Ovenshine

prologue.

It's her favorite painting. Perhaps her favorite piece of art she's ever seen. Only she can't remember where she saw it.

Wherever it was the room was dark, the painting spotlit by a shaft of buttery sunlight that turned the dust particles in the air to glitter, that outlined each meticulous brushstroke like individual rivers of color. She doesn't remember the frame, just the scene unfolding within it: a field, greenish-yellow, peppered with bright tulips. Two people stood, facing each other, on opposite sides of it. The man wore all white, the woman black. Curly hair blew in the wind, brown skin like gold beneath a pastel sun.

What she remembers most is not the beautiful hue of the sky, the perfect symphony of blue and white. No, what she thinks about when she thinks of this painting are the expressions on the wanderers' faces. It is something in the upward tilt of their brows, and the captured quiver of the man's lips, that resembles relief. But in each of their eyes, there is also fear. Subtle. Undeniable.

They are not two emotions she often associates with one another. Maybe that's why she loves it.

Someone calls her name.

"Indy?"

The memory vanishes. Every time it does, she's less sure she'll ever be able to come back to it.