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Amanda passed her nearest neighbor’s home, a tiny cottage just up the hill. Moisey was out in the yard, and she beeped before remembering that he could not hear her.  Moisey was both deaf and mute, a strange and funny little man who brought her fresh flowers and tended her garden.  He had been raking leaves the day they moved in, and left a rake and some other tools there for them to use.  He seemed quite harmless, and read lips very well though he couldn’t speak or write.  After awhile they got pretty good at simple communication, and Moisey made himself useful in a variety of ways to the young couple. He showed them where their well was and how to prime the pump, and the footpath to the grown-over steps cut into the hillside that led down to the beach.  Whenever Amanda went walking in the woods, which she loved to do especially now that the fall colors were so riotous, he seemed always to be close at hand; showing her where the creek ran, and the best place to gather chestnuts,   and where the red currants grew thick and sweet near the black walnut grove.  He had lived here all his life and knew the woods well.  It was people he seemed to have a hard time with.  Moisey was a bit slow, and though the locals accepted him as part of the scenery, they had no real wish to associate with him.

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Amanda drove on, waving absently to the few cars she passed.  The paintings worried her.  She had been so pleased when the first one came.  She found it rolled up in her mailbox and tied with a ribbon.  “Oh Thomas, look!” she had breathed when she unrolled the heavy paper.  It was a watercolor of their home showing the front walk behind the white picket fence, the peony bushes blooming bright red under the blue shuttered windows, and the dormer windows upstairs with their blue curtains.  The two cars were parked in the drive, and beyond them the woods curved around the side yard and stretched back up the hill.  The skies were bright blue with one low, black cloud on the horizon.  Amanda loved it, and hung the painting in the hall by the kitchen door.  A week later a second one came.  Thomas had brought it in.  “Love, we’ve gotten another!” he exclaimed, and laid it out on the table.  The side of the house this time, showing the back patio and the porch swing, but from a distance, as if the artist was standing in the trees a hundred yards away.  The trees curved around the back of the house, and over them a single black cloud. That cloud; why was it larger and closer?  Did it mean something?  Thomas had laughed and kissed her concern away, and hung it next to the first one just before he left for Boston.

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She studied the two paintings often.  Whoever the artist was remained a mystery, for there was no signature on the paintings.  The workmanship was exquisite and so detailed.  Fall foliage encompassed the pretty brick cottage like a blanket, and there was just a hint of blue water behind the trees.  Still, that black cloud held her attention.  Were the paintings a gift, or an omen?  She didn’t know, and it left her unsettled.  Then yesterday the third painting had arrived, and it scared her so badly she immediately toured the house, checking all the window locks and pulling shut the blinds.  Then she tore down the two pictures on the wall studied them even closer.  What she saw there made her gather up her keys and all but run for the car.  She had to find the police; she had to get help.  The pictures were rolled up next to her now as she drove into South Mashpee and parked outside the constable’s office.

(To continue the story, go to The Artist, Chapter 2)