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Mortal Sight

By Sandra Fernandez Rhoads

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MORTAL SIGHT
Chapter 1 - The Storm

Some girls want to change the world. Others want to rule it. Me? I’d be happy if fall never came. Weird, I know. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty I’d like to change—a lot of things, in fact, but as soon as the autumn wind blasts through town and the leaves turn aspen yellow, I know what’s coming.

I open the front door as quietly as I can so Mom doesn’t wake and slip onto the front porch. A sleepy haze lingers in the soggy air the way it does before the sun burns away the morning dew. Not fully awake, but no longer dreaming.

I step over the creaky board, tiptoeing to the front steps. As soon as I reach the splintered rail, a quiet voice greets me. “Hi Cera.” Jess, the neighbor kid from the duplex attached to ours, sits on the bottom plank in her school uniform. Her dirty tights stretch at the knees as she crosses her legs. Her windblown ponytail tilts sideways as if she’s attempted to braid her own hair. If she wasn’t so proud to be seven, and, in her own mind, old enough to take care of herself, I’d offer to smooth it out.

“Hey, Jess.” I keep my voice low so the sound doesn’t carry through the cracked windows. “Waiting on your aunt to take you to school?”

Jess slumps her shoulders and rests her freckled cheeks in her hands. “Aunt K is still sleeping. She gets real mad when I wake her. Can you take me?”

“Always.” I hold out my hand. Jess’s tiny fingers, sticky with day-old syrup, grab mine. She stands and scoops up her tattered backpack. “I’ll patch your bag later, if you want.” I lift mine to show her the edges sealed with silver duct tape.

Jess gives a big nod. Hand in hand we walk down the sidewalk under a canopy of oak trees. “I’m working on a new art project.” Jess hops over tree roots buckling the concrete.

“Yeah? What is it?” I check over my shoulder with the eerie feeling of being watched. Trees sway as the wind picks up, and cars pass along the main road, but there’s nothing unusual.

“We rip up tiny pieces of paper and glue them down to make a picture.” Jess swings my hand as we turn the corner and walk along the creepy woods with gnarled trees. Ghostly fog hovers three feet above the forest floor. I shiver.

“A mosaic? Nice. What’s it gonna be?”

Jess’s eyes brighten the way they always do when I ask her about her art. “I wanted to do a dragon, but the boys took all the black paper. I got stuck with light blue and brown. So I took scraps off the floor and tried to make a giant white flower like the ones you showed me in that art book.”

“O’Keeffe?” I smile and glance at the overcast sky. “Impressive. I’m sure it’ll look amazing.”

Jess beams. When the brisk wind kicks up, she wipes a lock of hair out of her face. “I’m naming this piece The Fate Flower.”

“Ooh. Sounds ominous. Can’t wait to see it.” Out of the corner of my eye, a lethargic shadow moves through the dense mist hovering in the woods. When I turn to look, it’s gone. It’s probably a bird, or a squirrel. Or some other random animal. Regardless, I pick up my pace.

Jess skips alongside me and smiles. “You can have my picture when I’m done.”

I give her hand a gentle squeeze. “I’d love it.”

I slow my pace after we clear the woods and start our way along the ivory fence near a row of old houses converted into eclectic shops. Jess, catching her breath, looks up at me as if something suddenly occurs to her. “Why don’t you go to school?”

I pull my hand out of hers. “I study at home, remember?” Jess wrinkles her face, confused. “How do you make friends?” I don’t. And that’s exactly why Mom doesn’t want me in school anymore. I shrug as we weave around a half-unloaded delivery truck. “I guess I have to make friends in other ways.” In fact, Mom would come unhinged if she knew I was talking to Jess even this much.

Jess shakes her head. “I wouldn’t want to stay at home.” With her belligerent aunt passed out most of the time, I don’t blame her. Swollen, bruise-colored clouds churn in the distance, darkening the sky. A storm is moving in fast.

The school sits halfway down the block. Before we cross the street, I glance over my shoulder with that paranoid feeling. Trucks rush down the road, a mom pushes a jogging stroller while talking on the phone, but as usual, no one notices me.

Jess wiggles her loose front teeth as we reach the sidewalk. I nudge her forward. “Go on. I’ll wait here until you get inside.” A peal of thunder sounds in the distance. My feet bounce. I want to stop by the market and pick up a few things before Mom wakes up and finds out I’m gone. She needs something besides stale peanut butter toast to eat before working her night shift.

Jess’s braid bounces against her backpack as she runs up the steps. When she reaches the school doors, she turns and waves at me before heading inside. Distant thunder shakes the ground and a sudden gust of wind rustles through the trees, swirling leaves over the road. Great.

Fall is here. According to my annual track record, I’ve got about a week left in this town—maybe less.

My feet pound the sidewalk a little harder as I pick up my pace. I hate moving. I’ve been doing it every year around my birthday for the past ten years, and it’s gotten old. Mom always makes a big deal out of my panic attacks. I know we can’t pay for whatever I need to get better, but moving isn’t the answer. For once I want to stop running.

Out of all the places I’ve lived, Wakefield is the only one that feels like it could be home. Anything goes in this sleepy artist town with painted sidewalks and bright murals on brick walls. Even now as I pass the quaint café on the corner, some shaggy California blond wearing a denim jacket and torn jeans plays guitar while he sings to a growing crowd. I don’t know the song, but as the melody rises, so does my resolve to stay.

Before I cross the road, that unsettled, paranoid feeling flares again. I glance over my shoulder and scan the square. Several people enter the café while others stop and listen to California play. Rain drops splat the sidewalk where a few people greet one another and toddlers with saggy diapers squeal as they run through the park, but no one even looks my way. No one, that is, except for two girls with silky hair whipping behind them as they saunter toward the café. I lift my chin and pretend to glance into a store window etched with the name Elysium’s Edge as they lock arms and size up my frizzy ponytail and worn-out running shoes against their designer bags and matching boots.

When I look past the dusty haze of my own reflection, my pulse kicks into high gear. A colossal painting is propped up on the back wall of a new gallery. I know this painting from Mom’s art books, but I’ve never seen it up close.

I push the door open without a second thought. An airy chime floats through the vacant space that smells of fresh paint and new construction. I gingerly step over splintery crates sprawled all over the pine floor.

As soon as I pass a set of neon tree paintings hanging on a narrow wall, a man’s voice echoes through the vaulted room. “Can I help you?”

A lanky guy with intense poise and black-framed glasses steps out from a hallway in back. “The gallery opens at the end of the week.”

“Oh,” is all I manage to squeak out.

He’s probably in his late twenties. Maybe thirty. A red mark circles the base of his neck, half hidden under the collar of his black T-shirt. My stomach twists. I don’t know why it strikes me, but I’m pretty sure Dad had a similar birthmark.

He adjusts his glasses. “Did you come about a job?”

I take a deep breath and snap out of my daze. “I saw the painting and wanted a better look.” I’m drawn back to the dark canvas displayed behind him.

When the guy steps closer, I get a whiff of some strange chemical. Or maybe a solvent. “That one?” He gives a dismissive look over his shoulder. “You’re familiar with it?”

I nod. “The Storm, by August Pierre Cot. He’s a classical Romantic.”

He smiles. “So, you find that romantic?”

I’m so mesmerized by the artwork, I don’t respond. I know this piece couldn’t be the original, housed at the Met—it was shipped in a flimsy pine crate and the suffocating temperature in the tiny space is way too humid for safekeeping—but I’m lured just the same. Up close, the painting of a girl and boy fleeing a raging storm is absolutely gorgeous.

The guy comes up next to me. “My business partner wanted this one displayed. Said it would lure a select crowd.” His voice is a distant noise as I study each brushstroke.

The sulfuric chemical scent on the guy’s clothes gives me a headache. Doing a quick exhale before the next inhale and breath-hold I say, “It has incredible movement, consistent with Romantic artists.” My focus gravitates to the girl wrapped in a gauzy alabaster gown. A clean light glows on her chest. She’s angelic, otherworldly, compared to the sinister darkness closing in on her. A shirtless boy with disheveled black hair runs beside her. He’s so smitten, he can’t keep his eyes off the girl and is completely oblivious to the chaos swirling around them. A heated ache sprouts in me as their bare feet flee over the rocky path in perfect union. Clutching different ends of an apricot-colored cloth, the fluttering fabric billows over their heads, protecting them like a shield from the coming storm.

“Any idea what she’s thinking?” The guy crosses his arms and blankly stares at the canvas. With his spiky brown hair and olive skin, he looks nothing like the boy in the canvas.

I study the girl’s face. Looking over her shoulder, she has this look of fascination, determination and . . . there’s something else mixed in her concentrated expression that I can’t place. It’s not fear . . . no. “If I had to guess, I’d say that any moment she’ll stop running and face what pursues her head-on.”

He tilts his head and examines her closer. “That would be a mistake. Don’t you think? She seems frail. Maybe she’s better off running.” He laughs, lightening the air. “I’m Mark, by the way.” He holds out his hand. I take it.

Shaking a guy’s hand feels strange, so much so, that my hollow stomach flips a little. “I’m Cera. Marlowe.” I release his firm grip and tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, wishing I had washed up this morning.

Mark turns to face the gallery. “What do you think of that collection on the north wall?” He motions to the neon display.

I turn my focus to the square canvases perfectly spaced on the wall. The choice of assaulting colors brushed into twisted, crippled trees that bend in agony feels downright disturbing. Either that, or the creep factor comes from the thick, clumpy shadows hovering around the roots. Everything in me wants to rip the artwork down and free the trees from their misery.

“There’s a lot of . . .” I search for the right word. According to Mom, I have a verbal filter problem. Thinking before I speak is on the top of my work-in-progress checklist. “Emotion . . .” I say, finding a benign word. “Each tree is a different color. Is that symbolic of transformation? I’d say seasons, but you have five and not four.”

“Not a bad read.” He gives me a once-over. “I was expressing different personalities.”

I look again. Yeah, I totally don’t see that. “It’s kinda Warhol.”

His voice hardens. “Not intentional.”

“I meant that as a compliment.” My cheeks warm the way they always do when I mess up.

After an eternity of silence and the longest internal debate of whether that’s my cue to duck out, he asks, “You an artist?”

“Me? No, way.” I step back, laughing at the thought.

“Know any? We’re new in town, looking to promote local artists. We’ll pay good money too. So if you have friends, neighbors or whatnot, I’d be happy to take a look at what they have.”

He’ll pay for the work? If that’s true, then I know of one artist, a really good one. “I do. She sketches. Mainly graphite.”

Mark’s awkward smile makes him look as if he’s in pain. “If she’s got what we’re looking for, I’ll give her a shot.”

“Sure, no problem.” Why did I say that? Of course it’s a problem. Mom won’t show her art to anyone. She rarely shows me. Way to go, Cera. You’ve just bumped number nine on the work-in-progress list to number three—perpetual lying.

His expression turns serious. “Listen . . . do you want the job? You seem to appreciate art, unlike most kids your age.” He looks me over. “You about seventeen or eighteen?”

Nice to know he thinks I’m older. I smirk. “About.” I will be in a week, anyway.

“Perfect.”

I hadn’t thought about getting a job. Mom would flip out if I did—and not in a good way, especially with it getting close to the time we usually pack up and leave. If it weren’t for Mark’s expression, I’d think he was joking. “Really?” I glance through the window with that feeling of being watched. More leaves fall as the wind picks up. A dark shadow retracts into the treetops. I blink. Then it’s gone.

Mark steps in front of me, blocking my view of the window. “We’ll pay three times minimum wage.”

“Three times?” I can’t contain my smile. I’ve just landed the trifecta of opportunities. Not only could I stay in Wakefield, Mom could be happy drawing again, and I’d finally have a shot at a normal life. We’d even have extra money so I could find answers to heal me. This day couldn’t be more perfect. I’ll find a way to break the news to Mom later.

“Give me your number.” Mark places a piece of paper and pen on the edge of the desk blocking a short hallway. I rest my bag in the office chair. “I’d be interested in getting your thoughts on a few other pieces of art, and if it’s slow, feel free to do homework.” He looks down at my messenger bag. My copy of Paradise Lost has managed to slide out through the broken clasp.

“Sounds great.” I shove Milton back into hiding. “Need me to fill out an application?”

A half smile highlights his stubble. “No need.” He glances at the front window. “I’ll check with my partner, but with your interests, that shouldn’t be a problem.” He stares at my bag. “I think you’re exactly what we’re looking for.” I swear there’s a knowing glint in his eyes, but I must be imagining things again. He couldn’t possibly know about Milton and me. “Bring the sketches this time tomorrow. If they’re good, we’ll add a nice finder’s fee.”

“Tomorrow?” I sling my bag over my shoulder. “Yeah, sure.” As soon I agree, unease gnaws inside me. I’ve got twenty- four hours to either convince my mom about this opportunity or find her sketches behind her back and tell her afterward. I know how protective she is about her art.

I smile and grab the door handle. Pushing my hip against the glass, I say, “Thanks, Mark. See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.” He nods goodbye.

Thunder rolls across the sky. My smile fades. I’d forgotten about the storm. I better hurry to the store and back home before the downpour unleashes its fury on me. As soon as I step onto the sidewalk, the crisp air slaps my cheeks. I clutch my jacket closed since the zipper is broken and lean into the wind. Despite the cold, fizzing happiness bubbles inside me.

I’ve just been given an opportunity of a lifetime—a chance to change everything for us. I swear no matter what, I won’t let my panic attacks mess this up. I’m staying in Wakefield, even if it kills me.

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