I belonged to an organization that had the duty of protecting the general populace from magical creatures and occurrences - some of which were quite dangerous. Part of that was concealing these things from the people. (It was the SCP foundation if anyone is into that).
I had gotten called when someone else who belonged to the same organization had noticed a potentially anomalous theft in the police register. Some art supplies - a few brushes, several tubes of oil paints, some solvents, and a few sundries - had gotten lifted from an art supply place, and whoever did it had executed a stunningly good trompe l'oeile painting of money directly on the tile counter of the store before leaving. The owner of the store was happy about it. She said the painting was well worth the supplies that had been taken, and had put a tempered-glass top on the counter to preserve it. Okay, fine, that was weird but artists are weird people. The anomalous part was on the store's security video.
A woman(?) had stepped out of a mirror (!) inside the shop, taken the supplies, and executed a top-notch painting that would take the best of human artists at least three or four days, in a matter of minutes. And then she had left again, going back into the same mirror she'd come out of.
On examination, this 'woman' wasn't all that Realistic. She was something between Art-Nouveau and Art-Deco. Her neck was longer and more slender than a human neck, and her expressive brown eyes were much bigger than human eyes. Her waist was a bit too high - nearer her rib cage than her hips - and narrower than any human waists I've seen. She had the enormous bosom of the Art-Nouveau style, reminding me that it was weird how Art-Nouveau painters managed to consistently do that without ever really drawing much attention to it or emphasizing it. And she was wearing one of those billowy flowy dream-like dresses with the lace and ribbons everything, that only ever stay on anyone and stay in pleasant shapes in Art-Nouveau paintings. Her arms between elbow and wrist, and her legs between knee and ankle, were a bit too long, and I couldn't quite decide whether that was just the artist's stylistic choice or a perspective error.
A painting had just entered an art store after hours, to steal paint and brushes, and left a painting as payment. And had come and gone through a mirror. Yep, that qualified as a full-blown anomaly. Didn't get much of anywhere investigating it though.
The following day we identified the painting she'd come from. It was at the metropolitan art museum. The night watchman was part of our organization. We kept informants at most of the likely places for magical stuff to surface, and museums were pretty high on the list. Anyway, he'd been in the 'Unknown Masters' Gallery and smelled *fresh* paint, which is not something that makes sense with paintings over a hundred years old. And there's our paint thief, in that painting right there on the west wall. Rendered in fresh, wet oil paint in the middle of what is otherwise a hundred-year-old painting. And done so perfectly in the style of the original that you couldn't even tell the difference in a photograph.
The museum security tape is even more interesting than the art store's. It shows her stepping out of the painting leaving a bare patch of canvas behind, leaving the gallery by stepping through a mirror, and reappearing a few minutes later with paint and brushes to paint a copy of herself back into the painting. And then opening a door and stepping out onto the street. Which is a neat trick because that door was locked at the time, and besides it opens on a stairwell, and the street is six floors below. Our Uncanny Valley Girl is not executed in an entirely realistic style and doesn't seem to use entirely realistic means of moving around.
I'm supposed to find her, interview her to find out what she is and whether she's dangerous, and try to convince her not to freak people out with stunts like this. It occurs to me that finding her might be very very difficult if she doesn't want to be found.
