Page 1 of Her Magic Light

one

“Hold still,” I murmured as the iridescent hummingbird outside my window darted out of my sight before returning to the feeder once more.

The little bird fluttered on the perch.

I sighed. “You’ve got to hold still,” I repeated. “We’ve talked about this.” At least I had.

When the small head twisted back and forth as if saying no, I chewed my bottom lip, meeting the tiny-eyed gaze as she hovered. Had she understood me? Could she… A niggling feeling wiggled in my middle, and I considered my work on the canvas. Was I forgetting something?

In a flash of color, the hummingbird zipped away and back again, re-snagging my attention. We had a standing date most mornings, or so we seemed to. I facilitated it with a sugar feeder and lots of praise for the hummingbird’s unusually spectacular coloring.

“You match my hair, you know.” I laughed as I completed another delicate feather on my canvas. And despite the painstaking level of detail required, I was able to capture it all perfectly. Colors, light, the shapes and even the glint of each feather reflecting the waking sun.

I leaned back, my tongue poking just a tiny bit between my lips as I studied my art. This room really was a perfect studio. The floor-to-ceiling windows, the white walls, the high ceiling, the view outside…

All in all, the perfect place for me to be, and I knew that very well after nearly thirty years of living in the exact wrong place.

Minnesota.

Yup, back when I’d still lived in the frigid North, I’d overheard someone in the coffee shop where I worked telling a friend that their cousin was nuts to uproot from Florida and come to live in Minnesota… And then I’d eavesdropped on the rest, listening to details of the way sunlight bounced off rolling waves and managing to grab the name of the small town from which that foolish person had fled.

It hadn’t been my fault. The woman had been loud, her laugh raucous, and if I hadn’t been so interested in the things she was saying, her very presence would have irritated me to no end.

“You know what the part is that truly stinks, Rhonda?” She’d squawked the question so loudly others had probably heard it from three blocks over.

The entire coffee shop was part of their conversation now. Myself included.

And she hadn’t even waited for her friend to reply before she continued toward her conversational destination. Her friend remained unamused, doing little more than making various exaggerated facial expressions and taking long draws on her coffee as she waited for the topic to change.

“It’s that I won’t get any more free vacations to Florida. Little place called Sweetwater. Crappy name, sleepy town, but it’s warm.” She’d laughed again, this bout even more grating than the last.

“I don’t know when I’ll next feel decent sun on my skin again.” She’d shivered like the Minnesota winter had penetrated the store, and I’d shivered too, suddenly overtaken by a bone-deep chill.

I made up my mind before I even finished my shift that day. But honestly, it was more like someone else had already made up my mind for me. A persistent buzz took up in my head and refused to leave—the idea Ineededto move here, that this unseen town was somehow myhome.

And now that I was here, no doubts remained. Call it fate, kismet, or simply dumb luck, Sweetwater, Florida was exactly where I needed to be.

I shook my head, clearing away the unexpected memory.

The hummingbird glanced at me, and I sat straighter on my seat. Actual mischief seemed to have gleamed in its eye for a moment before it landed briefly, stretched taller, and ruffled all of its feathers out of the arrangement I’d only halfway finished painting.

I bit back a curse word and laughed. This was why people warned against working with children or animals—too much of the unexpected. Sometimes even chaos.

Chaos… Chaos… I frowned. Was I forgetting something? Surely not.

“I guess I just broke the golden rule of show business.” I leaned back to the canvas and fixed the position of a feather, layering more depth into the portrait.

The hummingbird cast another look at me before lifting up from the feeder and zipping by in a blur of flashing color.

I waved belatedly. “Tomorrow, then. Same time, same place.” I wasn’t worried. I could almost set my watch by her.

Her. I assumed the bird was female, anyway. Something about that knowing glint in her eye, the energy she put out.Feltlike a she to me.

Maybe it was just the fact her feathers seemed to closely mirror the colors I’d carefully applied to my own hair. I’d thought I was inspired by a rainbow I’d seen over the sea, but maybe I’d already caught sight of my hummingbird and subconsciously used her as inspiration.

Well, I certainly had enough inspiration now. I took a look around my room. I’d crafted enough canvasses of that same hummingbird to stage a one-woman exhibition. Sometimes obsession signaled the beginning of the end for artists, but I truly felt like I’d reached the beginning of the beginning. That now that I’d come to the right place, all the other pieces of my life would effortlessly fall into line as well.

If I ran out of storage space, I could probably sell some at the monthly local craft market, provided I signed up as a vendor. I’d wandered around it often enough—my work wouldn’t be out of place.

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