Cicada Summer by Kate Constable

also promised there’d be thunderstorms later, and hoped that rain would put out the fires. But Mo said it wouldn’t rain, it never rained any more.
    Even though she’d done it so often now, Eloise still held her breath as she stepped forward across the grass, eyes closed, into the mysterious silence that carried her into Anna’s time. She wondered what it must look like to Anna, or anyone else who might be watching: a girl stepping out of the air, shimmering into being? Or a ghostly image that became solid, hardening into shape, like a trickle of wax?
    In Anna’s time, the sky was clouded over, and the air was still. Eloise hurried to the summerhouse, still haunted by her dream. She was half-afraid that Anna wouldn’t be there, that she might have vanished away. But nothing could happen to Anna, she reminded herself; Anna’s future was already decided. She would grow up and marry Stephen McCredie and have one baby girl, and name her Eloise . . .
    If only there was some way to let her know how glad Eloise was to have found her, how precious this time was. If only there was some gift Eloise could give her.
    Anna came running out of the summerhouse, bouncing like an excited puppy.
    ‘I’ve had the most splendufferous idea!’ Her eyes shone, and she tugged at Eloise’s sleeve. ‘Dad said we could only use white paint on the outside of the summerhouse. But he didn’t say anything about the inside . Let’s make it jorgeous ! I’ve got paints, all different colours, and brushes, and everything! Do you want to help?’
    Suddenly Eloise realised what her gift could be. She took a deep breath. Then she whispered, ‘Yes.’

8
    H ooray!’ shouted Anna, though it wasn’t clear whether she was excited about the painting or about Eloise finding a voice; maybe it was both. She dragged Eloise inside the summerhouse and showed her a treasure trove of paint tins, brushes, trays and buckets.
    Eloise widened her eyes in a question.
    ‘My mumma’s,’ said Anna. ‘I snuck into her studio. She won’t mind. We always do painting together. When she’s here . . .’ Anna’s voice trailed off. ‘I told you she was away, didn’t I?’
    ‘Yes,’ whispered Eloise. Her voice was raspy with disuse.
    Anna jammed a knife under a paint lid and prised it up. ‘She’s gone away all summer. It’s a prize or something. She’s in America.’
    Eloise cleared her throat. ‘She’s . . . an artist?’ She’d never known her mother’s mother was an artist; that explained where her own love of drawing must come from. It gave Eloise a warm feeling of belonging, as if this unknown grandmother had reached out of the past and wrapped her arms around her.
    ‘I told you that already,’ said Anna impatiently. ‘Weren’t you listening? What about this colour, what do you think?’
    Eloise surveyed the array of paint pots. She whispered hesitantly, ‘Want to . . . paint a picture?’
    Anna’s face lit up. ‘Oh, yes! That’d be mangificent .’ She snatched up a brush and danced around the summerhouse. ‘Let’s paint something ginormous . Let’s paint something fierce !’
    ‘A storm?’ croaked Eloise.
    ‘Yes, yes, a big black dark thunderstorm!’ cried Anna, brandishing her brush like a weapon. ‘That’ll be fun!’ She lunged for a big tin of black paint and wrestled the lid off so it spun clattering across the floor. She plunged the biggest brush into the dark paint and swept a stripe of black across one of the six blank walls of the summerhouse. She turned triumphantly to Eloise. ‘Come on! You help too. You do the storm clouds.’ She thrust the brush into Eloise’s hand and seized another, smaller one, which she dipped into another paint pot. She streaked dark, bitter yellow down the neighbouring wall. ‘Lightning!’
    Eloise hung back as Anna swooped and darted, picking up a second brush and then a third, dragging swirls of brooding green and purple across the pale, blank wall. ‘Come on !’ cried Anna. ‘You do