“Ah, there you are,” Simone called out with cheerleader liveliness. “I’m not surprised you brought her here. It is time, isn’t. Innocence can only be allowed for so long before it becomes tedious.”
I shrugged off Simone’s words. She often said things that were confusing, as if there was a point to it, but it had flown over my head. Like a person speaking English as a second language, her words, also, felt stilted and off. But she was a lovely person, and I hoped she thought of me as a friend.
“Where is Gregor?” I asked her, seeing that she was alone.
“Oh, he deserted me. I think he was bored. Last I saw of him, he was flirting audaciously with a cameraman. Since I don’t see either of them around, chances are they left for greener pastures.”
“What a pity you didn’t,” Timothy said.
“Timothy,” I hissed, giving the hand holding mine a jerk.
He didn’t relinquish my hand, but his face simmered down. The inner flame of his dragon had been reduced to mere smoke puffs. Simone would survive his brief flash of irritation.
“Timothy was telling me about pookas. They are delightful, fantastical creatures. I’d never heard of them before,” I told her.
“Fantastical?” she said. “Ah, yes. The myths of Ireland. Too bad such tales are dying out from a lack of familiarity with such beings. I wonder where all the pookas went.”
Simone glanced at Timothy, sighed, then stepped further away from him and closer to me. “Great gallery, Timothy. But I think it’s time for me to go home. I need my beauty sleep, you know.”
She kissed my cheeks in that way she had with no touch involved, then waved goodbye to both of us, and walked out of the room.
After she left, Timothy seamed reticent about discussing pookas anymore, so we moseyed into another chamber, the one called Oceans. It held the two Turners that Timothy had bought, although he’d told me that he’d also put in a bid for one of Turner’s castle paintings.
The first painting was a bit of a disappointment. The ocean was wild and wooly, but it didn’t display the chaos I’d seen in Turner’s other paintings. This one was calmer and almost serene, in a way. Although the sky carried a bit of storm and told the viewer that another chaotic churning was on its way.
The second Turner that Timothy had been able to acquire was more in the vein of what had always fascinated me: the oppositional forces of light and dark as they met in a painting. It held exactly what I held so wondrous: Aesthetic Realism that finds light and peace inside chaos and squalor. I understood from my readings on the man that Turner had hidden inside his work, seeking answers.