“Sure, but it doesn’t do what yours does.” I lowered my voice. “There’s magic in your work. I know it. I can sense it.”
I’d noticed it as soon as we’d entered Gwen’s house. It was obvious, now that I knew Maeve’s mother’s portrait was infused with magic. All the paintings were brilliant, but Candice’s shone with a radiance that invited your eye and drew up emotions you’d rather be left alone. If I stared long enough, I fancied I saw the edges of the paint shimmering.
“I can show you how,” Candice whispered. “Mum says I shouldn’t do it. She says it’s a waste of my magic – once you place it in the painting, you can’t get it back. But it’s only a tiny piece. That’s what art is all about, isn’t it? Giving pieces of yourself to the world.”
I downed my pint in one gulp. “I am your willing student.”
Back in the studio, Candice admired the painting I’d been working on. “This is for someone special, isn’t it?” She dabbed her hand in the pink jet across the corner. “Maeve?”
I nodded.
She smiled. “Good. Then you’re halfway there already. Finish the piece, and then I’ll show you what to do.”
Candice turned on the indoor fountain (it was nice to know other water witches had the same habits) and went back to her sketch. I dabbed my brush in lilac paint and dreamed of Maeve. Hours passed. I didn’t realise how many until I looked up and saw it was dark outside, the sun long since disappeared behind the horizon.
I stepped back from the canvas, tilting my head this way and that. Did it need a little more silver in the corner? Should I try and lighten the green a little? Had I captured the colour of Maeve’s eyes? My brush hovered in the air, unsure of what to do next.
I’d painted Maeve’s portrait in an abstract style – her face made of streaks of watercolour and speckles of white acrylic to create an effect like a swirling galaxy bursting with stars. A pink nebula became the streak in her hair and her eyes were two green planets teaming with life. That was the idea. In reality, it looked like a child’s finger-painting. And not a precocious savant – a child who was really shite at painting.
I hate painting. I am so not a painter.
Candice came up beside me. “I think you’re ready.”
“It’s rubbish. I should cut my ear off. Maybe a nice blood splatter will make it halfway decent.”
“I think it’s perfect. All it needs now is a finishing touch.” Candice pulled up a stool beside me. “Are you sure you’re ready for this? You are literally trapping some of your magic inside the paint. Nothing’s ever gone wrong before, but Mum’s always telling me it’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous and potentially life-altering magic? Sign me up. What do I do?”
Candice took my hands and placed them about the still-drying paint. Her magic hummed through her fingers, lapping against my skin like water bubbling on the edge of a stream. I’d never known that water magic could feel so powerful before. And she’d been placing pieces of her magic inside her paintings?
Bloody hell, I can learn a lot from this woman.
“Close your eyes,” Candice said in a soothing voice. I slammed my blinkers shut. “Picture Maeve’s face when you first realised you were in love with her.”
Easy.That image had been carved into my memory for years. Maeve as a teenager with her short hair, vivid hazel eyes, and t-shirt with a picture of a nebula and ‘I need my space’ written on it. Her nose buried in a battered copy ofAstrophysics for People in a Hurryas she navigated through a crowd of football jocks in the hall without even looking up.
She wasn’t like anyone else I’d ever met. I thought I’d never get someone like her to laugh. And then I made a joke about her already finishingMathematics for People Who Love a Brisk Walk, and she laughed, and it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.
“I got it,” I said.
“Let the feelings flow out of you. Pour them into the canvas in the same way you pour water from your palms.” She gripped my wrist and placed my fingers on the top of the still-wet paint. “Don’t actually pour water on the canvas, though. That’ll spoil all your hard work.”
I focused the image in my mind and felt the fountain of water rising inside me, pushing against my fingers as it begged to flow freely. With Maeve’s laughing face still firmly in my mind, I imagined myself plucking out droplets from the well inside me and placing them into the paint, infusing my art with the part of me that called to Maeve.
Magic tingled in my fingers. I pressed them hard into the paint, sucking in my breath to hold back the torrent that threatened to spring forth like a garden hose after you undid a kink.
“That’s it,” Candice murmured. “You’ve got it. Now, close it off. You don’t want to give too much.”
I reached down inside of me and turned the tap off. The pressure on my fingers eased, and the fountain became a trickle. I took my hand away and opened my eyes.
At first, I didn’t see anything different. I squinted at the painting. At the edges, where the streaks of colour met each other, I caught the faintest flicker ofsomething. Whatever it was, it raised a shiver of excitement inside me. The white dabs that represented stars shimmered and sparkled like actual burning suns. I sucked in a breath.
Whoa. This is brilliant. I’ve painted Maeve.
“She’s going to love it,” Candice grinned.
My stomach twisted as I admired the likeness. All my feelings for Maeve rushed to the surface. I sank back into my chair, staring at my fingers, unable to believe that a tiny piece of my magic was now trapped inside the paint. Before, it was just a painting. Now, it was like it stripped away all the layers of bollocks I walked around with all the time, leaving just my raw, battered heart.
