The room around her seemed dark because the roof blocked out the sunlight from behind. Juinlift blinked, her eyes adjusting to the different lighting inside, and used the opportunity to look around.
There was a staircase to her right and a small corridor ahead. On the other side, there was a door that let through some light at the side but she couldn’t make out what was behind it. Instead, she turned to the left, finding a large room that took up almost half the space of this floor. Clearly, this was the room she had seen from outside.
Juinlift took half a step, her gaze wandering: Paintings were displayed on the walls all around the room, some of them simply hung up on a small rope as they were while others had been framed before they went up. Some additional paintings were displayed on easels or rested on waist-high pedestals, taking up the space below the ones that had been hung up. Overall, there were likely two dozen paintings or so.
As for the woman who had made them, she was standing right in the middle of the room, a large piece of cloth beneath her feet, an apron haphazardly thrown over her clothes, and a brush and a color palette in hand, working on her next piece.
Juinlift had walked into the room so quietly that Stiwa hadn’t even noticed her and simply continued to paint as if she was alone. Juinlift smiled and tiptoed closer, peeking over the painter’s shoulder to get a closer look at the painting. As expected, it was another beauty in progress.
This one held a basket in her arms, a longish one that was almost half as tall as her own figure. She smiled at the viewer, her eyes seeming to sparkle with joy as if she was proud after having just finished weaving it or as if she had bought it after wanting it for a long time.
It was a little strange to see. Baskets — even though they were Juinlift’s source of living — were still something that most people saw as ordinary items for everyday use. But in the eyes of this painter, they seemed like something extraordinary, something beautiful that deserved to be painted. It was quite endearing to see.
Juinlift didn’t want to disturb Stiwa at work so she turned around after one look and instead studied the rest of the room more closely, trying to get a feeling of how the other woman lived.
Almost at a glance, she realized that her sister might have been understating when she said that Stiwa came to buy some baskets every now and then. She had seen the counter from outside but had focused more on the things she wasn’t familiar with so she hadn’t registered it at first. Now that she was deliberately looking for them though, she found several of the smaller baskets on top that were barely as high as a palm. One held brushes, one engulfed a vase with a bouquet of fresh flowers, and one even contained a handful of small stones that Stiwa had picked up from who-knew-where.
Juinlift raised her brows and looked for further baskets in the rest of the room. She didn’t have to search long. Her wares were distributed throughout to the point where she couldn’t help but feel that the painting of the beauty surrounded by baskets hadn’t come just from imagination.
Looking at this house, there really was the possibility to stuff a room full of them: One basket stood beside the door, currently holding an umbrella. Another one stood on the ground beside the counter, containing some crumpled-up pieces of paper. There was one in the corner of the room, standing right next to a painting on one of the larger pedestals. A bouquet of flowers had been stuffed inside, the delicate petals repeating the colors from the painting beside.
Even in her own family’s house, she didn’t think they had this many of them. It made her wonder just what the painter was thinking. Most of the baskets didn’t look like she needed them at all. For example, if you already had a vase for your flowers, why put it in a basket? She really wasn’t sure about that.
While Juinlift was looking around, Stiwa had finished the next part of her painting. She turned to look at the door, wondering whether Juinlift would come by soon. She had actually thought she’d be there bright and early but now, several hours had gone by since the market usually started and there still wasn’t a trace of her.
Not seeing anyone at the door, she pursed her lips and wanted to go back to painting when she finally noticed the movement behind her. Surprised, she turned around, her brows jumping up when she realized that she not only hadn’t noticed that somebody had come in but that she had apparently missed the arrival of the person she had waited for.
She tsked at herself for being too focused on work and then called out. “Oi, weaver girl! How long have you been standing there?”
Juinlift turned back to her, laughing when she saw Stiwa’s expression. “Why? Are you afraid I might have seen something I shouldn’t have seen? Didn’t you say yesterday you would hurry home to tidy up? If you didn’t get around to it yet, I’m afraid you couldn’t have changed it even if I loudly announced myself when I came in.”
Stiwa looked around pointedly and then turned back to Juinlift. “Doesn’t it look tidy?”
Juinlift took another look around as well and had to say that, well, with everything being kept in baskets, it really was tidier than the usual home. It even had the air of being especially put together with everything looking so similar. “Well, it seems you did a good job, Ms. Painter.”
“That’s the way I always do things. Whether it is painting or tidying, these hands are able to do it all.”
“I see, I see.” Juinlift laughed and shook her head at Stiwa. This painter, if her hands were only half as deft as her mouth, then surely, she could do a lot with them.
“Well, I have to admit that part of it is surely also because there is a good place to put everything. Did you see the baskets I bought?” Stiwa wriggled her eyebrows at Juinlift, looking very much as if she was waiting for praise.
Juinlift raised her brows in response. “I don’t think there would’ve been any possibility to overlook them. There seems to be one in every corner.”
“Not just one in every corner. I made sure there is one in every corner, along each wall, and another one if there is a certain distance between them. In case you weren’t looking at my walls to see all my lovely paintings, you would at least stumble over one of the baskets while you were walking around.”
Juinlift chuckled again but didn’t bother to answer. Anyway, she would be able to recognize her own baskets, wouldn’t she?
Stiwa laughed as well and then pointed up to the ceiling. “Do you want me to show you the rest of the house? I just have to lock the door so nobody breaks in.”
Juinlift nodded, not hesitating at all. She had come here to have a look around, right? Why wouldn’t she want to see the rest as well?
Stiwa gave a hum and rushed to grab the key from a small basket behind the counter. Then, she made a dash to the door before anyone could stumble into the house and hurriedly locked up before she came back. “Alright, weaver girl, we can go then. The house isn’t as big as it might seem. Since you’ve already looked around down here, there is only the second story above left. Let’s go up there, shall we?”
Juinlift followed her over to the staircase she had seen in the corner before. At that time, she hadn’t taken a closer look, feeling that it looked quite unassuming compared to the room on the left. Looking up now, she realized that there was more to see than she had realized.
Even more paintings hung on the wall next to the staircase. They were a little smaller than the ones in the main room but all of them were framed as if to show that these were all finished and ready to be sold.
Juinlift couldn’t help but feel confused. “That room on the first floor, is that where your customers go?” She didn’t think that anyone would pay attention to the staircase so these paintings … were they even supposed to be sold? Maybe they were just … mementos? But then, they didn’t look that way either unless, of course, Stiwa’s mementos included beautiful women once again. Not that Juinlift would be surprised if they did.
Stiwa nodded in response to her question. “It is! I use it to show off what I’ve recently made. If somebody likes one of them, they can buy them directly. Then I’ll have more space to hang the new ones. Otherwise, I just switch them out every now and then. Finishing one can actually take a few weeks because the paint needs to dry in-between.”
Juinlift gave a hum. She didn’t know much about painting. In fact, yesterday at the riverside was the first time she had seen a work-in-progress. She had already felt that it was incredible but compared to the ones in the room downstairs, it really hadn’t been that detailed, lacking a lot of depth. That was probably what would be added in the later stages. “So, do people really not mind always buying paintings of beauties?”
Stiwa laughed. “I don’t think it’s necessarily the same people buying the paintings over and over again. But yeah, most don’t mind so I usually paint whatever I like. Admittedly though, I also do some paintings on request. Some customers do have something very specific in mind every now and then. If that’s the case, I’ll invite them to the back to talk it through and see if it can be done.”
“I see!” Juinlift hadn’t known that Stiwa was also doing commissions. She hadn’t expected it either from the little the painter had said at the riverside. Instead, she would have thought that Stiwa just painted her beauties and that was it, even if it seemed odd to her. Knowing that this wasn’t the case, Juinlift felt intrigued. “So, if you paint for them, are you still just painting beauties? Or do you also paint other things for them?”
Stiwa looked over her shoulder and grinned. “Well, I’m known for painting beauties so the people that come to me are naturally the ones who want to have a beauty painted. I don’t think that there have been many people who came to me and wanted to have something else done. And usually, I’m able to convince them to still let me include a beauty. You know, I can be quite resourceful.”
Juinlift chuckled but didn’t say more. They had just reached the top of the staircase so she focused her attention on her surroundings again. This place upstairs was different from the floor below in that there wasn’t just one big room. No, instead, this place looked like the kind where a person was living: A small corridor led around the staircase and toward the other side while several doors hid the rooms in the rest of the house from her view.
Stiwa waved at her, leading her over to the door that was furthest away from them on their left. “Actually, the house isn’t as big as it might look from the outside. There’s just a couple of rooms up here. But there’s a nice balcony out the back. I think you’ll like that so let’s go there first!”
Juinlift definitely liked the sound of it and stepping into the room that Stiwa had entered she understood what the other woman meant: The room wasn’t big. It only held a bed, a small table, and a dresser. The wall on the other side opened up to a window and a door that led onto the balcony though, giving it the illusion of being bigger than it actually was.
Stiwa opened the door to the balcony and waved Juinlift outside, leaning backward against the railing. “How’s this?” She motioned over her shoulder, a bright smile on her lips. The garden down there was her pride and joy as far as it concerned her work outside of painting. Naturally, she hoped that Juinlift would like it.
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