The House

Chapter 11 - Day 2: An Artist's Dream

I have no more keys missing masking tape with names or numbers, but there are four doors still not matched to keys. 

The tiny room in the ground-floor corridor, the mystery room in the kitchen, the study and the locked room across from it. Though unlocked, the study doesn't seem to have a key either. I've tried all the keys on these doors.

Okay, I now have... absolutely no answers to the mystery.

Earlier, when I found the key to my bedroom door, I had some thoughts on the futility of locking your bedroom door from the inside if the key is hanging in the kitchen, so I removed it from the ring and dropped it into the pocket of my sweatpants.

I'm on my way back to the kitchen to store the rest of the keys on their hook when I have an idea. I run to my bedroom to exchange my bunny slippers for my flip-flops. I've washed my feet, and I don't want to get them all muddy again. 

I'm going outside!

On my way to my room, I pass the stairs leading to the top floor. I stop. I haven't tried THAT door yet. I look up at it and shiver. I don't want to.

"Stop being a ninny!" I scold and reluctantly drag myself up the creaking steps to the offending door looming above me. 

There's a small square landing at the top of the stairs, and the door is set to the left of the landing. I turn to face it, reach out a hand and knock. I have no idea why I'm knocking. I almost laugh, but it comes out as a nervous gasp-snort. 

Taking a deep breath, I try the door knob, silently praying that it will be locked and that none of the keys will fit. I have a thing about attics. Even though I know it will probably just be another dusty room filled with shrouded furniture, the idea of them being in an attic freaks me out. 

Yes, I watch too many movies.

The knob turns easily, and the door squeals open. This house is in serious need of some lubrication.

I'm standing at one end of an enormous space. Light is spilling through curtain-less windows, taking up both the side walls and the back wall. Only the wall to my right, facing the front yard, has slightly smaller, curtained windows, affording the room some privacy from that direction. 

This is no attic! It might once have been a ballroom!

Near the back wall, in front of the windows, are easels, four of them placed a few feet apart at varying angles. Artist's easels! There are convenient-looking counters, stacks of old canvasses against the walls, paint-splattered cabinets, and, have I mentioned, easels?! I'm in heaven! 

Forget about the keys and the mystery room; I've found an art studio!

Feeling giddy, I leave the door open and run down to the foyer to start the task of transferring all my art boxes and canvasses from the foyer to the studio. Who cares about a little sleepwalking? I've got an amazing studio to work in! 

I can feel my artistic energy starting to burst into life.

☼

Satisfied that all my art supplies have found their way to the studio, I place an empty canvas on each easel. 

It is always a good idea... for me... to work on more than one painting simultaneously. Doing so prevents me from creating mud by continuing to work while the paint is too wet. I'm sometimes too impatient for oil paint, but I love the suppleness of the medium.

I adjust the easels' positions until I'm satisfied that they are making the best use of the light, and then I step back to admire my new work area.

"Now, if only I knew what to paint..."

I've dumped the boxes on the counters and am feeling satisfied with my progress right now.

Step 1: Find a place to work.
Step 2: Dump your art supplies there.
Step 3: Set up some canvasses. 

I've been worried about step three, not knowing how I was going to prop up the canvasses when I've completed step one, but everything I require for step three has been supplied to me in abundance. I'm really happy right now. 

Perhaps this was what the advertisement meant when it referred to the place as an artist's dream.

The problem is, it sped me on to step four, the hardest one.

Step 4: Find something inspiring and paint it.

The only things I've been inspired to paint since my arrival are the Matryoshka dolls... and not on one of my canvasses. Perhaps if I got permission to renovate them, painting them will jolt my creative juices into full flood.

I try all the keys on the studio door, but none of them fit. Ah, well, it's not locked. 

Yay!

I skip down the stairs, my spirits considerably lifted, and turn towards my bedroom to change my shoes and put the bedroom key in the drawer of the nightstand.

The man on the half-moon table is not sharing my bliss. He is gazing longingly out over the length of the first floor to the lonely woman on the twin table at the opposite end.

"I'm sorry," I whisper and duck into my room before I'm scolded again.

☼☼☼