The girl in the painting was young also. She’d forever be young. She’d’ve seen Justin in that crib, growing up in that small children’s room with the starry-sky mural, for only three years. Before a car and an accident, and minor demons were more or less as mortal as anyone else, faced with brutal unforgiving metal.
“Dad has one too,” Justin said, beside him, “he asked for them to be painted before I was born. Because demons—we don’t show up well in pictures. Snapshots. You know; you’ve seen the pictures people tried to take of me, on the street. And she wasn’t even as human as I am. He wanted me to have something of her.”
“She looks happy. Like someone who was happy.”
“Dad says she didn’t know what to do, how to pose. The artist—he was a friend of hers, someone from over there, not as
