Quentin James (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} boycott_love) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} light_of_may,@ 2009-10-31 11:44:00 |
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Who: Quentin James and Renee James (NPC)
When: Summer 2000, when Quentin was 15 years old
Where: Fort Williams Park, Cape Elizabeth, Maine
What: Unbeknownst to him, Quentin is starting to draw the future.
Note: This was inspired by a trip to this park, when my friend was up visiting. If I can get copies of the pictures we took, I'll link them here for visuals. Also a starter for some potential upcoming plot... I hope :)
By the time he was in high school, Quentin was good at getting out of his family’s social obligations. If he couldn’t avoid the trip altogether, then he knew how to make himself scarce. Spending too much time around these people just tended to piss him off, which in turn made objects move around him.
At least this time, he was outside, and all he had to worry about were loose pebbles and whatever he had in his pockets. Technically he was supposed to be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Kennebunkport Marina with the rest of the guests, under a lavish tent set up on the green at Fort Williams. But for Quentin, the rest of the property was much more interesting than the latest wedding and business gossip in town.
They wouldn’t let him into the lighthouse (which, in Quentin’s opinion, was complete and utter bullshit), so he explored the ruins instead. At one point, Fort Williams protected all of Portland’s harbor, and the lighthouse was the oldest in the state. Now it was just full of crumbling structures and graffiti covered walls.
And there was the ocean. Here there was no white sandy beach and quiet waves; the surf pounded into the granite boulders forming the cliffs. There was a sense of power in the white foam at the base of the rocks, an act of God in plain sight. It was almost like he could hear a woman’s voice on the wind, beckoning him to join in her in the water.
Every artist was inspired by something different; this view was one of Quentin’s favorites. He climbed down to the small rock outcropping, careful to avoid any spot that looked wet, sketchbook clutched in one hand. Let the rich kids have their celebration. This, in his mind, was a better way to spend the afternoon.
He settled onto one boulder, wind moving his brown hair into his face, arm across his sketchbook to keep the pages from moving. The image he started sketching seemed to come out of nowhere: a dark haired woman at the foot of the cliff, hair blown back, revealing her face.
She was elegant, beautiful, but with a sadness there too – like she’d seen too much of the world and wanted nothing more to do with it. The water seemed to curl around her feet, as if drawn to her. Quentin was sure he’d never seen her, or anyone like her, in his entire life. All he knew was that he had to get the image down on paper, and he wouldn’t stop until the drawing was done.
“Quentin?”
It was Renee, his sister, standing on the dirt edge that bordered the cliff. Her sundress blew around her; there was no way she’d climb out here to join him. “What are you doing? They’re going to be serving the food soon.”
His first instinct was to hunch over his sketchpad, not ready to share his work just yet. Renee, though he knew she meant well, didn’t understand him. No one in his family really did. “Sketching,” he said, not caring that his voice wasn’t all that loud and wouldn’t carry that far. “What have you been doing?”
“Socializing. It might do you some good to talk to them sometimes, you know.” Renee genuinely tried to help him, make him feel accepted, and she never got that he just didn’t care. “Mom says you need to come join us.”
“When I’m done with this.” He had the woman’s face and the hair just right, but there was something else he was still missing. He wanted – needed – to finish this, almost like he was doing some disrespect to the woman in the drawing if he didn’t.
He could hear Renee’s sigh over the sound of the waves. “Now, Quentin. You don’t want Dad to have to come get you. I’ll save you a seat next to me.”
Renee wasn’t going to leave until he joined her and she was right about one thing, he was better off avoiding that conversation with their father. Joshua and Quentin James never really saw eye to eye, and that was putting it nicely. Quentin glanced down at the drawing, a silent apology to the woman. No matter what, he was finishing this, tonight. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”
Quentin titled the sketch “On Widow’s Hill.” He imagined that, maybe, the sea took her lover away and she waited, each night, for him to come back to her. He had it framed and hung it in his workspace. It was among the first pieces of art he hung in his new place in Scarlet Oak, in his studio area.
To this day, he had no idea who the woman was or why he’d been so possessed to draw her portrait. This wasn’t a sketch; even at 15, he knew that.
He didn’t know it was his first experience as a clairvoyant.
Or that the woman he drew lived in Scarlet Oak.