Lisa Ingersol (b. 1993), 'Nevermore', 2025, Oil on canvas

TW: Suicide, Violence, and Gore

Lisa’s hand trembled as she turned the small liner brush through the paint. She wasn’t watching what she was doing—she was staring at what she’d painted on the canvas so far. It was too real, too accurate. God, it was the eyes. That’s what she was working on now, the finishing touches on the eyes. She could stop now and call it complete. The eyes would stick with you, haunt you. You’d never forget them as long as you lived.

But she had a few more strokes to make and knew exactly how she was gonna make them. How much paint the brush should have, how much pressure she needed, where to start, where to stop. She looked around the canvas into the dark, at her silent subject. Then brought her eyes back to the canvas.

It was late and the only light on in the studio was the one directly above her—a soft, yellow industrial bulb on a chain. It was terrible light to paint by, but it was the only light she could reach from her stool. She’d been painting for... how long? Nine hours? Ten hours? She’d lost count. She was thirsty. She was hungry. Her head ached, but she hadn’t stopped—couldn’t stop.

Lisa swallowed hard and raised the brush up off of her palette. Her hand hovered above the canvas, shaking. She made a single stroke and she could feel tears welling up in her eyes. She made another and shuddered. She touched the palette again, slowly. One more stroke. One more.

Her subject had not left her side since the night she’d tried to end it all, after she’d received her third rejection letter from the National Academy of the Arts and just couldn’t bear it anymore. She’d first seen it when she was being loaded into the ambulance, standing—towering over the EMT, illuminated by the alternating red and blue lights. She would’ve screamed then, if she could have. After that, as she drifted in and out of consciousness, the thing was there like some demonic guardian angel. Whether she was awake or asleep, it was close by.

When she’d woken up in her hospital room, it was dark and quiet, save for the low steady beep of her heart monitor and the soft patter of rain on the window. As her eyes focused on the details of the room, she saw it there in the dark corner, only a portion of its face lit from the light of the window. The dark shadows of raindrops running down its dark face were like rivers of dark blood. God, she wanted to scream then too, but couldn’t—she was frozen with fear. “Wh-what are you?” she’d whispered into the dark, when she’d finally gotten her mouth to work. The thing didn’t answer.

The door opened and a doctor and nurse stepped in, flicking on the light. The thing disappeared, like it was made of shadow. Forty minutes later, the doctor turned off the light as they were leaving and the thing was there again, like it had never left. “Are you only in my head?” she asked. The thing nodded its head, its great black, heavy feathers rustling softly. “Can anyone else see you?” The thing shook its head again, with the same dry rustling noise.

She’d started to paint it the day after she was released from the hospital. She must’ve spent twenty-five hours on it so far. The background was a forest scene with the bare tree branches twisting and crossing each other against a night sky. She’d painted a huge, blood moon in the top right corner.

Even though she’d painted it, it was still hard to describe. It looked like a cross between a man, a bat and a raven. But mostly, it looked like a raven.

It was the eyes. They weren’t red and glowing the way a demon’s eyes were on TV or in movies. They were silvery and mercurial. Hypnotic and terrifying. And all seeing. Yes, there was no doubt that those eyes knew everything there ever was or everything there ever will be. Those eyes knew how to look inside you and find what scared you most, so that it could unfurl its dark wings, wrap them around that fear, and squeeze. Squeeze until every synapses in your brain fired only with terror and you couldn’t breathe. That’s what the eyes were like.

She’d read The Raven hundreds of times since the thing had come to her. There was one line that she kept repeating in her head:

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

She was sure now that Poe wasn’t writing about a literal raven—he must’ve been writing about this thing. Whatever had come into her life had been the same thing that had come to Poe and haunted him—haunted him for years, until they’d found him delirious and dying in Baltimore. He’d written about their tormentor and now she was painting it. She wasn’t sure why. She just felt compelled to. Maybe Poe had felt compelled to write about it.

She blinked, and a tear slid down her cheek and dropped off her chin. The last stroke. One last stroke. The eyes were already too real, too knowing, too seeing. The last stroke was the final, thin line between art and reality.

She took a shuddery breath and brought her hand shaking to the canvas, her other hand holding her wrist for support. She touched the brush to the painting, made her final stroke, and gasped. The brush fell from her hand, clattering on the floor, while she put her hands over mouth and began to cry. She stared at the eyes she had painted. She would swear they were moving, watching, knowing, even though it was just paint on a canvas.

She looked around the canvas into the dark. The thing wasn’t there. She looked back at the canvas. That’s where it was now. Watching.

* * *

“... a mastery of the medium that far exceeds her years. What we are going to unveil here tonight, ladies and gentlemen, is a piece of work that we at the Koppelman Memorial Art Gallery believe will join the pantheon of masterpieces whose legacies have spanned centuries...”

Nikki squeezed her hand. Lisa pulled her eyes away from the podium and looked at her. She had tears in her eyes and was smiling proudly at Lisa. She winked at her, spilling a tear down her cheek, and squeezed again.

Lisa felt ridiculous—out of place. She was standing in one of the most prestigious art galleries on the east coast, if not in the world, surrounded by very rich people wearing Armani suits and Versace dresses, drinking real champagne out of delicate, authentic, vintage Waterford lead crystal glasses—Oliver Sanborn, the curator of the Koppelman, had assured her of their authenticity.

He was lavishing in the unveiling of Lisa’s painting. “Exquisite..” he’d whispered to himself when he saw it for the first time. “Absolutely exquisite... I-I’m speechless, my dear, and that doesn’t happen often. I have looked at a lot of art in my day, and secured some brilliant pieces, mind you, but this... This is breathtaking.”

“I told you,” Nikki whispered to her, squeezing her hand then, too.

“What do you call it?” Sanborn asked.

“I haven’t really thought of a name for it,” Lisa said. “I guess if I had to pick something... I guess I would call it ‘Nevermore.’”

“Ahh, a tribute to Poe. Very fitting,” he turned back towards them then, his eyes going last as if he was struggling to look away from the canvas. “Promise me you won’t talk to another curator or collector anybody until I get back to you.” He took Lisa’s hands then, “Your future is bright my dear. Very, very bright.”

The painting horrified Lisa because the demon was real to her. But Nikki, and Sanborn, and anyone else who had seen it so far really, had had the same visceral reaction to it. When Nikki had come to the studio to check on her the day after she’d finished it, she’d found Lisa asleep on the little love seat she kept in the studio. When Nikki had shaken her awake, her face was pale and her eyes were wide and afraid. “Lis... Lis... Is this what you’ve been working on all week?” It was a silly question and one that Nikki never would have asked—she knew full-well that Lisa had painted it.

“Yeah... I finished it last night.”

“It’s...” Nikki looked back at it and swallowed, “It’s terrifying. Is-is that the thing you said you’ve been seeing in the dark?”

Lisa nodded and sat up, rubbing her eyes.

“Do you see it now?”

Lisa shook her head. “No... I think... I think painting it made it go away.”

Nikki walked back over to it, slowly, cautiously, as if the thing might leap off the canvas and grab her. “Jesus, how did you make the eyes look like that?”

“I don’t really know. I just... did.”

“Lis... This is incredible. Like, in-credible. You gotta show somebody—”

“No, I don’t think so. I just... I had to make that thing go away.”

“Lisa, listen to me—this is a masterpiece!” Nikki said, turning back to her. She put her hands over her mouth and turned back the painting.

“No, c’mon. It’s garbage. It’s Tumblr art at best. It’s poppy phone wallpaper for emos. It’s a fucking raven-man for God’s sake.”

“I don’t think you understand how fucking scary it is. It’s the eyes. You know that bullshit thing they say about Mona Lisa’s following you?” Lisa nodded. “This is like that, but for real! I would swear to God that those eyes are moving. Like, swirling around, but they’re not moving. How the fuck did you do that?!”

“I don’t know. They just... came out that way.”

“You see it right? You realize how incredible that is?”

“I felt like that last night, but I think its just because I was tired. They just look like eyes to me now.”

“Oh, bullshit, Lisa. Those fucking things are moving and you can’t tell me they’re not.” She was right—when Lisa looked at them, the eyes did move and change.

Nikki walked back over to her and took her hands. “Look, I know its been hard. You really scared me when you... you know. I was sick to my stomach when I got that phone call. I wasn’t sure what it was gonna be like when you got out of there—like whether you’d ever paint again or whether or not you were... I almost came down here to stay here with you. And when you told me you were seeing things, it scared me even worse.

“But this is un-fucking-believable. I think this is your shot, Lis.”

“Nikki...”

“No, listen. Fuck the N-double-A. You don’t need them. This—” she gestured to the painting. “This is your ticket. You want into that world? Six years and a piece of paper from the academy isn’t your ticket in. This thing is. You don’t have to do anything. Let me talk to some people. You just worry about taking care of yourself.”

“... And, without further ado, I’d like to invite the artist, Ms. Lisa Ingersol, up here to pull the rope and reveal her masterpiece.” The gallery started into a polite applause. Nikki pulled her close and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m so proud of you,” she said as she let Lisa go and wiped the tears off of her cheeks.

Lisa started to make her way up to where Sanborn was waiting for her. The canvas was hidden behind a heavy, black velvet shroud and had two long, thick golden ropes on either side, waiting to be pulled.

“Lisa? Do you have anything you’d like to say before the reveal?” Sanborn asked.

Lisa leaned toward the microphone. “I just hope it lives up to the hype.” There was a small giggle from the audience and another subdued round of applause.

Lisa and Sanborn walked to either side of the curtain and each grabbed their ends of rope. “Ready?” Sanborn asked. Lisa nodded. “OK, On three. One, two, three!” They each pulled their end of the rope and the curtain rippled in slow, heavy waves toward the ground. Lisa was looking into the audience when the painting was revealed, watching for their reaction. There was a collective gasp, and the crowd began to murmur. Nikki’s hands went up to her mouth.

“What the hell is this?!” Sanborn cried, stepping back from the painting, his neck craned. “Where is David? What the fuck did he do?!”

“Lisa?” Nikki said, pulling her hands away from her mouth. “What does this mean? Where is it?”

Lisa, confused, stepped away from the wall and turned to look at the painting. The frame looked as if it been embedded in the wall—the glossy white marble had spiderweb cracks running from the edges of the frame.

But that wasn’t all. The demon was missing. The painting only showed bare trees in front of a blood moon.

“Oh my God,” Lisa whispered. She turned to Nikki. “I-I don’t know.”

Sanborn spun her around and placed his hands on either shoulder. “I am so terribly sorry Ms. Ingersol. We’ll figure out what happened im—”

“OH MY GOD!” a woman in a pink gown cried, pointing at the painting. Lisa, Sanborn and everybody else looked again at the painting. Sanborn’s hands fell from Lisa’s shoulders. The branches of the trees appeared to be swaying, as if in a gentle breeze, and a small black cloud was creeping toward the moon.

Nikki ran to Lisa and grabbed her arm. “Lisa? What does this mean?”

Lisa turned back to Nikki with wide, terrified eyes. “I-I don’t know—”

Someone else in the crowd screamed. In the far distance of the painting, there was something flying against the sky. It was small in the distance, but growing larger, as if it was approaching the frame. Screams and gasps erupted in the crowd. A few dropped their crystal champagne flutes and started for the door. Sanborn didn’t even notice.

“It’s gonna come through,” Lisa said to Nikki. She turned to Sanborn. “It’s gonna try to come through the frame!”

“What?” Sanborn said astonished, dragging his eyes away from the frame.

“We have to get the frame off the wall! It’s gonna come through!” The things was looming larger and larger in the frame, blocking out a part of the moon as it seemed to weave to and fro in flight.

Lisa ran to frame and tried to stick her fingers in between it and the wall, “Don’t just fucking stand there! Help me!” Nikki and Sanborn and a few men from the crowd ran over.

Sanborn called to one of the gallery attendants, “Find David and tell him to grab a crowbar!”

The seven of them got into positions and began trying to pull the frame off the wall, but it wouldn’t budge. They couldn’t even get a grip on it. A moment or two later, David appeared with a crowbar. The small crowd backed away and watched in astonishment and he jammed the prying end in between the wall and the frame. He leaned back and pulled with all his might, the veins in his forehead and neck bulging and his face turning red, all while the shadow of the thing loomed closer.

Over the sound of the frenzied crowd (more had parted) and the strenuous sounds of David’s prying, Lisa started to hear the sound of breaking branches. The demon was crashing through the treetops and headed straight for the frame, as if it were flying toward a window.

“Get out of the way!” Lisa screamed as she grabbed Nikki’s arm. She pulled her down behind the podium as the rest of the crowd scrambled for cover. Lisa shut her eyes and put her hands over head while Nikki did the same next to her.

It was like a bomb going off.

Marble exploded out of the wall and skidded across the floor. Lights overhead burst in showers of glass. Smaller pieces of marble sailed through the air and crashed through the windows at the end of the gallery. Some of those that had taken cover in time ran through the broken windows and out into the street. Then, it was silent save for the ringing in her ears.

Lisa opened her eyes and looked around the podium. A thick plume of marble dust swirled slowly through the gallery. The coppery smell of blood hung in the air and mixed with the sweet, heady smell of champagne. She could see Sanborn and David lying crushed beneath a large slab of granite, a dark pool of their mixed blood spreading like ink across the white marble floor. “Oh, God,” she whispered, fighting the urge to be sick. “Nikki? Are you all right?”

Nikki’s face was white, and her eyes were wide with shock. She was barely breathing. “Breathe,” Lisa whispered to her. “Nikki, breathe!”

Then, she could hear footsteps that sounded like some enormous dog’s—a thud with the definitive clack of a claw. Lisa’s breath caught in her throat. It was the thing looking for her.

Its shadow appeared on the floor, growing out of the shadow cast by the podium. It stood still for a second before continuing slowly. Nikki started to whimper next to Lisa and started to press up against her.

A shadow fell across both of them as the thing emerged from behind the podium, towering over them. Lisa’s heart thudded in her chest and her body was trembling with fear.

“Thank you,” it said in a dark, sinister whisper, it’s terrible beak not moving. “Thank you, for the portal.”