The Pad of Unfinished Faces

In the autumn of 1959, I was a boy of eight, and my universe was a cramped apartment above a bakery in the industrial town of Millbrook. The walls were thin, the radiators clanked, and the smell of burnt sugar always clung to our clothes. My father worked nights at the steel mill, and my mother spent her days mending clothes for the neighbors. Money was tight, and my one luxury was drawing. But paper was scarce, so I used old newspapers, the blank margins of my father’s work schedules, and even the brown paper bags from the grocery store. My mother would save the cardboard from my father’s new shirts, and I would carefully flatten it, drawing on the smooth side.

One day, my uncle, a pressman at the local print shop, brought me a stack of offcut papers. Most were irregular, but among them was a single, pristine sheet of heavy, cream-colored paper, about the size of a small table. It had a strange watermark, like an eye with a teardrop, and it felt so smooth and thick that I knew instantly I had to save it for something special. I hid it under my mattress, occasionally taking it out just to feel its weight and texture.

On Christmas morning, my parents gave me a proper sketchbook, bound with a stiff cover and filled with pages that were almost as wonderful as that hidden sheet. But it was the hidden sheet that occupied my mind. That afternoon, while everyone napped, I took it out and placed it on the kitchen table. I sharpened my pencils and began to draw, not from any reference, but from memory. I drew my grandmother, with her kind, weathered face and the small mole above her lip. I drew my best friend, Tommy, with his missing front tooth and cowlick. I drew my mother, tired but smiling, her hair beginning to gray.

As I drew, I felt a strange connection, as if the pencil were moving on its own. Each portrait came to life with an uncanny accuracy, more detailed than I had ever managed before. But when I reached Tommy’s face, I noticed something odd: the eyes seemed to follow me, and the smile seemed to hold a hint of fear. I dismissed it as my imagination, finished the drawing, and tucked the sheet away.

Over the following weeks, I became obsessed with that sheet. I would draw on it in the evenings, hidden in my room, always choosing people I knew. But each portrait seemed to take on a life of its own. The shading would deepen where I hadn’t touched, and occasionally, I would see the face change expression between eye blinks. My grandmother’s portrait now had a slight frown; Tommy’s eyes seemed to widen in terror. I began to fear the paper, but I couldn’t stop drawing on it.

One night, I dreamt of the paper. In the dream, I was standing in a gallery of portraits, all drawn on that same cream paper. They were of people I knew, but each was distorted, their features melting and shifting. Then I saw a blank sheet, and a hand holding a pencil appeared, starting to draw my face. I woke in a cold sweat, and I swore the paper underneath my bed was pulsing faintly.

I decided to destroy the paper. I took it to the bathroom, intending to tear it up, but when I unfolded it, I saw that a new portrait had appeared on the reverse side, without my having drawn it. It was a self-portrait, but I looked old, my face gaunt and my eyes hollow. And behind me, in the shadows, were the faces of everyone I had drawn, their mouths open as if screaming.

I panicked. I tried to burn it, but the paper wouldn’t catch fire. I tried to soak it in water, but the ink only smeared, and the faces seemed to shift. Finally, I folded it into a tight square and stuffed it into a crack in the wall behind my closet.

For a while, nothing happened. But then, my grandmother passed away suddenly. She was healthy, so her death was a shock. A few weeks later, Tommy disappeared on his way home from school. The police searched, but he was never found. And my mother began to complain of a cold that wouldn’t go away.

I knew the paper was responsible. I could feel it watching me from inside the wall. At night, I would hear faint whispers, like the rustle of paper, and I would catch glimpses of faces in the patterns of the peeling wallpaper.

I tried to confess to my father, but he dismissed it as a child’s nightmare. So I took my only other sketchbook, and I went to the wall. I pulled out the folded paper, and it felt warm, almost alive. I unfolded it, and I saw that the reverse side now had a large empty space, with a faint outline of a figure, waiting to be filled.

I knew what I had to do. I took my pencil, and I began to draw a stranger, a person I didn’t know. I invented a face, ordinary, forgettable. But as I drew, I felt my own strength draining, as if the paper were sucking the life from me. The face on the paper became clearer, and I realized it was the face of a boy, maybe my age, with wide, frightened eyes.

I finished the drawing, and the paper went still. That night, my mother’s cold vanished, and the whispers stopped. I felt a sense of relief, but also a deep guilt.

I never drew again. I hid the paper in a old tin box and buried it in the basement. But sometimes, I think I see that boy’s face in the crowd, and I know he’s looking for me, wanting me to finish what I started. The paper is still out there, waiting for another artist, another victim. And I know, one day, I will have to face what I created. But not today. Today, I just try to forget, and pray that the paper remains lost. But every time I close my eyes, I see that empty outline, and I feel the pencil in my hand, drawn to it, as if it were calling me home. And I know, in the end, I will answer.