Prologue - Aurora
This house doesn’t sleep like a person. It breathes. Heaters click and hiss. The sink drips. The lights buzz like bees in a jar. Only the sink light is on, making a small circle on the floor and turning the rest of the activity room into a dim cave. Chairs are upside down on tables. The mop bucket sulks in the corner. Bleach stings my nose, but under it I smell paint and the little shine of linseed oil I hid in a tiny jar.
It’s late. The hall is quiet. Outside, snow makes the street soft. It sticks to the windows. If I breathe on the glass, it fogs, so I don’t. I don’t want anyone to see a smear and know I was here. Night is the only time the room feels like mine and not like a schedule with rules taped to the door.
I prop my canvas against the wall. It isn’t a real one. It’s a scrap I pulled from the trash closet, ragged where the staples tore. I stretched it over a thin board from a broken game. When the heater coughs, the canvas wobbles. I tell it, “Stay.” Sometimes it listens.
I’m almost done with the woman I’m painting. She isn’t my mom or anybody’s mom here. She’s the idea of one I want: warm hands, soft from fixing small things and brushing hair. In my picture she keeps a cigarette behind her ear, ash that never falls. Crooked smile.
The real woman came only a little while. A volunteer, she said. She didn't complain about having to volunteer at a group home like I had heard a volunteer say under his breath last month. She brought a box of old supplies. Eyeliner smudged, paint under her nails, smelled like oranges and smoke. The first day I trailed her quietly. The second day I asked about a tiny brown bottle. “Linseed,” she said, like a password. She touched my shoulder and told me to smell. It smelled warm and sharp, like wood in sunlight I’ve never sat under.
She didn’t say, “Do it this way.” She said, “Mix color like you mean it. Don’t say sorry for color.” I didn’t know I’d been saying sorry. After that, I shut my mouth and kept my eyes open. I stopped asking permission to make more.
The day she left, I wanted her name again. She told me once. The letters slid out of my head. I almost asked but felt dumb and didn’t. She said, “Keep painting.” I said, “I will.” She said, “Promise.” I promised so hard it hurt.
So now I paint her, to keep her from sliding out of me. If I make her face big and true, maybe she stays. If I make the light on her cheek the way it was the second time she smiled, maybe I can hear her voice when she said prayer. On nights like this, when the house breathes and the hall is empty, I can hold that voice steady with my hands.
I grip the brush tight. The bristles are frayed. I took it from the supply cart after group hour. People count things here. Mr. Lowe counts bottles and paper stacks. He gets bored by art. He thinks it wastes time. He doesn’t count bristles. I didn’t just take one. I took three. They’re bundled inside my sweater under my shirt. The wood handles knock together when I move. I press my arm to quiet them. They’re warm against my ribs, poking like little bones I’m growing.
I touch white into the corner of her eye—just enough or she’ll look scared, too little and she’ll go flat. Skin meeting white isn’t one color I own. I could mix it right if I had more light and more linseed. There’s only a smear left. “Not yet,” I tell myself. “Don’t be greedy.”
Snow thickens on the window. The streetlight makes a pale circle. Frost crawls like leaves at the corners. The clear middle shows my face, older in reflections, or maybe that’s just tired. My bun is falling. I nudge it up with my wrist, so I don’t smear blue in my hair. Blue has already crept under my nails. It makes my fingers look winter-burned.
I step back and my canvas wobbles. I brace it with the back of my hand and press the tape that keeps lifting. “Stay a little longer,” I whisper. “Please.”
I’m not supposed to be here. The sign saysclosed after nine. Lights out by ten.The staff doesn’t check right at ten though. They talk in the office. They count us by noise. I move in socks, so my shoes won’t squeak.
I rinse my brush. The water turns the color of bruises. My fingers go cold. I rub them on a table ring left by a soda. The table is covered in rings and glue and one donut circle from last week. The rings help me remember. That one was the day I learned to shade with the pencil’s side. That one was when Lanie laughed so hard milk came out her nose and no one yelled because the laughing felt warm.
A shoe scuffs the hall. Keys clink.
Everything in me goes tight.
I flip the switch down. I practiced this. The room shrinks to window glow and the green EXIT sign. Keys jingle. The lock turns. The door opens and a stripe of light cuts the floor.
“Aurora?” Mr. Lowe says my name like a box he’s checking. He steps in and flips the main lights. My eyes burn. “Knew I’d find you here.” He smells like smoke and old uniform. His belt is crooked. There’s a stain on his pocket that never leaves.
I could lie and say I came for water and fell asleep. But, paint is all over my hands. The canvas is right there. Lying would be foolish now.
“I’m almost done,” I say. I don’t block the picture. If he takes one more step, I’ll feel air on my back.
He stares. He always looks tired in a way that doesn’t leave space for anyone else’s feelings. “What’s this?” He does not sound curious. “Who said you could be here?” He scans the corners for permission he can use. He blows air throughhis nose. “You kids think this room is a dump,” he says. “Trash everywhere. Wasting supplies. This place doesn’t run on wishes.”
“It’s mine,” I say. “The canvas. I took it from the trash.” I point to the closet with the big gray bin. A broken umbrella sticks out like a bent leg.
“Trash is trash,” he says. “And this—” he circles a finger at the woman’s face—“this is sentimental rubbish. Portraits of ghosts. We don’t need this. We need order.” He says “order” like a magic word that fixes things even when it doesn’t.
“She’s not—” I stop. “She was here.” Both are true. She stood in this room once. Now she stands here again in paint.
He steps closer. The old smoke smell thickens. He leans in, squints, shakes his head. “This is trash,” he says again, and reaches for the top edge.
I slap my hand to the wood without thinking. A splinter bites into my hand.. “Please,” I say, hating the thin begging sound. “I’ll clean everything. I’ll put the chairs down. I’ll—”
“You’ll get to bed,” he says. His hand lands heavy on my shoulder. Heat crawls up my face. The bundled brushes poke my ribs.Don’t clack,I tell them.
Voices echo in the hall. Not staff. Boys. Loud, sloppy, bouncing off walls. Mr. Lowe glances over his shoulder and hesitates.
“Great,” he says flat. “Just what we need.” He lets my shoulder go and turns toward the door.
