3. Barn … Dance? #5
That was different. She nodded. "North side, both, yes, sir. And the paint and colors?"
He smiled again. "Ah, yes. Here." He led her just inside the open door of the barn, to a stack of cans. "For the star, black on white, the moons white on black, with a red ring around the pattern. And the waning crescent moon red, please, on black. So it is imperfect. It's a regional tradition."
Like the quilts, then. She nodded. "Star is black on white, moons the reverse, waning crescent in red, red around the outside of the design, yes, sir. And the horse?"
"Black horse, blue hoofs, red hearts on white, please. With a little yellow around the hoofs, and red around the entire design. "
She recited the pattern back. The red border might not show so well, but she wasn't going to challenge him. Something about him suggested a person who knew what he wanted and why.
"Excellent, and I'd like the horse on the western end, moons and star on the east."
With that he departed. A few minutes later she caught a glimpse of him moving an ornate chair. That explained the work gloves. Penny got the ladder out and set to work.
That evening, as she tidied up for the day, Mr. Di'voli returned to check on things. "Oh, very good! Mr. Hoffer was correct, you do fast work." He smiled broadly.
What else had Mr. Hoffer said? Probably nothing nice. "Thank you, sir. Once the initial design is drawn, applying the colors can move quickly if all goes well."
He nodded, then sobered. "If you don't mind my asking, Miss Favarro, where in Italy is your family from?"
"Northeastern area, almost up near the Alps, or so I was told. We've been in the states since the late nineteen teens."
"Huh. Farther north than mine. We started out near Voltarra, south of Florence." A buzz came from his pants pocket. "I won't keep you any longer." He pulled out his phone and trotted back toward the house. "Yes, it is," she heard before he went inside.
Tuesday morning she studied the barn and the planned patterns.
The horse and hearts. She'd start with that, then the background for the star and moons.
If the white lapped a little, she'd be covering it with black anyway.
It shouldn't, but barn wood didn't behave like sheetrock.
Penny moved the ladder into place, stirred the paints, and set to work.
By noon, she needed to sit and rest. The colors balked.
The black had gone fine at first, then resisted leaving the can.
It made no sense, and she wasn't going to thin the paint.
Too, she hadn't drunk as much as she should have, so that might be part of the problem.
She finished two bottles of water, munched trail mix and a stick of jerky, then went back to work.
Come the end of the day, she wanted to toss the black paint into the river.
She'd used the brand before, and the last time she'd not had so many problems. From thick it had turned almost too thin and sloppy, and she'd had to catch a few drips as she did the lower legs.
A rough spot she'd missed on Monday needed sanding and dusting before she could finish the back half of the horse.
"This is crazy," she grumbled as she slid the ladder into her trailer.
"Uugh," she groaned the next morning as her alarm sounded.
She reached over and found the phone, then swiped off the alarm.
Her tongue felt fuzzy, her head ached, and she'd slept wrong.
"I didn't have any beer," she told the world as she dragged herself out of bed and into the bathroom.
Maybe she should have had the beer. Then she'd have a reason to feel lousy.
Breakfast helped, as did getting out and moving in the cool air.
It wasn't supposed to rain, so she could get more done today.
The pale sky grew a little darker, sort of, as the sun rose.
Long tree shadows stretched across the road as she drove to the barn.
Was she too early? No, the gate stood open.
She parked, opened the trailer and quietly got her ladder and other tools out.
Not everyone started their days at sunrise.
The white flowed, eager to be out of the can and in the light.
The background for the horse and hearts went very well, smooth and without surprises.
Come midday she'd finished the bulk of the horse design, lacking the hearts and the outline.
Since the black had dried, Penny painted the blue hoofs, all eight of them.
The horse was actually almost traditional, according to what she'd read on her phone last night, just not the hoofs.
Oh well, since no one would see it without getting onto the property, she'd not have to listen to complaints.
"I thought that was only in the Amish areas," she told the ladder as she climbed down for water and a bit to eat.
The background for the star and moons took longer, as she'd anticipated.
She did half, then used a fine brush to mark the outlines of the star rays and the circles to hold the moons.
Mr. Di'vola had gotten a good paint for the job, and the white dried quickly enough that she could do the outlines if she took care and went slowly.
The opposite of that process they'd done back in Italy in the 1500s that had to be done wet.
She wrinkled her nose. Painting on plaster never went well.
Why wasn't she sleeping better? She munched through sausage, eggs, tomato, and toast the next morning, then drank more water.
Maybe it was waiting for the repainted barn to be done, so she could get everything finished?
Or was it worrying about getting this one wrapped up so she could start the next one?
"Probably." The guys talked about having sleep trouble, sometimes, when they had a lot of work starting to back up.
She almost poured herself into the car that night. It wasn't the paint this time, and it wasn't the weather, but oh, concentrating so hard to get the star points and moons just right ... Well, all she had left was the red on both patterns, and she'd be done.
The hearts went easily. They weren't exactly the usual simple design—the local version had little scallops around the edge.
Two of these hearts had that, two others had a little lattice inside.
She also did the yellow separating the hoofs while she was up on the ladder.
Why blue? The local horse signs were all black or brown.
Oh well, the customer wanted blue, he paid for the blue, so blue it was.
He and the lady had worked in the barn a few times as she painted, moving furnishings or unloading a trailer of antiques and boxes.
He always wore gloves. One of the framers had been like that, but he sunburned really easily, too, so he had to cover everything and wore thick white sunscreen on his face.
Ian? Iewen? Something Irish sounding, that much she remembered.
Maybe Mr. Di'vola had a sun allergy, or maybe he bruised easily like her grandmother had.
The red outlines took longer. It balked, as if it didn't like touching the white.
Which was silly, and made no sense. It wasn't like trying to put water-based on old linseed-milk paint, or the lady who wanted paint on top of spar varnish!
Penny frowned and stuck out her tongue as she worked, tiny strokes of red slowly filling in the circle around the horse, then around the star and moons.
"Right, almost done." She painted the waning moon in red, then climbed down the ladder and backed away. The designs seemed dim. She blinked and looked around. So did the rest of the world. The sun had set. "Dang." No wonder she felt flat. But it was done, and she'd get paid, and that was that.
She sealed the last bits of paint in their cans and collapsed the ladder, putting it into the trailer.
As she cleaned the brushes, she heard voices talking.
"No, tonight. Yes, I know, short notice, but this really is the best time.
Yes. Good. Oh, don't worry about that, yes.
" A pause, then "No." The other voice sounded garbled, so probably a cell call.
She shook the brush, wiped it, and put it away in the appropriate slot in the trailer.
"Perfect!" Mr. Di'vola called as he came closer. "It looks even better than I'd hoped. Thank you, Miss Favarro. I'll pay you the rest now."
She got her phone and the card swiper out, and entered her code as he handed her his credit card. She ran it, handed it back to him—
"Uugh." She hurt so bad, head hurt, so tired. She heard voices, angry voices, felt magic, couldn't shield it. Dirt, she was laying on dirt. Penny started to prop herself up, open her eyes—
"Wait," a woman's voice said. "Let me help you. The spells drained you to collapse, and the thump on the head didn't help."
Penny kept her eyes closed as someone, two someones, helped her sit. "You will feel Healing magic," the woman warned. Penny kept her eyes closed and didn't fight the flow of soothing power. Her headache faded a little, and the soreness inside went away, mostly. "How do you feel?"
"Flat, really tired and achy and flat. Head hurts. What happened?" She sounded flat, too.
"Later. Eat this, and you will need to talk to the sheriff's deputy after you eat and drink. Rasi, Cahway, keep an eye on her, please," the woman said.
"Can do," a deep voice growled. Penny ate the thing, then drank a bottle of what tasted like sports drink. That done, she opened her eyes. The dog, the blue-back dog with gold flecks, sat in front of her. It was night, real night. How long had she been out, and what happened?
"That's the worst non-blood-path spell I've dealt with in ages," a deep-voiced man declared. She looked that way. A tall, strong, black and silver young man shook his head, then finished a can of something, maybe pop. "He'd been storing a lot of power even without draining others, sir."