THE BRUSH AND THE GIRL
The year was 1643, in the quiet European town of Greywick, where mist clung to the cobblestones like a prayer yet to be answered. The plague had arrived months before, creeping through alleyways and marketplaces with silent, certain cruelty. Fear had hollowed out the town — but life, stubborn as ever, still pressed forward.
Aria Vennor, seventeen, stepped lightly along the edge of the market square. Her cloak was simple, her hands always busy. Her family sold herbs and tinctures; she delivered them through the town, offering what comfort she could. People often said she had "the kind face of someone who had lived before." Aria didn't understand what that meant, but sometimes, in dreams, she felt as if she moved through a thousand memories not her own.
She stopped at a doorway she rarely visited — a narrow studio marked by paint-stained shutters.
The painter lived here.
He was quiet. Reclusive. Rumored to be brilliant.
Aria lifted her hand to knock just as the door opened.
He stood there — tall, dark-haired, with eyes too deep and intense to belong to a man who lived only once.
Kaelan Ward.
The moment their eyes met, something thundered inside both of them.
Not recognition.
Not exactly.
Something older. Something wordless. As if two souls long separated suddenly inhaled the same breath.
Kaelan blinked, steadying himself on the frame.Miss Vennor, he murmured. You've brought the herbs?
Aria nodded, though she had forgotten entirely why she'd come.
I know him.The thought rose in her, unbidden.
Yet they had never met.
Forgive me, he said softly, stepping back. Would you, would you come inside?
To her shock, she did.
Inside the studio, sunlight spilled over unfinished canvases. But one painting stood alone on the far wall, covered with a draped cloth.
Kaelan's voice faltered.I… I have seen your face before.
Her breath caught.
In dreams, he added quickly. I've painted you a hundred times without knowing your name.
Aria's heart lurched, a strange ache blooming in her chest.
I feel as though I… know you, she whispered.
He stared at her, stunned — as if she had spoken the very thing he feared to admit.
He lifted the cloth from the painting.
Her own face stared back at her.
Not as she looked now — but as a woman in a gown centuries old, standing in a moonlit forest with a grief in her eyes that made Aria's throat tighten.
She took a step back, trembling.
I've never seen this dress, she whispered. Never stood like this. And yet—
It feels familiar, Kaelan finished.
Their eyes locked again.
Something ancient stirred between them.
Something dangerous.
The town bells rang suddenly, breaking the moment.
Kaelan exhaled.I would ask you to return, he said softly. If you would allow it. There is something about you I… cannot leave alone.
Aria should have run.
But she didn't.
Instead, she nodded.I'll return.
And fate, so patient through centuries of suffering, breathed again.