The Painter
Chapter 15
"You're a ghost driving a meat coated skeleton made from stardust. What do you have to be afraid of?" ~Anonymous
~O~
Bella stood in front of a blank canvas that was already coated with a layer of Gesso.
She twisted the brush in her hand waiting for the images to come to her.
They always do.
She closed her eyes, the images dancing before her, eyes a lit as drums beat intensely but not in a way that was troubling to the soul. Quileute's howled, chanted, and danced as they acted out their history for their audience.
But it wasn't what she wanted to paint, that was the background.
Bella dipped the brush into the dark pigment and lifted it to the white; the contrast jarring as long, dark streaks lined and soon covered the canvas with onyx. The paint created a vast, infinite bit of space, an uncharted abyss, a void.
The rectangle was soon swiped and tinted with a slight hint midnight blue in the top middle before she dipped into olive and ripened avocado. She daubed and pushed the paint into verdant foliage teetering over rocks and fallen logs. The ground was tinted in a wash of gray like the sand of Rialto Beach where she sat on watching the waves, close to the trees.
Wisps of smoky greys were added, bordered by a line of pumice sea foam to emulate the sea.
She always went back to the green. Never enough shades of green.
Over and over, with a slight twist of the wrist, Bella made leaves, bushes, and fern come alive within the darkness. Limes and jades added more life with light and Bella smiled.
She loved painting green.
Green was a beautiful, lively color.
But there was a human shape existing in the darkness of her painting, not invisible yet not visible either.
Bella sighed as she took a smaller brush and dipped it into a dark, smoky grey and lifted it to her painting. She let the black and grey mix, the moonlight adding a slight silhouette.
But her memory wasn't there and she hadn't a photograph to reference.
Little wisps of smoke lined the leaves with moonlight, but she left the black void alone.
Despair filled her as tears dropped over apple cheeks and lined her skin with salt. She pushed the tears from her face and trapped them on her fingers; the moisture pooling in the crevasses of her skin. She stepped back from the painting, gauging the way it ebbed and flowed around the dark figure in the middle.
"Who are you?" She whispered but there wasn't anyone to answer. When she lifted her hand to the paint, trying to get closer, she was instantly reminded of her dream.
A pale, pained hand curled and reached out for her from within the pigment.
She gasped, eyes playing tricks as dreams and reality coincided.
Fingertips touched the void, the cool paint marking her.
But she didn't want to move them for fear of losing any semblance of contact.
The whistle of the wind outside her window gained Bella's attention, her head turning toward the panes of old glass straining in their caulking. She was so enamored with her art that she failed to notice there was a storm brewing outside.
Bella dropped her hand and moved toward the window. She pulled back the rippling curtains, inadvertently marking them with paint, as she watched the trees dance for her in the wind.
Twilight had long passed and turned into nightfall, casting ominous streaks of blues and blacks over the yard. Lightning lit the sky and shocked Bella, her eyes wide and heart racing as then thunder rolled loudly overhead.
It was that close.
Bella took a fleeting last look outside; skin pricked with adrenaline and static energy from the storm.
She did not see the one looking back at her within the darkness of the trees.
Moving the curtains back into place, she put her paint brushes into the paint thinner and walked out of her room.
~O~
"You ready to give public school a try?" Charlie asked as he seemed to shove a whole slice of pizza into his mouth.
Bella sighed before she shrugged her indifference. She got a slice of cheese pizza and put it on her plate before joining her father at the table. Her chair scraped loudly over old stained linoleum awkwardly, making her cringe.
She made a mental note to felt the bottoms.
"No." She said after swallowing the thick dough than felt like glue on the roof of her mouth. It was under baked, not that Charlie noticed.
Thunder continued to roll as lightning lit up the room, but Charlie remained indifferent.
He got up and grabbed a flashlight from one of the drawers and put it next to him on the table before sitting back down.
"It's a smaller school, Bells. I though you may want to at least try it so I registered you, just in case."
Bella continued to chew the pizza, but it was quickly becoming a lump in her throat as she lifted her eyes to her father. She could see the way his eyes were lined in fear and could help but wonder if she put the worry lines there.
"Maybe," she mused, non-committal, but looking at her father's features as they changed, brightened with hope.
He had her.
"I think it would be a good change." He continued, teetering as if he could sense anxiety brewing. "You did the ferry and the bonfire. Even without all of that, you've come a long ways Bella. I just think if you try, you might make some real friends you might even have a real childhood rather than-"
"I get it, okay." Bella huffed and put her pizza down. "You don't need to sell me on Forks High, Dad. I told mom I would try and I will. I have the IEP, if I need it. But small classes would be ideal and I can try to assimilate with my peers with the tools I've learned to reduce my anxieties."
"You sound so… institutionalized." He sighed with a frown. His eyes were hard as he stared at the plate before him. Charlie couldn't help but wonder if Bella's life could have been different if she had lived with him.
It was so quiet and calm here in Forks compared to Phoenix.
Phoenix had a congestion of cars, people, and construction. It had neighbors almost on top of each other, playing in their pools and people sitting around fire pits, drinking.
Forks was so much quieter and spacious. He knew she would love that.
She did love it.
"Yeah," Bella could only say. "That's due to years of therapy."
And she had had extensive therapy: Behavioral therapists, psychologists, family therapists all worked to help Bella grow into being a child able to handle school and kids, teachers and noise. She had done the tasks albeit sometimes kicking and screaming, but did them.
Bella did have anxiety issues still and she would probably always have a level of anxiety, but nothing like what she used to have as a child and preteen.
Although it was easier to stay home and be homeschooled in Phoenix, Bella knew that it was safe to say that she was going to need to step up someday and deal with the hand dealt her and make it the best she could.
It seemed it would be soon since school started in a matter of days.
The sat in mutual silence, not at all comfortable, and finished their meals.
There wasn't much else to say.
The TV was on and Charlie could hear and see it from his kitchen chair, so he soon turned his attention there.
Thunder rolled moving through the forests surrounding Forks and on toward Canada.
.
Bella turned the key of the old truck that sat in her driveway and smiled when it rumbled its dismay. She palmed the steering wheel and took a few deep breaths to calm herself although she wasn't as nervous as she thought she would be.
But she still hadn't moved.
"Just a phone call away," She sighed, repeating Charlie's words from breakfast.
She knew he was watching from the window.
Looking in the rear view mirror, Bella slowly reversed and point turned onto the street driving carefully through the foggy town.
She soon pulled into Forks High and saw that the fog was dissipating with the rising of the sun but leaving the air crisp and chilled.
Bella's truck was the only was the only vehicle in the lot since she was so early. Turning on her iPod, Bella cracked open her book and greedily took in each word.
She barely noticed that her classmates were trickling in slowly and eyeing her and her truck suspiciously.
It wasn't until someone parked next to her and slammed their car door.
She gasped, looking up at the person with shock, but the girl just darted through the lot with her head down.
Bella put her book away, watching.
She was an observer, wanting to get a feel of the people she would be in school with and how they acted toward each other.
Which were going to pick on others? Who was shy? Some would be obnoxious, catty, or even give the occasional disapproving look.
But most of all, who they would be when they thought no one was watching.
Bella saw her classmates and couldn't help but be drawn to several expensive cars that stood out among the others.
One was a Silver Volvo, slick with dew. The guy that got out of the driver's side was long and thin and had to bend in half to get out the door. He shut the door with his head down and as he sucked in the cool air and huffed it out. Bella watched the condensation as it twisted and twirled up to the heavens wondering what the sweet breath would be like draped over her face...
That was an odd thought.
Bella shook it off with a scoff only she heard.
But his head turned, as if he was listening to someone or something; his body suspended mid step. His eyes darted around the parking lot until they moved over toward Bella's truck but they didn't stop on her. The dark eyes landed on a green van pulling forward and jackknifing through the parking lot on the slick asphalt.
The mysterious guy turned forward when the van stilled in a space and he started walking toward the entrance of the school.
Bella watched as the guy was met with others who got out of a shiny cherry colored car, a black jeep, and the bumblebee yellow two-seater car. She didn't have a good chance to take anything in from the other people, other than their clothes, since she was so enamored by the one.
.