The Masters Reimagined Volume 2: The Masters Reimagined, #2

The collective anthology "The Masters Reimagined 2: A Speculative Fiction Anthology," Copyright © 2020 by The Alvarium Experiment.

Upon the Styx, Copyright © 2020 by Jade Kerrion.

The Scream, Copyright © 2020 by Charles A. Cornell.

The Medusa Jump, Copyright © 2020 by Ken Pelham.

Oil and Hemlock, Copyright © 2020 by Kristin Durfee.

Soul for a Soul, Copyright © 2020 by John Hope.

The Eyes of Mona Lisa, Copyright © 2020 by Bria Burton.

Storey’s Orphans, Copyright © 2020 by Veronica H. Hart.

Among the Blue Horses, Copyright © 2020 by Elle Andrews Patt.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce or distribute this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, contact The Alvarium Experiment or Blue Beech Press.

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Front and back cover designs by Charles A Cornell

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The Masters Reimagined Volume 2: A Speculative Fiction Anthology, 1st edition Ebook

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the authors' imaginations. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. With the exception of public figures, any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental. Any historical personages or actual events depicted are completely fictionalized and used only for inspiration. Any opinions expressed are completely those of fictionalized characters and not a reflection of the views of public figures, writers, or publisher.

ABOUT THE ALVARIUM EXPERIMENT

The Alvarium Experiment is a consortium of writers working independently together to create short stories based on a central premise. The name comes from the Latin alvarium, meaning beehive, a colony working towards a common goal for the benefit of all involved.

The Masters Reimagined 2 is the fifth anthology published by this Hive Mind of award-winning and bestselling authors. Stories from the first, The Prometheus Saga, won seven literary awards including five prestigious Royal Palm Literary Awards from the Florida Writers Association. The subsequent anthologies—Return to Earth, The Masters Reimagined, and The Prometheus Saga 2—have also garnered multiple awards and critical praise.

To follow The Alvarium Experiment's current and future projects online, please join the conversation at these websites:

Website:

AlvariumExperiment.wixsite.com/prometheussaga/alvarium

Blog:

TheAlvariumExperiment.wordpress

Facebook Page:

@alvariumbooks

ABOUT THE MASTERS REIMAGINED 2

The Masters Reimagined 2 is the fifth project of the Alvarium Experiment, a consortium of accomplished and award-winning authors. Each author was given a central premise of tackling a classic work of art and reimagining it with the elements of speculative fiction, be they fantasy, science fiction, alternative history, or horror.

The stories may be read in any order.

The Masters Reimagined 2 stories and authors are:

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Upon the Styx by Jade Kerrion. Charon, immortal ferryman of the Underworld, has only one friend—Phaedre, a slave girl stranded on the banks of the Styx, unable to pay for passage across the dark river. To grant her eternal peace, he ventures into the world of mortals to complete her funerary rites. But the seemingly simple task unravels the mystery of a headless, winged sculpture at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, and pits him against the fury of a vengeful goddess. How many enemies will he make and what terrible price will Charon pay for Phaedre’s eternal peace?

Visit Jade at www.jadekerrion.com

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The Scream by Charles A. Cornell. A man steps into the path of a tram. An art school love affair turns tragic. And the eccentric wanderings of an antiques dealer catches the attention of a detective investigating the theft of Norway’s most celebrated work of art, Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Haunted by weird dreams and psychic visions, former mental patient Torsten Egland may hold the key in Detective Inspector Henrik Nordkapp’s search for the stolen painting. Nordkapp must decide if he should abandon traditional police methods and place his faith in a quirky man whose troubled mind may be communicating with the painting itself.

Visit Charles at www.charlesacornell.com

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The Medusa Jump by Ken Pelham. A terrified father follows his son, an art historian, from the year 2367 to 1816 to study the real-life tragedy of the French frigate Medusa, only to find themselves both among the subjects of Théodore Géricault’s masterpiece.

Visit Ken at www.kenpelham.com

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Soul for a Soul by John Hope. Before St. Augustine earns his position as bishop, he and his teenage son must save the good name of the early Christian Church and rescue an abused altar boy from the clutches of a soul-capturing daemon. To do so, one of the two must travel to an unknown spiritual realm called the Neither, between Purgatory and Hell, risking his eternal soul in the process.

Visit John at www.johnhopewriting.com

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Oil and Hemlock by Kristin Durfee. Amita, a young New York philosophy student, is whisked from 1977 to 399 BC Athens, and into the life of one of her heroes, Socrates. Yet her excitement plunges into horror as she realizes she's arrived on the day of his trial and execution.

Visit Kristin at www.kristindurfee.com

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The Eyes of Mona Lisa by Bria Burton. If the entries in her great-great-great-grandmother's diary are true, twenty-year-old Lanea will see the future if she gazes into the eyes of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. When a special exhibit of the famed painting arrives at the National Gallery of Art in D.C., Lanea brings her best friend along on her quest to see if the visions are true, and what they may foretell.

Visit Bria at www.briaburton.com

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Storey’s Orphans by Veronica H. Hart. Grunsberry Murphy, a time traveler, appears as a twelve-year-old in 1878 London just in time to save Winifred and Laurance Allen from death when ships collide on the Thames. After rinsing the stench of the river from them, she leaves them to search for their parents. The children disappear, and she hurries to the Alexandra Orphanage to find them. George Storey has arranged to do one of his London life scenes at the home and captures the arrival of Winifred and Laurance, made famous in Arrival at the Orphanage.

Visit Veronica at www.veronicahhart.com

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Among the Blue Horses by Elle Andrews Patt. Muriel has a secret she doesn't dare tell anyone for fear of being locked away forever. The she discovers German artist Franz Marc might be the only person in the world who understands her. But he's been dead for over a century. When an art museum director takes notices of her frequent visits and outs her, Muriel finds out more than she ever wanted to know, in a way she never could have imagined. Come trip the light fantasic, spirit-walking with modern artists Franz Marc, Wassily Kandinsky, and bestie August Macke through the years before the Great War....and then beyond.

Visit Elle at www.elleandrewspatt.com

INTRODUCTION

"To my mind one does not put oneself in place of the past, one only adds a new link.  —Paul Cézanne

The ability, the compulsion, to make art is one of the defining hallmarks of the human species. Throughout history, works of art have spoken to the contemporaries of their creators. The greatest works speak to generations long after the moment of creation, moving us emotionally and intellectually, inspiring us to do better, to be better.

We ask that you revisit some of the greatest artworks and artists, to see them anew, or perhaps become intimate with them for the first time. But with an unusual twist.

Reimagine these masterpieces with a touch of the speculative. Reimagine their stories, or the artists’ stories, with elements of science fiction, fantasy, or horror. Reimagine Edvard Munch’s The Scream involved in a mystery story with unexplainable echoes and voices of something outside our normal lives. Reimagine Winged Victory of Samothrace as an icon in a conflict between gods and humanity. Reimagine Mona Lisa’s beguiling eyes as the catalyst enabling a young woman to see the future. Some of the greatest masterpieces of art across the centuries continue to amaze and inspire. Explore them again with open hearts and minds. And enjoy the fictional what if speculations of The Masters Reimagined 2.

—The Authors of The Masters Reimagined 2

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

2020 has been a challenge across the board. Rounding up these anthology stories didn’t prove as hard as most daily tasks of life have become. Like readers, the authors found escape from the daily doom-scrolling by losing themselves in the creation of imaginary worlds.

And, oh, what worlds! From murder mystery to time travel, demonic possession to art theft, these stories all have one thing in common. From single pieces of art, each author has built an entire world, populated with people who are trying to survive their surprising circumstances. This is speculative fiction at its purest. Every story has realism at its heart, with well-researched settings related to each unique masterwork and a single twist of what-if added.

Some of those twists are broad; what if the Underworld were real? Some narrow; what if a small group of artists shared a psychic ability? But all create strange and engaging journeys for our heroes and heroines, who could be you or me or the neighbor next door.

I hope you’ll find this anthology a worthwhile escape from an unrelenting year and end up coming back to it time and again in years to come.

—Laura Andrews, Blue Beech Press

UPON THE STYX

JADE KERRION

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

—Rudyard Kipling

"I don’t understand why you won’t come with me." Thanatos demands. His impatience with me borders on querulous.

And I don’t understand why my elder brother is here, asking the same question he’s asked for centuries, when he knows nothing has changed. I have responsibilities here. If I sound equally impatient, it’s because even an immortal can get tired of rehashing the same old debate.

His eyes narrow—a prelude to argument—but I’m not cowed. Thanatos is Death, and like my other siblings, the children of Nyx, his immortal Titan blood grants him divine perfection. His sculptured symmetry is too precise to be mortal, his swift grace too effortless. It’s said that when he arrives to claim a soul, mortals see different things through their dying eyes.

A wizened man.

A flaming skull.

A great horned beast.

They see Death as they imagine him to be.

Yet when their souls arrive here, at the banks of the Styx, their vision is transformed by truth. They see Death as I see him. As he sees himself.

Enchanted by his remote and flawless perfection, they’ve told me Thanatos’s eyes are bluer than a clear summer sky, the light in them sharper than a sword. I understand the words, but still cannot put a color to the name. The skies are always grey here at the borders of the Underworld, as flat and unchanging as a parchment soaked in dye. The vastness here seems endless, the color transforming only when land touches water. The River Styx is black, its surface impossibly smooth, never rippling even when I guide my boat through it. The cloak and hood I wear are as dark as its waters; the many folds of the robe conceal my form and face.

Habit, I suppose.

I’ve worn them for many millennia, and I know how foolish I must look to my brother. Does he realize how foolish he looks to me? He’s wearing clothes he calls a shirt, pants, and jacket. They look too tight, but he says it is what the mortals wear on Earth.

I wouldn’t know. The last soul that arrived at the banks of the Styx wore a tunic and mantle, but that was hundreds of years ago.

No one since.

No one believes in the Greek gods anymore.

And I, Charon, the ferryman of the Underworld, have waited for as long, doing absolutely nothing.

No one else is coming, Thanatos enunciates each word slowly and carefully.

I know, I freely acknowledge the truth I’ve realized for a long time. But someone is still here.

I look over my shoulder.

She stands some distance away, as she does whenever Thanatos visits. Watching and waiting until she can return to my side.

Her name is Phaedre. She arrived almost two thousand years ago, delivered by my sisters, the Keres, the twin goddesses of violent death.

Thanatos shrugs. That girl’s not going anywhere. Just leave her here—

I can’t, I snap back at him. We’ve gone through this exact argument so many times. I don’t understand why he thinks repeating it changes anything. As long as anyone is here on this side of the Styx, my work isn’t done.

Your work isn’t going to get done. She arrived without payment.

Payment. A Greek obol. A coin to pay the ferryman for passage across the Styx. I had offered to ferry Phaedre across the river without payment, but she refused for fear of the judgement that would follow. It is not right, she had said. The rituals must be followed.

I don’t understand her obsession for abiding with the rites of the dead, but then again, I have no fear of the three judges of the Underworld, Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus. I am the youngest born of Nyx, the goddess of Night, who is herself born of Chaos. My blood runs purest gold, and the three judges were once only mortal men.

Titans fear nothing from mortals, not even those who gain power after death.

But mortals are bones and skin held together by fears. Even dead, their souls are knitted by terrors, more imagined than real. My words have not swayed Phaedre.

Not in the nearly two thousand years she has been here.

Between Phaedre’s stubborn insistence on fulfilling the proper rituals, and my stubborn refusal to abandon my duty, it is not impossible to suppose that our impasse will last for all eternity, until the Earth itself has faded from memory.

Thanatos, as immortal as I, however, has no patience for mulishness. All the other immortals have joined the mortal world. Our brothers and sisters are already there, waiting for you. If you will not join us until Phaedre crosses the Styx, then just find where her body lies and complete the funerary rites. Give her the payment she needs for passage, he says.

My head snaps up, and I stare at my brother. You will do this for her?

No, Thanatos says. "You will do this for her."

But I cannot leave—

Don’t be ridiculous. There is no law that binds you to the Styx. Nothing that says you cannot leave for a brief moment to solve the very problem that would keep you here forever, doing nothing.

But to enter the mortal world—

It is not the terrifying thing you think it is. Besides, you’ve spent your life surrounded by mortals.

Yes, but only when the thread of life has been cut from the Great Spindle. When they are mere shades—echoes and memories of the person they had been.

I have never seen them alive. And I have never walked the surface of the Earth. I press my hand against the pitching of my stomach. It cannot possibly be fear. What Titan would fear mortals? Where will I go? I ask.

To where her body lies, of course. Surely she can tell you that. Thanatos shrugged. Or did the Keres tell you?

They had not. In those days, they had little interest in pointless chatter. I do not think that even now, they would have developed a taste for it. I recall perfectly, though, the day Phaedre arrived at the banks of the Styx, utterly bewildered, shocked into muteness. It took hundreds of years to win her confidence and coax her story from her; and five times longer for her hesitant trust to settle into friendship. Phaedra spoke little of her death, and scarcely more of her life, I tell Thanatos. "She lived on Samothrace—a servant at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods."

Ah, Thanatos says. "The Mysteries." He does not bother to hide the scorn in his voice. The Titans have little interest in rituals. Olympians, however, crave them; so much so that they would cavort as mysterious primeval deities in marble sanctuaries set in ancient groves. Gullible mortals are easy prey for the pomp, grandeur, and secrecy of those rituals; Phaedre among them.

Thanatos continues, Then there you must go to find her body and complete the rites. The brightness in his eyes fades slightly. Only, be careful.

Of the mortals?

He shrugs. All of those whom the Keres delivered to you received funerary rites in due course. Violent death is no excuse for not tending to the souls of the dead. But Phaedre was never tended to.

Perhaps she was forgotten.

More likely, she was remembered.

I glare at Thanatos. What is it about immortals that compel them to speak in incomprehensible sentences twisted to conceal the truth? Isolated from both Titans and Olympians, I have never learned the trick of it. Yet they treat it like currency, using prophecies to bargain, even though they cannot trick fate or destiny.

Mist, summoned by Thanatos’s will, rises from the ground, and he departs, leaving my realm to me.

And Phaedre.

She returns to my side. You were arguing about me again?

How much did you hear?

She shrugs. Some of it. Death does not speak quietly. He wants you to go with him.

I nod.

I don’t think anyone has said no to Death as many times as you have. She laughs, flashing white teeth. He’s befuddled by your refusal.

I smile with her, and when I extend my hand to her, she takes it, slipping the palm of her hand easily against mine.

Why won’t you go with him? She questions me freely now, but in truth, it took her hundreds of years to even ask a question. And that first time, she spoke so quietly, I had to strain to hear her voice. "Why am I here?"

It is the most piteous question a mortal can ask, and it’s the one question I hate hearing most.

It’s the question that pours from the depth of a soul that was not ready to depart.

I step into my boat, and she immediately pulls her hand from mine. I deliberately hold my hand out to her. Will you sit with me?

Phaedre nods, but sits on the banks of the Styx instead, folding her long legs beneath her pale chiton. She gathers her himation like a shawl around her shoulders. Her color is muted, as faded as her last breath, but her hair hints of once-gleaming copper, and her slim limbs have retained the grace of her truncated youth.

Alive, she must have been beautiful.

And she has been my only companion these hundreds of otherwise silent and empty years.

I would take you across the Styx, I say again, as I have said every year, every month, every week, indeed, every day since we became friends close enough for such a conversation. Your journey extends beyond this shore.

I have no payment, she says. It is not the right way.

The deity of stubbornness, if there is one, has nothing on Phaedre. I’ve told her that ‘the right way’ is an invention of gods, designed to avoid the tedium of answering mortals’ questions and making up something new each time, but she will not believe me.

She was, after all, a servant at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, steeped in the Mysteries, her day structured around rituals, whatever they were.

Phaedre has not revealed them to me.

She was pledged to keep them a secret until death.

Even beyond death.

Thanatos says that there may be a way for you to cross over the Styx, I tell her. If I can find your body and complete the funerary rites, you will be able to pay your way.

Her eyes widen. They are as grey as the sky. You will do that for me?

I stare at her. She always tilts her head when she smiles. Her voice lilts in happy melodies when she tells me stories of her childhood, and when we walk, side by side along the Styx, I shorten my stride to match her graceful steps.

And yet at the anniversary of her death, she wanders away for weeks, even months at a time, her inexplicable sorrow too deep to share, even with someone who is trying to understand. She flinches when other immortals draw near, even Thanatos, whom she has seen so many times.

She is terrified of gods and Titans even though she cannot explain why.

Whatever we did to her has ruined her beyond my ability to fix.

I don’t know if crossing over to the Underworld, where Hades rules, will fix what ails her, but it’s not about healing what cannot be healed. It’s about taking the next step, regardless.

And her next step lies on the far banks of the Styx.

Phaedre, I need to know what happened to you when you died.

Fear lances into her eyes. I don’t know. I’ve told you. I don’t remember.

Then tell me what you do remember.

Hours—long, cold hours of standing in the wind, my garments soaked.

Were you on a boat? I ask.

No, I was at the Sanctuary.

What were you doing there?

I was a servant. I did what I was told, Pheadre says. To stand, my arms raised. To look into the wind. To endure when other servants drenched my garments with salt water.

It makes no sense. None of the Mysteries make any sense.

But, no... Phaedre had never...would never...share the Sanctuary’s secret rituals with me. So, this was something else then.

What is the last thing you remember? I ask her.

Her eyes take on a dreamy cast. Light. So much light. Then terrible pain. She clasps her thin fingers around her neck. Then nothing else.

Nothing?

She frowns, as if trying to remember. The sound of great wings.

Definitely not the Keres. My sisters had eventually carried Phaedre’s soul to the Underworld and deposited her at the banks of the Styx, but they didn’t have wings.

And they usually wait for the completion of the funerary rites.

Either the Keres didn’t wait—which is unlike them—or they knew the rites would not be completed.

Thanatos’s warning rings through my mind. More likely, she was remembered.

And Phaedre’s funerary rites, for whatever reason, had been thwarted.

Who had she offended? Which Olympian? Which Titan?

And if I complete her funerary rites, who would I offend?

I have spent all my life at the banks of the Styx, away from the bickering Titans and Olympians, insulated—mostly—from their spite. If I leave the Styx, I would give up the privacy of my sanctuary and my protestations of neutrality.

No longer just the ferryman.

No longer just the passive mover of souls across the Styx.

I don’t know if I am ready to be more than the person I was born to be.

But I know I cannot extinguish the sudden hope in Phaedre’s eyes.

It is time for her to continue her journey.

Even if it means turning aside from my divine destiny as ferryman of the Underworld.

I stare at her, memorizing her faded beauty.

For Phaedre, I will do it.

I stand, gathering my black cloak around me. Tell me to find you.

She tilts her head, but she’s not smiling. Instead her brow furrows. What?

Just tell me to find you.

But I am right here, she protests.

Phaedre...

Very well. Find me, if you please, great ferryman.

Ferryman.

I am the ferryman, not just of the Underworld, but of all places and all things. I can move anything from one place to any another, and it is fated that nothing can stand in my path. All doors open. All obstacles give way. My power lies only between points of origin and destination.

And Phaedre has just given me the destination.

The resting place of her human body.

I step off my boat and into the Styx.

Charon, she calls out.

I look over my shoulder. I think she will tell me to be careful, but instead she says, I think you should change.

I look down at my robes.

Wear what your brother wears, she says. Her advice is both practical and correct.

What about the rest of me?

She knows that I’m referring to my form. My face. Like all immortals in whom Chaos’s blood runs pure and thick like sinewy ropes of gold, I can take any form I choose. Hooded skeleton. Hunchbacked, gnarled monstrosity.

But Phaedre shrugs. You’re fine as you are.

I stare at her, then concede to her wisdom. If my true form seems acceptable to her, then I would keep it. She was mortal once, right? She should know.

I walk into the Styx until the waters surround me in its unfaltering embrace. I inhale and exhale, mostly out of habit. I need air no more than the gods need mortal food. The Styx, like all waters, flow from Oceanus, the river that encircles the world. As the ferryman, I pass freely through it all. A wish—scarcely more than a whim—and I am flashing from the Styx, through Oceanus, and into the warmth of the Aegean Sea.

I break the surface of the water. White-foamed waves—so different from the unyielding smoothness of the black Styx—flow past me and rise to smash against the basalt and granite rocks on the island of Samothrace.

The sun is but a sliver on the horizon. Helios has scarcely begun his daily journey across the canvas of the sky. Grateful for the cover of near darkness, I wade onshore, but my pants and shirt, perfect replicas of what I had seen Thanatos wear, do not dry instantly the way they would have if I had stepped out of the Styx.

A minor inconvenience, and a timely one.

A reminder that not all my divine powers—and I have few to begin with—work here in the mortal realm.

I squeeze what water I can from my clothes, but still they cling to me. They are far more fitting than my robe, and when wet, infinitely more uncomfortable. Does Thanatos realize the absurdity of modern fashion?

More likely, he doesn’t get them wet. Death travels through mists. Unfortunately, I have to make do with water. Squelching with every step, I turn toward the city. Its ancient fortifications have blended with its modern foundations, but it is as pretty as Phaedre’s description of the Samothrace she knew—a harmonious blend of white and grey stone houses capped with brown tiled roofs lining cobblestone roads.

The brightening sky splashes color over the city, slathering hues across a blended palette until I can no longer name the dazzling shades before me. A bird’s cheery warble lures me into awed silence, as the scents oozing from the earth and the smells spilling from the trappings of humanity blend into a distinctive signature of time and place.

I never realized how beautiful the mortal world is.

And then I see people.

The first is a woman with a stout face and narrow eyes. She almost hits me with the window shutter she flings open. She squawks an impatient apology, which I understand perfectly even though her Greek is different from what Phaedre and I speak to each other. Innate mastery