Rebecca Wentworth's Distraction by Robert J. Begiebing

two . . .”—she seemed to search for a word—“brothers, who died in the recent throat distemper.”
    â€œI see,” he said. He returned to the painting. “But is it not a happy issue of these tragic deaths? Surely they are bent heavenward.”
    â€œStill, sir, the parents found it frightful, so soon following their demise. The wounds of mother and father were still open.” She looked to see if he followed her. “That she should see them ascend, was perhaps a part of the trouble as well. I think it is not so difficult to understand their reaction.”
    â€œBut is not this canvas a glorious rendition of what she hoped or surmised of her brothers’ last hour?”
    â€œShe always insists ‘I paint precisely what I see.’ You must understand: To her these paintings and drawings are all no mere transmogrifying to canvas by way of technique or simple fancy. Such visions she always maintained are as real to her as I am to you, standing here in this moment.”
    â€œHow can that be so, Miss Norris?”
    â€œWhether it is so is not the question. Why, sir, she is a dear little visionary. Is that not clear?”
    He considered her words a moment, wondering if the child might be mad. “And these perceptions, her beatifications? Rendered as an afterthought, so to speak, upon board and canvas?”
    â€œAnd as many on drawing paper. And why not? Would she be the first to see such things in this world?”
    He laughed quietly. “Not the first, surely.” But what he had seen unsettled him, too. He understood the parents’ trepidation, even if he did not condone their response.
    â€œHow else to explain what you have held in your own hands, sir?”
    â€œIndeed, Miss Norris.”
    â€œDid not our Savior Himself teach that we should come to see as a child?”
    He said nothing. He turned to continue his search through the stack of canvas and board. He imagined them all going up in flames, their destiny now. Many were of a lighter heart—lambs, children playing, flowers yearning toward the sun, beasts of the field and wood dancing in attitudes of homage and ritual. But the darker ones haunted him already, and he knew they would haunt him for some time: a charcoal sketch of lowering skies beneath which a colossal winged figure flew among children playing in a ring. The giant’s great saber flashed, like a well-oiled scythe above a field of ripened grain. A crowd of adults looked on in helpless horror.
    Another drawing: monstrous dragonlike forms rising out of the earth and belching malignant flame and smoke over sun-struck forest and sea.
    â€œSuch visions in a child of . . . what? Twelve years?” he said, as if musing to himself in a quiet voice. “In a child of such beauty and apparent innocence.”
    â€œYet she paints what she sees,” Miss Norris repeated. “Surely these are not studies from some master.”
    â€œThat would seem plain enough, Miss Norris. But why destroy even these jubilant ones?”
    â€œThese darker visions are the more recent, but Madam Browne said only that the colonel’s orders were to destroy all these.”
    â€œAll,” he said.
    â€œQuite, Mr. Sanborn.”
    â€œAnd these expensive books and prints?”
    â€œTo be locked in Squire William’s library, a chamber over the back parlor. A harmful influence, it is now believed. Inexplicably so, yet harmful nevertheless.”
    He had heard that Squire Browne’s library was one of the most impressive in the province: arising from a legacy of books passed down through his father, Aaron Browne, from his grandfather, Richard, one of the first-generation “merchant-princes” of the Piscataqua. And to his grandfather’s collection of authors from classical times through the previous century, Colonel Browne had acquired, in addition to sermons and other works of Anglican respectability, a fine inventory of