The Story of a Girl by Anne Beckhem
The Story of a Girl by Anne Beckhem
English | 2026 | Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Every portrait has a secret. This one has a soul.
Iris Lennox is a perfectionist with a failing career. Critics call her work “technically flawless but completely empty.” Desperate to find the spark she’s missing, Iris retreats to the isolated Ashworth Estate—a gray stone mansion inherited from a relative she never knew existed.
But the house is not empty. It is filled with hundreds of paintings, all watching her with a terrifying intensity. In a hidden morning room, Iris finds a stippled portrait of a girl from 1945 named Clara. The more Iris stares, the more the ink seems to shift. Then, the whispers begin.
A debt paid in blue.
As Iris is drawn into the mystery of the Ashworth family, she discovers a dark ritual involving a rare, pulsing pigment: Lapis Lazuli. Eighty years ago, a father made an impossible trade, binding his daughter into a canvas to save his dying wife. Now, Clara is tired of being invisible. She’s tired of screaming into the paper.
And she’s finally found a way out.
To set Clara free, Iris must pick up the brush and complete a final, terrifying brushstroke. But the pigment demands a price, and the line between the artist and the art is beginning to blur. As the stippled marks of the binding spread across her own skin, Iris must decide: Is she the savior of a forgotten girl, or the next soul meant to be erased?
