The Painter had noticed her long before she ever spoke to him. She came most evenings when the gallery was quiet, her presence a soft interruption among the stillness of varnished frames and candlelit shadows. She moved differently than the others, less like someone observing, more like someone listening. To the walls. To the paint. To him.

He had tried to ignore it at first, focusing instead on the drying oils, on the whispers of color clinging to his fingers. Yet every brushstroke after her first visit had changed; her image crept into his work uninvited, her gaze refracted in glass, her posture echoed in a saint’s outline, her presence haunting the corners of every canvas he dared to start.

Tonight, she came again, her silhouette framed by the amber light that spilled from the open door. Outside, the rain had started, the kind that seemed to hush the world. He watched as droplets clung to the hem of her gown, as her eyes lingered on a painting that, by now, he’d realized was hers in disguise.

The urge struck him not as inspiration, but as necessity. Slowly, he stepped out from behind the easel, the faint scent of linseed and turpentine following him like a confession. His voice, when it came, was low, measured, reverent.

“Tell me… what do you see when you look at it?”