Beth had to get up early to drive home in the morning. She could expect to be on the road for a little over five hours if she pushed through with minimal stops. It would be just in time to report to work for a double shift at the restaurant she waitressed at. It wasn’t glamorous, but the tips on the weekends were decent during the summer—not as good as Mardi Gras season but decent—and she needed the cash.
“Tomorrow is just another day,” she told herself, getting into her car as she mentally planned her schedule. “A little sleep, then I’ll be home before I know it, work, and then finally sleep again. It’ll be a long one, but I can do this.”
5
New Orleans, Approximately Eleven Months Later…
“It’s good, but it doesn’t tell me who you are. I want to know you, Beth. I don’t want to see cute. I want to see your essence. What is in your soul?” Maura said.
Beth chipped at the yellow trapped in her cuticles. Paint always seemed to hide somewhere on her person. Such was the life of an artist. She’d showered and put on her lucky white skirt and blue top, though it didn’t appear to be bringing her much luck during this meeting.
The so-called professional continued to examine Beth’s paintings, commenting on her lack of depth, the unrealized potential of her voice, the inauthenticity of her style. If anyone else had been listening to this conversation, Beth couldn’t imagine what they would have thought. Maura Masters used big words—big hurtful words—with the ease of someone ordering their favorite dessert off a menu. The only thing she did like was the way Beth signed her name, “Bethany Watson,” in the corner. Apparently, it was ideally located and of a good size.
It is one opinion, Beth told herself. One person’s opinion. They’re allowed their opinion.
Maura clearly did not like Beth’s work.
The industrial-style shared office space had allowed her to display her art in the front lounge for this meeting. Concrete floors and exposed brick-and-mortar walls gave the area an artist-friendly vibe. She was glad she’d only seen one person walking to a back office so her embarrassment wouldn’t be overheard.
Maura came from a New York gallery and had agreed to look at Beth’s paintings. If she’d liked them, this would have been a huge break in Beth’s career. Beth had so much nervousness and hope when she woke up that morning. Now the nerves were gone, and that hope was crushed under Maura’s expensive heels.
Beth knew she needed to be grateful for this opportunity, and grateful for the time Maura was taking to talk to her. That didn’t mean the words were easy to hear. She’d worked so hard on the current collection, planning and painting non-stop for eleven months. Despite what Maura thought, Beth had been inspired by the deep green of Mississippi’s landscapes, by the blue of the summer skies, by the smiles of strangers, and the influx of excited college students who descended on the city of Oxford each August to start classes. She tried to capture the spirit of the South, not the controversy.
“It needs to be,” Maura tilted her head and tapped her finger on her chin, “edgier.”
As an artist, Beth knew that interpretation of a vision was influenced by who the person was, the jadedness of their upbringing, the way they interacted with and saw the world, the experiences they’ve had. People clearly didn’t want to see happy things—at least not people like Maura whose opinion mattered in the art world. Beth tried to see things the way others saw them. Maybe that was her problem. She had no real opinion of her own. Her vision was too convoluted by the outside, by seeing others how they saw themselves but forming no solid conclusions.
Empathy?
No, that wasn’t the right word.
Understanding? Sympathy? Compassion? Not, quite. It would come to her. Maybe—
“Beth?” Maura eyed her with a small frown.
“I was considering your words,” Beth lied. In truth, she’d drowned out the woman’s negativity and only half listened.
“You were considering whether or not I could look at the photography collection?” Maura asked.
Had the woman requested to see her photos? Beth had completely missed the question.
“Yes, of course,” Beth turned and pulled out her portfolio. She laid it on the table. Occasionally, she’d sell a photograph, but typically she used them as references for her paintings.
“Hmm,” Maura said to herself, as she flipped the pages. When she’d gone through half the book, she said, “You’re close. Not there, but close. It’s hard to explain. The technique is well thought out.”
Close?
Maura joined her hands and lifted them to her mouth in thought. “A muse. That’s what you need. Something or someone that stirs your insides and makes you feel when you look at it. Something that makes you so desperate to paint that you’d use your own blood if you had to.”
Beth turned to her paintings, wanting to defend her work. She couldn’t help some of the doubts that surfaced. Maura Masters was distinguished. She’d be a fool not to listen to what the woman had to say.
Maura flipped through a few more pages and stopped at one Beth had taken months before. It had been an accident—one she hadn’t even known was on her camera until she’d returned home. Someone had bumped into her on the street, and her lens had moved. What it captured had haunted Beth’s dreams.
A handsome man appeared as if he was reaching across the distance. Surely, it was some distortion of light, but his eyes glowed with green. Intensity radiated off him. Part of his leg was blurred, captured in movement by the dim streetlights. His face was distorted as if patches of orange somehow marred his features like a bizarre, supernatural birthmark.
Beth had no idea how she’d not seen him that night visiting downtown Oxford. The man’s clothes looked like something from an underground club in New York, not the shorts with athletic t-shirts or lightweight dress shirts she was used to seeing there. Laces threaded down the sides of his pants, pulled tight as if it was the only thing holding them together. The tank top also had laces down the sides. Peeks of skin showed through the thin straps.
“I forgot that was in there,” Beth said apologetically as Maura continued to stare at it. The man’s face had become an obsession of sorts, conjured by her dreams, and demanding attention in raw, fevered paintings she would probably never show anyone.
“It’s your best work,” Maura said. “It shows me your potential. Do you have more from this shoot?”
“No, I don’t,” Beth said as she shook her head. She wasn’t sure how she felt about her “best work” being the product of an accident but said nothing. The man had been a face in a crowd that she missed but that her camera had accidentally found. She hadn’t met him, didn’t know his name, would most likely never see him again as he was a tourist in another state. She also couldn’t get him out of her head.
“It’s time to decide a path.” Maura grabbed Beth’s shoulders and held tight. Her metal bracelets jingled. She looked deeply into Beth’s eyes as if that somehow added to the seriousness of her words. “You can keep doing what you’re doing, and sell your work to banks and doctor’s offices, perhaps illustrate a few children’s books, and probably make a very decent living doing it. There is nothing wrong with not chasing the art gallery dream. Or you can step out of your shell and get knocked around a few times. The elite artists are nothing without their passion and pain. You need heartache. People want to see your agony poured onto the canvas. They want your metaphorical blood. You need to be crushed and come up swinging. You need to take risks. Tap into your deep subconscious and expose its vulnerabilities. What are your ecstasies? What are your fears?”
Maura took a deep breath and let Beth go. Beth couldn’t move. She looked at her paintings, trying to see them for the bland emotional expression Maura saw.
“Find your passion,” Maura pointed at the man’s photo. “Find that moment again. Then bring those next samples to Ron. If he thinks you’re ready, have him email me pictures from your next collection.” Maura tossed a business card down on top of B
eth’s portfolio and left.
Beth kept the card in her photography portfolio and zipped it closed. She thought about taking her paintings down but then decided if they were meant to grace the walls of an office, they were right where they needed to be.
She lived close to the French Quarter, so it was only a short drive to her apartment from the shared office space. Her phone rang, but she ignored it. It was only her neighbor Yvonne wanting to remind her she was coming home the following day. The woman would leave a message and Beth would text her later. After such a harsh critique, Beth wanted to crawl into bed and hide.
Starting over was never easy, but it was part of the process. Maura’s was one opinion. There would be others. She couldn’t lose heart.
“Edgier,” Beth whispered, trying to pick apart the criticisms to find what she could use going forward. “Passion? Take more chances.”
It was true Beth had never had her heart broken. She’d thought she had once when she was a dramatic teenager in love with the idea of being in love. As she sat crying on her best friend’s living room floor, lamenting her breakup with… Gah, what was his name? Troy. Yes, Troy. As she sat lamenting her breakup with Troy, the truth had hit her with such clarity. She cried because she felt she needed to, because that is what the other girls did, not because she actually ached for a boy she’d only been with for three weeks.
Beth cared for the men she dated, and there was often a disappointment when the relationship ended. Maybe it was the artist in her. She expected love to feel like more than fondness at the beginning and discontentment at the end. She believed in the rush of emotion talked about in romance novels, of soul mates and happily ever after. She believed in two pieces fitting together, in fate, in there being one person, and in dying from a broken heart.
Maura thought pain and passion were the keys to art. How did one find that? If Beth knew where love hid, she would have sought it out. No one chose to be alone.
So if not love where could she find her passion? In fear? That was much easier to locate. It lived everywhere, and she could seek it out whenever she wanted—dark inlets off the French Quarter, behind construction tarps on the sidewalks, abandoned roads, and haunted farms that were falling in on themselves. There was fear anytime a person had to face mortality. Though, going out and looking for danger in the name of some elusive artistic ideal seemed stupid. Or perhaps Maura was full of nonsense wrapped in an overconfident package, and there was no secret to unlocking Beth’s inner elite artist.
Beth drove through town, taking turns through the French Quarter as if on autopilot. She started to go home but then changed her mind. She circled around a block to head back to the shared office space to collect her paintings and hide them, only to change her mind yet again and go back around to go home. She slowed as an SUV pulled out of metered parking. The green light flashed indicating there was still time left on the meter which at three dollars an hour for downtown parking was too good of a deal to pass up. Instead of going home, she took the spot and reached into the back seat for her camera.
If she went home, she would only stress about what Maura said until she drove herself to madness or to tears. Tonight would be a perfect night to get some shots of downtown to sell to the local publications. It would take her mind off the harsh critique.
The crisp air was unusual for this time of year, and she needed a jacket and scarf. The familiar pull of the camera’s neck strap was comforting, as she took off the lens cap. Beth checked the meter, seeing she had less than two hours before she had to return to her car. Or she could risk no one noticing the meter ran out before the “free” hours kicked in.
She’d walked these sidewalks several times and had countless pictures of the location. For this reason, she ignored the obvious photos. She did not need more of Bourbon Street’s sign, or the many historical balconies and buildings.
She followed the crowd, watching the amorous couples and groups of college students, all pressed together in one big moving mass. She took a few shots, stopping to introduce herself and write down the names of those in the photo. The sound of jazz drifted from various locations, one of the many cultural backdrops she loved about the city.
As she moved through Dutch Alley, she noticed a man sitting alone on a bench by the statue of a Victorian-era woman holding a fruit basket. It wasn’t unusual for tourists to take their picture in pretend conversation with the bronze figure, arms draped over her shoulders, hands reaching into her fruit basket as if to steal one. What struck Beth about the man sitting on the bench was that no one was taking his picture, and he seemed to be in a real conversation. He had no earpiece to indicate a phone call.
Beth glanced around and noticed a few of the college kids pointing and laughing. They’d seen the strange interaction, too. She automatically lifted her camera and approached like she’d been taking his photograph all along. The college kids went on their way to look at the artistic wares for sale from the local art Co-Op.
Beth found inspiration in the ruggedly handsome man sitting on the bench next to the statue. Something was mesmerizing about him. She needed to capture that moment, that unguarded expression on his face as he talked to the Victorian woman like she could hear him and give him advice.
Beth turned her full attention to the man’s face, focusing on him through the lens. Her finger twitched, but she didn’t take the photo as she watched him. What were the odds on the same day she received the advice to seek out her passion that she’d run into the strange tourist again? She studied his face, mentally comparing it to the blurred photo she had from Oxford.
The man had a stoic expression, one that did not give much away. Broad shoulders and thick chest made her think he was used to hard labor. His dark jeans, long t-shirt, and jacket were clean but faded and were nothing like the outfit he’d been wearing in the first photograph. Everything about him signified intensity, from his facial expressions to the way he gestured.
Beth held her breath. It was him. She was sure of it now. She crept closer and kept her camera lifted. This time the photos she took would not be by accident.
6
Familiarity had not provided Ivar with much comfort. He had learned the streets of New Orleans as well as the streets of downtown Oxford. Each time he went to Oxford, he walked through the alleyway by the black door. He would touch the wall to feel the texture of the brick against his fingers and then hold his breath in the hope that the portal would appear. It never did.
“I am to drive to Oxford again,” Ivar said to the female statue sitting on the bench next to him. The sound of his voice was hoarse because he hadn’t spoken for a long time.
It was not lost on him that the only people he felt he could talk to were made of metal. There was this woman, whose name he didn’t know. She appeared indifferent to his words. That was all right. The day he thought she actually cared what he said, was the day he’d fall completely into insanity. Then there was good old stationary William Faulkner in Oxford. He always had an ear to listen since that first night Ivar became stranded on Earth.
For the first six weeks, he had practically lived in the alley, huddled in a corner as he waited for rescue. It had not been a pleasant time. At night, he slept in nearby trees, shifted into cat form for comfort. He’d been so hungry and tried to ration the cash-money he carried, but it would not have come close to lasting him for a full year.
It was dumb luck that people had seen him and offered food and new clothes. For some reason, they kept saying he must be from Finland, or thereabouts. He found it better not to answer their questions as they would happily fill in their own gaps. So he came to be Ivar Othevar, from Finland, in need of jobs that paid in cash.
Hard work did not deter him, nor did learning to drive. He didn’t have an Earth vehicle license, but Toby Carter, the man who paid him, did not seem to mind that detail. Ivar was happy to have something to fill his hours as he bided his time. And he was very glad to have food and shelter.
“How do you deal wi
th the loneliness? Sitting here day after day,” he asked his statue friend.
Ivar wished the statue could answer. Instead, he heard a sea of Earth voices. He was able to pick them apart much better than when he first arrived, noticing the different dialects and languages, but that didn’t make them familiar. He missed the cadence of his family’s voices, of his native language, and the sounds in the shadowed marshes. He had nightmares that he would never hear them again. The fear that settled inside him the day he became trapped had not left.
He did not give into fear, but it was there, a constant reminder each time he felt his heart beat or his lungs fill with air. Not only did he have to be ready to leave at the right time, someone from the other side had to open the portal to let him in. Someone would. They had to. Surely his people would send that woman he’d pushed through back home. The guilt about that had not left him. He hated that action, but the instinct to protect his home had been deep.
There was no one else to talk to as he searched the streets for dragons. It’s not like he could ask if anyone saw a shifter or a gateway to another world. The one time he’d tried delicately to inquire, the man had attempted to punch him before running away in fright. Ivar found most of his conversations usually ended poorly, and it was better to say nothing. Thus, he had his statue friends.
“I might have found a clue to the dragons’ whereabouts,” he said. “It is rumored that bayou lizard men live in the swamps near here. I might be wasting my efforts, but it is time I expanded my search beyond this city. I have been all over the French Quarter, Treme, really more neighborhoods than I can count. However, I noticed some Draig markings on a brick wall near here that indicates the shadowed marshes. I may not be back to see you for a while.”
The statue’s expression remained unchanged as if contemplating Ivar’s words.
“I know. They are dragons, and they will not be pleased to see a Var prince, but they are from my homeland. They might have access to another portal location.” Ivar sighed. “Finn and I knew what would happen at that assembly with the elders. Lord Montague wants the portal destroyed, buried under a mountain so deep no one will ever find it again.”
Headstrong Prince Page 4
