“Excuse me,” Iris heard someone say, and was back in the museum, in front of one of the tapestries. Dazed, she moved aside to let a white lady in stiletto heels glance at the artwork.
She moved down, past a couple of hangings that had clusters of folks around them until she found a quilt that was relatively free of gawkers.
She stared the floor, at the wall space around the hanging. At the acrylic box that housed Whitby’s work. I really shouldn’t look, she thought. I should just leave this museum, leave the weirdness behind. I should tell Tamar about what just happened, where I went.
Iris found herself looking at the new quilt, in spite of her reservations. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe this—what?—astral projection thing was interesting.
She found herself back in the marsh again, with its dreamlike colors. This time, she wasn’t alone. She saw a man in the distance, on a small hillock away from her. He stood before a canvas, but he wasn’t painting. Rather, a landscape slowly formed, daubs of paint building in layers. On another patch of dry land, there was a woman who sat at a table. She was making tiny dresses. Iris watched as the woman added sequins to a taffeta gown. Another man was fishing in the turquoise waters. He reeled in a large net from the water. Fish weren’t in the net. Instead, there were glistening glass bottles. All of the people wore outfits in that same sickeningly pink color. The marsh was like a distorted Shimmer Marsh, one that was put through funhouse mirrors and oversaturated. At the same time, it felt real. She could smell the brackish water, and heard the cries of seabirds as they wheeled above in the cloudless sky.
“Pardon me!” Iris snapped out of the hallucination, found her sense of balance was off kilter. She stumbled, was caught by the wrist by a tall brown-skinned man with a hi-top fade.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, embarrassed.
“Don’t worry about it, child. This art has the same effect on me!”
“How do you mean?” Iris observed him with interest. What if he were like she was—what if he could see things?
“Those colors, they make me seasick. I’m photosensitive, you know.” The man laughed. “TMI, I know.”
Iris smiled, and thanked him for catching her.
She avoided the walls for a moment, to gain her composure. She escaped to the middle of the room, grabbed some ice water and gulped it down. She was sweating and cold at the same time. And also, she was exhilarated. The tapestries made her feel helium-headed, and sugar-rushed. It was a jolt of caffeine that was just below the point of being jittery. When Pearl invaded her body and soul, it had felt the same way. Weird, but not unpleasant. A tingle that started at the scalp and then marched down her spine, like ants with feet of needles. It was delicious, warm, and cooling all at once.
She had to tell Tamar about this. Iris wove through the crowd, careful not to look directly at the art on the wall. She couldn’t find her anywhere. Anxiety struck, like a lick of lightning through her brain. It was doused when she saw Tamar in the other room—the Shadrach Grayson gallery.
The artwork in this room looked different. Oil paint slathered thickly on wooden boards in layers of green and black and silver, twilight colors. A giant purple-pink sphere dominated the center of this paintings, hovering above the abstract landscapes like an alien sun. But it had the same quivering energy as Hazel’s work. Iris felt a flutter throughout her body.
She sidled up to Tamar, who was looking at one of the larger paintings.
Tamar said, without glancing away from the painting, “They don’t know where Hazel got the fabric color for her quilts. Or where Shadrach got his paints. It’s not like people just gave slaves art supplies.”
“Not like they just had the money, either,” Iris said.
She let Tamar absorb the picture in silence. She thought, I’ll tell her about the strangeness of the paintings on the way home. Iris didn’t want to spoil her joy. She looked away from the painting on the wall. The light in this gallery was dark and subdued. It seemed to bring out the undertones in everything. Her black dress looked blue, and Tamar’s peach dress and the pink hibiscus in her hair looked magenta.
Tamar said, “I also love the way the fuchsia globes move. It’s almost as if they are trying to escape.”
Iris looked at the picture in front of her, an involuntary response to Tamar’s words.
She was thrown into the world of the painting. Black earth, silver-green reeds, dark blue water in between. And above, the moon, vivid and purple. It was much bigger than a moon. It was closer to the earth, just out of reach. Without thinking, Iris walked toward the moon. She walked on wet earth and through water, but she didn’t get wet, or stained. The fuchsia moon got closer and closer, bigger and bigger. And the closer she got, the less it looked like a moon. The texture was all wrong. The striations were not crater-like. There were flute-shaped mouths, each flute disgorging a pair of dark red antennae-like stamens. It was a flower—a cluster of them. The moon was a giant marsh-bell!
Then, it moved. Unfolded. Flowerets melding together. Protruding stamens disappearing. The tiny flutes became one giant flute, the shape and texture of a piece of fabric. She saw a brown face in the middle of shifting floral orb—
“…Iris!”
She heard Tamar’s voice from far away. She wasn’t the voice of the woman in the moon flower thing. Iris knew that her voice was different. Tamar’s voice drowned out the sound of the frogs and crickets. The sound of the marsh.
“Iris!”
The marsh faded. Slowly. Layer by layer of paint. She almost saw the face. The Face of the Flower, the face of the color. Iris reached up.
And found herself reaching for—
Nothing. Tamar stood next to her, her face crumbled with concern. It took Iris a moment or two to get her bearings. She was here, in the museum, in Shimmer. A group of concerned people ringed around them.
“Is she all right?” Iris heard distantly.
“Iris, honey, speak to me.”
She found her voice. It was buried, beneath the soil of the painting, in that marsh that was and was not the Shimmer Marsh.
“I’m…fine,” she said. “I just need some air.”
Iris moved through the crowd, and Tamar followed her. Once she reached the outside of the museum, Iris took a deep breath. It cleared her head, and she started sorting the images that had flowed from the artwork. The work was full of spirits, and Iris wasn’t sure that they were human ones. The woman/flower/moon apparition felt alien. There had been no recognizable emotion there, no taint of sadness or joy or wonder. Just a naked and endless demand. An imperative, one that resounded throughout her brain.
“You okay?” Tamar asked. “What happened back in there?”
“I don’t know,” Iris said. She paused a moment, trying to find the right words to describe the cloying, clawing presence she had felt. That thrilling, roiling color that spoke and moved through the artwork. She finally turned to face Tamar, after gazing out on the marsh from the museum’s pier.
Tamar was enrobed in a transparent film of fuchsia. It swirled around her, gossamer-thin. Everything was filtered through this translucent veil, and stained by it. The whites of Tamar’s eyes, and her teeth, all faintly purple-pink.
“Are you all right?” Tamar repeated. Concern was etched on her face. She silently watched the veil ripple like the marsh waters.
“I’m going home, I think,” Iris said.
“Do you mind if I stay a little longer?”
“Not at all. I’ll be fine.”
***
When Iris got home, she headed straight for the kitchen. She found only a half-full carton of iodized table salt in the cupboard. There was no indication whether it was from the land or the sea. It certainly wasn’t blessed, like the salt from the botánica had been those years ago. But it was all she had. She sprinkled the entirety of the salt on the threshold of the door, even though she knew it probably wouldn’t work.
She was restless, so she made a cup of chamomile tea, and added a touch of ru
m for good measure. She sat in the living room, tried to slow her breathing and savor the herb tea. Iris wasn’t scared, not exactly. She was weirdly excited. Her head swam with images of the ghost marsh. It had been so beautiful, the colors there were vibrant. A wild euphoria rose in her chest, like a bubble. The bubble lay just beneath her heart, which began to pound.
I want to go there again, she thought. She also knew that the magic world conjured by the spirit was dangerously tantalizing. It was a sugar rush, over-saturated, and so beautiful that it would make the real world seem washed out, a pale copy of the lustrous richness. The real Shimmer Marsh was full of sulfurous smells, mud, and biting insects. Many times she’d seen the rotting carcasses of sea birds or dead crabs in the muck. People threw garbage into its waters, and things died there, an endless churning cycle of life and death, rebirth and waste. That marsh was a fairyland where everything was perfect, maybe even better than perfect. It was an idealized landscape. Nothing ever died there, or rotted. It was a pristine paradise.
So why am I terrified?
It was the intensity and hunger of the woman who hid in those works of art that scared her. The welter of visions had been strong, tsunami-strong. They had overpowered Iris, to the point that there was no Iris. She wasn’t even sure that the woman she saw hidden in the flower, in the color, actually was a woman. She was a force of nature, like the wind or the rain or the sky itself. The concept of ghost, spirit, or phantom was not adequate. She was energy, given a vaguely human form. Was she an angel? Or—was she something else?
The lock in the door sounded, snapping Iris out of her frantic reverie. She almost dropped her tea. Which was stupid and dramatic.
Keep it together, Iris Marie.
Tamar stood in the door frame. She was draped in curtains of fuchsia gossamer. It was so beautiful, the way it shimmered, and enfolded her girlfriend. Tamar was a goddess, caught up in a brilliant halo. She was on fire. Then she stepped over the threshold.
Tamar stumbled. The gossamer veil burned away, became mist.
“Tamar!” Iris was up and by her side in a moment. “Are you okay?”
Tamar steadied herself. “I think so. I don’t know what happened. I think I had a hot flash. I’m too young to be going through The Change!”
“Sit down,” said Iris, guiding her to the sofa. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”
After Tamar had taken a couple of fortifying sips, Iris took her hand, and told her about what she had experienced in the museum.
“So, you think it’s Pearl, the sequel?” Tamar asked.
Iris laughed. “Girl, you crazy. But I think this casper is different. Pearl was a collection of images, memories, impressions. You could see the human in her. I don’t think that Pearl wanted to take me over as much as borrow me. This one, this fuchsia-toned casper, doesn’t think like a person. There are no memories. No emotions. There is just the marsh. The same vision, forever.”
“What did she want with me? Why did she wrap me in that aura?”
“I think she wants you to recreate the marsh. To bring it to life, to make it real. You said that there was a group of artists who were all inspired by the marsh, and the marsh-bell, right?”
Tamar nodded.
“Well, I think she is the marsh. Or at least, she thinks she is.”
“Well, she would be sorely disappointed. I can hardly draw stick figures!” Tamar emitted a bark of laughter. “So, the ghost of Hazel Whitby wants to take up residence in me.”
“I don’t think it’s Hazel, though. Or, if it is, she’s been warped to the point where her memories are gone. I can usually get some sense of who the caspers once were. But this one is just a color, that particular color.”
“A Colored spirit,” said Tamar.
“Girl, stop. This is serious.” Tamar stopped smiling, putting a stoic look on her face. “I don’t think you should visit the museum. Not until I can figure out what’s happening.”
***
The first tarot card she drew was the High Priestess. She was at work, in the hotel gift shop, and as was the case in midweek, the store was empty. Everything was stocked, and the displays were pristine. There was nothing to do. Iris bought herself a book of word jumbles, but got bored a quarter of the way through. Her boss, Isabel Campbell, would have a fit if she caught Iris reading. Isabel wanted to see people busy, and a word jumble at least looked like Iris was writing, from a distance. Isabel would emerge from her office lair every other hour or so to patrol the hotel lobby. You could hear her coming by the clickety-clacking of her stilettos.
Iris put aside the book of jumbles. She still held her pen. For some reason, she could not put it down. It felt right in her hand, poised to make a mark of some kind. There was a legal pad nearby that she used for jotting notes down. She pulled it toward her, putting the point of the pen to the paper.
The girl runs back to the marsh with the things that she has stolen from the Taylors. In her sack, there are apples, cheese, a heel of bread, a bottle of wine, flint, matches, and candles. The moon is hiding behind a wall of clouds, so she has to make her way back to the marsh by touch and muscle memory. That one was a close call. Her rummaging had woken up one hound, and soon, the others were baying in excitement. She heard Eliza Taylor call out just as she finished swiping the food in the larders. The Taylors must have just gotten some dogs; she doesn’t recall them before. The Smythes and the McCallisters had mean dogs, ones that could smell you a mile away, so their homes were off limits. Which was a shame. Alden Smythe had the best collection of pens and paper in the whole county. Once, she had stolen an entirely blank journal. The smell of the paper, its thick texture, the smell of the leather binding and the glue had nearly sent her over into delirium. Was there anything more precious than paper, waiting to be filled with ink? The Taylors only had black ink and only loose sheets of the cheapest paper available. They rattled in her bag, along with her other treasures.
It wasn’t until she heard the clicking of Isabel’s heels that Iris looked up. She slipped the legal pad in the cubby hole beneath the cash register. The mundane world returned, the cash register and the banks of overpriced candy came into focus.
Isabel came into the store, and gave Iris a new task—to help with the reconciliation.
***
A week or so later, on a Saturday, Iris found herself alone in the house. Tamar had gone out to the farmer’s market a couple of towns away. The Amish set up a stand in the Chesapeake town, and their baked goods sold out fast. Tamar went early every other Saturday to stock up. Iris knew that Tamar would probably go clothes shopping; there were a couple of thrift shops on the way.
She pulled out the slip of legal paper she had folded and placed into her purse. She spread it out on the coffee table in front of her, smoothing it of crinkles. Her mindless doodle was a version of a tarot card. Tamar given her a couple of books on the subject. The high priestess in this doodle had a round face, the face of the girl from her vision, a wild afro, and flowing purple-pink robes. Iris didn’t have a purple or pink pen at work, or at home. She touched the paper. She felt a vibration, faint, when she touched the drawing. It was pleasant, like a soft breeze or the feel of silk. The urge to hold a pen, to make a mark on paper, returned. Ernest Dupré would have disapproved. Well, fuck Ernest Dupré, and her mother for that matter.
Iris went searching in the kitchen drawers. She unearthed a small spiral notebook that was mostly blank. The first few pages were filled with To Do lists. She pulled out a pen, and closed her eyes.
The girl sits at the feet of the old woman, ostensibly to help her. But the old woman seems to be doing fine. The old woman is enormous, like a giant in a fairytale. She is ancient, and might have been 300 pounds or more. The dress she wears is as big as a tent. The girl can imagine getting lost in the swirl of her petticoats. Her skin is red and mottled, and her face has weird growths on it, like mushroom caps. A few steely grey hairs escape from her bonnet. Ma’am Fiona was a fearsome sight when the girl first saw he
r. The other children called her the Ogress, but since the girl has known her, she is no longer afraid of her. Fiona the Ogress is quite kind. Fiona calls her “brownie,” every now and then, and it took the girl a while to realize that she wasn’t referring to the girl’s skin color. She dozes half the time the girl is supposed to watch over her, and lets out bullfrog-deep snores. Other times, she gives the girl boiled sweets or pieces of cake. And sometimes, she tells her stories from the Old Country.
As far as the girl can tell, the Old Country was a land of perpetual mists, rains, and bogs. It was full of strange beasts, like seals who could become women, or men would can change into horses. The Old Country was a place haunted by ghosts, the spirits of people who were marked for death and sacrificed to the peat bogs.
“The bog kept their bodies fresh,” Fiona told her once. “But their spirits were restless. Heathenish practices were common in the old days.”
The Ogress wakes up from a brief nap with a swinish snort. The girl had been playing with a rag doll—another one of Fiona’s unexpected gifts. She drops the doll and makes sure that the Ogress is comfortable. They are sitting on the front port of the MacCubbins’ house, which faces the marsh. Twilight stains the sky.
“We best be getting inside before the mosquitoes start coming around,” says Madame Fiona in her lilting accented voice. The girl knows that getting her inside will be a chore in itself, mostly getting her out of the chair.
The girl points to something. A glowing light is dancing over the reeds. It’s like a tiny star, a bright ball of light that cuts a swathe through the wetlands.
Fiona squints. “That’s a will-o’-the-wisp. They’re beautiful, but they are also deadly. They lead people into the deeper marshlands, and leave them there to die.”
A Spectral Hue Page 16
