Mark of Damon by Eva Chase Page 0,22
me today. I paused, considering, and went to the larger canvas, already mostly decorated with a base level of oil paint. The familiar pungent smell tickled my nose.
I’d only finished the foundation of the image—with oils you needed to build up to the final work in layers. The shades of blue and yellow were only starting to hint at the shapes I’d accentuate. Even an abstract or impressionist work, as most of mine were, required a certain amount of form.
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 place could burn 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 something did happen 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
I eyeballed 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,