The Chrysalis by Heather Terrell

strives to impress them with their choice by planning lavish festivities where the portrait will be shown.
    The studio casts aside all other projects to complete the work. The burgomaster plans on unveiling the painting at his celebration, and it must be well received, for both the burgomaster and the master. The death of the prior burgomaster, long the master’s patron and advocate, jeopardizes the master’s standing and endangers his future stream of commissions. This painting could change the situation.
    Johannes sits by the master’s side as he outlines the family members with his metalpoint. The master insists that Johannes see firsthand the interplay of light from the subjects’ skin with their lush clothing and jewels, if he is to capture those accessories. Hendrick and Leonaert protest Johannes’s assignment, one more fitting to artists of their stature and experience, but the master dismisses their remonstrations and points to Johannes’s skill in calming the burgomaster’s restless lot of six children during the long hours of posing—a task the journeymen abhor.
    Johannes regrets his newfound elevation. Each time Pieter enters the room to deliver a freshly mixed paint or a newly assembled brush, he keeps his eyes down, and Johannes sees that his position pains his friend as well. The boys are no longer compatriots, no longer racing to the studio, no longer chatting in solidarity, no longer flinging prayers to the Lord like coins into a fountain. The nights are silent, each drifting off to sleep with the other nearby, yet completely alone.
    Halfway through the painting, illness strikes the master’s house, incapacitating his wife and infant son and necessitating his attendance. He leaves off completing the faces and hands of the burgomaster’s children and instructs the three to finish their parts: Hendrick, the curtain draping behind the family; Leonaert, the black-and-white tile floor; Johannes, the coveted pearls and lace handiwork. During the long days of jostling for a place at the canvas, Johannes withstands upturned paints, missing brushes, and malignant mutterings from Hendrick.
    One day, Lukens bursts into the studio, breathless. Disease has taken the master’s wife and son, leaving an afflicted master in its wake. What shall they do? It is a tragedy, of course, but only three days remain until the burgomaster’s celebration.
    Johannes knows what must happen. He alone has studied the children’s faces; he alone has formed a kinship with them. He makes his proposal.
    Hendrick erupts at Johannes’s audacity, at his disregard for the master’s reputation. Painters of the master’s ilk did not pass off the work of a lowly apprentice as their own, never mind the guild repercussions to Johannes for painting portrait likenesses before qualifying for the master test or the inevitable blow to the master’s guild standing.
    Lukens disagrees. Perhaps Johannes has a point, and there is more at stake than this painting alone. After all, what are the alternatives?
    Lukens leads the children and nursemaid into the studio. Johannes greets the gaggle as usual, tickling the youngest two and playing sleight-of-hand tricks for distraction. Johannes informs them that the master will arrive shortly, and Lukens queries as to whether Gertruyd, the nursemaid, would care to view some of the master’s other works in the main house while they wait.
    She declines, though her eyes signal acceptance. “Mistress would never like the children to be out of my sight.”
    Lukens clucks. “Too bad. You would be one of a very few to have regarded them.”
    Gertruyd’s eyes widen at the thought of the marketplace gossip.
    Lukens purrs. “It will be for but a moment.”
    Blush floods her cheeks at the unexpected attention. “Well, if it will be only a moment. Johannes, will you be able to mind the children on your own?”
    â€œA pleasure,