Sea Haven 02 - Spirit Bound

forward in spite of his desire to suppress it. She was waiting for someone to come and unlock that passion and fire. She was waiting for the right man to give it to.
    What the hell was he thinking?

2
     
    DARK purples swirling with black lines moved across the high cobalt ceiling, weeping crystalline tears. With so much sorrow filling the room, floor to ceiling, simple stone and wood could barely contain the intensity of emotion. Sorrow lived and breathed.
    Rage moved in the walls, breathing in and out, so that the slashes of red and orange undulated, bulging outward and then pressing back, great gulps of air to control the force of anger, the need for retribution, for vengeance. Rage lived and breathed alongside sorrow there in the spacious confines of the large, dark studio.
    A breeze drifted in from the open French doors leading to the patio and backyard where great grasses obscured all view of the studio from outside, teasing at the flames flickering at the tip of each of the dark candles illuminating the paintings. The dancing light caught glints of jagged glass embedded in the dark, angry paintings. Bold, red Japanese characters wept out a single name—Paul Henderson.
    Judith Henderson leaned forward in the high-backed chair and swept a great bold stroke of black to draw in all light and consume it. There could be no forgiveness. Never. She could not forgive the torture of her brother, his senseless death. Tears ran down her face and she brushed them away with her forearm, added another weeping stroke to intersect with a fierce, bold promise of vengeance.
    “Someday, my brother,” she promised aloud to the seething room. “I’ll find the right instrument to strike back and I won’t hesitate—not this time. I’ll wield it with deadly force and I will avenge your torture and murder.” Her soul was already black with her own guilt. What was one more deadly sin among so many?
    She touched the edge of the canvas almost reverently. Paul had stretched this one, as he had so many of her earliest paintings and she reworked it, over and over in oil, trying desperately to rid herself of the dark rage permeating her soul. Sometimes she could leave this studio as it should be, dark and locked away from the world, but other times, like now, she was driven to come here, obsessed with her need to let out the dark, obscene rage, the guilt and tremendous sorrow that was stamped into her very bones.
    This studio, and the art hidden away inside it, held all her darker emotions—feelings she didn’t dare allow out into the universe. Anger. Fury. Defiance and guilt. She poured those things into her paintings and the individual cells for the kaleidoscope. Sometimes she shook when she painted, strokes bold and angry, sweeping across the canvas as she allowed herself the freedom of true expression. In this room she used only big, broad brushes, nothing like the finer brushes used in her restoration and painting for the public.
    Every dark thought, every dark need, strong enough to wake her in the middle of the night and leave her sweating on the sheets, was carefully left in this room, just as carefully and deliberately as she cared for her paints and brushes. This was a room of depression and madness. Dark. Ugly. One of heavy sorrow, guilt, shame and absolute, utter despair.
    Judith sent another bold stroke sideways from corner to corner, the brush sweeping along its side, giving the edgy quality she needed for the rage in her to express itself. She gave the same attention, if not more, to these paintings. This studio was the only place she dared allow life to the darker emotions seething like a volcano deep inside her.
    In the center of the room was her worst and best masterpiece, a large kaleidoscope she kept covered, just as she did the paintings. She didn’t want anyone accidentally stumbling into this place of dark power. The kaleidoscope was particularly dangerous, each cell compiling a year’s worth of murderous fury, five of them, for each of the years that had passed following her brother’s murder. She had a separate studio for working on kaleidoscopes, but it was far different from this one. She sent another stroke screaming across the canvas, this one a deep, almost midnight purple.
    The breeze slid again into the room, sending the flames flickering again and the overpowering scent of the dense oils creeping into the very walls, giving the black anger held prisoner there a distinct odor. She took the edge of