I found Greta and Georg at one of my favorite nearby thrift stores. Two beautifully framed portraits, for only $7.50 a piece.
I brought them home and introduced them to my husband with a little flair, holding each behind my back and then revealing them, announcing their names as I held them up in the light for him to admire. The little girl, or Greta as I had named her, had brown hair, cut into a bowl shape with thick bangs resting over brown eyes. Her teal dress was trimmed with lace and finished with a white collar. The little boy, Georg, had a short brown buzz cut, dark brown eyes, and in a daring moment for fashion wore a white turtleneck with a red blazer, a small crest next to the lapel.
“I guess they're cool, but who are Greta and Georg?” he asked. Pushing back his curly blonde hair and leaning in closer for a better look.
“Well the paintings don’t have names on them, and Greta and Georg just felt right.” I explained.
“Yeah, they do feel right.” He chuckled, his green eyes twinkling, amused, he helped me hang them up.
Over the next few weeks, I introduced every visitor to our new friends. Some asked if the paintings were of my husband and I as kids, some thought they might be a family heirloom, and my mother was annoyed that I had wasted money and decoration space on portraits of some unknown kids. I thought they were hilarious. Something so stately, Greta and Georg’s parents had likely spent a decent amount of money to have the portraits done, only for them to end up in a thrift store at a steep discount.
The cats on the other hand despised the portraits. Alice, an already stressed and anxious Maine Coon had spent the first day staring up at them, occasionally yowling at the ceiling before fixing her gaze once more. She often yowled at the ceiling, and we rarely understood why, so the behavior wasn’t outside of her norm. Scratch on the other hand stopped going in the living room at all. He wanted nothing to do with the area, and what had once been his favorite perch upon the back of the couch hadn’t seen a visit from him since the paintings went up.
We chalked it up to cats being cats. Maybe Scratch was trying to broaden his horizons and find new spots to enjoy the sunshine.
We got used to the portraits, and soon they melded in with the rest of the paintings and pictures, just another couple of items adorning the walls. Every once in a while we would welcome a new guest, they would comment on the paintings, asking if they were of us or of family. I would excitedly recount what a deal they had been, and often get a polite and confused nod.
Some months later, we held a movie night. My husband had gotten a used projector from work, and had spent the weekend mounting it to the ceiling of the living room. All that was left was to rearrange the furniture and decorations to create a blank wall for the movie to play on. We pushed the couch away from the wall, flipping it so our guests could sit comfortably facing the projection. I set about the task of removing everything I had hung up. Thanks to a picture rail, it was quick work. Just a matter of taking things down from the rail hooks. Piece by piece the stack grew. Much of the decor had also come from the thrift store, old pressed flowers, frame cross-stitch, records with cool covers that were too scratched to be played anymore. My walls were a collage of used treasure.
As I removed items, I noticed a crack that I didn’t remember seeing before. I studied it, it ran parallel to the foundation, never a good sign in an old house. It wasn’t very wide, but the wall bowed out just slightly around it, creating two ridges.
“Hey Dan?” I called my husband over. “Do you remember this crack being here before?”
He hopped over the stack of taken down decorations to take a closer look.
“Hm, no, I think this is new.” He surveyed what was left on the wall, a poster detailing the anatomy of a pomegranate, and Greta and Georg. “You didn’t use nails to put those portraits up did you?”
“No, of course not.” Our walls were made of lath and plaster, known to crack as a result of the vibration of hammering a nail into the wall. It was why the picture rail was there.
He traced the crack with his finger, part of it was hidden by the portraits. I stepped up onto the ladder and pulled them down so we could see the terminuses. The sun had faded the paint around the portraits just enough that we could see their outline left on the wall, and the crack started and ended perfectly within the center of where each painting had sat.
“Should we call an inspector to take a look at the foundation?” I asked.
“Maybe, let’s see if it gets bigger in the next week or two and then decide.” He replied.
We finished setting up the living room just as the first few guests arrived. With the projector ready to go, and popcorn in hand our movie night began. The wall served as a near perfect screen for the black and white film we decided to watch, save for the crack. The faces of the actors were slightly distorted around it. As if they were being pushed and pulled into the wall.
As the camera panned through a train station in one scene, I noticed two familiar looking kids sitting on a bench in the background. Not wanting to disrupt the night over a trivial detail, I made a note to rewatch the scene later.
Our movie night was a success, the projector had given a cinematic feel at home, and it meant we wouldn’t need to have the TV cluttering up space anymore. Once our guests had left, and with the house empty, I started turning off the lights, my eyes grazing over the crack in the wall once more before shutting off the last one.
The next day I remembered to check over the scene again. I found the clip on YouTube, but upon rewatching there were no kids sitting together, no familiar dress. I watched the clip again, but no they weren’t there. Confused, I turned the project on. Maybe something about the warping from the crack in the wall had made it look like there were two kids. I fast forwarded, and watched the scene again, this time on the wall.
They were there this time. I rewound, hit play and then paused as soon as the two kids came into vision. Yes, the dress was very familiar. A dark heavy looking fabric, with lace trim and a little white collar. The girl wearing it had dark hair with thick bangs. The little boy next to her wore a blazer with a crest next to the lapel, his own dark hair in a short buzz. With the projection paused, I started up the YouTube clip again on my computer, pausing at just the same scene. No little girl. No little boy. No kids at all.
I felt frozen. Unsure and confused, why did the two clips differ? And why did those kids look so familiar?
I looked down and from the corner of my eye I saw the frames of the portraits stacked together with the other decorations. My stomach turned and my breath caught in my throat. I looked back at the screen. The kids in the projection were sitting, their seats perfectly aligned with the crack in the wall. I slid down and slowly reached for the portraits, separating them out of the pile. Holding them up I compared the projection to the paintings. In oil paint Greta and Georg stared back at me. And in black and white Greta and Georg stared back at me. I couldn’t take my eyes off the black and white Greta and Georg. I called out to Dan.
“Dan!” I heard his chair shift in the other room.
“Dan! Quick please!” I could hear his footsteps in the hallway.
I broke my gaze to look at him as he entered the room, but his familiar face didn’t turn the corner. The footsteps had stopped. My heart quickening I had to force myself to look back at the screen. Georg was gone, now Greta sat alone. I looked down at the portraits. A little boy, in a blazer with a crest next to the lapel, blonde hair falling in face framing curls, green eyes looking back at me. And a little girl, I swear I could see her eyes fading from brown to blue, just like mine.
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