“That is only the first two chapters,” said Halder. “When I have seen your work, then I shall prepare the rest.” He pushed his glasses up again.
I relaxed slightly. “Certainly, Doctor. Is there a particular visual layout you would prefer?” When he frowned at the question, I added, “In my experience, many scientists have a very specific format in mind, and I do not wish to waste your time or my labor by producing something unsuitable.”
Halder looked past me. I thought he seemed almost indecisive about something, which seemed at odds with what little I’d seen of him so far. “No,” he said at last. “No, the time should not be wasted.”
I did not have time to wonder at his phrasing. He rose to his feet and made his way slowly to a tall wooden cabinet on the far side of the room. He withdrew a key from his pocket and unlocked the doors.
I started to rise and he snapped, “Stay where you are!” over his shoulder.
What, does he have live wasps in there or something?Admittedly, that seemed unlikely, but some of my father’s naturalist friends had kept stranger things in the house.Say what you like about Father, at least plants are easier to deal with than live rattlesnakes… or that one fellow with the fox.Opening the front door to his house had produced an eye-watering blast of ammonia, and a weeklong stay during trillium season had cured me of any childhood desire for a pet fox. Between the urine and the screaming, they did not have a great deal to recommend them. (Granted, I feel much the same way about babies, but they at least grow out of it.)
Halder stood in front of the cabinet for some time. I could hear papers being shuffled about. Rather than twist about and stare at him, I studied his desk, and the mysterious object in the gallon jar.
After a moment, I realized that it wasn’t an object, butobjects. The jar was full of grubs preserved in liquid, probably alcohol. Hundreds of them, stuffed in like candy in a jar, their bodies pale and wrinkled from the solution. Despite my brave thoughts earlier, I felt a twinge of nausea. I stamped it down and forced myself to stare at the pickled larvae.You are a naturalist. These are creatures of nature. How would you paint them?
Raw sienna greatly thinned and mixed with white gouache. Raw umber for the shadows of organs inside. A touch of blue for shading, applied very thin, so that it does not turn the yellows to green.
The queasiness subsided. (My nerves remained, but you can’t have everything.)
Eventually I heard the cabinet doors close and Halder returned to his seat, then slid a thin folder across the desk.
“These are some of the completed illustrations,” he said. “I’ll expect you to match them.”
I opened the folder and felt my heart stutter in my chest.
The top sheet contained a series of illustrations of the American burying beetle, and they weremagnificent. Black and orange carapace, tiny segmented antenna leading to a vivid orange comb, delicate spines on the back set of legs—it was a work of art as well as science. The uppermost illustration showed the beetle with spread wings, which the artist had rendered with veins so fine that they must have been painted with a brush the size of a hair. The pattern on the shell was not merely a flat wash of color but had richness and depth. Even the beetle grub elsewhere on the page seemed to glow from within.
“These are…”Beautiful. Elegant. Gorgeous.“… exquisitely done.” I suspected that Halder, with his scoffing at flights offancy, would not appreciate admiration of their beauty. “Who was the artist?”
“That need not concern you,” said Halder. “Your job is simply to finish the illustrations.”
I swallowed and lifted the page. The second sheet was just as glorious. An American carrion beetle, from egg to adulthood. The heavily armored larva was black, yes, but the artist had layered the shell with subtle washes of indigo and Tuscan red, making the black richer and more complex. Had the great Hans Simon Holtzbecker been obsessed with flesh-eating beetles instead of flowers, he might have produced something like this.
I am a good illustrator. I am inspired some of the time and competent all of the time. For all my gnawing fears, I had never truly worried about the technical aspects of this job.
Butthis… he wanted me to produce work to match this? I felt as if I had fallen into a fairy tale where a wicked fairy demanded that I spin watercolor into gold.
My mask of calm must have slipped, because Halder’s eyebrows slammed together over his nose. “Is there a problem, Miss Wilson? Can’t you do it?”
If I were as good a person as I was an illustrator, perhaps I would have told him the truth. But I needed the job too badly. I composed my face despite the sudden knot in my gut and set the folio back on the desk. “I do not have the pigments to match these,” I said calmly. “The artist appears to have used both watercolor and gouache, which I am proficient in, but I will require additional paints and finer brushes.”
The doctor scowled. The knot in my gut drew even tighter.Don’t think like that. He hired you, he’s seen your work in theBotanica, he knows what you’re capable of. He knew what he was getting.
Smiley leapt back onto the desk between us and broke the tension. I snatched the folder out of the way while Halder pushed the cat aside. “Very well,” he said, no longer scowling.“Tell Mrs. Kent I said to put you in the studio suite. There should be plenty of brushes and paints in there, and you are welcome to them.”
This sounded like a dismissal. I picked up the list of Latin names and rose to my feet. “I shall deliver the completed illustrations to you as I finish them.” Inspiration struck. “Would you prefer that I come to you when I have questions, or are there texts you would like me to consult first?”
Please, God, let there be texts.I could all too easily picture Halder shouting at me about metathoraxes and then perhaps throwing something. I desperately needed a reference book.
“I do not want my time taken up with foolish questions. But it is the specimens that are definitive, not the books.” He pointed a finger at me, eyes narrowing. “I have no desire to see my work as error-riddled as that fool Fitch’s, Miss Wilson. Consult whatever books you like, but do not repeat their mistakes. Do you understand me?”
“Certainly,” I lied.Who on earth is Fitch?And then, because I was already lying, I added, “I look forward to working with you, Dr. Halder.”
He grunted and turned away. I let myself out of the room and leaned against the wall, my knees shaking.
I had survived the first face-to-face meeting. Halder hadn’t thought better of hiring me or thrown me out on my ear. Now I just had to figure out how to match some of the most spectacular illustrations I’d ever seen, in a field that I knew virtually nothing about, without repeating the mistakes of books I’d never heard of.
No problem at all, I thought, and didn’t know whether to laugh or burst into tears.
