Deadly Little Games by Laurie Faria Stolarz Read Free Book Online Page B

that we’re not alone, that someone’s working in the corner, only partially obscured by a canvas.
    It’s Aunt Alexia. I’d recognize her anywhere. She has long and wavy pale blond hair and wide green eyes that stare in our direction.
    “Do you want to come and say hello?” Ms. Connolly asks her.
    Alexia takes a couple of steps toward us. She’s much tinier than I remember. She’s only a few years younger than my mother, and yet she almost looks like a little girl. Her outfit—a cotton dress with billowing sleeves—drapes her body, almost like a drop cloth itself.
    “Do you remember me?” she asks. The angles of her cheeks are sharp, and her mouth looks like a tiny pink seashell.
    I nod, and she comes closer. “You’re an artist, your mother tells me.”
    “Well, I’m not really sure I’d go that far.”
    “You’re an artist,” she repeats, nearly cutting me off. Her voice is like tinkling wind chimes.
    “I was telling Aunt Alexia about your pottery,” Mom explains.
    Alexia wipes her paint-covered fingers on the front of her apron, producing a bright red smear that makes it look as if she were bleeding from the chest. She extends her hand for me to shake. I try to let go after a couple of seconds, but instead she pulls me across the room toward her canvas, eager to show me her work.
    “I’ve been waiting to get your opinion on this one,” she says, picking a canvas up off the floor. She turns it over so I can see.
    It’s a painting of a boy, with an undeniable resemblance to Adam—same wavy brown hair, same olive skin. Dark brown eyes, dimple in his chin, scar on his lower lip.
    “Interesting, isn’t it?” she says, checking for my reaction.
    I swallow hard, not quite knowing how to respond.
    “I painted it yesterday,” she continues. “When I heard you were coming, I went to my photo album and took out a picture of you—one that your mother had recently sent me. I touched the photo, and the image of this boy popped into my head.” She nods toward the painting. “Has that ever happened to you?”
    Instead of answering, I glance at my mother. She wipes her eyes with a tissue, perhaps moved to see that Aunt Alexia and I have something in common.
    If only she knew how much.
    “I was hoping to show this to you last night,” Aunt Alexia explains, “when you first arrived. But unfortunately, things got a little detoured the further I got into my work.”
    “Oh,” I say, wondering what detoured means, exactly, and if that’s the reason she was put to bed .
    “Do you remember the last time I came to visit you?” she asks, narrowing her eyes, as if trying to read my mind. “We never did get to paint together, did we?”
    “No,” I whisper, and look away.
    “So, would you like to paint together now?” She looks to my mother for approval.
    “It’s up to Camelia,” Mom says.
    “I’m not really much of a painter,” I say, for lack of a better excuse.
    “It’s easy when you use your hands.” She flashes me her paint-stained palms. “You use your hands with sculpture, too, right?”
    “I suppose.”
    “Well, you have to admit, there’s nothing quite like sinking your fingers into your work—becoming one with what you create…with what you touch.”
    “Your mother and I will stay in the studio as well,” Ms. Connolly assures me.
    I take a deep breath, thoroughly confused. But then I look toward the portrait of Adam again, and know that I have no other choice.

W HILE MOM AND MS . Connolly look on from the doorway, I slip into a paint-splattered smock, feeling my insides rattle.
    “Relax,” Aunt Alexia says, obviously sensing my hesitation. She hands me a paint-covered palette and then places a fresh canvas on her easel.
    “So, what should we paint?” I ask, eager to know how this is going to work.
    “Why don’t we just see where our painting takes us?” she says. “There’s no sense forcing a picture that doesn’t want to be, right?”
    I nod, taken aback by how much