Colorless

by Rita Stradling

  “Denied anything was wrong.” John ran a hand through his messy hair. “Up until the point she fainted mid-sentence.”

  “Damn.” I stood. “I think she went into the templum today—I have no idea what for. But today is the first time I saw a monk smile—and I hope it will be the last.” I crossed the few feet to my bunk but found it empty of anything but wooden boards and dust.

  “We moved it—you now have no bed,” John called over.

  “Moved it where?” I asked, but I was already heading to the wood stove. “She’s not under the hole, right?

  John jogged over. “She’s over by the worktable.”

  Grabbing the top of the stove, I swung my legs in and dropped through the hole. My stomach flipped with the weightlessness for a second, and then my feet impacted on the wood. When I was a few steps in, John crashed down behind me.

  “When I laid your blanket over her—it was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, Dyl.”

  “What?” I felt for where I knew we kept matches until my fingers found one. When I struck it against the table, a flame flared to life. I lit the lantern I knew to be above my head, fed it fuel, and turned around.

  “That.” John pointed.

  Annabelle lay feet away in what once might have been my bed. But like the entirety of the east wing of Hope Manor, my bed and blankets were gray, devoid of the faded colors it once held.

  “These things stop being seen or remembered, too.” I gestured to the bed. “She said it was something about her skin touching it.”

  “When she fell on me, it didn’t happen to me,” John said.

  “Didn’t happen with her horse either… or when I grabbed her arm.”

  “I’ll show you the injury—here.” John crouched down beside her. “This is some of the strangest goings-on I’ve ever seen in my life.” His hand hovered for a second, as if he was a little nervous to touch her, and then he lifted her arm by her wrist. He squinted down. “Now it’s her whole finger; I swear she had a little bit of finger before. . .”

  From a single glance, the injury was obvious. Her pinky finger was missing. A split seam in her glove created a flap of material that fell to the side of her hand, but instead of falling around the pinky, it fell straight through where her finger should be. That wasn’t the most horrific part of the injury, though. As I leaned forward to examine it, I realized there still was a pinky there. Where her finger should be, the room distorted behind it, as if I was looking through a tiny prism that reflected no light.

  Lady Annabelle mumbled in her sleep, and John tucked her hand in beside her, straightening my threadbare blanket over her arm. John’s blanket was there too, I noticed, also lacking its color.

  He stood, backing away. “She’s a strange creature. Thought she was a phantom at first, chucked a bottle of ink straight at her—it bounced off. Feel kind of bad about that now.”

  “We should let her sleep,” I murmured, though I stayed. “What do you think Joseph is going to do?”

  He shrugged. “Whatever he likes, I suppose.”

  “And you’re going to follow whatever he says?” I grumbled.

  John smirked. “I might. But you’re forgetting something there, Dyl.”

  I glared at him. “What’s that?”

  “You’re not the one who brought her here—Grandmother did that.”

  The words weighed heavily in the room with their strangeness.

  John contemplated Lady Annabelle and whispered, “I’d have to say that before I saw her in here, I would have never believed something like that could happen.”

  Lady Annabelle grumbled again, rolling away from us.

  “We should let her sleep. Wouldn’t be any good her waking to us standing over her,” I muttered.

  “Yeah.” Leaning down, John fixed the blankets again so they covered Lady Annabelle’s shoulder. Then he turned and walked to the lantern. “Strange business,” he mumbled as he extinguished it.

  Together, we headed up the ladder and through the oven, closing the oven doors but leaving them cracked enough to open from the inside.

  Grandmother’s gaze met mine as I returned to the table, bright with her returned presence. “I wouldn’t mention her injury to her if I were you,” she said as I took the seat beside a glowering Joseph.

  “Not ask her about it?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Then how am I going to figure out how to fix it?”

  She tapped a rhythm onto the table. “Did she ask you to fix it?”

  “No… but she was just injured today,” I said.

  Grandmother leaned forward in her chair, regarding me as if I were still the child I’d been when she first taken over our care. “How long has it been since that girl first realized you could see her?”

  Leaning an elbow onto the table, I considered. “A little more than a week.”

  “And in that time, after nearly a month of starving, and with her finery turning to rags, how often did she ask for your help?” Grandmother asked.

  I shook my head. “There were monks everywhere.”

  “And yet she traveled to Hopesworth alone and went into the templum itself.”

  “Which didn’t work out very well for her,” I grumbled.

  “This is true.” She nodded. “Even so, I’ve known generations of Kleins, and there’s one quality they all share. Whether they’re kindhearted or ornery as Weire himself, they all carry around a lethal amount of pride. That girl is not going to ask for your help. She doesn’t want it, and if you try to give it to her, she’ll more than likely refuse.”

  My head fell into my hands. “This has all turned out to be a wakeful nightmare—and I’m not supposed to help her?”

  “She’ll fix her predicament or she’ll die. You’re not going to change that, boy, only get in the way. In the meantime, perhaps she can solve your problem with funding the press.”

  “And how will she do that?” Joseph asked, leaning back and making his chair squeak in protest at the movement. “Her father ran out of funding months before he died—and her estate has already been given away. She doesn’t even have a dress that covers her modesty. We barely have an iron coin to chip our teeth on between us and we have ten times the resources that she does at this point.”

  “You might find that she has several resources you don’t, boy. An education being one of them,” Grandmother snapped before standing from the table. “Don’t disturb me; I’m going to work in my chair.”

  The moment she left, John leaned close to me. “Did I mention you’re sleeping on the floor, Dyl?” He patted me on the back. “Little thank you from us to you—for making our lives so interesting.”

  10

  Always Eavesdropping

  Dylan

  The first light of day found me awake, lying on the floor beside my bunk. It wasn’t so much the splintering boards that kept me wakeful, but the combination of my stench and thoughts, both horrendous.

  I’d never intended to involve my family with Lady Annabelle’s plight, for all of our sakes. Here with us, she was likely no better off than she was in her small bastion of safety surrounded by a tide of monks.

  There was little I could do about the situation now. If Grandmother invited her, I would never be so foolish as to revoke the invitation even if all involved would be better off for it. After mumbling my daily devotion to Ester, I rolled off the floor, for once up before my brothers, and padded through the quiet house.

  Wedging myself behind the big iron stove, I shoved at the back door until it unstuck, and maneuvered into the small space that separated our house from our neighbors. Four houses leaned in toward me, leaving me in a pit of shadows. I ducked under Joseph’s work shirt drying on a clothesline.

  Above, the day was as gray as the night I left not so long ago. Stepping outside did nothing to better the smell, though after a long cool night, the stink from the Hutchings nearby wasn’t close to at its worst.

  Water filled our washbasin halfway, and no one was going to thank me for taking t
he rest. But I felt like being selfish and was willing to face the consequences of several trips to the well after work today.

  The chalky soap stung my chaffed skin as I scrubbed off last night’s run. Rinsing it off was more painful, the near-frozen water giving me an instant headache. And even after all that, I still stank. Leaning down, I sniffed my shirt and yanked my head away.

  “Damn it,” I muttered. Usually my brothers and I washed our work clothes the moment we returned home and let them dry out overnight. If I washed my uniform now, there was little chance it’d be dry by the time I needed to head to work, but at least it’d be clean.

  After undressing, I grabbed Joseph’s shirt and John’s pants down from the clothesline. If they spotted me, I was asking for a beating—but I’d switch out the garments before they woke.

  Shivers racked my body as I washed my filthy laundry in the little remaining water, my shaking hands dropping the soap more than once into the basin. My teeth were chattering by the time I hung my clothes next to Grandmother’s spare dress.

  Looking at the dress, I considered doing something extremely stupid.

  My hands went to the pins holding up the material, but a thought occurred to me. This dress would fit Lady Annabelle even worse than what she wore now. Grandmother stood a head taller and twice as thick. She would be swimming in the fabric. It’d be better to buy her a gown—or steal one.

  Ducking under my drying clothing, I maneuvered into the house. Once in the kitchen, I grabbed a candle, a piece of sausage, and a scrap of bread before treading to the other side. I opened the stove doors and peered inside. A low light flickered below, likely from a candle in the workshop. Usually, I’d jump down, but I didn’t want to terrify Lady Annabelle with the loud slamming sound my feet would make hitting the floor.

  I climbed onto the ladder, holding the food with one hand.

  “My name is Annabelle Klein. I am—I am sixteen anni old.”

  Halfway down, I froze.

  Her voice came again, “I grew up at Hope Manor… with my parents. They’re dead—simultaneously in the night. I will not believe it was an illness. I never did, but now that I know that they were not only dissenters, but were actively spreading dissention against the Congregation—I will not believe their deaths a strange coincidence. How they died is still mysterious to me—with what happened to me so soon after, it could have even been the gods who struck them dead. I saw their bodies before the servants closed their caskets. They bore no wounds.”

  Looking up to the dark hole above me, I considered going back up.

  “My parent’s names were—their names were… uh!” She shouted the last part in apparent frustration.

  I licked my lips, wanting to say their names, but not sure if I should.

  “Their names were Hazel and Warren.” She sighed. “I will discover how they died, and hopefully learn how to undo my curse. The magicians and monks will not help me; they’ve mistakenly condemned me as an iconoclast.”

  The candle I was holding slipped out of my grasp. “Damn,” I whispered, grabbing for it. But it was too late; the candle plummeted, hit, and then made a skittering sound across the floor.

  “Damn.” The word was barely audible as I began descending the ladder.

  “Are you always eavesdropping, Dylan?”

  I halted. After hesitating a second, I peered down to see her standing just below it.

  Her lips pursed as she held up a lit candle in one of her gloved hands. My dropped candle sat just before her booted foot.

  “Always eavesdropping?” I asked as I leaned out to look at her fully.

  “Here, the stable—”

  “I didn’t eavesdrop in the stable; you were right beside me, talking about me.”

  “And your excuse this time?”

  “No excuse.”

  “No excuse? You couldn’t just make one up?”

  “Sure.” Swinging off the ladder, I jumped down, landing a few feet away from her. I took the impact by bending my knees, but I immediately straightened to regard her.

  “Goodness.” She jumped a little, splashing wax on the floor. Her eyelids widened with surprise.

  I held up the piece of bread. “My excuse was that I was coming down to bring you some breakfast. I’m not sure what kind of reception you’re going to get here today, and I’m about to head out to work.”

  She regarded me quizzically. “At my manor?”

  “At your manor.” I held the bread and meat further out to her.

  “I see.” Instead of reaching for it, her free hand went behind her back. She was hiding her injury from me still.

  “Mind if I take the candle and hand you the food? I’d like to light the lantern.”

  “Of course.” She handed over the candle, and then took the food gingerly.

  I crossed the room to the nearest lantern, lighting it and upping the fuel until there was a decent amount of light in the room.

  Lady Annabelle set her food on the table beside where someone, likely John, had left a glass of water. She gestured to the food and then to the bed. “Thank you for this. I am much obliged to your family for extending a bed and a room to sleep in for the night. I—” Her gaze cast down to the messily made gray-toned bed. “I need to apologize for the state of the bed I slept in. At present, I cannot replace it, but I will when I can.” Her blue and grey eyes rose to meet mine. “My word is good on this—I will repay this courtesy when I can.”

  “I was just going to bring home some straw and pack my bunk with it—that mattress was always too soft for me anyway. You’re welcome to keep it.”

  She glanced to the bed and then to me. “While the gift is generous, and I thank you for the offer, I have no way to move it. Also, I have a mattress at home.”

  “Well… I mean, if you stay here.” For some reason, a flush licked up my cheeks that I hoped the low light would cover.

  She smiled a little ruefully. “I don’t think that would be so welcome to the other boys who live here—your brothers, are they?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “They were quite clear on their… distaste for my presence here. Not that I blame them, of course. My position is singular, strange, and dangerous. I likely have brought my danger to your family.”

  “Lady Annabelle… it’s not… it’s not exactly that. There’s a complicated situation here, too. And in a way, you’re welcome here no matter what my brothers say to you. Sophie let you in here and it’s her house, which means you can stay no matter what Joseph says.” I gestured to her. “Or you can go, it’s up to you.”

  “Joseph is your taller brother?”

  I nodded. “He’s my older one.”

  “Well, he’s deciding about whether to deliver me to the monks. So you see, I cannot stay here.”

  “He said that to you?” Anger surged in me, sudden and hot. I curled my hands into fists.

  Perhaps sensing the severe change in my mood, she stepped away. She held her uninjured hand between us, but came short of touching me. “I understand why anyone would consider that, Dylan. I could imagine having similar thoughts toward a person threatening my family’s safety and life’s work. But you see, I have no plans to submit to the Congregation—I never will.”

  “Good. Trust me, he’s not going to turn you in.” I snorted a scathing laugh. “He doesn’t like your kind, but he despises the Congregation.”

  She pointed to her face. “My kind?”

  It took me a second to realize that she meant iconoclasts. “Oh, no, I mean the nobility.”

  “I see.”

  Blowing out a breath, I admitted, “It doesn’t mean he’ll make you feel welcome here. He likely won’t remove you or betray you outright, but he can make life unpleasant.”

  “I see,” she repeated. “Thank you for your invitation to stay here.” She bit her lip. “To be perfectly honest, I need to return home. Yesterday, I sent a letter to a friend who is a bit of an expert in the uncanny, and I-I do think he’ll come.”

&nb
sp; I nodded slowly. “You sent a letter to a friend—who won’t remember you exist?”

  “I know his character. He’ll come. You—you may know him as well.” She pointed to one of the sketches I worked from. “Fauve Matisse.”

  “This…” I crossed to the most recent sketch, “These are by Fauve Matisse?” I knew every single line of the piece; it was the hardest one I’d undertaken yet. “Fauve Matisse, the Fauve Matisse?”

  She walked up to stand beside me. “You didn’t know who the artist was?”

  I shook my head. “Only your father knew. He’s the only one who knew the suppliers for all our materials, too—he wanted to protect everyone’s identities.”

  “It seems he did. You three are still alive—I’d say he protected your identities very well,” she said.

  “Yeah, I guess he did. We are almost out of paper to print on, though—not that I’m criticizing him.”

  She nodded and lifted one of the drying pamphlets. “Do you actually give these out?”

  “No—no, not us. Joseph takes them to the docks where he works, and there’s a trader there who takes them on to Terra Firma mostly, but also Egres and a few other cities.”

  “What a system.” Her finger traced over the ink work. It was strange how her lack of color made everything around her more brilliant; the wood of the tables and press, usually a lackluster oak, shone out in a hundred brilliant shades of umber. Even the white paper in her fingers held a glossy brilliance.

  I rubbed the back of my neck, looking away. “It was a good system for a while.”

  She grimaced. “Yes, I would suppose that a system like this is dependent on strong and steady patronage.”

  I shrugged. “Hopefully we’ll remedy that soon and keep the press going—Joseph is negotiating with some more radical discontenting members of the Merchants’ Guild.”

  Lady Annabelle made a face.

  I regarded her. “What’s that expression?”

  She shook her head and shot me a small, almost-amused smile. “It doesn’t matter what I think—I am very much on the outside of this project.”