While carving an ornate, imposing chair for an ancestral villa, a craftsman awakens a haunted fresco and becomes part of its final scene.

SYNOPSIS:

In an isolated 17th-century villa undergoing restoration, its wealthy owner, Manfred, commissions David, a gifted craftsman, to create a monumental, high-backed chair for his study — something that looks as though it has always belonged in the villa's only untouched room: the Hunting Room. A massive fireplace dominates the room, surrounded by a faded fresco depicting hunters, fleeing game, and two hounds frozen in pursuit.

David works through the night, burning failed pieces as he struggles with the design. In the flickering firelight, the fresco seems to stir. The hounds appear to watch him, and almost without realizing it, David begins carving their forms and the figures of the hunt into the bloodwood. When his chisel slips and cuts his hand, drops of blood fall onto the chair and vanish into the grain. His hesitation disappears.

The following night, Manfred returns with his butler. Pleased with the finished chair, he sits — and finds himself unable to rise. As the wood drains him, his body rapidly withers into a desiccated corpse. The terrified butler turns toward the fresco. Two pale silhouettes remain where the hounds once stood.Behind him, claws scrape across the parquet

When silence returns, the hounds are back in the fresco. Between them now stands David, one hand resting on a hound's head. His painted face is serene. His eyes are not.

THE BLOODWOOD CHAIR