Chapter 15 - The Unlit Screen
In a quiet, leafy suburb three states away, a green two-story house sat at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon. The sun was setting, casting a soft, golden light through the oak trees lining the sidewalk.
Inside the house, in a sunlit bedroom with blue walls and actual framed drawings hanging on the drywall, a young girl sat at a small wooden desk.
She was seven years old now. Her blonde hair had grown out, falling in natural, unstyled waves down her back. She was wearing a simple cotton t-shirt and denim shorts. Her legs were long, healthy, and fully functional.
On the desk in front of her lay a blank sheet of heavy watercolor paper and a set of small paintbrushes.
Beside the desk, sitting on a high tripod that had been provided by her court-appointed art therapist, was a high-definition digital camera. The lens cap was on. The power switch was set to OFF.
The therapist, a middle-aged woman named Sarah, sat in an armchair near the open door, watching the girl quietly.
"You don't have to turn it on, Lily," Sarah said softly. "It's just there so you can get used to seeing it without feeling afraid."
Lily-Rose didn't look at the camera.
She picked up her paintbrush, dipped it into a cup of clear water, and ran it across a cake of blue watercolor paint. She brought the brush to the paper, making a long, smooth stroke that filled the center of the page with a rich, brilliant wave of blue.
She worked for twenty minutes in total silence, her breath slow, steady, unhurried.
When she was finished, she set the brush down and looked at her painting. It was not a picture of a house, or a flower, or a birthday cake. It was a large, solid black circle painted in the center of the page, surrounded by thin, jagged lines of bright red paint that looked like cracks radiating outward from a central fracture.
"What is that?" Sarah asked gently, leaning forward in her chair.
Lily-Rose reached out with her small index finger and touched the dry black circle in the center of the paper.
"It's the eye," Lily-Rose whispered.
"The camera eye?"
"No," the child said, turning her head slowly to look out the window at the setting sun. "It's the eye on the other side of the glass. The one that never blinks."
She turned back to her painting, picked up a pen from the desk, and wrote four tiny words at the very bottom of the page, in a handwriting that was neat, precise, and completely devoid of emotion:
LIKE.
FOLLOW.
May you like
SHARE.
RUN.
