They Hide in the Walls

James felt warm tears rolling down his face as his eyes were fixated on the crumbling building across the street. A two-story house with two pine trees in its yard, which had now also bent in front of the majestic but harsh passage of time. Funny, thought the young man. Funny how an image can contain an entire life within it. A life that was anything but easy for James and his family. He may now have been one of the most recognised artists and undoubtedly the most famous painter in the kingdom, but his journey to this point was filled with pain and terror.

"Whenever you're ready, brother," whispered James's brother George, who stood right behind him, his hand resting reassuringly on the younger brother's shoulder.

As the sun set behind the Victorian houses to the west of the city, with a nod from James, the group of 33 revolutionaries marched past the neglected garden entrance, heading towards the abandoned house.

Born in East London in May 1903, James Albert Woods was the fifth child of Isaiah and Jessica Woods. His father was an officer in the British Army, which brought prestige and respect to their family. The first years after their settlement in the two-pine house were filled with happiness and prosperity for the young couple and their firstborn son, Andrew. Two years later, the twins, Erika, and Monica, came into the world, followed three years after by George. James was the latest addition to the family.

Everything changed in the summer of 1907 when part of the army attempted to overthrow the monarchy and parliament, aiming to take control of the country. The coup attempt, however, ultimately failed miserably. Agents of the secret services had received information in advance about the army's movements. After the palace was notified, special operation units were immediately formed by members of the royal guard and the police, as well as assistance from European monarchies. Thus, within a period of less than a month, every attempt at uprising had been quelled.

Isaiah Woods, a vocal opposition and not participant in the coup attempt, was found guilty of treason against the crown. He was hanged on August 15, 1907, along with 18 others—guilty and innocent—officers, in a public execution outside the Parliament in Central London. From his arrest to his execution, he was not allowed to see his wife and children. And as if that wasn't enough, his family was forced to attend the public execution. When his mother tried to cover the eyes of her four-year-old son during the execution, a guard, after slapping her, told her sternly that the children were obligated to witness the ceremony as an example to them. The image of his hanged father would never leave his mind until the day he drew his last breath.

As dictated by the social conditions of the time, Mrs. Woods remarried the following summer. This act was expected to cleanse the stigma of betrayal from the Woods family, but people are beings who selectively remember and forget. And the community in which they lived seemed to hold it against them for a long time. Perhaps it was their boundless love for the king and their suspicion of the charges against James's father. Perhaps it was years of hidden feelings of jealousy and envy.

The new husband, Ronald Black, a pro-monarchy alcoholic accountant from Reading, was a monster in human clothes. He moved into the family's house a few months before marrying Jessica. At first, James and the other children found him simply boring and avoided him at every opportunity.

However, their stepdad would become a wreck at the neighbourhood pub almost every day. Returning home, he would beat almost anyone who spoke against him, opposed him, or simply didn't sit well with him. James and his siblings, beyond the humiliation and abuse from the children at school and in the neighbourhood, had another demon to face, this time within the walls.

This situation lasted for 3 long years. Humiliation and violence had become routine in the hell that James and his family lived in. Until one day, a day like any other, something unique happened. Being the eldest of the siblings, as soon as he turned 15, Andrew was forced to leave for Birmingham where he would work in a factory run by Ronald's old friends, in order to financially support the family. George, seeing his younger brother suffer, looked for a way to cheer him up. One afternoon, his mother asked him to go to the grocery store for some supplies needed for dinner. The young boy, arriving at the store, began to search for each item on the list one by one, when suddenly he saw on one of the shelves a set of coloured chalks. It was the perfect gift for his younger brother, but the money his mother had given him was not enough. Looking around repeatedly, waiting for the right moment, the boy grabbed the chalk set and hastily stuffed it into his pants. After finishing shopping, he ran home as fast as he could. There, in the front yard, behind the two pines, he saw the twins, Erika and Monica playing hopscotch with James. James looked serious as always, until he saw his older brother, and a smile painted on his innocent face.

"Come with me, all of you," ordered George. And he continued, "Let's go to the back. I want to show you something," signalling them to follow him quickly, knowing that their stepfather would appear from the garden gate any minute.

The backyard was the perfect refuge for the children when they didn't want to encounter Ronald. The only entrance from the outside of the house was a narrow passage parallel to the western fence, on which pots with remnants of withered flowers that hadn't been watered for years were stacked. From inside the house, the only entrance was the door of the kitchen, where their stepfather never set foot, so the only person who would know that the children were there was their mother.

George, after entering the kitchen to leave the grocery bag on the counter for his mother, quickly returned to his siblings and, sure that no one was around, took out the chalk set from his pants.

"Come on, James," he whispered to his brother and signalled him to come closer to the wall. "Choose any colour you want," he said, smiling broadly.

Excited, returning his brother's smile, James grabbed the red chalk and for the first time in his life began to draw, initially drawing lines on the exterior, back wall of the house. Something strange suddenly happened, and George's gaze shifted from his brother's joyous face to the wall where his little brother, immersed in his art, was drawing something that looked like a door. As little James drew vertical and horizontal lines and placed curves and circles here and there, a bright blue light seemed to follow the path of the chalk. Lines and circles seemed to change as if they were forming one shape on top of another to form a visually perfect outline. George gently took the chalk from the little one's hands to study it. He tried to draw something himself next to the door of his little brother. Nothing. The chalk seemed to be an ordinary chalk like all the others. He tried other colours. Again, nothing.

"Let's go inside. I'm cold," James complained.

"You're right, little one. Let's go," George agreed. And suddenly, as he made to get up and go to the door, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something that could not possibly be true. Something indescribable. Like in a dream, James pushed the painted door on the wall, which opened with a creaking sound, passed through the wall to the other side, and the door closed behind him, leaving only the drawing that James had earlier formed on the wall.

"JAMES!" George shouted in panic and tried to push the painted door. Nothing moved, and nothing changed. "JAMES!" he continued to shout, now running wildly from the path on the side towards the front garden. His sisters followed him, not understanding what had happened. But after he explained to them, still confused but trusting his brother's words, the three of them separated and ran through the neighbourhood searching for their little brother.

When they finally returned home, helpless, and inconsolable, what they saw made them lose their composure momentarily. James stood at the entrance next to their worried mother, impatiently calling out to them, "Come inside quickly. Ronald is on the road behind the pub."

George didn't close his eyes all night. His confused mind started working relentlessly. Initially, trying to organize the new information. Subsequently, crafting dark but necessary plans for his own survival, his brothers', and their mother's. Over the next few days, he and James spent hours daily inside an abandoned building of a former food factory, not far from their home. There, the two brothers thoroughly analysed James's abilities and the potential hidden in his powers. They managed to acquire all sorts of paints, brushes, and pencils, realizing that whatever James used to paint, his drawings came to life. Hands and tendrils reacted as if real, extending through walls. Animals and insects leaped from old newspapers to the ground and reacted to the surrounding environment. Painted doors functioned as gateways from one place to another. And all of this absolutely controlled by the mind of the eight-year-old. He gave and took life from his creations like a little god. Finally, an idea formed in George's mind, and his little brother agreed without a second thought. The two of them, like heroes plucked from the books their mother used to read them at night, would rid the world of the monster and save their mother and the rest of their siblings forever.

Every time Ronald returned drunk, he had the bad habit of urinating on the trunk of one of the two pine trees in the yard of his house. That afternoon, the two brothers waited patiently in the garden, a short distance from the pine tree. As soon as their stepfather arrived, as expected, stumbling, he began to unbutton his pants, heading towards the tree trunk. Suddenly he noticed the two children staring intently in his direction. He started shouting and threatening them. However, he never noticed the drawing carved on the tree, slightly lower than the level of his eyes. It was too late to react when a hand emerged from the tree trunk holding a kitchen knife, and with a quick, horizontal motion, it slit his throat from end to end.

But the joy of the brothers wouldn't last long, as their mother was found guilty of her husband's murder and 2 months after the incident followed the fate of her children's father. No matter how hard they tried to explain to the police what had really happened, they laughed with them and ignored them. Social workers soon arrived at the house and transferred the siblings to separate institutions. Only the girls remained together. For years they wouldn't see each other. For years they would suffer separately in orphanages and foster families that would exploit and treat them like trash. And the house with the two pine trees would remain cold and empty of life. Haunted in the eyes of neighbours and passers-by.

Christmas of 1930, the Ritz hotel in Green Park hosted a gala with artists from all over the country. There, the Union of Artistic Events of the country had decided to award the artists with the greatest impact of the past decade in the following categories: Literature-Poetry, Theatre, Music, and Visual Arts. The royal family was officially invited, and members of it accepted the offer to personally award the prizes to the winners. After the first three awards, it was time for the award for the visual arts. The king, as a lover of these arts, offered to present the award to the winner himself. The winner of this category was a painter already known to every art lover in the country for his stunning works in painting and sculpture, which had captivated even indifferent people. His name, James Albert Woods.

Upon hearing the name, the king's advisor rushed to him and whispered something in his ear. James knew very well what had been said. However, he didn't care. He had no intention of physically or verbally attacking any member of the diabolical family. He knew that upon hearing his name, the guards would take special measures against him, but for tonight at least, he wouldn't do them the favour. Nevertheless, the monarch not only gave him the award but also shook hands with the young artist to congratulate him, staring at him persistently all the while. The audacity that this man carries... thought James, annoyed, although he managed to hide his true feelings. There's no chance I'll ever regret whatever you and your filthy line will go through soon.

During the interview he gave at the end of the evening, the winner of the visual arts award announced that the money he was awarded would be distributed to orphanages across the country. He also mentioned that he would like to donate 11 of his paintings to the royal family and that it would be an honour for him, and a form of redemption, for his own creations to adorn the walls of the palace. The royal family, in a statement the next day, praised the young artist for his ethics and talent, and expressed their eagerness to see the paintings arrive at the palace.

George and the other 31 rebels followed James into their old house. The furniture and anything else inside the house had long been stolen, so the rooms and walls of the house stood cold and empty. Men and women of the Revolutionary Movement stood in various places on the floor where some rested and others mentally prepared for the battle that would soon follow.

The two brothers, silent, rested in the living room, one next to the other, their backs against the wall. Years after their separation, they finally managed to reunite and never parted again. George married at 18 and had 2 sons. His wife died during the second birth. James preferred a solitary life. As for the twins and Andrew, they never learned what became of them.

As soon as the clock on George's wrist showed midnight, he signalled to his younger brother that the time had come. Without a word, James got up and, starting from where he was, began painting doors along the wall with chalk, one next to the other. When he finished, there were 11 doors painted on the walls of the living room.

While James was painting doors on the walls of his old house, almost all the lights in the palace corridors were out, and only the guards remained vigilant, patrolling the interior of the palace every night. Of course, outside the palace, the royal guard was always on alert, making it practically impossible for any ambitious invader. However, inside, the guards patrolling were only 26.

The first 7 guards fell dead before they even realized it. Using the same technique that had once taken his father's life, James, able to see through his paintings, used his artworks—where sharp weapons had deliberately been placed—to kill any isolated guard who approached them. At the right moment, with James controlling the images, the rebels passed through the painted doors and found themselves inside the palace, where, before the remaining guards noticed them, they hid the bodies and then hid themselves. After everyone had passed from their ruined house to the royal palace, with the second wave of attack, the rebels began killing the guards and any member of the staff who happened to wake up and find themselves in their path. In the hour of panic, one of the maids ran terrified through the palace corridors shouting, "They're hiding in the walls! They're coming out of the walls."

James and George arrived outside the king's room, where the last of the guards vainly attempted to confront them. The bullet from George's pistol ended up between his eyes, and his dead body fell to the floor with a thud. James opened the door, and the two brothers entered the luxurious room. In a corner at the back, a weak, frightened old man, whom no one would believe is the monarch of one of the most important countries on the planet, crouched, trembling, fallen on the floor. His screams and pleas did not move the young brothers, who, each drawing a knife from their sheaths, brought them up and down on the body of the English king with madness. Later, the police would announce that the monarch's body was found with 124 stab wounds all over his body.

Before the royal guard could locate them, the brothers with the other rebels started passing through the paintings to return home with the two pines. James remained the last, as only he could operate the gates. When his turn came, and as he almost passed through the painting, he would swear that at the end of the corridor, wearing the uniform of a royal guard officer, was his older brother, Andrew. He can't... he thought in terror. His stomach tightened, and he felt nauseous. Even if he hadn't seen him for almost 20 years, deep inside, James knew he had just seen his long-lost, older brother. As soon as he turned back to the living room and blocked the gates, he ran to the courtyard and fell on the tall grass, clutching his knees and hands, trying to find his breath again.

"Are you alright, James? What happened?" his brother asked, who had run after him out into the courtyard and was now standing beside him.

"It's not over yet, George... it’s not over."