Page 45 of The Edge of Always

Chapter Twelve

The rest of the summer was a stupidly warm one. Hot and close (though not quite in the way that Luna might like it to be) like an ice lolly that melted in the sun, leaving a sticky, sweet residue all over your fingers.

Luna had a strange sense all summer that she was neither here nor there. Like she was standing on the border of two countries, a foot in each one. She saw the friction between Emmett and Cadence now, like dark fissures in an otherwise beautiful landscape. It should have helped her. It should have made her feel better about everything. Except it didn’t. Because Emmett wanted to leave, Luna now knew for sure.

And when Emmett got into another fight, one of his worst, Cadence wasn’t there holding a wet tea towel to his cuts; she was asking him why he couldn’t control his anger, for her sake if nothing else.

Emmett’s mood worsened. Becoming stormy and sullen.

Luna felt in some way responsible for this, though she wasn’t sure why. She painted and drew and listened to David Bowie on repeat. Anything to get the feeling out of her. She read grown-up books like Brave New World and The Grapes of Wrath, both loaned to her by Earl, and then she drew some more. When she wasn’t drawing, or trying to coax a smile from Emmett, she sketched in her head.

‘Another super cheerful piece, I see.’

Mae had appeared at the edge of the garage that Earl used as his studio. The door had to be kept open. There was a good chance the paint fumes would knock them unconscious if it wasn’t.

Luna stepped back from the canvas. She’d painted an eye. Not as part of a face, just on its own. It was dark and bloodshot, and she’d got the inspiration from 1984. The flecks of green, so similar to Emmett’s, were pure coincidence.

It was quite dark.

‘Eyes are really interesting,’ she said defensively.

‘And technically very challenging,’ Earl added over his shoulder. ‘Watch your lines there, Luna.’

‘I get that. But painting dismembered body parts over the course of summer wasn’t quite what The Man Plan was meant to achieve.’

Earl laughed; it was unspoken between them that Luna felt the way she did about Emmett.

‘Are we having a fire tonight?’

It was their last night. A fact Luna was trying not to think about. It only added to the sense that she was floating, hovering somewhere between two opposite worlds. One here, and one at home, which didn’t feel like home.

‘Yeah, let me just finish up. Earl, are you coming?’

‘Perhaps, if I finish here.’

Earl’s piece was decidedly brighter than Luna’s. She wandered over to look at it, tilting her head at the way the shapes were all blurred. There was a face in the middle, the clearest thing on the canvas, but there was something not quite right about it. In the background, there was a white building on a hill, its borders also blurred.

‘Is that?’

‘Paris,’ Earl nods. All his pieces lately were set in Paris. ‘It’s Montmartre. Sebastian and I were very happy there. Lots of artists you see. It was always so busy. Buzzing, as you say.’

‘It’s just like, really interesting.’ That was the best way that Luna could describe it. It didn’t feel adequate, but it wouldn’t be right to describe it as beautiful. Deep and interesting, maybe. ‘What will you call it?’

‘I’m thinking Montmartre in Motion.’

Luna looked some more at the blurred lines.

‘How did you do that? Make it so that the people in the background look like they’re moving?’

‘It’s easier when you have a subject that gives itself over to movement. But I used brighter colours at the front and kept the desaturated tones for the shadow. That helped.’

‘It’s perfect.’

‘Thank you. Here, you try.’

Earl handed her the pallet knife and she very carefully added a small sliver of shadow to the edge of one of the people in the background of the painting.

‘That’s all I dare do,’ she said.