“What kind of project?” asked a voice from the doorway that made me jump with its suddenness. Framed against the darkness of the hall stood a man in a dark gray suit and red tie.
“Daddy, you’re home early!” Ryker ran to his side and kissed him on the cheek.
“Yes, and who might this be?”
“Hi, I’m Aya. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Xander.” I took a few steps forward so I could shake his hand, but Liam moved between his father and me.
Liam’s father stepped around him. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Aya. Liam has mentioned you. As I recall you were sick last week?”
“Yes, I just had a little pneumonia, but I’m feeling much better now.”
Liam remained silent, with a flat facial expression I couldn’t place.
Mr. Xander glanced at Liam. “I’m sure Liam is excited to have you back at art school.”
Still Liam didn’t say anything, and it was getting more awkward by the minute.
“Aya, did you want to stay for dinner?” Ryker asked.
“No, I’d better get going.” I grabbed my bag and put on my shoes.
“There is no need for you to run away,” Mr. Xander said. He mumbled something to Liam, and Liam shuffled a few steps forward.
“No, I was on my way out.” I headed for the door. I knew Liam didn’t want me to meet his dad, but this was weird.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Liam said pulling on his own shoes.
“It was nice to meet you, Aya,” Mr. Xander said with a friendly smile.
I said, “It was nice to meet you as well.”
We made it through Liam’s apartment, down the elevator, and into the lobby in total silence.
“Your dad seems nice,” I said, and he did. If Liam hadn’t been acting so weird, I’d have thought the meeting went well.
“He always seems nice.” Liam stared at the ground and didn’t say anything else as we strode the few blocks to where I’d parked my car.
I stopped in front of the door and still Liam wouldn’t look at me. Was it only twenty minutes ago that I was hoping he would kiss me? That Liam was gone.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Liam’s voice was distant, like he was thinking about something very far away.
“Bye.” I didn’t look back as I got in my car and drove away.
Another time I would’ve been hurt by his silence, but this transformation happened when he saw his father. This wasn’t about me. I didn’t know what was going on, but this was between Liam and his dad.
For the next three weeks, everything seemed normal, well, as normal as it could be under the circumstances. I went to art school. I worked on my final project. Twice a week I practiced controlling my Talent with Danny. I learned martial arts with Liam and Ryker.
I didn’t see his father again.
I started hanging out more with Ryker when I was at their apartment, and I was happy to have her as my friend. But it was all a distraction anyway. Always in the back of my mind was the inescapable truth that, out there, Dune was waiting for me. Sleep was not escape. My dreams were full of Dune’s face, or the girl with the black hair—us being burned alive.
My only glimmer of hope was the thought that Van Gogh left the book Prism somewhere to find. It had to hold the key to using all colors. I searched every volume I could think of for clues that would lead to Prism or the Aveum.
And then there was my name, written in red in Van Gogh’s hand, asking me to find it. A part of me knew it was crazy to really believe Van Gogh wanted me to find it, but I didn’t care.
I spent every evening in the library poring over all the information I found on Van Gogh and the clue. I searched every book and typed in everything I could think of in a web search, including statues, building names, and anything else I could think of, but I couldn’t find anything on where knight and good could meet.
That night, I laid out the huge map of Paris I’d found in a massive, flat drawer in one of the corners of the library. First, I marked where Van Gogh lived in Paris, 54 Rue Lepic in the Montmartre district. I traced the nearby streets with my finger, imagining him painting the scenes and people in the City of Light. I followed a line to where the Sacre Coeur cathedral cut off the streets around it. It was being built while Van Gogh lived there.
But then a word caught my eye.
Rue de Chevalier de la Barre.
No, it couldn’t be . . .
It was tiny, but it was a street, and right in front of it, Rue de le Bonne. Street of the good.
Where the good and the knight meet. They were roads.
And there, where the two met was a park, just a small green rectangle amid the winding paths, a place of repose and calm from the crowds that Van Gogh found so distasteful. I sat staring at it for a long time. I’d found it! I couldn’t believe I’d found it. Maybe Prism would save me from Van Gogh’s fate.
My hands shook as I photocopied the map.
Prism would help me resist the color, help me control it. It had to. Van Gogh left Prism for me in Paris, and I was going to get it.
Kendra appeared in the doorway. “I haven’t seen you for a week,” she complained. “Have you been spending a lot of time with Liam?” Her tone was saturated with innuendo.
“There have been no repeats of what happened with Andy, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“So, what’ve you been doing in here, every night since forever?” she asked.
Prism was what I really wanted, but it was the Aveum that kept sneaking into my thoughts.
“You know that other group of Aolians your grandmother mentioned? Has she said anything else?”
“No, I tried to talk to her about it, but she acted like she didn’t know what I was saying. Did you want me to ask her again?”
I so wanted to tell Kendra, to have somebody I could talk with, but it was too dangerous for her. Leslie and Dune both wanted it. Who else did also? If these were the type of people I was dealing with I didn’t want Kendra to get involved.
“No, don’t worry about it. I was just curious.”
“We should go have some fun this weekend,” Kendra said. “Maybe we could take a drive down to the coast and hit up a beach.”
“That’s sounds like exactly what I need.” I hugged her. “Thanks for being such a great friend.”
“Anytime.”
The door to the library opened, and Leslie strode inside.
“Hello, girls,” she said to us, but she looked around the room as if to make sure no one else was here. “Kendra, could you give me a moment to talk to Aya?”
“Sure, I’ll see you,” Kendra said to me.
After Kendra shut the library door behind her, Leslie took a deep breath.
“How is art school going?” she asked.
Uhhh, not what I was expecting. “It’s good—great.”
She nodded absently. The silence stretched on, and I adjusted my chair just to have some sound.
“There’s something I have been meaning to talk to you about.” She stacked the books on a nearby desk into a perfect pile. “Danny says that you’ve been learning remarkably fast in your Talent studies.”
“I’ve been getting better.”
“There are many things you don’t know about this world of Talents. Many things the students in this school don’t need to know.”
So typical of adults to think we don’t need to know anything. “Like about the Aveum?” I asked.
Leslie’s gaze locked onto mine. “Yes, I thought you heard us talking. You shouldn’t eavesdrop on conversations.”
“Even if they have everything to do with my future? Even if there are people willing to abduct me to get to the Aveum? You’re so right; I don’t need to know any of that.”
“So, Dune has spoken to you?”
“Spoken? You mean attacked?”
“Yes, Grand Central. I should’ve guessed she was the catalyst. You took care of yourself, though.�
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I tried to hide my surprise. “You knew about that?”
“Of course,” she laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “I’ve been working with Talents a long time, and it’s not hard to figure out. But the Aveum; I assume it is the reason you have spent so much time in the library.”
She didn’t tell me about the Aveum “I’ve kept an eye out for it, but I don’t care about the Aveum, what it does, or why everyone wants it.” I shrugged, hoping I wasn’t forcing my nonchalance too much.
Leslie stared at me as if she didn’t understand my words. “Don’t . . . care?” She shook her head. “You don’t understand what this object can do. It is said that the Aveum can change everything; it can make it so Aolians can create a better world. It can make it so we can use our Talents in ways that are impossible now.”
Dune had said the same thing “And how can it do that? From what I overheard, Danny doesn’t even think the Aveum exists.”
“Danny doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter if he does or doesn’t. I’ve already made my decision: I’m not going to help you or Dune find the Aveum.” But I suddenly remember something Dune had said when we were at the museum. “You said you worked with my dad, but Dune said the same thing.”
Leslie started at me in silence for a few moments. “She’s right. Your dad worked with both of us.”
I gasped. “What?!”
“But not in the way you think,” Leslie continued. “He abandoned the United Aolians and, with Dune, tried to make a new order.”
“But why would he tell me to come here?”
“Eventually, he left Dune and her vision of the future.” She took a deep breath. “He realized that future was wrong. He came back into the United Aolians. He met your mom, and they got married and had you.”
“All of these different Aolians. Is that why he is dead?” I leaned forward, unable to look away as Leslie said the words.
“Dune was devastated when he left. She depended on using his Speaker powers to convince others of her cause. And angry doesn’t begin to describe Dune.”
I could imagine Dune livid.
“He joined us, went on missions for the council. Dune found him on one of those missions and we don’t know exactly what happened. We just know that he died.”
It was as though someone had stolen the oxygen from the room and turned it into a vacuum.
“I’ve always felt responsible for his death,” Leslie said. “He knew the risk, but he had faith that he could get out of any scrape with his Talent, and it cost him his life.”
I didn’t know what to say. Did Dune kill my father? Steal him away from me, from my mom? I wasn’t going to let her do the same to me. Anger surged through me as I made my decision.
“You and Dune can both rot.” I was sick of having too little information and choice. “I’ll never help either of you find the Aveum!” Van Gogh told me to find it, me alone
“Aya, now wait a minute before you make a rash judgment like that. Maybe I brought this up too soon. We should continue your studies until we make a decision.”
“I’ve already decided.”
Leslie tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and when she spoke her voice was quiet and deadly calm. “You will help one of us find the Aveum,” she closed the distance so only the table separated us. She put both her palms on the top and leaned forward. “If I have anything to say about it, it’s going to be me.”
Beneath her hands, tendrils of smoke curled up from the table. Leslie glared at me, then stood up to her full height and strode from the room.
Left behind in the table’s surface were two scorched black handprints.
Leslie’s message wasn’t as blatant as Dune’s, but I knew a threat when I heard one. I just didn’t know what to do about it. That night I threw all of my books and clothes into my backpack, and the next morning I rode the train to the city. I shoved everything into my locker at art school. Tonight, I’d sleep at my aunt’s house.
After my last class, Liam found me at my locker.
“Did you want to go to a movie tonight, just you and me?” he asked.
That sounded like a date. Even with everything else that had happened, I couldn’t help but feel giddy.
“I’d love that,” I said.
I wished Liam were the worst of my worries. Maybe in an earlier life he could have been, but for now that place of honor was reserved for Dune. I decided to walk home to my Aunt’s apartment, instead of riding the subway, to clear my head, but all I could think about was Dune and her threat. She’d given me a month, and that ran out next Tuesday, but I wasn’t going to be here when she came looking for me.
There was something about the busy streets of New York City that let me escape the stress and anxiety, at least temporarily. Locals and tourists alike bustled down the sidewalks, expensive purses and shopping bags in their hands. In a place like this, it was easier to forget all my worries. I liked to walk slowly and have the people flow around me like I was a tumbling pebble moving across the bottom of a creek, while all around me the impatient water rushed by. This was the first time I’d been alone in the city for a long time, and I enjoyed the solitude.
I was only a few blocks away from home when a door next to the sidewalk opened. I wouldn’t have noticed except it was her standing there.
I didn’t have time to scream before someone grabbed me and pulled me inside.
25
To express the love of two lovers by the marriage of two complementary colours, their blending and their contrast, the mysterious vibrations of related tones. To express the thought of a brow of radiance of a light tone against a dark background. To express hope by some star. Someone’s passion by the radiance of the setting sun. That’s certainly no realistic trompe l’oeil, but something that really exists.
—Vincent van Gogh
They dragged me down several steps. The air was cool and damp, and I didn’t think anyone had occupied this basement in years. A single, naked bulb hung from the ceiling, and barely lit the dark, shadowy room. In the center of the space sat a small wooden table and chair that gave the room a cell-like quality.
Dune wasn’t alone this time.
Two men and two women stood strategically around me. They didn’t try to bind my hands, or force me to sit like they do in the movies, but they did take my backpack. I was very aware of how the notebook containing all the information I’d collected about Van Gogh was in there.
No one said anything, so I figured I would start.
“Creepy basement?” I asked. “Don’t you think this is a bit cliché for a kidnapping?”
Dune laughed, and by the looks on the faces of the people around her that didn’t happen very often.
“What did I say?” Dune said to the man next to her. “Just like her father.”
That was the third time she’d brought up my dad, and my anger flared.
“What do you want, Dune? I thought we weren’t set for a delightful meeting like this for another few days.” I should’ve been scared, I should’ve been terrified, but the red just wouldn’t let me. All I could do was drown in my own anger. The last time we met, I didn’t have any red. But not today.
Dune’s facial expression returned to its usual placid mask. “I need you to help me find something. Many people believe only a Colorist can find it. It’s what we want, and it’s what Leslie has always wanted.”
“Why are you telling me this?” But I couldn’t concentrate. The light from the dim bulb was absorbed into dingy walls. I didn’t see any color here, but I could feel it. Somewhere outside the halo of light was red, and lots of it, reaching toward me.
“What has Leslie told you? If I know her at all, she’s told you nothing. I’m the one you should trust, I’ll tell you everything. We just need to find the Aveum before anyone else does. We need your help.”
“What if I say no?” My head spun with the effort of resisting the red all around me, hidden in the shadows.
A particle of red and then another floated toward me.
“The Aveum is too dangerous for us to let it fall into anyone else’s hands.” Dune’s voice was smooth and had an uncustomary kindness to it.
Fake.
“How about I don’t help anyone find the Aveum, and we’ll call it good.”
The red was oh, so familiar and concentrated. I squinted into the darkness. Old cans of red paint, dried up and long forgotten, waited like dynamite for me to use them. A thin mist of red began to tinge the air.
“Things don’t work like that, Aya. We can work together, and then you never have to see me again.”
“And why does everyone think that only a Colorist can find the Aveum?”
“Oh, so Leslie really didn’t tell you anything. The last Colorist was the one who hid it.”
I gasped. “What?” No, no, no! That would mean . . .
My backpack: it had all the research I’d done on Van Gogh. It had the clue and it had the map. I was looking for Prism, but perhaps I’d found the Aveum instead.
“—But you can also have a home here, with us. Leslie wants to teach Talents to live in the outside world, but with us you don’t have to. You can be yourself, strong and unique.”
“Haven’t we gone over this before?” I had to get out of here.
Dune didn’t take her eyes off me, and she didn’t seem to notice the red now filling the air. But some of the others did. “Now, Aya, let’s try something else then,” she said with a wry smile. “What about all those people in your life that aren’t Talented. I’ve heard you’ve been spending a lot of time with a certain boy.”
My breath caught in my throat where the fear should have been. But I could feel nothing but anger.
“And what about your mother,” she continued. “Don’t you think enough of her life has been destroyed because of the weak decisions from people she loves?”
“You leave my mother out of this!” I said. She didn’t belong in this world of supernatural abilities and magical objects. She belonged in the real world, surrounded by music and students.
Alizarin Crimson Page 20