Page 59 of There Are No Saints

Mara has a kind of power separate from my own. I want to know if I can harness it. Or consume it.

I visit her studio regularly. I don’t knock—she knows I’m watching her through the camera mounted above her door. There is no appearance of privacy.

I walk into the studio I own, that I supply to her, and I see the rebellious ways she’s altered the space—how she’s somehow managed to throw open the high upper windows, how she’s scattered her clothes and books around, and used an injudicious amount of her grant money to fill the space with plants—leafy tropicals, vine-like hanging baskets, and potted trees to supplement the ornamental lemons already in place. She’s taken my carefully curated English garden and turned it into a jungle.

Mara’s appearance ranges from homeless to deranged—torn overalls, bare feet, paint-streaked face and hands, brushes thrust into her hair for safekeeping.

And yet her painting glows like the pietà. Illuminated from the inside.

I examine every millimeter of it.

“The hands need work,” I say.

“I know,” Mara says. “The nails . . .”

“This edge could be sharpened.” I point the handle of a paintbrush toward the figure’s left shoulder. “Here.”

I take the palette from its resting place and dip the brush, intending to darken the edge myself.

“NO!” Mara snaps, as I raise the brush toward the canvas. “I’ll do it.”

I set the palette down, narrowing my eyes at her. “You should be so fucking lucky as to have it known I touched my brush to your work.”

“Yes,” she says. “I’m aware of your many talents. You can paint rings around me. I don’t give a shit—nobody touches this canvas but me.”

She faces me down, physically blocking me from the canvas, eyes wild, paintbrush gripped like she wants to shank me.

She’s so passionate about everything.

“You look like you want to stab me,” I say. “Have you ever hurt anyone, Mara? Or only imagined it . . .”

Her fist trembles, clenched around the brush.

That’s not a tremble of fear.

It’s rage.

At who, Mara? Me? Alastor Shaw? The mother, the stepfather? Or the whole fucking world . . .

“I’ve never hurt anyone,” she says. “And I don’t want to.”

“You don’t wish anyone ill?”

“No.”

“What about the man who kidnapped you?” I’ve stepped close to her now, looking down at her. “What about him?”

Her chest rises and falls, faster and faster, yet she refuses to take a step back.

“You must want revenge. He tied you up. Pierced your nipples.”

I look down at her chest. Mara never wears a bra. Her small breasts and pert little nipples are regularly visible beneath the thin material of her crop tops and dresses. All the more so because of the silver rings through those nipples that she has yet to remove.

“Why haven’t you taken those out, Mara? I think I know why . . .”

She looks up at me, those wide, wild eyes on either side of that impudent nose and vicious little mouth . . .

“Why?” she demands.

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