Inside, I flicked on the work lamps, flooding the place with bright light. The raw patches of stone had been covered with fresh plaster, and the dirty water that I had sloshed through the first time I stepped inside had been pumped out and cleared up, and with it, that awful dead-fish smell. My equipment was still in place, the work lights shining on the chrome legs of the cherry picker and pooling on the empty paint tins I’d stored under the staircase. I’d painted the mural in oceanic colors to make it a little more themed, and more appealing to the eye. I turned the light to pick out the shades of blues and greens that I’d used as a base color for the overlapping triangles, and the lines that fanned outward to the other symbols.
As I watched Patrick’s expression shift to one of surprise, then delight, my nerves melted away, and I felt proud.
When he spoke, his mouth had an odd tremor to it. “It’s . . . out of this world,” he said. “Simply out of this world.”
“You like it?” I asked.
“I do,” he said, his gaze roving across the runes. “It’s a lot prettier than I imagined it would be.”
“Really?”
“I’d honestly thought you would just paint the runes in black lines.”
“Well, Isla said you were using this place as a writing studio, so obviously I wanted it to inspire you.”
He looked blank for a moment. “Oh, right. Great idea.”
I had the weird sense that we were imagining the project from entirely different viewpoints. But that was my job, I reasoned. I was the artist. He’d hired me to imagine it for him, as well as execute it.
I told him to follow me onto the cherry picker platform for a better view, explaining that I’d used it to reach the highest parts of the Longing and that he’d be safely harnessed on it. I moved the platform slowly upward to the apex of the painting, explaining how I’d had to redo some of the symbols to accommodate the sections of plaster that Finn had added to smooth out the surface, or how I’d embellished them to make them stronger. I’d painted the symbol of a flame, for instance, with the colors yellow, red, and orange, but I’d decided to paint it quite large as that section of wall got less light from the windows. “I had to think about the shape of the building,” I explained. “Obviously the walls are curved, which means that perspective is a little different. Especially from the floor. I painted it so that when you look up from the bottom of the lighthouse you can see the mural almost as it appears on the page. Does that make sense?”
He kept his head tilted back, his eyes on the mural. “It makes complete sense,” he said, though I caught him stifling a yawn.
I lowered the platform gradually, spending a minute or so at each section to talk over the color choices and suggestions I had for developing it.
“I was wondering if you had any ideas on how we could incorporate scenes or patterns around the mural,” I said in an attempt to draw him into the process. He didn’t appear to hear me, so I pointed at a section that was unfinished. “Here, you see, I thought of maybe incorporating some elements from Scottish folklore.”
I went to say more, but beneath the whir of the platform he had whispered something. A name.
“I’m sorry?” I said loudly. “I didn’t quite hear what you said.”
We were still on the platform, his face close to mine, his eyes searching me and his lips moving, though I still couldn’t hear what he was saying. I stepped back into the metal barrier. The lights were bright, but it was just the two of us in the Longing.
“Are you . . . ?” he said, his mouth open and his eyes searching my face.
“Am I what?” I said.
He lifted a hand to his mouth, and for one unnerving moment I thought he was going to cry.
“Sorry,” he said, seeming to right himself. “For a moment there, I thought you were someone else.”