Flickers of Gold: A Short Story

Flickers of Gold

WRITTEN BY CHRISTINE MARIE

It started with the paint I bought at the summer art festival.

Rain streamed from the clouds, soaking my hair and making my sneakers squeak with every step I took towards the parking lot. My mind was so focused on reaching my vehicle that my heart nearly leapt out of my chest when a hand grabbed my bare forearm.

I whirled around immediately. But my defenses lowered when I saw the wrinkled old lady beside me. Her curly gray hair piled high on her head, and her light blue eyes gazed at my face like she recognized me from long ago.

“Please, my dear.” Her voice was a crackly whisper. “Take this.” 

She raised my hand, placing a tube of metallic gold paint in it. The tube’s paper—as crackly as the woman’s voice—read, Imagination’s Creations.

Must be homemade paint. I watched the old lady’s face as the raindrops trickled down my face like tears. Was this some sort of marketing tactic to get me to buy her pigment? Whatever she was pulling, it worked, because I fished a toonie out of my jeans pocket, and held it in front of her. She took the coin with her free hand and fixed her gaze on me.

“My dear, you are an artist. I feel it in your skin…because you have paint dried on your forearm.”

I would’ve found her words funny if I weren’t so drenched in rainwater—yes, dried acrylic on skin does not come out with just water—and slightly annoyed that her hand was still on my arm. “Yes.”

“You should have entered your artwork in the competition. Displayed here.”

Her words shot through my body like a bolt of lightning. I had debated entering for the longest time, but gave up on it.

I didn’t take chances anymore. Life was too fickle. My best bet was taking the traditional route of existence in this modern age and letting life come and go.

So far, that bet was not going well for me. I’d graduated high school two months ago, and with summer’s end drawing near, I still had no money, no prospects, no college applications filled, and no idea what I wanted.

“Decided not to,” I said shortly, replying to the woman’s earlier words. “I’m leaving.”

I turned away, pushing away all the thoughts the old lady had sprouted. I walked to the parking lot, to my car, drove home, and everything was normal.

And that night, I opened the paint and squeezed some onto my palette. It shimmered in the orange lamplight, glitter specks dancing as if they were alive. 

I grabbed my three latest paintings from under my desk, and setting my newest landscape of a forest speckled with flowers before me, I took a paintbrush. I swiped the paint onto the bristles and outlined a flower in the golden paint. Until all the flowers were outlined.

In the deep orange lamplight, I slid my chair away and held the painting up to steal a good look at it. I thought the sparkly paint would ruin it, but…

…It looked more complete than before. 

A flower swayed.

I blinked.

Hard.

Rustling tree leaves filled my ears, and my heart rapidly pumped. I closed my eyes again.

When I opened them, the sensations were gone. My painting hadn’t moved. I hadn’t heard my painting.

I hadn’t.

It’s the lack of sleep that’s getting to me, I concluded, but my heart wouldn’t start racing. I turned the landscape around so the brushstrokes faced away from me as I shifted my focus to the next painting. A dark still-life of a window, inspired by my bedroom window. Fireworks blasted outside the window in the art, the only source of light. I was proud of how I painted the colorful lighting bursting through the panes and into the room. And the fireworks would look even better with a shadow of glittering gold.

My mind quietened as I brushed the metallic paint over the fireworks’ sparkles. That was why I painted through the night. When I couldn’t sleep—which was most nights now—my mind wandered too much in the silent dark. Thoughts I would’ve ignored during the day flowed back. Memories.

Regrets.

I finished the painting, but I didn’t inspect it afterwards like the landscape. The sound of the trees, the flowers moving—it creeped me out, as much as I hated to admit it. And I refused to risk…sensing things from the firework painting.

Mom’s words wedged themselves into my brain. “She had such an active imagination as a child.”

I inhaled deeply, turning the firework painting away. The last canvas was of a human. A girl.

I stared at my artwork, wondering where to apply the gold paint. But my brush moved faster than my mind, dipping it into the pigment and coating the girl’s skin in gold.

Isle.

I created the character when I was only ten. Isle, a girl whose golden skin shimmered every time she made the slightest movement in the sunlight. I pretended she was my little sister from another world, because my parents divorced and I had nobody but myself to keep company. I wrote stories, made plays, and drew ourselves side-by-side.

But once I hit high school, Isle disappeared from my mind, along with my dreams of taking chances.

I painted up her neck and around her eyes, careful not to mess up any details I placed before. Her forehead, ears, and nose all sparkled with glitter. Before, she was a random human I found off the internet and painted. Now…

Her eyelashes lowered in a blink.

I shot up from my chair, pushing my canvas back. What was going on? I pulled out my falling ponytail and retied my rusty brown hair frantically. Was I really that sleep-deprived? Did I need to see a doctor?

Despite my hands shaking, despite my heart pounding, still standing, I forced myself to drag the canvas back into view. 

But nothing happened.

I lowered back into my chair, worry lumping in my throat. What if something was wrong with me? What if—

Knock-knock-knock.

I straightened my back.

Who was at the door at—I checked my phone—two in the morning?

I stood and crept downstairs, avoiding the creaky step to not wake up Mom. She worked overtime and started the day at three in the morning yesterday, so I didn’t want to bother her.

Knock-knock!

I heaved a sigh as I came down the last step before jogging to the door.

And I skidded to a stop before I could even reach it. I had to be hallucinating.

Because standing outside the door, her golden skin shimmering in the moonlight…was Isle. Her eyes were wide and frightened, and she mouthed something to me beyond the door.

I took a step back. Another.

What was happening?

I turned on my heels and fled back up the stairs, back to my room, and carefully shut the door behind me. My heart galloped. I had half a mind to get Mom, overtime or no. But before I did anything, I shakily walked back to my desk.

It never had happened before. I had insomnia, but not hallucinations.

My eyes focused on the tube of paint laying on my desk. Imagination’s Creations.

Imagination’s Creations. Hallucinations.

I lunged forward, grabbed the paint, and threw it into my trash. Was it a chemical of the paint that caused this? Was the old lady trying to poison me? But then I saw the painting lying on my desk.

Or…what was left of the painting.

The girl, the main subject, was gone. There were only colorful shadows and twisting vines left as the background.

“What is happening?” I whispered. No matter how long I stared at it without blinking, Painting-Isle didn’t reappear.

 I jerked away, walked to my window, and opened it. Breathed in the fresh air. Letting the oxygen cleanse my lungs, and maybe my mind.

I stayed there for two, three, four minutes before forcing myself to back away. I couldn’t stay locked in my room together.

I had to see if the real Isle was still there.

My hands shook at my sides as I crept out of my room, back down the stairs, and turned to the entranceway.

Isle, flesh and blood, pressed against the door, her eyes shut and eyebrows scrunched as if she was trying not to cry. I remember writing that her tears shone as much as her skin. And strangely, I felt protective over her, like she was my little sister I needed to keep safe.

If this was a hallucination, I’d humor it. I went to the front door and opened it, making Isle leap—literally leap—into the air. “Hello?”

The girl—who had to be three or four years younger than me—relaxed when she saw my face. “Miss, I’m so terribly sorry for disturbing you at such an intrusive hour.”

“I was up anyway,” I said, trying not to think too hard about how real her voice sounded. “What’s the deal?”

“The deal? Oh, dear. The deal is that I have to leave. I’m not meant to be here, you see.” Isle looked away, and looked back. “I’m not from here.”

She’s from a different world. When I wrote her character, that was her lore. Every day she’d be my little sister, but at night, we’d had to part ways, back to our own worlds.

“It’s okay. I understand.” My voice sounded raw. “How do you leave?”

“By portal. There.” She pointed behind me, to the living room. “If I could just walk in—”

“Oh, yeah.” I stepped aside. “Sorry.” When she walked in, I left the door a crack open, so she wouldn’t think I was kidnapping her or anything.

I wanted to facepalm myself after thinking that. What did it matter what she assumed?

Isle. Wasn’t. Real.

But when I turned around, I saw the portal.

Gold and swirling glitter, beyond the portal moss and trees and leaves and swaying flowers  sprouted just like my landscape painting.

Exactly like my landscape painting. My breath hitched.

Isle smiled with certainty as she gazed upon the portal as well. “Yes, that’s it.” She looked back at me, and her eyebrows furrowed again. “Do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar.”

“You’re my little sister.” I didn’t realize the words had left my mouth until I heard them. Okay, I guess we’re going with the truth. “From another world.”

Isle fully turned around, her glimmering face reflecting in the portal’s light. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Kiera?”

“Isle.” I hadn’t said her name out loud in six years. “Go through the portal. I’ll be here on the other side.”

Her eyes dropped to the ground, but she didn’t make any move to leave.

And it was then that I saw her.

I didn’t see Isle at that moment. I saw myself at fourteen.

Despite the glittering skin, the resemblance was uncanny. The messy, half-wavy, half-curly russet hair. The moles speckled my face and down my neck in the same spots. And at that age, keeping my eyes low and my posture hunched was my automatic stance. It was when I started getting insecure; when school and society started taking their toll on me.

It was when I abandoned Isle and many of my creative hobbies, and painted instead.

Isle wasn’t just my character. She was a younger me—who lived in a different world.

As I gaped at her, she studied me. Finally, she asked, “Do you want to come with me?”

“What?” I breathed. “You mean—to—”

“To my world. Just for a bit, or however long you want.” She paused. “You look tired.”

“I am tired.” My voice was still quiet. I knew how my dark circles must look by now. “I’m so tired. I just—I want to be a kid again.”

“I can’t promise you that,” Isle laughed, “but I can promise a more…peaceful time. A prettier place, that’s for sure. Just wandering and seeing no greenery in this concrete neighborhood made me sad. No wonder you’re so tired.” She held out her hand.

I stared at it.

The old lady’s words rolled through my mind. “You should have entered in the competition…”

And my thoughts afterwards. I don’t take chances anymore…

Life is too fickle…

Maybe I was wrong. I gulped a breath of air.

 Took Isle’s hand.

And followed her into the portal in my living room.

❈

She woke up no later than four in the morning. She made the bed, hopped in the shower, got dressed, and walked across the hall to check on her daughter.

Kiera’s orange lamp was on—and she hoped that meant Kiera had fallen asleep with it on, and hadn’t survived through another sleepless night. But when she creaked open the door an inch, Kiera’s bed was empty, her window was open, and a paintbrush, nearly dry with metallic gold paint, lay on her desk.

She sighed and trudged over to turn off the lamp. Afterwards, she went downstairs, avoiding the creaky step that grated on her eardrums. “Kiera, honey?”

Nothing.

Her worried thoughts began to increase. Where is my daughter?

She checked the kitchen, the dining room, and eventually called her. Her hands shook as she lifted the phone to her ear. Please pick up. Please pick up.

Voicemail.

Now her heartbeat was skyrocketing. She walked into the living room. “Kiera!”

“Kiera!”

“Kiera!”

Complete silence. The silence was too loud. She fumbled for the remote on the couch’s arm and flipped on the first channel—the news.

The newscaster’s voice was way too joyous considering the circumstances. “Mysterious sightings caught on many surveillance cameras of a humanoid, feminine figure with—can you believe this—glittering golden skin!”

She scoffed, looking at the ground—what was the news putting out these days?

But the corner of her eye caught something on the living room rug.

She bent down, swiped it with her finger, and inspected the glittery bits.

Flickers of gold beamed back at her, shining as bright as stars.