“So pretty much opposite of here,” he said.
“Yep, I met a guy the other day who’d literally never left New York City in his entire life. He was almost twenty and had never seen mountains or even the stars. It was so surreal.”
“I bet there are people who’ve never left Montana,” Liam said.
“Good point.”
We reached the park and found a spot in the shade of a tree. Liam up divided the food. In addition to my gyro, we each had two tiny meat kabobs and two little egg roll looking things that turned out to be rice wrapped in grape leaves. It was pretty much the best food ever. When I finished eating, I moved out of the shade to lie on the grass in the sunshine. My dad’s cuff bumped against my ribs as I lay down.
“Oh, I have this bracelet.” I shimmied my dad’s Dechrua bracelet out from under my sleeve and handed it to Liam. “I was wondering if you could make it smaller for me.”
He lay next to me, and studied it for a minute, his fingers lingering over the symbols etched into the surface. “Where’d you get this?”
“My aunt just gave it to me. It was my dad’s.”
“I can do that.” He snapped the bracelet around my wrist, gauging how much smaller it needed to be, before slipping it into his pocket. “It won’t be a big deal at all.”
“Thanks, it would mean a lot to me.” We stared up at the clouds. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want, but I haven’t heard you mention your mom.”
“Not much to tell,” he said. “She owns a commercial real-estate empire in Barcelona. I used to see her all the time when I was young, but she married some guy about six years ago. They have two kids now. I only see them a few times a year, and only when my dad doesn’t have me doing assignments for him.”
“I never asked what your dad does,” I said.
“Now that’s a little harder to explain. He does a lot of things for a lot of people, but he mostly deals with personnel and hiring.”
“Sounds boring,” I said.
“You might be surprised. Hey, let’s get a picture.” Liam pulled his phone out of his jeans. He held it above our heads as we lay in the grass and snapped a picture. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to post this to social media and say something like, ‘Aya and I just ate an entire leg of lamb and now we can’t even get off the ground’ or something.”
I laughed, and he snapped another picture.
“Hey,” I said. “You’re supposed to warn me!”
He handed me his phone to show me the picture. His smile was totally at ease, and the sun lit up his blue eyes. I looked content, instead of like the half-crazed gerbil I expected.
I was surprised at how happy we appeared.
“Text those pictures to me.” I handed back his phone. We settled onto our backs watching the occasional puffy white cloud.
He shifted and when I glanced over he was leaning against his elbow looking at me. He was close enough for me to see that his blue-gray eyes had little flecks of indigo in them.
Oh, how I wanted to touch him.
Did he want to kiss me?
We just lay looking at each other for what seemed like a long time. It should have been awkward, but it wasn’t. Before I could do something I’d regret, I jumped to my feet, breaking that soft moment.
“The MoMA is calling our names,” I said.
Liam got to his feet and brushed grass off his jeans. “Van Gogh waits for no man!”
We made it to 53rd Street and the white sign running vertically up the side of the MoMA appeared. The museum was designed exactly how the Museum of Modern Art should be, with sleek black glass windows, modern typography, and the occasional splash of primary colors.
“Two student tickets,” I said to the lady behind the ticket counter. I reached into my bag that Liam was still holding, but he snatched it away.
“Uh,” Liam said. “You aren’t paying for me.”
“Seeing how you drove us here, thus saving me a train fare, and bought me lunch, I think I am,” I said.
Liam squinted at me. “Humph.” The lady stared at us in annoyance from behind the counter.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said smugly. “Hand over my wallet.”
Liam passed it over. Why did my bones go weak when his eyes sparkled like that? I handed the lady my debit card.
Liam grabbed a map. “Where to first?”
“Did you need a child activity sheet?” I asked, with what I hoped was an innocent expression on my face.
“Nah,” Liam said. “I have that thing memorized.”
“Figures.”
I desperately wanted to see Starry Night, but now that we were here, I didn’t know if I could face it just yet. I studied the map. Van Gogh was located on the fifth floor.
“Let’s start at the bottom and work up,” I said.
“What, no Van Gogh first?”
“I’m just saving the best for last.”
We sauntered through the sculpture garden, the photography, the multimedia, the works of Jackson Pollock, and a whole wall of soup cans painted by Warhol. There was a life-sized, realistic sculpture of an opera singer who looked like he was yelling instead of singing. I snapped a picture of Liam yelling back at him before a security guard chased us off.
And then we were at the fifth floor with only a set of glass French doors between Van Gogh and me. For a moment I pictured him on the other side waiting for me with open arms and a place where someone understood. I was light headed as Liam opened the doors and we passed massive paintings by Monet and Klimt. I’d been here before and knew Starry Night was just around a wall in the center of the room.
Starry Night was one of those paintings that was beautiful when replicated in a book or on a computer screen, but seeing it in real life was stunning—captivating. Comparing the two was like saying the ocean and a rain puddle were the same. Van Gogh painted this night scene without using the most obvious color of black. The spiraling yellows and blues showed how the night sky moved with every moment of time with color was so thick, it reached out to me.
Even now, it took my breath away with its passion.
But I was disappointed.
I expected it to speak to me, to say all the words I desired to hear from the long-since-dead Van Gogh. The little hope I had stored in my chest crumbled. Would I end up just like him? Driven mad by the ever-present color around me? Could something I loved so much destroy me?
“I can see why it is one of the most beloved paintings in the world,” Liam said, his head cocked to one side. “Something about it feels so alive.”
“Maybe it is.” Color lived in ways I’d never imagined.
I stared at the painting a long time. Liam wandered off through the rest of the nearby rooms, but I couldn’t move. I hoped something would change the longer I stayed, but it didn’t. Eventually, I also strolled between the other paintings on the floor. Any other day I loved these works. I loved to view the path art took to and from impressionism, but the stunning colors left an empty sadness.
“Which one is your favorite?” Liam came to stand next to me as I viewed a Monet.
“I pretty much love all the impressionists and post-impressionists,” I said. “Do you have a favorite?”
“I think my favorite is still the yeller downstairs.”
“Of course. No one can resist an opera screamer.”
We covered the rest of the floor, but I still wished to remain.
“I want to check out Starry Night one last time,” I said.
“Why am I not surprised?” Liam smiled but then shoved his hands into his pockets.
I stood in front of it one more time.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw it.
Not a part of the painting. Not a part of anything. Suspended between two layers of glass beside Van Gogh’s portrait of Joseph Roulin was a single page of handwritten text.
I was drawn to the words and riveted.
Of course, I’d missed it on my first walk past the painting. It was
small—insignificant perhaps to anyone but me. Van Gogh’s handwritten French script flowed frantically across the page.
Off to the side a small placard read—Words believed to have been written by Van Gogh during one of his bouts of mental illness. On loan from a private collection.
Translated from French it read—
I surround myself with chrome yellow and pale lemon green, while my blue walls feel the most harmonious. But on my bed, I keep a blood-red bedspread. I often question the wisdom of having the color so close to me, but by using such diverse tones I can express absolute repose. There must be a balance, so I keep the red close to me, while still surrounded by the yellows and blues that should bring happiness and stability. The red brings such strength but is so easily overwhelming. And, of course, it is always with me, a part of me.
The passage kept going with Van Gogh’s words continuing as if they were my own. The strength of red was easily overwhelming. Did he believe that if he could access the other colors he could find rest? If he could access blue, could he have balance? And would yellow bring some kind of happiness?
I used my phone to take a picture of the front and back of the page and the translation. I needed to remember the exact words.
“Is that written by Van Gogh?” Liam asked.
“Yes.” Finding this page had made me happier than I’d been in days. Perhaps my depleted red allowed the joy to surface.
Liam read the words on the placard out loud. I closed my eyes to listen.
Wait. What was that?
I blinked slowly. Tiny dots of green popped up behind my eyelids, like when someone turns a flashlight on and off in a dark room, and the light burns a latent image into the retina.
I opened my eyes again but there was nothing. It wasn’t until I reached out with that part of me that could sense color that the imperceptible dots of red set into the fiber of the page became apparent, below certain letters.
Could it be some kind of a code that only a Colorist could see?
“Hey, can I get my sketchbook?” I asked.
Liam handed me my bag.
Some words had several dots beneath letters and some had none. I wrote each marked letter in my sketchbook, hoping none of the dots had faded over time. I was meticulous.
Liam studied a huge Monet close buy. Was he getting bored?
I found each letter and together it was just a long series of letters.
I didn’t have any clue what it said. If only I spoke French. Why did I take the useful language of Spanish in school? I couldn’t even distinguish where the words ended or began. But there was one word I recognized.
Paris.
The last word was Paris. Was it an address?
But something else caught attention—not red dots, but red something else, invisible to the naked eye.
An image, no, words were burned into the fiber of the paper. It took me a moment to see, to distinguish.
It was words. But for a long moment they didn’t make sense because they couldn’t possibly.
Aya—find it.
Three words, a plea. But no, it couldn’t possibly be my name. That would be impossible. Van Gogh couldn’t have let me a personal message. He couldn’t have known that I would be here, at this moment. Out of all the pages he wrote, he couldn’t know that I would see this one, could he?
It had to be a mistake.
But the letter stared back at me, as visible as if they were written in ink.
Liam appeared at my side. “Are you ready? Or is there something else you wanted to see?”
“No, I’m good.” I slipped my sketchbook back into my bag. I was shocked and terrified that I’d found something. Of course, I’d have to translate the message, but could Van Gogh really have left me a message?
We took the stairs to the bottom floor, and we both ignored the pointed stares from the security guard who’d yelled at us before. On our way past the gift shop, a sparkle in the window caught my eye. A miniature version of Starry Night hung on a silver chain.
“I don’t think I can resist that.” I darted into the shop.
Liam’s low chuckle echoed behind me.
The display had several versions. I chose a locket, where the image of Starry Night swung open, revealing a square cavity.
It was pricey, but I handed my debit card to the lady behind the counter anyway.
“I don’t need a bag,” I said as she took out a small plastic sack. “I’m going to wear it out.”
“Wow,” Liam said. “I’ve never seen such a huge grin on your face.”
“I did say I have a thing for Van Gogh. Doesn’t everyone need something to be obsessed with?”
“I guess so, but I don’t have anything. Huh.” He scratched his chin like he was deep in thought.
“Well, it can’t be anything like music or video games,” I said. “That’s too mainstream. You definitely need something edgy, like jellyfish or the many kinds of alpaca wool.”
“Hmmm, how about dust collected from historic places around the world and kept in tiny jars?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t commit to anything just now.” I looped the chain around my neck.
“Yeah, probably not.”
“I’m going to run to the restroom,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I played with my new necklace, and it was already warm in my hand. I liked the idea of having a little piece of Van Gogh with me wherever I went. One side of the hall was made entirely of glass that faced the street outside. The other was a perfect stark white.
“Ayami,” a woman behind me said.
One word from that voice was enough to send me into a panic.
I turned to find Dune, my attacker from the train station, blocking the hallway behind me and smiling malevolently.
20
You mention the emptiness you sometimes feel, and that is exactly what I feel myself.
—Vincent van Gogh
I wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go.
“I just want to talk,” Dune said. She wore an immaculate, navy-blue tailored pantsuit that extended to perfect white, wedge-heeled boots.
“Does this talk involve me ending up dead somewhere?” I asked.
“Teenagers,” Dune said, her tone bored. “Always so dramatic.”
“Why are you here then?” I tried to figure out a plan. With the sleek white walls of the museum, not a bit of red was visible anywhere. There was nothing to help me. Maybe that’s why she chose this place.
She didn’t appear hostile, but this was the Aolian world. Who knew what she could do? If worse came to worse I could always break the red inside her body, but my stomach flipped at the idea. It was fundamentally wrong. The blood was the life of all human bodies and using that to hurt went against nature.
“Are you planning on running again?” she asked.
“I was wondering if I would have to hurt you to get away again.” I wanted to sound strong, but I knew I’d never be able to do intentionally.
I’d only been able to control red for a little while, but I’d never realized how secure it made me feel. Now, with the red inside my body all but depleted I was empty, like a jet without fuel. I didn’t know I could miss the feeling of the power in my veins.
She laughed.
Not the reaction I expected.
“It’d be fun to watch you try, but I don’t see much color for you to use here. There is some green outside the window. Why don’t you use that?”
Green. The color of life and serenity. I didn’t know how. Even if I could, there were two thick plates of glass between it and me.
“That’s not what I’m here to talk to you about,” Dune said.
I folded my arms. “I’m not stopping you. Say what you came to say.”
“I came to offer you a position with us,” she said. “Your power is valuable. I think we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“Seeing how I don’t know who you are, and my first experience with you wasn’t exactly what
I’d call butterflies and sunshine, that’s not going to happen.”
“You’re so like your father, that same blend of confidence and annoyance,” she said.
“What does my father have to do with anything?”
“Children are always so self-obsessed they never realize that they were born halfway into someone else’s story. I belong to a—how do I say?—different group of Aolians. When your father was alive, he belonged to the same organization. He and I worked toward the same goal.”
“And what was that?”
“That’s confidential,” she said. “Join me and we can make you one of the most powerful Aolians in the world. Do you know how long we’ve been waited for a Colorist?”
“Uh, no thanks.”
“We can protect you,” she said.
“Protect me from what? You’re the only one who wants to hurt me.”
“You don’t seem to realize how valuable you are. Do you know how many hits you have online from that stunt you pulled saving that kid from the car?”
I must have looked stunned because she scoffed.
“You didn’t know someone caught it on his or her cell phone?” she asked. “It’s hazy and jumbled in the rain, just enough so that people don’t think it’s real. But combine that with what happened at Grand Central, and even the idiots of this government could figure out what you are. Of course, we keep shutting down the links, but people always seem to have another copy to post. We aren’t the only ones looking for you, and let’s face it, you’re not that hard to find.”
“I’m sure Leslie and I can work something out.”
“Do you really think that Leslie spends all that time and money out of the goodness of her heart? She has ulterior motives, just like the rest of us. The only difference between her and me is I’m honest about what I want.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll have to ask Leslie what she has planned for you. Go ahead and ask her what happens to Aolians who no longer want to play her little games.”
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