~ Past ~
Ten Years Old
Despite the fact I was only ten years old, no one cared where I was or what I was doing, so long as I helped make dinner. We lived on the outskirts of a large country town, but I spent little time at home, primarily to avoid my stepbrother, Trent. Despite being in the same year, I tried to stay out of his way at school, too. My stepfather was always at the pub, so at least I didn’t have to see much of him, and my mother either ignored me completely or lectured me on the ways I’d ruined her life and would no doubt ruin my own, too.
On one particularly warm summer’s day, I was pretending to be an adventurer from outer space, exploring the town as if it were a new and exciting place. I even made a headband antennae, just for effect. My gaze was focused on the dirt road under my feet, hopeful of finding some coins or other dropped treasure.
A shadow loomed, and I snapped my head up to see Trent with his awful friends standing in my path.
“No wonder you’ve got no friends,” Jacob Smith, the nastiest boy at school said, pointing at my head. “You’re a freak.” He stepped forward and ripped off my antennae, taking a few strands of my long hair with it.
“Cut it out.” Mereki, one of boys by his side, grabbed Jacob’s arm in a move that completely surprised me. “Leave her alone.”
Jacob brushed him off. “Check this out,” he said, holding up my antennae, laughing.
Trent sneered. “Emerson the insect.” All the boys laughed, except Mereki. The pained expression on his face was strangely comforting.
“You know what we do to insects?” My attention snapped back to Jacob. I was pinned to the spot with his narrowed eyes and menacing tone.
I shook my head.
He dropped my headband and crushed it under his foot. “We pull their wings off, then we squash them.”
I jumped backwards as both he and Trent lunged at me. Then I turned and ran, not even glancing over my shoulder to check if they were following me. Their cruelty continued to play over and over in my head as my feet stamped a rhythm on the hard dirt road.
I didn’t stop to take note of what direction I was going. I’d lived in that town my whole life, so I couldn’t get too lost. I didn’t care. I just wanted to be far away.
When I could no longer keep running, I stopped and rested my hands on my knees while I drew in some deep breaths, looking around me for any sign of my tormentors. The coast was clear, but they’d gotten what they wanted. They’d ruined something that belonged to me.
I stood up straight and tried to find my bearings. Nothing looked familiar, but I could hear music, and the park across the road was a hive of activity. I figured it was the markets I’d heard about. I checked for any sign of the mean boys one last time before dashing across the street.
I ducked under the wooden railing and crossed the green stretch of grass to the first row of stalls. The first was selling handmade soap. When the scent hit my nostrils, I crossed to the stall opposite, wanting to get away from the old-lady smell.
The woman at the stall opposite was selling honeycomb. When she offered me a piece, I gratefully accepted, then shoved it in my mouth. It was delicious. I thanked her and moved on. Maybe I’d go back and buy some later.
I approached the other stalls and came up with something nice to say to each seller.
“These are very interesting,” I said to a man selling sculptures of some kind. “You must be very clever to make them.”
The man with the thin, grey hair and matching beard laughed so hard that he had to bend over to catch his breath. “Do you know what they are, sweetie?” he asked, wiping tears from his eyes.
I shook my head.
“They are special toys for adults.”
I shrugged, still in the dark but happy with his explanation. “Okay. Bye.” I waved and moved on to the next stall.
In the next row, I was stopped in my tracks by a woman selling paintings. They were propped up on small stands on the table. One drew my attention, and I leaned forward to study the patterns.
“Do you like it?”
I tore my eyes away from the painting to see a woman with black frizzy hair and kind brown eyes that matched her beautiful skin that was so much darker than mine.
My mother, stepfather, and stepbrother were all pale-skinned with blonde hair. I wasn’t like them either. I was somewhere in between with my light brown hair and olive skin.
Nodding, I returned my attention to the painting, completely mesmerised by every stroke, every dot, and every colour. It was made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of multi-coloured dots of different sizes.
“What is it about?” I asked, scrunching up my nose and squinting.
“It’s a secret,” she whispered, putting her finger up against her lips.
“Why?” I whispered back.
She leaned forward, and so did I. “Our art tells stories about when the world was created many years ago.”
“But how can you tell a story without words?”
“We use symbols, and each symbol means something. We use different symbol combinations to create a scene.”
“Why are they hidden behind all the dots?” I asked.
She smiled. “We need permission to paint these stories, and they must belong to our family lineage.” She waved her hand over the table. “Our art has only been done on canvas and shared outside our communities in the last fifty years. The dots are used to hide the sacred secrets beneath.”
I stood back, taking a long moment to ponder her words. “So I can’t paint them because I’m not like you?”
Her smile gave way to a look of sadness before she stepped around the table and drew me into a hug. I didn’t know why she hugged me, but I liked it. She pulled back and held me at arm’s length, looking me right in the eye. “No one is just like me, and no one is just like you.”
Somehow, I knew her words were significant. I repeated them over and over in my head before locking them away in my mind. “Well, I think your art is very beautiful,” I announced with reverence. “I think I’d like to be an artist, too.”
She picked up my favourite canvas and held it out to me. “A gift from one artist to another.”
“But I’m not an artist yet.”
“Yes, you are,” she insisted, holding her arms out wide. “You just didn’t know it until today.”
Smiling so hard that my cheeks hurt, I felt the weight of a much bigger gift than I could possibly fathom. “Thank you.” I was completely thrilled.
As I walked away, an unusually tall woman caught my eye. Her arms were covered in interesting markings and I stopped to take a better look. Her long, dark brown dreadlocks hung loosely around her shoulders and when she turned to face me, I was struck by her icy blue eyes.
She called me over with a wave and a smile. “What’s your name?” she asked as I approached.
“Emerson.”
“I’m Jenny,” she said, glancing at my canvas.
“I think you’ve got the coolest hair I’ve ever seen,” I said.
“Why thank you,” she replied. “I think you’ve got the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen. They’re the same colour as your hair.”
I beamed with pride.
She pointed to my canvas and asked, “What have you got there?”
I showed her my painting.
“It’s very beautiful,” she said. “Would you like to see my art?”
I nodded, and she ushered me over to a stall where a man was painting something on a woman’s shoulder blade. He glanced up when we approached. “Found yourself a beautiful, blank canvas?” he asked, chuckling.
“Ignore Evan,” the woman said. “We are body artists. We’ll paint our own designs or something else of your choosing anywhere on your body.”
My eyes widened with awe. “Can you paint something on me?”
“Do you have any money?”
I opened my palm, showing her my entire net worth of three dollars sixty-five.
She scrunched up her nose. “I can’t really do anything for that”—she glanced around—“but I’ll do a few simple designs while it’s quiet.”
Barely containing my excitement, I sat on a plastic chair.
Jenny handed me a black folder. “Flip through this and show me the things that speak to you.”
“Stories without words,” I said, smiling.
“Exactly. Art is independent of language.”
Nothing stood out for me until I stopped at a page covered in a variety of feathers. Some were so detailed, they were more like photos. Others were simply an outline. “Close your eyes and tell me what you saw on the page.”
I stopped myself from saying ‘feathers’ because I didn’t think that was the point. I thought back to what the kind woman who gave me her painting had said. Closing my eyes, I placed my hand on the page and imagined the feathers flying in the breeze, floating over the markets, over the town, and up into the blue skies, blurred white by the wispy clouds above.
I was no longer looking at the feathers dancing in time to the music playing in my head. I was now up there with them, looking down on the quiet streets of the town. I could see my house, an insignificant blemish, meaningless from my vantage point.
I saw the river, skirting the town and flowing on to its ultimate destination. When I saw Trent and his mates, I flew higher until they were tiny and I was untouchable. “They make me feel light and hopeful,” I said, opening my eyes. “They give me wings.”
Jenny smiled broadly. “Most people just say ‘feathers.’”
I nodded, pointing to the kind woman at the art stall. “She told me I’m an artist,” I said proudly. “It’s the first time someone has told me I’m anything other than a nuisance, and then she hugged me.”
“Then she’s a feather in your wings.” Jenny picked up her paintbrush and opened a few pots of paint. “For a minute or a lifetime, some people try to clip your wings, while others help you learn to fly.”
I flinched at the ticklish sensation of paint gliding over the skin of my upper arm. After rinsing, she dipped the brush into a pot of much darker coloured paint before making one smooth line. “Your first feather,” Jenny said, rinsing the brush again.
I twisted my neck and stretched my arm so I could see her work. It was beautiful. A fluffy white feather with a dark stem to give it strength. “Thank you.”
“What next?”
I tilted my chin up. “One day, I’d like to see the ocean.”
She nodded and proceeded to paint a perfect shell on my other arm.
Perhaps because she was enjoying my rapture or perhaps because she didn’t have any other customers, she let me choose another design.
“I want to feel like a warrior. A warrior finding her wings.”
For the next fifteen minutes, Jenny painted various patterns on my arms. I asked her to incorporate dots and stars into the arm bands. Then, without offering any explanation, she painted matching designs on my hands.
“Why did you paint eyes on my hands?” I asked, confused.
“It’s the Eye of Horus—an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection and power. Each different part of the design is linked to one of the senses. The right side of the eye is smell, the pupil is for sight, and the eyebrow is for thought.” She pointed to the left side of the eye. “Hearing.” Her finger hovered over my skin, following the curved tail. “This is for taste.” Finally, she pointed to the teardrop, then gently tapped me on the nose. “Touch.” We smiled at each other as if we’d just shared a great secret. “You’re going to start seeing things with more than just your eyes from now on.”
My smile dropped as I tried to process everything she’d said. Holding my hands up in front of me, I stared at the beautiful designs with awe, wonder, gratitude, and excitement.
Jenny continued. “Use what you find with your hands and what you see with your mind to make your own art.”
Giddy, I jumped out of the chair. “I’m going to start today.”
“Did you hear that, Evan?” she called out. “My little blank canvas is going to be a famous artist one day.”
Evan laughed, but I didn’t feel like he was laughing at me.
Handing Jenny my money, I couldn’t resist hugging her and hoped I wasn’t smudging the paint. “Thank you for showing me your art,” I said. “I really love it.”
“You’re welcome, Emerson. Don’t let anyone clip your wings, but don’t go stealing anyone else’s either. Okay?”
At that moment, I felt invincible. With wings, I could fly away from my mother’s indifference, my stepbrother’s fists, Jacob’s taunts, and anyone who told me I’d never amount to anything.
As I walked away from the stall, ideas began to develop and take shape. I could make my own art. I could make something just for me. With a thousand different thoughts rushing through my head, I climbed through the fence and made my way down the gentle slope to the river, relieved by the relatively cool temperature. The hot sun beat down on my bare arms and a droplet of sweat ran down the side of my face. I needed shade and supplies, so my search began. Birds sang a happy tune as I wandered along the riverbank. Perhaps they were cheering me on in their own way. It certainly sounded like it as their song seemed to increase in volume the more pebbles I managed to collect.
When I reached a spot where the riverbank was flat and shaded by large, overhanging trees, I stopped. A large area of soft grass covered half the area, and if I wasn’t so intent on starting my art, I would’ve laid on my back and stared at the clouds all afternoon. Instead I walked over to a clearing at the foot of a large tree, set farthest back from the river. There were some weeds I could easily pull out and some patchy grass, but it could be my first dirt canvas. When I propped the beautiful painting I’d been given against the trunk of the tree, I spied a smooth, white pebble already lodged in the ground next to an exposed root. Excitement bubbled in my tummy, and a peace unlike anything I’d ever felt before, settled around me. Had I finally found somewhere I belonged?
Sinking to my knees, I emptied my pockets onto the ground and began sorting my collection. Occasionally I lifted my face to the sun filtering through the branches before returning to my art.
I’ll come here everyday after school. It was terrifically exciting to have a secret place that was all my own.
Knowing I was late, I stopped a few houses short of ours to buy some time and plot my next move. I didn’t want to go in there and face my stepbrother. Trent was only a few months older than me, but he’d recently had a growth spurt and was now taller than Mum. If I didn’t go inside, I’d have to find someone else to take me in for the night, but it would do no good. I’d still have to face him the next day.
Taking a deep breath and clutching my canvas protectively, I edged forward. I dreaded what I was about to face, but as I gingerly opened the screen door, I reminded myself that I was strong.
I took a few cautious steps down the hallway and made a beeline for my room. Placing my backpack and new artwork just inside the door, I headed to the kitchen to make a start on dinner.
There wasn’t much food in the house, so I set a pot of water on the stove to boil and grabbed a bag of pasta from the cupboard. As menial as the task was, I was enjoying the peace and quiet—right up until Trent walked in.
“Can’t you tell the time?” he boomed from the doorway.
The bag of pasta exploded in my hands as I jumped, sending pieces sprinkling down like rain. “I . . . um . . . I lost track.”
Trent stalked forward, waving my canvas at me. “You stole this, didn’t you?” He spat the accusation at me. “You’re a thief.”
For the first time ever, I didn’t want to stand there and simply take his crap. Perhaps it was because I had found a sanctuary by the river, or maybe my new passion for art had something to do with it.
I looked at the painted art on my arm, and a rush of courage hit me. I felt like a warrior with wings. “Leave me alone,” I said through gritted teeth. “I didn’t steal anything!”
“What the hell is this muck?” he asked, roughly grabbing my arm. “You look like a freak.”
Fury overrode fear. How dare he criticise something he could never understand? I snatched my arm free, balled up my fist, and punched his stomach as hard as I could.
Trent’s reaction was swift and cruel; he whacked me so hard across the face that I saw stars, and then he coldly strutted out of the room, laughing.
I couldn’t help but wonder what he was going to do with my canvas. The answer came later that evening when I returned to my room. I found it laying on my bed, completely destroyed. A hole the size of Trent’s fist had been punched through the middle of my beautiful painting.
I saw red—and then I saw every other colour streaming through my mind in a vivid collage of ideas and hopes. Trent probably thought he’d won, but all he’d done was light a fire in my belly that would serve me well for years to come.