Since Esmera was abandoned on a stranger's doorstep as a baby, the only person who has looked out for her is herself.
Until a lark starts visiting her, leaving behind exotic flowers and iridescent pebbles that the internet doesn't recognise.
Esmera...
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Esmera straightened as quickly as if the painting had slapped her. Her heart thudded in her ears, drowning out every other sound, even the whispers she had been so intent on hearing.
Esmera knew why she was leaning in to listen to a painting, but how could she make a stranger understand that? How could she explain that she needed to know why a lark delivered whispering petals to her every morning?
Esmera would rather be swallowed by the floor than make eye contact with whoever had spoken, but she couldn't just ignore the only other person in the exhibit with her. Slowly, she turned to see a man standing behind her, his arms crossed over his chest.
With his pleated tweed pants, white button-down shirt and brown knee-length coat, he could've stepped straight out of those dark academia lookbooks that popped up on Esmera's Pinterest feed.
"I..." Esmera started.
Never had she seen anyone dress like that. She wasn't sure whether it was that or the way the man's coat fitted so snugly around his shoulders that trapped her voice in her throat.
"I was just..."
The man raised his eyebrows. His dark eyes resting on Esmera were no help as she fumbled for a response. They only scattered her thoughts the way a cheeky breeze did fallen leaves.
"I can speak, I promise." Great, now Esmera's ears were burning. She fought the urge to cover them with her cold hands.
Esmera didn't need to make herself look more ridiculous in front of this man. As it was, his mouth curved as if he was trying not to laugh.
Esmera hadn't been smelling the painting but listening to it, which made even less sense. She had heard of people getting high on wet paint, but never of paint that whispered secrets nobody could understand. This man probably hadn't either.
Among the countless responses fluttering through Esmera's mind, she chose the one least likely to make her look stupid and crazy.
"I wasn't sniffing the painting. I just thought I had dropped something." The answer didn't sound as clever coming out of Esmera's mouth as it had in her mind, but she kept her back straight and held the man's gaze.
The only thing to do when one has no confidence is to fake it. Esmera only hoped that it worked.
The man's little smirk bloomed into a full grin. "Ah, yes. Some things can be pesky like that." He came to Esmera's side.
His accent was distinct in its uniqueness, but Esmera couldn't place it. In all her time moving across the state and even out of it, she had never heard any other like it.
His voice was soft, just like a stream trickling over smooth pebbles, just like his black hair might be if Esmera could run her fingers through it...
She snapped her eyes back to the painting and cleared her throat.
