Colorless

by Rita Stradling

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, religions, incidents and places are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, religions, or real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Rita Stradling.

  Edited by Monique Fischer and Cynthia Shepp

  Cover by Victoria Cooper Art

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit this book in any form or by any means. For subsidiary rights please contact the author.

  Email: ritastradling@yahoo.com

  This book is for Anne and Gretel.

  Thank you!

  Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  Epilogue

  Daily Devotion to the Congregation

  I trust in the magicians, for they hold the gateway to the gods.

  As with every person, wealthy or common, I am but a passenger on the endless cycle of existence. I will trust the eight great magicians and their many servants, for they are my boatmen, guiding me through the treacherous tides of the four immortal gods.

  I will fear the gods, worship the magicians, and forsake the iconoclasts forevermore. Let it be so.

  Prologue

  In Death We Part

  Lord Warren Klein

  Staring at the white streak across my most cherished painting, I considered my death.

  Perhaps the painting was my favorite because its meaning had always been enigmatic to me. It had been an anniversary present. When we received it, my dearest friend Fauve had pulled off its cover, thrown up his hands, and proclaimed it was the image of the love Hazel and I shared. The painted canvas spread out in hundreds of shades of red and orange, playing together across the wide expanse. Cutting through all that color was the streak of white. Of course, Hazel had jumped up and down, exclaiming he’d captured us perfectly; assumedly, she understood it intuitively—as she so often did.

  And now, I would die without understanding.

  I was going to die.

  It was a strange thought, an almost ridiculous one. The god Weire took us all eventually. My parents had taught me of my eventual fate before I could walk, and had in turn met theirs without complaint. Yet, it wasn’t until the news of my brother’s passing that I saw the death god’s crimson foot coming down to crush me.

  From behind me, Hazel let out a grunt in her sleep. The familiarity of the unladylike sound sent a smile to my lips and heat to my eyes. Even in sleep, she had to prove she would never conform to the expectations of her station.

  Turning, I approached the decorative bed. Hazel managed to look both dwarfed by the frame and immeasurably vast, as if the entirety of the sky was contained in her body. She’d kicked off the covers in her sleep. Sleeping or wakeful, she had enough energy to fuel the east wing of the manor house.

  Her tangles of flaxen hair fanned over the white lace lining our bedding. Worry creased her brow, fissuring lines across her skin. At one-and-forty, her beauty still stole my breath. I leaned in and moved a hand under her knees and back, lifting her.

  “Don’t you dare try to remove me from our bed,” she mumbled without opening her eyes.

  “I just wanted to hold you.”

  “Liar. Where you go, I go. I’ll tie us together if I have to, Warren.”

  I set her down.

  “Stop thinking, darling, and come to bed,” she muttered, words she so often spoke to me.

  After a second, I sat beside her, running my hand over her blonde hair. With a sigh, I admitted, “When we began this, I knew this day might come. Yet, I never pictured myself afraid of the end.”

  Her eyes opened, shining out bright green even in the low light. “If they come for you, I will kill all of them.” Her whisper was harsh and defiant.

  My fierce lady, as wild as the day that society condemned her to only be fit for a lord of my low standing.

  “I would prefer you survive me and live out your life with our daughter,” I said.

  “And I would prefer us both to survive.” The ferocity in her features softened. “Annabelle will be fine. She takes after you. Her sharp wit and intellect will help her weather any storm. Despair is too irrational for her.” She said it with hope, one I shared.

  Hazel often reminded me in the days that we saw our destiny closing in on us, that she did not expect to outlive me. Whether by joining me in meeting my fate or dying of grief soon thereafter, she would meet Weire’s judgment holding my hand.

  The rationale behind the idea was nonexistent. It was folly. But stubborn as she was, no rationality in the world would dissuade her from her decision. She would stay by my side and we would live or fall together, come what may.

  It was a bitter pill to swallow when all the qualities I loved in her turned against me. And even harsher still that I loved her wanton illogicality too dearly to resent her irrationality.

  As Hazel said, our daughter was too reasonable to perish from despair. She would live. If not in the better world that I hoped to form for her, at least she would live and love and learn as well.

  Perhaps thinking alongside my thoughts, as she so often did, Hazel whispered, “I wish we had told her.”

  My fingers combed through her hair. “Why do you wish that?”

  Hazel had said those words a hundred times, yet she’d never told Annabelle or given me an answer to why she wanted to. I, for one, saw only danger for our daughter in her knowing of our crimes.

  “I just—Warren?” Blinking, she sat bolt upright, her gaze flying about the room. Her eyelids sprung wide. “Warren!”

  I closed my eyes, exhaling. Turning, I opened my eyes, already knowing what I was going to see. But I was shocked at the sight that greeted me. All the paintings on our walls, our entire prized collection of sentimentally priceless pieces, rippled like colorful, vertical pools.

  “By the gods!”

  Hazel’s hair whipped around as she spun to face me. Two green eyes blazed into mine. “Stay behind me, Warren—” She cut off in a choke, her back going ramrod straight.

  “Hazel!” I reached to grab her, my fingers just brushing against the lace cuff of her nightdress, when pressure slammed into my back, throwing me forward onto the mattress. I couldn’t breathe as a sudden ripping tore through my limbs.

  My knees left the bed, and I was floating, hovering, as strikes of pain slashed into me again and again. Beside me, Hazel lifted off the bed as well, her long locks floating around her. I tried to raise my arm to reach for her, but it refused to move.

  Then I was flying, diminishing, extinguishing, and all I could see around me was an expanse of shades of reds with a single ashen white streak through it.

  Daily Devotion to the Goddess Ester

  In the morning hours of Ester, I give thanks to the Goddess of the East, for she gave me the gift of birth. May she always bless me with her wisdom.

  I will fear the gods, worship the magicians, and forsake the iconoclasts forevermore. Let it be so.

  1

  Color-Molting

  Annabelle Klein

  If the gods were kind, time would stop when a travesty happened. The sky would sicken to an ashen gray and the ground would become a shadowy gloom. The mournful wind would cry, and everyone the travesty affected would know, that moment, of its happening.

  As all knew, the g
ods were not known for their kindness.

  That morning, the sky brightened to the crisp blue color of a robin’s egg, no clouds even considered casting their shadow, and the light breeze smelled of the previous night’s heavy shower.

  The mud squelched between my toes as I sprinted barefoot up the slight incline of the south lawn. I had already committed the worst of offenses by tucking my peach satin gown into the front of my undergarments and baring my legs for all to see. Abandoning my tiresome heeled boots far behind me, I sped up in my pursuit of the swarm of monarchs whose wild amber wings contrasted with the manicured grounds beyond. It was the first I’d seen of our summer migrant butterfly visitors, and I’d dashed onto the grounds instead of meeting my parents to break our fast.

  As I reached the monarchs, I stretched for the nearest creature, but it flapped just beyond my longest finger’s reach.

  “Come here, you.” I laughed, but they didn’t listen, just continued to flutter around me.

  One flew just beside me, brushing by my cheek. “Come land on my hand; I promise I won’t crush you.”

  They didn’t listen, only flapping circles around me.

  “Annabelle!”

  I spun, my smile falling from my face. Not only was my lady’s maid running across the field toward me, but also the housekeeper. Mud splashed onto their skirts, big splatters on blue cotton.

  When I spun away, I shot my gaze to my dress. As the pair had been half a field away when they’d seen me, perhaps they hadn’t noticed the state of my attire. My fingers rushed to yank the swaths of material from where they tangled in my underclothes. But the dratted cursed thing was stuck.

  In desperation, I ripped the hem free and spun just in time to face the two maids. I looked positively ridiculous. When I’d run after the swarm this morning, I’d never expected to be caught chasing butterflies like a small child. I was likely double the appropriate age for acting so fanciful. I felt heat lick up my cheeks as they drew near.

  “I know! I apologize. I’m too old to be chasing butterflies!”

  “We’re not here to scold you, child.” The housekeeper grabbed her sides and watched me as she caught her breath.

  It was strange to see the two women together; in my sixteen annos of life, I had only seen the two sisters keep each other’s company perhaps a dozen times. In my experience, each had made it their business to avoid the other.

  My lady’s maid Eda stood head and shoulders taller than her sister Hester, and twice as thick. The only similarity I had ever found in their looks was their dark eyes, though the housekeeper’s often condemned where Eda’s danced with humor.

  Today, their eyes and expressions spoke more of exhaustion. Both breathed heavily, swaying a bit as if they might fall.

  “Is something the matter?” I asked when they said nothing more.

  “We’ve been searching the manor for you,” Hester said through still-labored breaths. Neither of them expounded and both avoided looking at me.

  “Please tell me why you are so grim. Has my cousin sent new demands for our wedding arrangements? Or has he arrived unexpectedly?”

  That was probably the most horrible news I could come up with off the top of my head. Even just thinking about Tony made me angry and miserable; I shook my head to clear it. For one morning at least, I would not think about my loathsome cousin who was once my dearest friend.

  The women made an almost comical picture, especially the housekeeper. Hester had always been so proper, and she was in such a state. Aside from her muddy hem, large sections of hair spilled from her tight bun.

  Hester put a hand to her side. “Child, your parents passed away sometime in the night. It must have been a sudden sickness to take them both so abruptly and together like that.”

  “No,” I said immediately. The word fell out of my mouth, an automatic reaction to an unfathomable assertion. “You’re mistaken—that’s impossible. I can’t even remember either of them ever falling ill.”

  Eda shook her head, but did not tease me with the accusation I was an insolent child or the bane of her existence, as per usual. Instead, a tear dropped down her cheek and splashed onto the mud.

  “You’re mistaken—go check again.”

  Eda reached toward me. “The doctor has already examined them, my darling. We found them hours ago—but in the chaos… we thought you were still asleep, and when we discovered you were gone, we searched the manor for a long time before finding you.”

  I backed away. “This is some sort of joke—a prank? Somebody is having a good laugh at my expense.”

  “It is not a joke or a prank—we wouldn’t do that, child. I think it would be appropriate for you to say a devotion to Nirsha and to beseech her to take your parents’ spirits to her realm.” Hester snapped a long swath of material onto the grass. “If you must sit for it, rest on this, child, not on the grass. We would not want you to risk ruining that gown further…” Her words trailed off into a whisper.

  I stared down at the embroidered picnic blanket, an expanse of beige on the green meadow. The words I had heard or spoken every day for my entire life would not come to me.

  “Beseech the goddess, child,” Hester said, her words too loud and echoing around me.

  Eda stepped forward, maybe seeing I was incapable of speaking. “We seek nothing from the Goddess of the North, but that the spirit of Lord and Lady Klein would serve her evermore in her realm beyond the living. We seek not to emulate her wild winds of emotion, for they are the province of the goddess alone. We seek instead to be even tempered and, above all, obedient to the will of the gods and—” She cut off as Hester screamed.

  When I turned to the maids, the women regarded me with terror-filled eyes.

  Eda frantically shook her head. “Annabelle,” she yelled, diving for the ground.

  Hester’s hands flew to her mouth. “Dear gods! Gods save us.” She gasped through her fingers before screaming again.

  Eda crawled to my feet, her hands scrambling at the dirt. “Help me, Hester! Help me gather it!”

  My gaze fell upon my beloved maid, watching as she scooped up what looked like a handful of paint mixed with dirt. Eda threw the paint at me in an almost violent gesture, a strange move for my gentle maid.

  I looked down to the glob of dirty paint on my arm, and found it dripping off. But the paint was not alone—giant drops of color dripped all down my body. I reached for them, but the sight of my hand snagged my gaze. A stream of paint funneled down my fingers and across my palm as well, dripping a beige color off my hand and down my wrist. The tips of my fingers were the color of ash. As it dripped, the ashen color spread over my knuckles.

  “Help me, Hester!” Eda threw another muddy colorful mixture at me.

  Hester stumbled back, her hands still covering her mouth. “No… no, Eda. No! Annabelle has been cursed! This is wrong!”

  “Help me, Hester! Please!” Eda’s hands scrambled at the mud, color dripping from her fingers as she threw more onto me.

  I stared down, unable to move, unable to help as a puddle of browns, reds, and creams pooled at my feet before sinking into the ground. “What’s happening to me?” I whispered.

  “The color from your hair and skin and clothes—it’s all somehow dripped out of your body!” Eda sobbed as she scrabbled at the little remaining color on the grass blades. “I couldn’t stop it! I couldn’t…”

  Hands and face crusted with dirt, Eda stopped her frantic movements and peered around her. The panic that had played on her face a moment earlier dropped away, replaced by a look of confused consternation. She held her hands up, staring before her at dirt-crusted fingers. “What am I—what am I doing here, Hester?” she whispered.

  “Eda?” I whispered, reaching for her. Once more, I froze with my hand halfway in the air. My gaze moved from my reaching hand up my wrist and to my body. Eda was right. From the tips of my fingers to the toes poking out under my torn hem, I had transformed to grayer than fresh ash. Even my dress lacked its former color
.

  “Have you lost your wits, Eda?” Hester called. The housekeeper’s expression had transformed from abject horror to disdain. “Why did you bring me out here for this display of madness when such a tragedy has occurred in the manor?”

  Eda looked from her filthy hands to her sister. “I could not say.” Her gaze returned to her hands. “Perhaps you are right, and I am somewhat unhinged from today’s horrific events.”

  “That is no excuse with so much work required of us. And now we have both ruined our uniforms. Gather that blanket and return to the manor.” The housekeeper spun on her heel, pacing toward the sprawling manor.

  Eda looked once more to her hands. “I’ve lost my senses.”

  “I think I have, too. All my color—and—I—I can’t… understand what’s happening. Everything is confusing. My parents—can you take me to where they are, please? I’d need to see for myself,” I whispered.

  Eda didn’t look at me as she stood. Instead, she brushed off her gown, smearing the dirt further.

  I thought she needed a moment to gather herself. She loved my parents nearly as much as I did. I wasn’t sure if I had imagined the last few minutes—the strange occurrence with the color—or what was happening. Perhaps she would look up and inform me that it was all a dream. My heart pounded in my chest as I waited for Eda to gather the blanket.

  After folding it, she paused. She examined the length of the grounds as two lines creased up her forehead. When her gaze fell my way, it did not so much pass over me as through me.

  “I’ve lost my senses,” she repeated before shaking her head. She turned to follow behind her sister, her pace just short of a run.

  “Eda?” I called, but she didn’t turn.

  She gave no sign at all that she heard me.

  “Eda! Where are my parents—where are their bodies? There could have been a mistake!”