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The Artist’s Secret

Destiny squeezed celery-green paint onto her palette, then mixed in three drops of forest-green. Not quite. She added a fourth drop. Perfect.

She studied her canvas, where she had sketched the alphabet in bubble letters. The letter A glistened, still wet with the caramel-yellow paint Destiny had mixed. Not bad. With careful brushstrokes, Destiny began painting the B.

Under the orchestra music flowing from Ms Tamika’s sound system, Destiny could hear murmured voices. Ms Tamika was strolling around the room, visiting each student’s easel. Soon, she came Destiny’s way, stopping at Michael’s easel first.

‘Is this what you meant?’ Michael asked.

Ms Tamika’s directions were often vague. Today, she had instructed the class to create ‘word art’. When the kids asked what this meant, Ms Tamika had shrugged, saying, ‘You show me.’

‘I love your interpretation,’ Ms Tamika told Michael now, not exactly answering his question.

Stealing a glimpse, Destiny sucked in her breath. Michael had painted himself, with his hands outstretched. The letters of his own name, golden and elegant, seemed to bounce between his hands.

As Destiny turned back to her canvas, she felt her shoulders sag. How could her childish bubble alphabet be ‘word art’? It wasn’t even a word! She felt that familiar, stomach-tightening realisation that she was out of step with everyone and everything. She sighed.

‘What an interesting shade of green.’ Ms Tamika was suddenly beside her. ‘So soothing.’

Well. That was true. Maybe Ms Tamika was just being kind, but Destiny had always thought of B as a calm letter.

‘What made you choose it?’ Ms Tamika asked.

Destiny hesitated. ‘I just tried to match the colour in my mind,’ she finally said.

‘The colour in your mind?’

Destiny nodded. ‘I’ve actually never told anyone, but in my mind, each letter . . . has a colour.’ It sounded so strange.

Ms Tamika was looking at her with an open, curious expression. She pointed at the A. ‘Is A always butterscotch? Or does it change sometimes?’

‘Always butterscotch. And B is always green, and C is pale pink, like the inside of a strawberry, and, well, I could go through the whole alphabet. But I won’t.’

Ms Tamika laughed delightedly and placed her hand on her heart. ‘My A is dark red. And my S is similar to your B.’

Destiny froze. Was that possible? It seemed completely implausible that Ms Tamika could have colours for letters, too. Was she teasing?

‘It’s true,’ Ms Tamika said, as if she had read Destiny’s thoughts. ‘See, some people’s senses get a little mixed up. Or, as I like to think of it, connected. A sound might have a certain smell, or letters might have colours. It’s called synaesthesia.’ She smiled. ‘Before I learned that, I thought I was the only one who experienced this.’

‘Me, too!’ Destiny said. ‘I thought it was just me.’

‘Nope. Actually,’ Ms Tamika said, nodding towards the sound system, ‘the musician who wrote this symphony had synaesthesia, too. He saw music in colour.’ Ms Tamika touched Destiny’s shoulder, then glided to the next easel.

Destiny just stood there, listening to the music. The musician did this stuff, too? As if in answer, the music swelled. The melody was both strong and delicate, like a spider’s web. For a moment, Destiny could imagine the silken threads whispering through the air, wrapping themselves around the easels, connecting everything and everyone. Even her.Destiny smiled. Then she reached for her palette, so she could start on C.