Fallen (Fallen 1)

“Oh, that?” He mumbled.

“Yes, that,” I snapped my patience waning.

“He didn’t look at you like you were a person. He looked like he wanted to devour you or that you were a toy; that is not the way to look or treat a woman. You should be respected,” He said.

I suddenly felt bad for being so harsh.

“I’m sorry Jonathon. You may be right but that’s just how guys are these days. Not everyone was born in the 1300s.”

“Shhh. Someone may hear.”

“Right! Sorry, but people probably wouldn’t believe me anyway,” I said as we went into the next room.

In this room everything was teal, purple, and navy. There was a hand sculpted vase, hand painted with all three colors, inside the vase were hand sculpted flowers. The flowers were painted white. A crystal chandelier hung above the vase, it had teal, white, purple, and navy polka dots.

“This has to be the coolest art show ever,” I exclaimed.

“I’m glad you like it,” He said his stance and facial expression brooding.

“What’s wrong Jonathon?” I asked.

“Nothing, I just thought I saw someone I knew.”

“Oh, okay,” I said.

But I couldn’t shake from my mind the pained, scared look on his face. Like he’d just saw death coming.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked again.

“Yes, I’m sure,” He replied smoothly.

But the brooding, scared look on his face didn’t leave.

I decided not to push the subject further because I’d get nowhere.

The next room stunned me. It was the most beautiful paintings I had ever seen. This room was a showing of paintings by one artist, that much was obvious, and there were no weird geometric designs. These paintings were true art. I had never seen anything so beautiful. All I could do was gawk at them.

I don’t know how I will even begin to describe them all. Some were pale colors others bold, bright colors but all so beautiful. I was drawn to a black and white one.

The two paint colors seemed to swirl around endlessly to form the image of . . . Me?

I stared at the picture. “There’s no way,” I whispered. The girl in the picture looked so much like me.

“Way,” murmured Jonathon.

“But how . . . who . . . who’s the artist?” I managed to choke out.

“I am,” He said simply.

“But when did you paint this? I don’t see how you would’ve had time to paint this, this week.”

“I didn’t paint it this week. I painted that particular picture in 1872. Don’t tell anyone, they may wonder how I was able to paint it in 1872 if I’m standing here today,” He said in a stage whisper in my ear a slight smile to his voice.

“How did you see this? I wasn’t even alive.”

“It came to me in a dream . . . I felt that the image held some sort of significance but at the time I did not know that the girl in the picture would turn out to be my soul mate.”

I kept replaying the phrase ‘It came to me in a dream’ in my head.