3. Barn … Dance? #3
The gray ... not a pure gray, and not the standard blue gray, either.
Penny compared her options, and went with a cooler blue, a few drops more in a neutral gray.
It felt happier, more relaxed. That was perfect.
She blended the batch and set to work. The gray flowed well into the colors, locking the patterns into place and sealing their sense.
No one could add anything to them now, not without repainting first.
Mrs. Johnson arrived just after she finished. The rosy lady's eyes opened wide, and she put her hands over her mouth. "It's beautiful! Oh, so much better than I thought it would be. It's perfect, thank you." She even had tears in her eyes.
Penny studied the ground, then said, "You are welcome, ma'am." Mrs. Johnson paid, and gave her a fifty-dollar cash bonus.
Oh, she wanted a beer, one of the good local ones.
Penny got a fancy soda and a raincheck. She'd be going up ladders tomorrow, and a real beer would leave her still a little unsteady.
It shouldn't, but she'd discovered that the hard way.
Only ladders, not cars, not stilts, not scaffolding once she got up the ladder, but ladders.
"Tomorrow night," she promised herself. She didn't work on Sundays.
"Mr. Bauer?" She asked the next day as the orangey-brown farmer came to the gate. "I'm Penny Favarro, the painter." She'd met him, but it had been a few weeks.
"Ja. You're early."
"Yes, sir. I had good weather and was able to work longer on my earlier jobs, so I can start now, instead of waiting until Monday."
"Gut." He extended his hand and they shook.
Then he opened the gate. "Park there, outen th' way, bitt.
I'll move the straw bales for ye." With that he limped off toward the large barn.
By the time she parked and unlocked the trailer, he'd moved half a dozen straw bales away from where she needed to put the ladder.
The barn sat on a slope, so the east side seemed lower than the west. It wasn't, she'd checked and measured, but the illusion made her smile.
He'd asked for the patterns on both sides to be refreshed.
One was a tulip and star, the other a rooster, one pair on each side, in yellow, white, and red, with some black on the rooster.
She'd use the well-faded originals as the template, which made some things easier.
She'd already tested the paint. It wasn't the old milk paint, thanks be.
That never, ever let go of the wood, and wouldn't let anyone paint over it, either.
"You need aught, ring 't bell, ja?" He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb to a bell and rope. "Someone'll come see."
"Thank you, sir. If I need you I'll do that." Oh good. It was better than trying to hunt someone down when they were on the other side of the property. Cell service wasn't so good here, either.
She got the ladder out of the trailer and started expanding it. It was just barely long enough for the tall side, but plenty fine for the east wall. She'd do the west first, since that faced the road, and would be harder. "Well begun is half done," she told the air, and started to climb.
By the end of the day both western designs had been cleaned and the outlines refreshed enough that she could see the lines scribed into the wood below the paint. Someone did not want the patterns lost or changed. She'd honor that.
Oooh, the beer tasted so good that night.
She had a local hefeweizen. It was a little darker than the usual, a bit richer, and excellent.
The local-recipe bratwurst sandwich and kraut made the evening perfect.
She drove with great care for deer and other drivers, not relaxing until she parked at the in-law house and went inside.
Sunday, Penny spent resting. A local convent had an open evensong service, so she went.
About half the seats in the soothing cream and green chapel filled by the time the bell chimed and the sisters began to process in.
She stood and bowed, then knelt when the others did.
The novice with the thurible seemed very careful about not overwhelming the congregants, a lovely change from her last worship service.
The Franciscan sisters' colors blended in a quiet harmony that matched their voices.
As she departed, she noticed a dark-haired man with a huge dog.
They must have sat in the back. The dog didn't wear a service harness or collar, or maybe his thick fur hid the collar.
Gold flecked the blue-black color surrounding them.
She blinked. Yes, that was gold, like some of the best priests and a few others she'd met.
He wasn't dressed like a priest, though.
He carried strong shields, as did the dog.
How strange. The pair walked out with the others, and got into a small SUV covered in mud and stuff.
No one had parked anywhere close to the vehicle.
Penny grinned. She wouldn't want that on her car, either!
The next morning, rested and steady, she got to work as soon as she had enough light.
The barn wanted to be repainted, or so it felt.
She cleaned and dusted the tulip and star section, and part of the rooster, then filled a small can with red and began.
The colors went on smoothly, not trying to run or overlap sections.
She'd gotten all the red done by noon. White should have been the first one, but it felt reticent for some reason, and the red pushed forward.
Since this wasn't a house interior, she didn't want to fight what the colors desired.
That made her very tired. Trying to work on top of a ladder when she was exhausted? No thanks. Ground was hard.
By the end of the day she'd gotten the red and white done.
She closed the paint cans, cleaned the brushes, and started to retract the ladder.
"Mein Gott, chew work fast," Mr. Bauer declared.
"Fast and tidy." He smiled, mostly. "Hoffer's talkin foolish, as usual.
" With that the farmer walked into the barn.
She heard something banging, like empty buckets, as she finished collapsing the ladder and heaving it over to the trailer.
Thanks be for aluminum. A wooden ladder that big?
She'd need two strong helpers to move it.
Come Tuesday afternoon she'd finished the west side of the barn.
The designs fit the barn, part of it the way the wood and stone walls were.
Had the builder and first painter been magic workers, or Sensitives?
She cleaned her brushes and considered. That would have been long before the Spell Eruption Event, since the barn was from the late 1700s, replacing one that got burned in the Revolution, so maybe, but probably not.
Since the owners had never registered the barn, she could use modern paints to refresh the old pattern.
The designs had a little protection in them, mostly gentle good fortune.
They weren't true hex signs like people thought of them.
A small car pulled up to the gate and stopped. A woman got out and called, "Ma'am? Are you the barn painter?"
Duh. Penny shook the brush dry and set it on a clean rag, then went to the fence. "Yes, ma'am."
A young, shielded, gray and yellow woman held out a sheet of paper. "Can you put something like these on a barn? A smaller than this barn, say a little more than half the size?"
She started to bristle, then caught herself. Ticking off a potential customer never went well. "May I?" The woman gave her the pattern, then stepped back. That was good.
They weren't traditional design, exactly.
The nine-pointed star had a design of twelve waxing and waning moons around it.
The other one showed a folk-style horse with— She peered more closely.
Either eight hoofs, or a division of sorts on each hoof, and upside down or sideways hearts above and beside it.
The dimensions matched the size of the current designs, so that wasn't a problem. "What colors, ma'am?"
"Hmm. My man didn't say, but the barn's a very dark brown, modern brown."
So probably a white field with red or another single primary, black for the horse, yellow hoofs, red hearts?
The other one could be black and white, like one she'd seen in the Kutztown museum.
Penny considered. "I am able to do these, yes.
I need to do some calculations before I can give you a bid.
It might be less expensive to buy them as plaques from the shop in Kutztown," she warned.
"No! Um, that is, my man insisted they needed to be on the barn, something about family tradition or something." The woman hesitated, then rushed as she spoke.
It was her turn to hesitate. Something about the woman and the designs felt off, for all that the lady's colors looked OK. "I need to run the numbers, ma'am, before I can give you a bid. If you will come back Thursday afternoon, I should have it ready by then. Ms.—?"
"Ah, OK, here, Thursday afternoon. My name's Galgen, Dee Galgen." The lady sagged for an instant, or did she? "If you have any questions or anything, my man's email is HoffCowBrau, all one word, at PennMail dot net."
"HoffCowBrau at PennMail dot net, yes, ma'am. If I have more questions I'll contact him there." Why not the lady's own?
"I'd give you mine but the provider just got bought out and I'm having trouble with messages getting lost or bounced." The customer shook her head. "I should have moved everything when the buyout was first proposed."
Penny made a sympathetic sound. Who hadn't heard about the merger? "Yes, ma'am. Thank you, and Thursday afternoon."