The Library of the Dead by Edited by Michael Bailey

Author:Edited by Michael Bailey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Dark Regions Press
Published: 2016-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

And suddenly, Nat was kissing her just below her left ear, and Kamerynne’s body filled with decalescent electricity, and she no longer gave a damn about what was the cephalopod goddess was doing to her mother in the movie.

A month later, the two girls sat making out on Kamerynne’s bed.

“Could I, like, show you something?” Nat asked, oddly shy.

Kamerynne had seen Nat top to bottom, so what could possibly make her this bashful? “Sure, anything.”

“Okay, but I mean, don’t laugh if you think it’s stupid or whatever.”

“I’m not gonna think it’s stupid. Just show me.”

“’Kay.” Nat retrieved her black nylon Jansport backpack from the floor, unzipped it and pulled out a sketchbook. “I sorta want to be an artist someday, just sort of wanted you to see my stuff …”

Kamerynne opened the sketchbook, and at first she thought she was looking at a black-and-white photograph of a man with rats’ toothed maws where his eyes should have been, but then she saw the smudge of pencil graphite and realized it was a hyperrealistic sketch. She carefully turned the page, and saw another: this was a woman in a tawdry hotel room cradling a baby made entirely of insects’ eyes. The book contained page after page of beautiful monstrosity.

“You did all these?” Kamerynne asked.

“Yeah, I mean, they’re not how I want them to be, but maybe someday …”

“What do you mean ‘someday’? These are amazing, right now! These are, like, better than the art that my dad drops a grand on down at the galleries!”

“Aw, you’re a sweetheart. But nah, I’m not that good.”

“I mean, okay, I’m not an expert, but my dad made me read like fifty billion art books. This is really really good. I mean, you are an artist, right now. Why do you think it’s not good?”

“I just … I just want to get what’s in my head down on paper, you know? I want it to look the same as I see it in my mind, but it never does. It never comes close. I’m okay with pencils, I guess, but I need to get better with oil and acrylic. Maybe I need to learn how to work a computer or whatever.”

“So learn to work a computer.” Kamerynne blinked at her.

“I don’t have the money to buy a computer, and I feel weird working on my stuff at the computers at the library. People see naked bits and freak out. And the library doesn’t even have Photoshop or anything I could really use anyway.”

In that moment, Kamerynne experience another major revelation: she herself might have no talents to speak of, but Nat had a talent that absolutely took her breath away. And it would be so easy to help her become the artist she was clearly born to be. Maybe helping was Kamerynne’s reason for being alive on the Earth.

“Put your shirt back on; I’m taking you to the mall. You want a laptop or a desktop?”

Nat stared at her as if she’d sprouted a tentacle in the middle of her forehead.

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