A Spectral Hue

by Craig Laurance Gidney

  “I’m sorry,” said Dad, from behind his newspaper shield, “I calls it like I sees it.”

  Later that night, as Lincoln worked on a history paper, Elaine stood in the door frame. With her long, black hair, delicate features and light skin, she was destined for greatness. (The fact that she was also a Merit Scholar sealed the deal.) Linc wasn’t a particularly gifted student, and his odd proportions—too tall, too thin, uneven skin tone—meant that he always felt his imperfections acutely, against his sister’s perfection. Her nickname was Elaingel.

  The angel Elaine deigned to grace him with her presence, with her Renaissance-frizzy hair.

  “I know where you met Gash.”

  He looked up from his laptop, sighed. “Not you, too.”

  She glanced down the hall, presumably for their parents. Then she slipped inside his room, closing the door after her.

  She leaned against the door, and whispered. “You met him at that gay group that meets on Capitol Hill.”

  For a second, he thought he misheard her.

  Elaingel said, “Stop acting so shocked. I’ve known you were gay for a while. I think Mom suspects. But she doesn’t really care.”

  Linc did some internal calculations. He’d been very careful. He never brought home gay newspapers, and cleared his browser history every time he looked up gay things (mostly porn).

  “You can stop freaking out for a moment or two. I just want you to be careful around Gash. You know that he has a record.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Carol’s sister Jennifer goes to that group. She recognized you.”

  After a pause, Linc said, “I don’t know a Jennifer. Or Jenny.”

  “She goes by the name ‘Jay.’”

  Linc immediately saw Jay. She was androgynous, and many of the gay boys in the group initially mistook her for a pretty brown-skinned boy. It was still unclear whether Jay was trans or not. She always wore immaculately black jeans and colorful hoodies that hid her close-shaved hair. He’d met Jennifer years ago, at some party. Then, she’d been real girlie girl, wearing some T-shirt with a glittery unicorn and a hot pink tulle dress.

  “I was over at Carol’s a couple of weeks ago,” Elaine continued. “Jay told us about Gash.”

  “She gossiped! The group is supposed to be anonymous!”

  Elaine waved this issue away, as if it were a gnat. “She was concerned. About you.”

  “How sweet,” he said sarcastically. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Did you know that he was in juvie?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “Two years is not a long time,” Elaine said. “He still does lean. And sells Percocet and oxies.”

  “How does Jay know this? Did she buy it from him?”

  Elaine sighed. “I give up. I’m just saying. Keep your eyes open.” She turned and left the room.

  He turned back to his paper, but Mary McLeod Bethune’s story failed to captivate him. He thought about Gash. The shape of his body, compact and finely etched muscles. The sharpness of his bones, cheek and hips, like knives. The way his skin was purple under certain lights. The thing was, he already knew that Gash was involved in some seedy things. The stint in juvie, the drug-selling rumors were all a part of the legend of Gash.

  Linc had met Gash through the youth group, but he’d seen him months before at the main branch of the public library downtown. There was a loosely-knit gang of street kids that hung around the library. They called themselves Violet Rage, and looked to Gash as one of their leaders. Violet Rage was a collection of gay and trans kids of color, a far cry from the mostly white ‘official’ gay youth group. They hung around the Gallery Place Metro stop when the weather was nice and the MLK Library when it was cold or raining. At the library, they mostly hovered around the free computers, watching videos online.

  For months, he surreptitiously spied on Violet Rage, listening in on their conversations, and slowly learned their stories.

  There was Simon/Symone, who was cherubically beautiful, with a mane of ringleted hair surrounding their baby-soft face. When they were Simon, they wore ink-black clothes that somehow managed to stay free of lint or dust. Turtlenecks and sweaters, jeans, boots that shone with fresh shoe polish. When they were Symone, the color purple was somehow involved. Symone always wore the same shade of violet eye makeup and lipstick. Linc gathered, from bits and pieces, that they had started the group after some homophobic assault on a metro train. Simon/Symone was beautiful, but they could be vicious. Rumor had it that they had stabbed their attacker with a penknife.

  DeMarko was over three hundred pounds and always had one earbud in, whether or not his phone was playing music. His mother was the minister of some storefront church, so he was officially on the Down Low. “She’d exorcize me if she knew. She thinks homosexuality is a demon.” Linc laughed aloud when he overheard that. He imagined RuPaul with horns and fangs. He’d quickly moved away from the group that time.

  Florette or Flo might have actually been homeless, as far Linc could tell. She always wore the same ratty jeans and carried a backpack that had seen better days. It had rents in the fabric and the color had faded to some godawful blue-gray color. Plus, Flo smelled. Garbage, and unwashed flesh. She would use the free library bathrooms to wash up with that stinging institutional pink soap. She was brash, loud and funny. The library cops were kind of afraid of her. She would start some shit if she thought you were looking at her. “Damn, I know I look good but put your eyes back in their sockets,” she said to an ogling security guard.

  There were other members of Violet Rage that came and went. It was too loose a gathering to be considered a proper gang, but they all stuck up for each other. He even overheard them talking about ‘jumping’ bullies at the schools that VR members attended.

  Linc thought that he was pretty discreet in scoping the group out. But the Saturday that he first dropped into the LGBTA Youth Group on Capitol Hill, Gash came up to him, and said, “I thought I might see you here.”

  He stupidly replied, “What do you mean?”

  “You thought you was slick, son. But all us Ragers knew that you were eyeing us. But it’s cool.”

  Then Gash smiled, slow and sinister, like a cartoon villain. Linc remembered the dark thrill he felt. It started in his chest, just below his heart, and traveled down his body, ending at his groin. It was like a seed had been planted in him, and it now bloomed. The tendrils snaked through his veins, the leaves unfurling in his bloodstream. He couldn’t speak, afraid that he would spit up leaves and petals.

  ***

  Mrs. Doshi gave Linc directions to a coffee shop called Bitter and Sweet that served glazed cake donuts and a strong brew. No fancy lattes or Americanos. The donut was still warm, the sugar glaze still runny. At least that was good. Like the Bayside Motel, the decor was hopelessly stuck in the ’80s, with burgundy stools bandaged with duct tape and a peeling Formica countertop. Linc wasn’t the only person here. The countertop was taken over by surly-looking watermen in wet wear waders. All of them, both the black and white men, looked ancient. They had the same craggy skin and dour expressions. Linc didn’t want his next job to be on a boat, trawling for crabs. Linc hated spiders, and crabs were the sea’s version of them. He hated the way they walked, and the weird stalks they had for eyes. He liked being near water. He had no desire to actually be on the water.

  So far, Shimmer did not impress him. The shore was rocky, and it reeked of dead fish. On the way to the donut shop, which followed the curve of the bay, he saw a dead turtle being attacked by bleating, combative seagulls. The boats that floated out in the water were sludge-colored and flat-bottomed, with no aesthetics. They were just metal boxes. The few people he saw on the street weren’t particularly friendly.

  But he might not have any choice in picking a job. Funds were getting low. He needed to get a job. Maybe fate would have him adrift on a literal sea.

  He scoured an online bulletin board for jobs in Shimmer. There wasn’t mu
ch available. The few restaurants he saw were at least ten miles out of town and probably required a car. There were no hotels here, just a couple of bed and breakfasts that were closed for the season. Retail was limited to a grocery store—an overnight stocker. Linc hated overnight jobs. He could never get his body to adjust to the hours.

  One job, however, did stand out. After he read through the requirements, he made the call without hesitation. (Strike when the iron is hot.)

  Five minutes later, he had an interview at the Whitby-Grayson Museum. Linc finished his second donut and wolfed down the scalding coffee.

  According to the GPS app on his phone, the museum was a twenty-minute walk away.

  5: Fuchsia

  At first, she saw the girl in flashes. She was a scrawny thing, more like a bundle of sticks than a little girl. She practically swam in her homespun dress. Her features were sharp and birdlike, her eyes took in everything, and found it lacking. At first, she didn’t really like the girl. She was a wild thing, tart-tongued and crafty.

  Her name, though, was pretty enough. Hazel was a beautiful color, a lovely shade of golden-brown, not unlike the girl’s skin tone. And after a while, she began to like Hazel. She loved the way the child moved, quick and determined, and how she was stubborn and high-spirited. She was like a sudden gust of wind, given form.

  She still had no name, and no memory. Was she dead, a haint, haunting a place where she lived? Was she an angel, sent to watch over the child? Or was she something else? She decided to put aside the matter of her exact spiritual designation for the time being. She needed a name, a word to place her in time, in space, in context. The gown she wore, that lurid purple-pink mist-like fabric that draped her formless form, must be a clue.

  The word floated up like a bubble. The name of the color she wore, which she now took as her own name. It was as beautiful and strange as the color it described.

  Fuchsia. Her name, for now at least, would be Fuchsia.

  Fuchsia found herself leaving the beautiful marsh, just to watch the child in motion. It didn’t bother her that Hazel couldn’t see her. Sometimes, she would visit the child every day. Other times, time would have elapsed, and Hazel had grown a bit.

  Fuchsia dimly recognized the house Hazel inhabited. The house was three stories made of brick and the entrance was ornate, with a slate porch and pillars. The front grounds were hemmed in by a copse of oak, sumac and sycamore trees. The lawn was well-manicured and a circular garden full of pansies, delphinium, peonies and clematis grew in the shade of a chinaberry tree. Hazel lived with the other servants in a small stone house in the back of the house, which faced the marsh.

  When Hazel entered the house, Fuchsia stayed outside, or returned to the beautiful wetlands, with their crystal water and submerged spears of emerald grass. It was as if the house repelled her. Perhaps there was some kind of ward against whatever she was. She could observe Hazel in the slave’s quarters that she shared with other the four other servants. She could go into the stable (where Hazel rarely went; she was scared of horses). Fuchsia could even go into the root cellar beneath the house. But the house itself wouldn’t let her inside. She could walk around the ivy-covered house. Fuchsia could explore the roof, with its cracked ceiling tiles, where pigeons nested. But the house itself was impenetrable.

  When she tried, she would find herself in the marsh, or in a tree, or in the circular garden, beneath the chinaberry tree. Furthermore, time had passed, sometimes an hour, sometimes a week, before she could return. Maybe she wasn’t an angel after all. Maybe she was something to be feared.

  She came to recognize the faces of the other people who stepped out into the house. The bony-faced lady of the house, the grey-haired patriarch with wild eyebrows. There were two boys, young men, really. The tall, studious red-haired one, the squat, lurching, rough-and-tumble brown-haired one. Both of them were sprinkled with freckles. When they spoke, Fuchsia could understand them, but she immediately forgot what they said. It wasn’t important. Their talk was like the cooing of doves, the cawing of ravens, the chirring of crickets.

  All of them loved Hazel, even when they chastised her. And Hazel loved them, too. But she seemed to love the land, the shimmering expanse of water and islets just a tad more.

  ***

  One night, Fuchsia visited Hazel. The girl, now fourteen, was ill. An illness, one that made breathing difficult, had touched the house, and the entire Eastern Shore. The boisterous boy had had it for a while. She remembered him sitting on the porch wrapped in a blanket, watching the slaves work.

  One day, Fuchsia saw Hazel tremble, then fall like a leaf when she was doing the laundry outside. She waited patiently by the girl’s feverish body, listened to the rasp of her breath. If only she could touch the child, or summon help. But Fuchsia was nothing. She was invisible, a will-o’-the-wisp dreamed up by the land, if even that.

  So, she waited beside her only friend, who did not even know she existed. She sang to her, even though she did not have voice. She stroked Hazel’s sweat-sheened forehead with the drapery of her sleeve. The girl’s eyes opened in a squint. They quivered, leaking water.

  Hazel said, softly, “I like that dress. It sure is a pretty color.” Then her eyes closed again.

  ***

  Judith found Hazel shortly after. She called for Jethro and Caleb to help carry the girl to her bed. Hazel was in a delirium, muttering nonsense about angels, and bright purple robes. “She was the color of the marsh-bell,” she told Judith, who lay her in her straw bed.

  “Hush, child. You was just seeing things,” Judith said. “I remember when the Missus got the fever and was talking to her dead mother.”

  “But I saw her,” Hazel insisted. “She was colored, too. Real dark skinned.”

  “Jethro, get the brandy and have the Missus get Doctor Walters. Hazel’s in a bad way.”

  Fuchsia watched this exchange silently. She saw me, she thought. She burned with excitement. Furthermore, she was in the house. Maybe there was a way to communicate with her. She had been alone for too long. Herons and ospreys were beautiful, but she couldn’t talk to them. Then Judith’s words—“Hazel’s in a bad way”—took on a sinister meaning. Maybe the girl, barely a teenager, was close to death. Fuchsia’s aching loneliness wouldn’t be cured by Hazel’s sudden death. She may not have been an angel, but she didn’t wish any harm to come to the girl.

  She watched and waited as Judith wiped down Hazel’s face with cool rags, when Caleb came with the brandy which he gave to the girl to help her sleep. Fuchsia had no sense of time. Minutes or hours might have passed. She never got tired, and had no need of sleep. She could have gone back to the wetlands and the beauty that she loved. Instead, she stood vigil over the girl. Hazel tossed and turned, her breathing was rapid.

  Finally, Doctor Walters arrived. He was a sickly-looking thing himself, bald as a turtle and covered in liver spots. His eyes were pale blue and rimmed in red. He took one look at Hazel, and declared her a consumptive. He didn’t even bother to open his medical bag.

  “Is there anything you can do to lessen her pain?” Caleb asked. He spoke proper English when he had to.

  “She needs to go to a sanitorium,” the doctor replied, “but they don’t have sanitoriums for niggers. I can give medication for her pain, but she needs a diet of bone broth, plenty of liquids and sleep.”

  When the doctor left, Judith conferred with Caleb: “I don’t think she’s long for this world.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She said she saw an angel. A colored angel.”

  Caleb said, “You remember how the Missus saw her dead mother when she was sick? I imagine this is the same thing. That colored angel was probably her mother, as she remembered her.”

  Fuchsia heard this. Maybe I am the girl’s mother. It was a plausible reason for her connection to the girl. But, somehow, it seemed wrong. She was also joined to the unspoiled land where she lived, that sanctuary where the purple-pink marsh flowers grew. She loved that p
lace the same way she loved Hazel. There was something of the marsh in that girl. Fuchsia couldn’t piece it together. This, however, was a mystery to ponder. It was a puzzle, not important. She could figure out the mystery later, when the girl was out of harm’s way.

  Fuchsia stayed by the girl’s bedside for a long time. She was there when the girl was given medicine and broth by the well-meaning but distant Judith. She watched as Jethro and Caleb prayed over her. Even the Missus visited the girl, with a nosegay of lavender pressed to her face. She was also vigilant over the child when no one was around.

  She tried touching the sleeping girl, but her hand vanished like smoke upon contact.

  Smoke.

  Smoke was like breath, vaporous and curling.

  It was more like an instinct than an actual idea. Fuchsia bent down, and gently kissed Hazel’s lips. They were as soft as petals.

  6: Xavier

  “You are welcome to use the laundry,” said Iris.

  “Bless you,” said Xavier. He’d left his umbrella at the museum, and he’d been caught in a sudden downpour. He was dripping wet and his glasses were fogged. He was always losing things, tablets, cellphones, wallets and keys. He’d had to replace credit cards more than once. His mother called him “the Absent-Minded Professor.” After he changed upstairs and slipped into sweats, Iris led him down to the basement with a bag of other items that needed washing. Though basement might have been too generous a word. It was more like a cellar. The stairs were steep and creaky. He felt like he was going into a crypt. The stale air didn’t help.

  Iris turned on the light. It was a single naked bulb and it cast a thin, sickly light on the concrete cave. The cinderblocks were streaked with faded carmine water stains and most of the floorspace was dominated with machines. There were side-by-side washer and dryer units, and what Xavier assumed was a furnace. “It’s fairly straightforward. It’s an old unit but it still works,” Iris said. “I’ll be upstairs if you have any questions.”