Kc's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Kc came back to the cabin the next morning. Killerc stood by the safe with his arms crossed. He had promised to teach her. Now she wanted the lesson. She set her brush down and waited. "Your first task," Killerc said. "Paint something a buyer would pay for. Not a gift. A real piece someone hands you money for." He tapped the locked safe. "When you sell your first painting, I open this. What's inside is your next lesson. Fail, and you're done here." Kc's stomach tightened. She had never sold anything. She had only given her art away. But she thought of Mr. Clean's hard words, the way he had scolded her for painting free gifts. Selling was the whole point now. "Fine," she said. "I'll paint and I'll sell it." She worked all afternoon in the cold cabin. She painted the dark lotus again, then a scruffy little creature she saw sniffing near the roots outside. She gave the creature bright, mischievous eyes. When she finished, the painting looked alive. She carried it into town before the light died. She stood outside a graceful five-story manor. Rich people lived there. Her hands shook, but not from fear. From the old habit. Someone stepped out, a woman in fine clothes, a lively dog at her heel. The dog wagged and pressed its nose to the wet paint. "Careful," Kc said. She held the painting up. "Do you want to buy it? Twenty coins." The woman studied the grubby little creature on the canvas. She smiled. "He looks like trouble," she said. "I'll take it." She counted the coins into Kc's palm. The metal felt strange and heavy. Kc had never held money for her own work. She wanted to say the painting was a gift. The old words rose in her throat. She swallowed them. "Thank you," she said instead, and closed her fist around the coins. She walked back to the woods in the dark. She knocked, and Killerc let her in. She dropped the coins on the table one by one. They clinked. Killerc counted them without a word. Then he went to the safe. He turned the dial, and the heavy door swung open. Inside sat a single small box, locked tight, and a folded note. "You sold your work," Killerc said. "Good. Most students quit before this." He handed her the note. "Your next lesson is inside that box. But the box has no key." Kc frowned. "Then how do I open it?" "That's the lesson." His yellow eyes glinted. "The key belongs to someone who hates me. You'll have to go and get it." He smiled a thin, cold smile. "Come back when you have it." Kc took the locked box in both hands. She had sold her first painting. She was a real artist now, with coins to prove it. But the price of the next lesson stood somewhere out there, waiting, and she did not yet know whose door she would have to knock on.