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I grabbed my palette from the cabinet, prepped the colors I wanted to add, and set out the brushes I expected I’d need. Best to start with the thickest one for the broader strokes. I dabbed the tip into the tangerine hue I’d mixed and brought it to one of the yellow patches on the canvas.
Normally it only took a minute or two before the act of creation totally absorbed my mind. It was a common occurrence to step back as if out of a trance and realize that hours had passed in a blur of color. Today, though, I couldn’t quite sink into the image in front of me. Something kept jerking me back, reminding me of the angles of the room, the squeak of my shoes against the floor, the shift of the light as a cloud scudded over the sun.
Who was going to see this potential masterpiece when I’d finished it? No matter how much care and emotion I poured into it, did it really matter if only a handful of people ever got to appreciate it?
I tried to brush off that thought as I had similar if less persistent ones before. I didn’t make art to get pats on the back from critics and other viewers. I made it because it welled up inside me and demanded to be let out.
But still. As my gaze traveled over the painting again, a memory of the gallery website I’d checked out swam up in my mind. L.A. had a vibrant art scene. Maude Arville would get ten times more visitors in an hour than mine saw most weeks.
This placecouldburn down all over again. I could never know for sure what I might lose any given day. Wouldn’t it be more meaningful if those images could linger on in a whole lot more people’s memories?
As before, the thought came with a twist of resistance. The distance—the time…
What if somethingdidhappen here while I was away? Not necessarily to me, but to the manor—to Rose or the other guys? Even if they called me back instantly, I might not make it in time to help.
There was so much else here that I didn’t want to lose. That I wasn’t sure I could afford to lose.
I lowered my paintbrush, closed my eyes, and took a slow breath in and out. Past the panic still lingering from that vision of the gallery burning, I reached toward the experiences of the past couple of days, beginning to paint the gazebo Seth had constructed. While I’d decorated the wood, a different sort of feeling had gripped me: the sense that we’d all built something together, the six of us, and that nothing could shake it now.
I trusted in the strength of our bond, didn’t I? What could tear us down after everything we’d been through, from vengeful cults to demonic beings?
Rose would tell me to take this chance. It’d gut her if she knew I was passing on opportunities to share my work out of fear because of the life she’d brought me into.
I wavered for a few minutes longer. Finally, I took out my phone and the paper Jason had given me. My pulse thumped faster as I entered the number with its L.A. area code, but it was as much with excitement as nerves.
“Hello, you’ve reached the Arville Art Gallery.”
“Hi,” I said. “I’d like to speak to Maude. You can tell her it’s Jin Lyang calling to discuss a collaboration.”
Chapter Nine
Damon
Ieyeballed the delivery van with a skepticism I couldn’t keep out of my tone. “You’re going to drive all the way to L.A.?”
Jin laughed as he tucked another painting into the back storage space, which between the two of us we’d almost filled. “I’m not a glutton for punishment. I hired this company to drive the pieces there, and I’ll fly down in a couple of days. Can’t take all this on a plane.”
No, I guessed not. I hadn’t realized he had this much stuff in the whole building, but somehow most of the artwork in his gallery area was still on the walls, from what I’d seen.
He motioned for me to follow him, and we crossed the sidewalk in the dwindling daylight. The sky was just starting to darken, the street lamps coming on with a faint glow. When Jin had asked if anyone could come by to help him pack up, I’d volunteered to swing by after work with a generosity I might be regretting now.
At least the late summer heat was retreating. The long-sleeved shirt I’d put on this morning had been weighing on me all day, but I didn’t dare take it off. The silvery mark of my scar had crept a few inches across my skin out from under the cuff. How the hell else could I hide it? Especially when every now and then it gave off that eerie shimmer.
Small price to pay for what it let me do, right? But I wanted to be sure I had a complete handle on this new power before I tried to explain it to anyone else. I had to be able to reassure Rose that no matter how I’d gotten the mark, I’d mastered it for my own ends.
“This is the part I really needed another set of hands for,” Jin said as I trailed behind him up the stairs to the second floor storage room next to his workspace. “Thanks again for pitching in. By the time I had the dates sorted out, the guy I’ve hired to help out around here couldn’t make it.”
“It’s no problem,” I said. “We’re all family now, right?”
Jin smiled in a way that made me feel guilty about the fact that I’d suppressed a bit of sarcasm in that remark. He led me to some sort of sculpture thing constructed out of paint cans, rope, polished chunks of glass, and what looked like a rusted bicycle frame missing its wheels. The whole piece was wider across than I could stretch my arms.
“Wow,” I said, which seemed like the most appropriate response. Further confirmation that I really didn’t get art. Some of it, anyway. Even I couldn’t deny that the treatment our artist was giving Seth’s gazebo was turning out spectacularly. Rose was going to flip over it.
More than she had for my early apples, no doubt, but hell, how could I have competed? Later, when I had more practice with my newfound magic, I could conjure more. I’d offered her something first—that should be enough.
Jin’s smile had lifted into a full-out grin. “The L.A. gallery asked for this one emphatically. I wasn’t going to say no. Here, can you grab that end? It’s pretty sturdy, so you don’t need to be too delicate with it.”
I managed to find a couple places to grip the sculpture that would let me balance the weight adequately, and Jin hefted the other end. We half walked, half lurched downstairs and out to the van. Then we discovered we had a problem: the damn thing wasn’t going to fit.
