Story 4. The Whispering Portrait
Laurence had always loved old things. Antique shops, dusty libraries, forgotten letters. Each carried a whisper of the past, and he longed to listen.
When he found the painting at the estate sale, something in it called to him.
It was an oil painting of a woman in a deep green dress, her hands folded in her lap, her gaze sharp and knowing. The nameplate read "Lady Eleanor Hawthorne, 1847."
The moment Laurence brought it home, strange things began to happen. He would wake to the sound of soft murmurs in the night, though he lived alone. His books shifted on their own. And the painting, sometimes he swore Lady Eleanor’s eyes followed him around the room.
Determined to learn more, Laurence researched the painting’s origins. Lady Eleanor had been an unconventional woman for her time, a scholar and a rumoured alchemist. She had disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving only the portrait behind.
One evening, as Laurence traced the frame’s ornate carvings, he felt a sharp sting on his fingertip. A single drop of blood landed on the canvas. The room grew cold. A whisper filled the air.
"Finally," the voice sighed.
Laurence stumbled back, his breath shallow. The painting’s colours shimmered, the green of Lady Eleanor’s dress deepening like fresh ivy. The woman in the portrait smiled, gently at first, then wider, too wide, impossibly wide.
The whisper grew louder. "You hear me, don’t you?" Lady Eleanor said. "I’ve been waiting so long."
Laurence‘s instincts screamed at him to run, but something rooted him to the spot. "What do you want?" he managed to whisper.
"A trade," Lady Eleanor murmured. "A life for a life. Yours for mine."
The painting’s surface rippled like water, and a chill wrapped around Laurence‘s limbs. He struggled, but an unseen force pulled him closer. Closer to the painting. The last thing he saw was Lady Eleanor stepping forward, out of the painting, her green dress flowing like leaves in the wind.
When Laurence‘s neighbour knocked the next morning, concerned about the noises in the night, she found nothing but an old painting hanging on the wall.
A portrait of a man, wearing modern clothes, bearing a striking resemblance to Laurence.
*
"So, let me get this straight," said Bucky, squinting at the painting. "You're saying the man in this portrait is the missing tenant?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying," Zemo replied, pointing at the name plate.
“Yeah,” admitted Bucky. “It really doesn’t look like a Lady Eleanor Hawthorne.”
“Or, 1847,” added Zemo, crossing his arms. "And before you roll your eyes at me, James, you know we’ve seen weirder."
Bucky exhaled and rubbed his temples. "A haunted painting that eats people and swaps places with them. Yeah, sure, totally normal."
“It doesn’t eat people, James. It traps their spirit so that it can walk in their shoes.”
“So, let’s find out what she looks like,” Bucky said, running his metal hand through his hair.
“The painting was listed in the estate sale. The frame is unique,” said Zemo, not quite touching it. “I know someone who might be able to help.”
“So, we have a lead, then? Fuck. That means we have to do something.”
“Of course,” said Zemo. “We have to try to rescue Laurence.”
Bucky grunted.
"You’re just mad because I’m right,” said Zemo, brushing his arm.
"I'm mad because this means creepy magical shenanigans, again." He glanced at the painting, the eyes eerily vital. "Alright, Hel. Where do we start?"
*
With the wrapped painting in hand, Zemo took them to a reclusive art dealer named Selena Moorehouse, whose shop smelled of old varnish and forgotten things. She flinched at the mention of Lady Eleanor’s portrait, even more so when Zemo carefully unwrapped it to reveal, not Lady Eleanor, but Laurence. She lead them through to the back room.
"That painting should have been destroyed," she muttered. "It’s cursed."
"So we gathered," Zemo said dryly. "Care to elaborate?"
Selena hesitated before pulling an old leather-bound book from a locked cabinet. "Lady Eleanor was no ordinary woman. She dabbled in unnatural arts. Alchemy, spirit transference. She wasn’t just painted into that portrait. She placed herself in there." She gently opened the book to show them a rendering of Lady Eleanor’s likeness.
Bucky exchanged a look with Zemo. "And now she’s out."
Selena’s face paled. "Then it’s already too late."
“What can we do?” asked Zemo.
“Burn the painting,” said Selena.
“How?” asked Bucky, “Laurence is trapped in there.”
“We have to lure Lady Eleanor back.” She looked appraisingly at Zemo. “Maybe she’d go for an upgrade.”
Bucky spluttered. “Him? An upgrade?”
Zemo raised an eyebrow. “And why not? I am a Baron.”
“Seriously?” said Bucky. “You’re considering this?”
Zemo turned to Selena. “What would we have to do?”
“I might have something that just might do the trick,” said Selena, rummaging around in a fancy lined casket.
*
As they returned to their hotel room that evening with the wrapped painting and a slim envelope from Selena, Zemo caught a movement at the edge of his vision. A man stood in the hotel lobby watching them: a face eerily familiar, though his eyes were ancient.
Laurence‘s body. But not Laurence.
Lady Eleanor tilted her head, a slow smirk creeping onto her lips.
“James, look,” said Zemo, nudging him. But by the time Bucky had turned around, she had disappeared.
*
That night, Zemo couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. As he stood in their hotel bathroom, staring at his reflection in the mirror, a whisper brushed against his ear.
"A trade," it purred.
Zemo turned sharply. The mirror’s surface rippled.
He took a step back, heart pounding. Bucky‘s voice floated in from the bedroom. "Hel? You ok in there?"
Zemo answered softly, keeping his eyes locked on the shifting glass. "James, I think she’s here already. She’s trying to…"
A cold hand shot out of the mirror, grasping his wrist. Zemo grunted, struggling against an impossible force.
"Hang on!" Bucky shouted, scrabbling up. He burst through the door and rushed in, gun drawn. He fired at the mirror. The glass shattered, splintering into jagged shards that peppered the bathroom floor. The phantom hand dissolved into nothing.
Zemo collapsed onto the floor, gasping. The weight around his limbs vanished. Bucky knelt beside him. "You okay?"
He nodded, breathing heavily. "That was close." Then he smiled up at Bucky. “Thank you, darling.”
Bucky just huffed. “‘Course, Hel.”
Zemo got up, brushed himself down. Looked sharply at Bucky. “We should have anticipated this, James. We’ll be ready next time.”
Bucky stood by him. “I’d rather not wait. Let’s do it now. She’s obviously around.”
Zemo nodded.
*
Determined to save Laurence, and send Lady Eleanor back to wherever she came from, Zemo and Bucky opened the envelope that Selena had given to them. Inside lay a slip of paper with 2 distinct incantations written upon it.
Zemo looked at Bucky, raised an eyebrow.
“Up to you, Hel,” said Bucky. “It’s you she wants.”
“Don’t they all,” smirked Zemo, trying for levity.
Bucky rolled his eyes, then strode to their hotel door and opened it. Zemo sat himself on their wide couch, and read out the first incantation, his voice strong, his accent heavy. Bucky shivered. Even in the middle of a spooky situation like this, he loved hearing Zemo’s honeyed accented voice.
They didn’t have long to wait. Laurence’s body, driven by Lady Eleanor’s spirit, came walking down the hotel corridor, straight for their room.
*
Lady Eleanor smiled seductively at Bucky with Laurence’s mouth as she moved through the doorway and into their room. She paused by him, and looked him up and down appraisingly. “Oooh, that arm,” she purred. “What I could do with that.”
Bucky stepped away, and before Lady Eleanor could close the gap between them, Zemo started to read the second incantation.
Lady Eleanor whipped Laurence’s head round, her eyes blazing fire. “No…” she started, and his body morphed into two separate but connected forms: one the mortal physical frame of Laurence, the other, a spectral ghostly apparition of Lady Eleanor superimposed upon it.
Zemo repeated the incantation, his voice calm and steady. Bucky closed the door and moved over to him.
Bucky reached Zemo mid incantation. He took hold of the portrait, unwrapped it carefully and turned it so that it faced Lady Eleanor. The portrait was now a swirling vortex of dark energy. The magic pulled at Lady Eleanor, her stolen body resisting, but by now Zemo had finished the incantation.
With a piercing scream, Lady Eleanor was wrenched from Laurence‘s body, her spectral form twisting as she was dragged back into the painting. The image reverted to her original likeness, and solidified, trapping her once more.
Laurence collapsed onto the floor, gasping, his own eyes blinking back at them. "Did it work? What happened?"
Bucky grinned. "Welcome back."
Zemo re-wrapped the painting, now dark and silent. "This time, we make sure she never gets out."
Bucky helped Laurence up, glancing at Zemo and the painting. "So, we destroy it now, right?"
"We burn it," Zemo said firmly. "And scatter the ashes."
*
The next evening, a bonfire crackled in an abandoned lot. Zemo and Bucky watched as the cursed painting was engulfed in flames, its colours distorting, the figure of Lady Eleanor writhing within the canvas.
A final, anguished scream echoed through the atmosphere before the painting crumbled into embers.
A strong gust of wind swept through the lot, whisking up the ashes and dispersing them into the night. As the last of the particles separated, a soft voice, barely a whisper, floated in the air.
"Thank you."
Zemo stiffened. "Did you hear that?"
Bucky nodded slowly, his eyes wide. "Can’t be Laurence."
For a brief moment, faint figures shimmered in the dying embers of the bonfire - a young man, his expression one of quiet relief; a younger woman in a blue cloak; followed by a rapid collection of people, like it was flipping through an old photo album. Then, like smoke, they faded away to nothing.
And the whispers finally stopped.
***