The master fussed over Daisy, pulling her unruly black hair back, fixing it in place with plastic butterfly clips.

He needed to jot down as many details as he could to complete his final report once he returned to the office. He was nothing but thorough, and his visit to this particular orphanage had been enlightening, to say the least. He could feel their gazes on him, but he kept his focus on his words. They waited as his pen continued to scratch along the paper. It wouldn’t be the first time it’d happened, and he doubted it’d be the last. “Once or twice a month, and no more.” She smiled beatifically at him, and Linus wondered if she’d been coached on her answers before his arrival. The older the children get, the more they … do things.” She wrung her hands, eyes darting back and forth. “Oh, not often at all,” she said quickly. The master of the orphanage, a squat woman with frizzy hair, stepped forward. “And how often do you-er, you know? Make things float?” He wasn’t there to engage in amateur art criticism.

Linus believed the world was better off with the paintings staying in this room, but he kept the thought to himself. The master had showed them off proudly, telling Linus painting was her passion, and that if she hadn’t become the master of this specific orphanage, she’d be traveling with a circus as a lemur trainer or even have opened up a gallery to share her artwork with the world. The walls were lined with terrible paintings of lemurs in various poses. They were in the master’s office, a tidy room with government-issued brown carpet and old furniture. “I see,” Linus said, furiously scribbling on his pad of paper. It went on for a good minute before the blocks slowly lowered to the floor. Daisy frowned in concentration, the tip of her tongue stuck out between her teeth. The blocks spun in slow, concentric circles. He watched in rapt wonder as an eleven-year-old girl named Daisy levitated blocks of wood high above her head. “Oh dear,” Linus Baker said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

House in the cerulean sea art