Finding Winter

Chapter 12

The echoing swoop of my marker glazing over the smooth surface of paper soothed me as I traced around my previous markings with precision, narrowing my eyes in focus-  the colors bled together with ease when I quickly blended the wet ink. 

This was all that my world consisted of now: the slick surface of paper held nimbly between my fingers, the brilliant splash of blues, greens, and greys, and the dull, wet smell of markers. 

“That’s a cool picture,” My sister chimed when she casually strolled through my bedroom door, “What’s it for?”

Tilting my head sideways to analyze the picture and held it at arm's length, I bit my tongue while looking for any flaws. “Some fan art.” My focus overshadowed the conversation and reduced my words to light mumbles.

Autumn, though, managed to hear me just fine- probably used to my incoherent babbles.

“Fan art?” My sister asked baffled. “I thought you didn’t do that kind of stuff.”

“No. Not usually.” I replied casually while reaching across the table to grab my phone. “But I have been reading this really good book. It inspired me to draw this.” I pursed my lip into a dissatisfied scowl when the cracked phone screen obstructed the picture of my drawing.

I knew that when I sent the cover it wouldn’t look cracked, but it bothered me. Really needed to replace the phone screen.

“Must have really inspired you then.” Autumn quickly plucked the paper from my hands to take a closer look at my final piece. Since I couldn’t sleep last night, I was able to finish sketching, coloring, and shading the rest of it. Drawing was the only thing that was keeping me sane and had successfully taken my mind off yesterday’s events. 

My sister’s mouth dropped in surprise. “It’s a whole professional cover, Matt. Damn. You must have really liked it. Seems you spent a lot of time on it.” She held my drawing up against my bedroom light, to catch a look at the closer details, but I snatched my drawing back.

“It took a decent amount of time.” I could never tell Autumn that I actually did it all last night because she would nag at me for not sleeping. 

“Who’s the author? Are you getting paid?” A common trait in the Descartes family to fire a million questions per minute.

Safely tucking my drawing away in a portfolio, I replied quickly to her questions. “No, I wanted to do this for an author that posts his material online. Doesn’t really have his name, just John. He should be published soon; he is incredibly talented. He doesn't just write. He creates stellar graphics on top of that-”

My sister tilted her head while the gears in her mind churned, to pursue traveling down her rabbit hole of endless questions.

“If you aren’t getting paid, why are you doing this?” She interrupted me in the midst of my fan boy rampage. Probably best she did or else I wouldn't have stopped blabbering about the author and all the things he did.

But I thought I made the answer clear earlier. Sighing, I gave her a deadpan stare while lightly tapping my portfolio against my desk to settle the papers inside. “It’s fan art, Autumn. Fan. Art.” 

Her brown eyes rolled in annoyance at my overly corrective tone, but she moved on to pick at the other drawings on my desk- frantic and rough drawings of the orb, the shadows, and the blue energy of light that spun from my fingertips when I attacked Julian. The paranoia of my crazed sketches seemed to transfer to Autumn when she glanced over them.

Autumn uncomfortably sifted the three papers in her hand. “It’s unnerving how well you drew these.” But clearing her throat, she rested the papers on my desk and looked back at me expectantly. “You ready to go to school?”