interacting with the painting, it wasn’t my last time seeing it. Benji let me off early, but before I left I took a picture of it. It's usually considered a bit taboo to photograph an acquisition but at this point I was too invested. I looked at it on my phone the whole way home, still taking in the decay of it all.
It was when I tried to show my mother the picture of it that it happened. I opened the gallery, swiped to the picture and… blank. My screen had gone off. I tried to turn it back on, but it wouldn't budge. I got it checked out to no success and even had to throw it out.
When I put my old SD card into my new phone, the image of the painting showed up as a “corrupted file”. Unopenable and completely out of reach. I think it broke my phone, and that along with my nauseous experience with it before is enough to convince me that I should have burnt it when I could have.
The woman collected it before I was in next. Apparently she tipped him which is quite unusual for the shop. It was quite a bit too. I thought it was hush money but Benji thoroughly denied it.
That was that one, but there was another more recent one that
Archivists Note: the accompanying pages, presumably containing Ms. Dancy's other account, is currently misplaced within the archives. The search is ongoing and we are hoping to find the continuing half soon.
Furthermore I'm intrigued as to what the next account will describe, as doing some research reveals that, just two years ago, Benjamin Boyle, boss of Ms. Dancy and owner of The Framing Place, went missing. It occurred during a work day, and no evidence has been found as to his whereabouts.
Ms. Dancy was interviewed at the time and gave very little to go off, other than reportedly telling the police that “the picture got him”. She went on to take over the business, running it to this day. Follow up with her has proved void.
Statement to be continued.