That evening she stopped by her cabin to change into clothes that weren’t damp with sweat and speckled with sandspurs. Outside, the air was alive with warmth and the scent of something sweet. Around the edge of the lake, canoes in various faded colors jostled against each other, tied by thick ropes to nearby trees as if someone had been afraid they’d drift away. One of them—it looked like it used to be painted red—had slipped from its rope and was trailing away from the others.
She looked around. After a moment, she slipped her shoes off and walked to the edge of the lake. The water was warm as bathwater. She lifted the hem of her skirt and took a couple more steps until she could grab the canoe to pull it up to the shore.
It wasn’t until something rough bit into her fingers that she noticed the tattoo of jagged, rusty holes on the sides of the hull. The hole at the front where the rope had been tied was rusted out, leaving sharp edges and splotchy orange patches. The pads of her fingers were coated in the same orange rust, and a spot of blood seeped out of a shallow cut. She swished her hand in the water around her knees, but when she pulled it out and examined her finger, blood bloomed in a small dot.
So much for trying to do a good deed.
As she pressed her thumb and forefinger together, her gaze settled on the offending canoe. Maybe it had once held a load of laughing, frolicking kids, intent on pushing each other out. Or maybe they raced their canoe against others, seeing which team could skim across the lake the quickest. She imagined the little boat gleaming cherry red in the sun, tanned arms and legs tumbling from the sides, excited voices carrying over the water. Now it was nothing more than a mass of rust and danger.
But there was something about it. The mix of former glory and present decay. She tilted her head and caught a glimpse of the bright-green grass at the edge of the lake through a hole in the side of the canoe. Just a sliver of green against the orange rust and faded red metal. Life against death.
She tapped her fingers on her camera hanging around her neck, then pulled it up to her eye. She snapped and snapped again. After a moment, the light changed as a cloud skirted the sun. Shadows and glare, light and dark. Then, without bothering to check the outcome of her efforts on the LCD screen, she stepped out of the water, slid her feet back into her sandals, and continued to dinner.
On her way out of the dining hall, Casey called to her. Expecting to be urged to join the workshop, Jenna continued down the steps, just turning her head to speak. “I have a few things I wanted to wrap up from my work today. I’ll try to make it tomorrow night.”
“I was just going to let you know Gregory asked for you to meet him in the barn. And to bring his camera.”
Jenna paused and looked back at Casey standing at the top of the steps. “Why?”
Casey shrugged. “I’m guessing he wants to discuss your work. He is your mentor, so that’s his job.”
“Yes, as I keep being reminded.”
Casey raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll head that way.”
The path down the hill toward the barn took her away from everything else, past the lake, to a part of the preserve she hadn’t seen yet. After stopping at her cabin to retrieve Gregory’s camera, she wound her way across a low bridge that spanned a muddy creek and through a tunnel of oaks and hanging vines. Palm branches pressed in from the sides of the dirt path, which opened to a clearing. A crisp white barn sat a couple hundred feet off the path, its upper casement windows open to catch the breeze.
There was no sign of life until she noticed Gregory sitting in an Adirondack chair to the side of the barn. His head was tipped back, his eyes closed, his boot-clad feet propped in another chair pulled up in front of him.
“You’re not making me clean horse stalls, are you?” Jenna called as she approached.
He opened one eye. “Funny.”
“Why are we meeting way out here?”
He dropped his feet to the ground and heaved himself out of the chair. “Come with me.”
From the outside, the barn looked like most every other barn she’d seen in the hills of Tennessee: peaked roof, weather vane on top, vertical wood siding. Even a fenced horse corral to the side. But when Gregory grabbed the handles of the double doors and slid them open, any chance of this being a standard barn evaporated. Inside, it was around the same size as Ty’s barn, but with the individual stalls taken out, the space seemed larger. No ropes hung on the wall. No straw on the floor. No animal smell.
Instead the area was sleek and modern, the faint scent of vinegar and chemicals both sharp and familiar. The floor was covered in clean, cool tiles that made Jenna want to take her shoes off and walk barefoot. The lights were low, but gallery spotlights shone on the art on the walls. A few paintings here and there—bold, impulsive jabs of color—but most were photographs. Some black and white, some color, all striking.
“Are these . . . ?” Before she could finish her thought, a particular photo caught her eye.
Gregory continued across the room toward a door at the back, but Jenna moved closer to the photo. It showed a woman and two children—obviously hers by the way she draped her arms around them. They sat on a
