Chapter 237

Autumn picked things up quickly, and painting was no exception. With her strong sense of spatial awareness, she was drawn to landscape paintings that emphasized depth and symmetry. They reminded her of mathematical formulas, and she especially loved painting trees. As a child, Autumn had been mischievous, often sneaking off with Leonard's work. Even now, several of his pieces she had stolen back then were still framed in her studio. But because she was inconsistent in her practice and was often fooling around instead, Leonard eventually decided to stop teaching her altogether. He felt she was too unruly, unfocused, and unlikely to amount to much. In actual fact, she was interested in too many things at the time and didn't have the energy to devote fully to painting. The more Allen looked, the more amused he became. "You stole that old geezer's paintings and kept them all these years? Aren't you afraid he'll come after you for it?" There were quite a few of them, too. If she put