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back. She came into this room only when the darkness threatened to completely consume her and she had to find a way to dissipate some of it. She feared if she didn’t, sooner or later, her emotions would escape and she would harm someone accidentally.
    “Breathe in. Breathe out. Find beauty in the world around you.” She allowed the familiar mantra to take her back to the world she lived in.
    She had sisters. Five of them. Each one of them had shared an equally traumatic experience. They had met in Monterey, California, a beautiful coastal town where an amazing woman had brought together a group of victims of violence—of murder—for counseling. Each of the women felt responsible and each was at the very end of their ability to cope with shame and guilt. Until Monterey. Until they met one another and formed their lasting sisterhood.
    They trusted few people. Believed in even fewer. But together they were strong. Together they could live their lives in peace. Find happiness again. Maybe not in the way others would have thought was right, but it was their way and Judith embraced her life in the small village of Sea Haven where she worked.
    They called each other family and that’s what they were—sisters. Many people in the world had family of the heart, kin by choice rather than by blood, and hers had come along in her darkest hour and saved her life. Five years ago they’d made the decision to buy a farm together just outside of the village of Sea Haven, on the Northern California coast. The community was small and close, the villagers interdependent on one another for success, which made them all very friendly and tolerant of one another.
    “You okay, Judith?” Airiana called again, this time insistent.
    It was a common question they all asked one another.
    “Be right out,” she said again, dodging the question. It was never good to outright lie. Bad karma, and in any case, Airiana was fairly good at seeing through lies.
    Airiana was the most difficult of all her sisters to mislead. Like Judith, she could read auras, the electromagnetic field of pure energy surrounding human beings. She saw the energy in colors surrounding people, allowing glimpses into their emotions as well as character. Judith rarely trusted her gift, while Airiana relied on hers. All of her sisters knew that if Judith was in this particular studio, it wasn’t a good day.
    Judith carefully put all her brushes and paints away and draped the canvas she was working on. No one could ever see this painting. No one could ever peer into the swirling dark kaleidoscope. These pieces were far too powerful on the senses, created from a forbidding, despairing place she rarely allowed herself to go, but sometimes had no choice.
    With great deliberation, she locked the French doors and drew the thick, heavy drapes, preventing light, preventing any view whatsoever of this studio.
    She blew out the many candles, plunging the room into darkness, and took a deep breath of the soothing lavender as she struggled to find peace again. After hours of allowing her darker emotions free reign, it took time to bury them again, to cover them up and find tranquility. She needed to maintain complete and absolute serenity at all times when she was in the company of others.
    Judith took another deep breath of the lavender, the scent now slightly faded, and stepped into the hallway of her home. The soothing color of ivory washed over her. She looked at everything as a canvas, including—or especially—her home. Because each of the sisters had their own designated five acres on the farm and were able to design their own home, she had started with an amazing blank canvas.
    The lower story was all about her work, the three studios, a playroom, a bathroom and a bedroom just in case she’d worked too long into the night and just crashed without bothering to go upstairs. Her living space was all about glass and views of the gardens surrounding the house. Open space and