Sanctuary

Chapter Ten - Nigel

One of the plain walls near the door had been painted up into a tree where each kid got a 'leaf' in the shape of their handprint. The student's heights were marked, dated, and named all along the trunk of the tree – a cheerful tracking of their growth in the many years they were forced to live in hiding with their families.

And there, amongst the cheerfully painted walls, the cubby holes of shoes, the crayon pictures, and the racks of backpacks, was the truest piece of art in all of The Underground. No—in all of Sanctuary. Well, at least in Nigel's opinion. To him she was a Goddess made real, a sculpture of ivory and red—red like the raspberry stain of her hair, red like the cherry shade she liked for her lips.

She was like one of Maggie's fairy tales, the blood splatter on the snow turned into something too lovely to truly exist. Her hair was so long she could drape it from a window to be used as a rope, but she wove it into a thick braid that fell below her hips. She had a splotch of paint behind her ear, where she had tucked a wispy curl of hair away without realizing her hands were still wet with the color.

She was golden eyes that were glaring at him and frowning lips... and arms crossed over her chest... ah, he was in trouble again.

"I know, I know. I'm late. Couldn't help it. Michio has me doing this stupid thing. . . Hey but it doesn't matter, right? Look, she isn't even done coloring." He gestured over to Maggie, who was the only student left in the room. She hadn't even looked up from her drawing, a pile of crayons scattered around the sheet of recycled paper she was scribbling a bright colored flower onto. When he looked back up to Dani, she was still frowning at him. He hadn't expected anything else. That was more or less the usual reaction he got from people – Dani included. No. Especially Dani.

"Oh come on now, Sugar Plum, don't give me that look. You know you missed me." He flashed her a playful smirk of a smile, but she merely raised an eyebrow and shook her head at him.

"Ouch! You wound me!" Nigel dramatically clutched his chest. "No, but seriously it's been awhile since we've talked more than me picking up Maggie. She's still doodling, so how about we take a moment? Do you have any new sketches?"

She nodded with a roll of her eyes as if to say it was a stupid question she shouldn't have to answer in the first place.

"Well come on then, let's see them Apple Dumpling," Nigel urged and she crossed her arms and frowned at him again.

"What?"

She made a few sharp signs with her hands, each one firm and direct. She was a lot slower at it than Maggie or Nigel, but she hadn't had nearly as much practice. She still had to think about it. She wasn't deaf like Maggie, but she hadn't said a word since Nigel had found her half dead in a dumpster on his work route. So he had taught her Sign Language as best as he could—and it had seemed to help.

"Hey, my nicknames aren't stupid. They're sweet." Nigel flashed her a corny grin and Dani groaned in response. She rolled her eyes, shook her head, and retrieved her sketch pad.

"Geez. It's almost full," Nigel commented as he took a quick flip through the pages. "I'll have to remember to get you another one tomorrow. You'll blow through these pages in no time." He turned back to the last sketch he remembered, sitting in a chair three sizes too small for him. He perched there, with his knees too high up and his head bent over the pages, carefully looking at each drawing before flipping to the next. Dani pulled the teacher's chair up next to him and sat right behind him so she could see what page he was on. When she leaned in he could smell the art on her, the paint behind her ears, the charcoal smudges on her hands, and roses—somehow, beneath it all. She always smelled like roses.

Her work was incredibly good. Some of the things she did were gestures—quick sketches meant to relay the motion and feel of a pose or a moment. Others were well worked and a few of them were impressively realistic. Mostly she drew what she saw and how she felt, not ever creating anything that was fantasy. There were sketches of the kids she taught, there were self-portraits that never smiled, and then there were dark pages from her bad days. Those were often spotted in dried tear stains and contained morbid scenes that ranged from self-portraits showing her beaten and bruised to dark shadowy figures that loomed intimidatingly despite being nothing more than smudges of charcoal.