Peculiar ♡ Alma Peregrine

Chapter Seven - Beautiful

I grabbed my easel out of my closet, along with my paints, brushes, a mat covered in paint splatters and the canvas with the painting I'd been working on. I placed the mat down and set up my painting things, trying to not wake Alma who was still asleep on my bed. It was very early - just after four, but I couldn't sleep. I placed my paints and brushes on a small table along with a jar of water. I placed the canvas on the easel and lit a candle so I could see. 

I dipped my brush in a little bit of black paint and started working. I just had to add a few small details to make the painting perfect. I painted on the eyeliner, and then the eyelashes with a slightly darker shade. I added a tiny bit of white paint to her eye to make it look as if it were shining, and then added some color to her lips which I had before then not finished. I was yet to color her hair, so I filled my brush with dark blue paint and started filling in the base color. When the base coat was done and still wet, I worked some lighter shaded into it. Lighter strands of blue scattered in all the right places.

When I stepped back, it looked as though there were something missing. I squirted some metallic silver paint onto my paint dish and dabbed my brush into it before very carefully painting small silver ovals that linked together around her neck. Then, I carefully added on the lovely, blue jewel, resting just below her collarbones. I placed my brush down and stepped back again, it looked perfect. This painting didn't even capture a fraction of Alma's beauty, but it was good enough to be finished. I bit back a scream when I heard Alma speak from behind me.

"That's lovely, Juliette," she said, admiring the painting with an overwhelmingly beautiful look. Then it looked like she'd only just remembered something. She reached behind her neck, her hands only there for a few seconds before she had the dolphin necklace she'd given to me hanging in front of her face. I made no move to take it, but I watched as the two dolphins spun gracefully in circles, shining brightly in the candle light.

"I thought about giving it back to you as soon as you got back, but I wanted to wait for the right moment," she said. I held my hand out, but she ignored it, walking right behind me and lifting the necklace above me and over my head. She clipped it on and stepped back around so she was standing in front of me. She offered me her arm and I took it happily, walking with her downstairs so we could begin breakfast.

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The day passed in a blur. Everything seemed to move so quickly that it didn't feel much like a day at all. Now I was just laying in my room on my bed reading from my poetry book while Alma sat at my desk writing a letter of sorts.
"What are you doing?" I asked, sitting up, closing my book after memorizing the page I was on.
"I'm writing a letter to Miss Avocet. We've been exchanging letters ever since you got back. She's been wanting to know how you're doing," she said. I smiled, I'd spent a few months with Miss Avocet a few years ago, she was a lovely lady.

I looked back to my book and continued reading over the poetry Alma had read to me last night. If they were my favorites then, there was nothing that could explain how much they meant to me now. I didn't even read Edgar Allan Poe poems until Alma chose one to read to me. Him and Emily Dickenson were now my favorite poets to have ever walked the earth. I brushed my fingers over the words dry, yellowed pages before closing the book again after just another three minutes of having it open. I looked back at Alma again, she didn't seem to notice, too absorbed in what she was writing. 

I watched her as the fountain pen in her hand moved across the paper. It was hard even to think about keeping my eyes off her face in this moment, so I didn't. I just watched her as she worked, silent and curious. I noticed how a little crease appeared between her eyebrows and her lips puckered ever so slightly when she paused and though before continuing her letter. Every now and then she would smile an absolutely intoxicating smile, thinking about something, presumably a happy memory or a joke that suddenly popped into her mind.