Francis dropped the paintbrush and smiled at the creation. The girl was an invention of his easel. Her name he knew. It was Annette. She was beautiful, and she looked at him with warm blue eyes, and a cocked head, tendrils of spinning hair that fell around her face like browned fall leaves. Her flowing brown bangs peeked out from under a knit cream cap.

Her lips were curved into a simple smile. They were flushed and full, the upper one not really matching the lower, perhaps a little bit big for it's partner. Annette's lashes were long and dark, reaching upwards towards her arched eyebrows. Her cheeks were set high, and were blushing at something, perhaps Francis. Annette's nose was small and pointed up slightly, tinged crimson in the cold fall air.

She was tugging at a violet turtleneck nervously, with long, pale fingers. Her hands were warm looking, soft looking. Her fingers looked like they would fit between Francis's perfectly.

This girl set a wave through Francis Bertolette's stomach, and he blinked, only to realize that Annette's face was on the backs of his eyelids. He rubbed his eyes with paint stained hands and tried again to calm himself, to shut his eyes and breath evenly, but he only saw Annette.

He reached out and touched his forefinger delicately to the woman's lips, breathing in and out evenly. If only this woman were real, he moaned internally, how could my mortal hands create such immortal beauty? He asked himself.

He could imagine her voice now, in his ear, but so far away, thickly and smoothly accented. Francis Bertolette? She murmured. Mr. Bertolette? The voice seemed so real, so right, just behind him. "Excuse me, sir?"

The voice sounded again, but it wasn't Francis's imagination. He clutched the paintbrush in his hand and spun on his heal.

Annette stood in the doorway of his studio, her long pale fingers clutched nervously around her violet turtleneck collar. "Are you Mr. Bertolette? I am here for the apprenticeship position, my name is Annette Finche."