“They’re not real,” I continued, wincing as she pressed harder. “Mum…”
I flinched when she suddenly smashed the brush against the wood. “Theyarereal, Violet!” she snapped. “Stop telling me it’s all in my head. It’s not.” She slapped her hand down, rattling what remained of the mirror. “Stop telling me that I’m crazy.”
“Mum, you’re not?—”
“They’re real,” she interrupted. “And they’re going to try to take you from me and do terrible, terrible things.”
“Okay, okay.” I stood, wrapping my arms around her as she trembled. “I’m sorry, I’ll be extra cautious.”
Mum swallowed, finally resting her cheek against my head. Her height wasn’t something I’d inherited, nor her eyes or hair. “I just want you to be safe,” she whispered.
I held her for a moment, my chest tightening with every passing breath. Only for mum to release me abruptly and walk out of the bedroom.
“Have you eaten?” she asked as I followed, finding her opening the fridge and placing ingredients on the side. “I’m going to make your favourite.”
“Mum, it’s getting late and I think?—”
“Nonsense, only the best for my birthday girl.” She looked over her shoulder and smiled, so real it made me wonder if her earlier incident had simply been a trick of my exhausted imagination.
“Mum, my birthday isn’t until?—”
“You know I love you very much, right?”
“I know.” I tried to smile, ignoring how my chest clenched. “I love you more.”
Mum turned toward the counter. “I love you most.”
Chapter 3
Violet
I wanted to smack my hand against the wall, Bug’s music so loud it vibrated the canvases stacked against the brick. Except it wouldn’t help, considering she couldn’t hear it.
So I glared at the wall instead, because while ineffective, it made me feel better. But of course, Bug’s psychic powers weren’t working today, so the music wasn’t miraculously turned down so I could concentrate.
This was what you expected when a group of artists rented a warehouse that they split into individual spaces. It was either this or nothing, because renting an actual studio space was extortionate. So a cold, damp warehouse with terrible acoustics on the edge of Hackney ended up being the only option.
Well, at least until I made it. Which was about as likely as playing princess and actually getting rescued by a prince at the rate my inspiration was going.
I had all this restless energy I needed to release, and usually painting was enough to keep my attention for more than five minutes. But something was off. The colours were wrong. Too loud, and the shapes felt stiff. Even my signature flowers looked forced.
My specialty was a dreamlike, whimsical aesthetic with fairytale softness threaded across industrial edges, a style that I was known for in theverysmall art circles that I was a part of. I wanted to transform hard reality into something enchanted. But the canvas wasn’t participating, and the magic definitely wasn’t landing.
My strokes had been too harsh, too heavy. The colour choices were questionable, and let’s just ignore the strange object in the corner that was supposed to be a sunflower. It wasn’t what I wanted to create, but it was something someone was willing to pay for. Maybe.
Something that would pay the bills compared to my murals, which were often labelled as graffiti. Which, honestly, was disrespectful. But it was the large pieces that called to my soul, art that wasn’t defined by a stupid bloody square. It started on the floor, creeping up harsh concrete walls in sweeping arches that pulled you into a different world. It was splashes of pastels on the edge of Tower Bridge. Twisting vines and pretty florals that grew from manholes.
Okay, sotechnicallyit was graffiti.
But that was beside the point. I had this urge to make things prettier, and sometimes that urge was too strong to resist. Especially when faced with something as mundanely boring as concrete.
My fingers clenched on my palette, and I barely suppressed the urge to simply throw it against the canvas. Then maybe that would be more inspiring, a coloured splatter in pinks and purples. Maybe a little green, too.
Shaking my head, I turned—only to crash straight into a wall.
My lips opened with an undignified scream, because it wasn’t a wall. It was a chest.
A man’s chest.
