The Colors of Madeleine 01: Corner of White

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  She’s got two little sisters who are always ballet dancing. She plays the saxophone and makes her own jewelry, and you can see both those things in her hands — she’s got hands that move so gentle and graceful, soft and free. And when those hands push against her long, dark, shimmering hair, or press the keys of her saxophone, well, that’s art is what it is, right there.

  As for smoke and flames, no, don’t have any particular thoughts on those.

  Hope your mother’s feeling better.

  Take care,

  Elliot

  She was sleeping again, the Butterfly Child.

  The weather had turned wintry, and Elliot watched her in the doll’s house a moment, wondering if she might be cold. The fire was quiet, so he added another log, pushed it around a bit, sparks and smoke flaring, until the flames grew tall and busy. A pair of his gray woolen socks was hanging on the grate. He closed his hands around them. They felt crusty-warm, maybe a little damp around the toes still, but dry enough. He folded one in half and gently draped it over the Butterfly Child. She stirred in her sleep and turned over twice, so the sock slipped off.

  He replaced it, straightening it so her little face and shoulders were free, and there it was again, a kind of catch in his throat. She was so tiny!

  He thought of flakes of coconut, grated chocolate, granules of sugar, dustings of cinnamon or cloves.

  He thought suddenly of how his father used to cut his hair. Elliot would sit at the kitchen table and his father would start off flamboyantly with the scissors, but then he’d slow, and slow, and it seemed he would never finish. “Almost done,” he’d murmur, “not quite yet,” concentrating, leaning forward, feathering the edges, snipping so finely it was almost not snipping, the touch of the scissor blades faint moments of cold against Elliot’s neck, the touch of those fine, fine hairs falling past his cheeks to the floor.

  In Elliot’s backpack was a book he’d borrowed from the library that morning. It was a Saturday, and he’d finished the farmwork. So he moved away from the doll’s house and sat on the couch by the fire, the book in his hands.

  The cover was dusty pink. Its title, in elegant mauve, was: The Butterfly Child: A Cellian Treasure.

  Beneath the title was a deep purple lithograph of a Butterfly Child clasping a rose. Quite possibly, she was waltzing with the rose. Across the bottom of the cover was the author’s name, Daffodil A. Hazel, in a shiny foil font.

  Elliot regarded this cover for a while.

  Ah, what have I got to lose? He shrugged. There’d only been this one book in the library on the topic.

  He opened it and scanned the contents. These, also, made him pause.

  Whence comes this fragile angel? Musings on Her Origins …

  Exquisite Friendship: Tales of the bonds between the Child and her Finder …

  Her sweetest tastes: Her eating habits and her hobbies …

  All this from one so small? Myths surrounding Her magical skills …

  And so on.

  Elliot had been thinking more along the lines of “Dealing with a Dud.”

  He found the index, and there were about twenty references to “the Crop Effect,” but every single one told wide-eyed-wonder anecdotes of branches breaking beneath the weight of apples, wheat fields growing to the height of buildings, and honey darn near flowing down the streets.

  The Crop Effect begins within days of the Butterfly Child’s arrival, said the author confidently, although it may take up to four weeks.

  Well, that deadline had passed.

  Elliot turned to the index again, but there was no entry for Sleep or Rest. None for Excess of either sleep or rest or lying around either.

  There was an entry for Illness, which excited him a moment, but it only took him to the chapter on Myths surrounding Her magical skills and the legend of how, centuries ago, Butterfly Children had spun healing beads that supposedly cured human sickness.

  He flicked through the pages at random, and occasional phrases jumped out: Some think that the fable of the genie in the bottle arose from early Butterfly Children, and In a way, she does grant wishes — just not necessarily the ones that you want.

  In the eating habits chapter, there was a claim that the bark of the sycamore tree was a delicacy for the Butterfly Child.

  She likes to read about current affairs, asserted a section on Hobbies. A thoughtful Finder will leave newspapers casually strewn about in the vicinity of Her doll’s house. How the heart swells to catch sight of the dear little thing struggling to turn those enormous pages with her tiny hands! (A thimbleful of honeydew is excellent for washing off the print stains.)

  The book was a waste of time.

  He snapped it shut, and there was the faintest sound from the doll’s house. Then quiet again.

  He stared at the tiny shape and as he did, the words of the Girl-in-the-World came to him:

  I keep the subject constantly in mind before me and wait till the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light.

  Okay, then, he thought, and he kept watching.

  He sat and stared at the Butterfly Child for half an hour, and just as his neck was aching and his legs getting agitated — just at that point, it came to him.

  Like a curtain shifting. Little and little, into a full and clear light.

  A dreaminess stole across him.

  It was words he’d read about the Butterfly Child in the Cellian guidebook — the time Corrie-Lynn had shown him — they pinned themselves up before his eyes, slow and graceful.

  When a Butterfly Child is happy, the crops in the surrounding area will flourish.

  He opened his eyes wide.

  “You’re not happy?” he said into the stillness of the room. “That’s the problem?”

  The Butterfly Child lay still.

  What’s not to be happy about? he thought, suddenly annoyed.

  What did you do about a depressed Butterfly Child? Get a therapist like the Girl-in-the-World used to have?

  He sat back on the couch and raised his eyebrows.

  Leaned forward to stoke the fire, and sat back again.

  Now this was strange.

  The warmth of that fire was running down his spine, and more than that, it was inside him. Like hands around a mug of something hot, only the hands were in his chest, at his heart, warming his heart.

  Somehow he wanted to weep with it, that warmth. Wasn’t it just a moment ago he’d been so annoyed with that sugar-sweet book and that dozing, miserable Butterfly Child? Now his fingertips brushed against the cover of the book and he smiled tenderly at the author’s name, Daffodil. There was a sighing sound, sighing in, sighing out — the room was breathing, the world was breathing — then he realized, no, it was him that was breathing. He was the world.

  Ah, that Butterfly Child, he thought, and he felt the tears touching at his eyes. He looked across at the doll’s house and realized his mistake was trying to compare her to physical objects: No object could ever be small enough to describe her sleeping lashes! She was as small as that sound — was it a sound he could hear? That Butterfly Child, she was as small as the sound of a page turning, in a distant room in a house.

  Elliot shifted ever so slightly but only so that this soothing warmth could find another part of his heart. His thoughts seemed to sigh their way together, and then a single word emerged. Kala! Ah, Kala. Now the warmth seemed an actual physical force, pressing at him so his eyes burned, and tears fell, and the warmth of those tears on his cheeks was an echo of the wonder in his heart.

  To have Kala in his life, to be allowed to kiss her, hold her, touch her, listen to her voice, and catch her eyes with his. That was all there was. That was the essence.

  He watched the fireplace, and he thought of sitting side by side with Kala on the roof of the barn, holding her hand. He thought of the essence of Kala herself, and he got the crazy idea that she was one of those fold-up postcards, the kind where you get ten picture postcards all joined together, but folde
d into one. He could fold her up, unravel her, fold her up again, their legs swinging side by side on the old tin roof.

  He let the butterfly book fall to the floor and took a notepad and pen from his backpack instead.

  Then he drew a little sketch of Kala’s hands, and underneath: I love you — Elliot.

  He looked at the paper and knew he had to take it to Kala immediately.

  Outside, there it was: the fifth-level Red, and the faint sound of warning bells. He nodded, not surprised. This Red was rich and warm, a lighter red, almost orange, and it misted at the height of tall trees, drifting in broad boatlike shapes.

  It was the Red that was making his heart fill up, he knew that now, but still, he did not hesitate.

  It might be the Red, he thought, but it’s also the truth. The Red is just illuminating truth.

  He took his bike and rode slowly into town — the truck would be too noisy for this mood — and he put the note into Kala’s letter box.

  Meanwhile, all around town, the fifth-level Red washed through the air, and people caught their breath and placed hands palm-down on their chests. Women climbed into attics to find old hats, old paintings, old love letters. Men wept quietly and tenderly. Children stared through windows at fields or ran outside to stroke their pet rabbits. Little Corrie-Lynn set to work on a new wooden puppet for her best friend, Derrin Twickleham.

  Jimmy Hawthorn walked out of his front door, down the path, through the gate, and knocked once, twice, three times, on his neighbor’s door. When Isabella Tamborlaine answered, he said, “I think you ought to know — well,” and they fell into each other’s arms.

  In the Sheriff’s station, Hector Samuels was sitting on the floor behind the counter. His face was a wreck of scars, lines, and tears. He was holding a gold ring so tightly that it was aching a mark into his palm. “Ah, Simon,” he rasped, meaning his lost love, his first love, who died of an illness twenty years before. He’d hardly thought about Simon this last decade or more, but here he was again, snared on Hector’s heart.

  Back at Elliot’s home, Petra Baranski was curled on her bed, turning the pages of the family photo album, touching the photos of her lost husband. Your face, your mind, your heart, your beautiful hands. Over and over, she mouthed the words, her own face streaked and stained with sobbing.

  The following day, the fifth-level Red was gone.

  Bonfire’s residents moved through town, stilted and awkward, bowing their heads to hide their red-rimmed eyes.

  It was a Sunday, and Elliot started the day by repairing the lock on the shed door. He guessed his mother must have broken it while trying to get inside — maybe wanting to see the old junk of his dad’s that was stored there, so she could hold it and weep.

  Then he headed to the square to meet his friends, but detoured via the schoolyard first, to check for a letter in the sculpture.

  There was a new one. He glanced around — sometimes he almost forgot that this was illegal — but the schoolyard was still, and empty, so he opened it and read.

  Dear Elliot,

  Okay, so, you win, Colours are the bad guys there.

  (But they DO all travel in waves. You’re wrong about that.)

  It’s funny, the way you’ve got red, blue, and green as the “original” colours, cause they’re the primary colours, right?

  I’ve been thinking about it, though, and you know what?

  THEY’RE NOT REAL.

  Now, listen, science was never really my thing, so you can ignore all this if you want, but I THINK what the books are trying to say to me is, like I said, that they’re not real. They don’t really exist. For two reasons.

  The first one is this. They’re just made of light. So, you know, in the dark, they’re gone. Switch off the light or put up a black curtain and they’re gone. Objects have no colour in the dark, did you realise that? It’s only the light hitting them that sets off this chemical reaction with their pigments or whatever, that makes them turn a particular colour. Otherwise, it’s kind of like, “If a tree falls in a forest and nobody sees it, does it really fall?”

  Yeah, sure it does. The tree falls. But with colours? Well, if a red violin is sitting in the dark, is it really red?

  Nope. Not in the dark it’s not.

  So, that’s the first reason.

  The second reason is this. Our brain invents colour. It’s this tricky thing our eyes do, which I won’t get into, except to say that our eyes have teeny-tiny things called “cones” and “rods.” The cones see red, blue, and green, and the rods figure out shapes. So, these cones and rods send little electrochemical messages to our brain, and the brain puts them together and invents colour.

  Who knows if all our brains are inventing the same thing? I mean, how do we know that the thing YOUR eyes see and call “red” is the same thing that I call “red”?

  Instead of saying, “Look how green the grass is,” we should actually say to each other, “Huh, that grass is absorbing light rays with wavelengths blah to blah nanometres, and reflecting light rays with wavelengths blah to blah nanometres, which the cones and receptors in MY eyes are seeing as a certain shade which we have chosen to label GREEN and I realise that your brain accepts the label GREEN, but I wonder what you actually think GREEN is?”

  Anyhow, all this is leading to my suggestion for how to deal with dangerous Colours in your kingdom.

  It is this:

  CLOSE YOUR EYES.

  And the Colours won’t be there.

  My mother seems okay at the moment. I’d kind of like her to see a doctor, but she just looks confused or irritated when I suggest it, and remembers some sewing job she’s forgotten or something she wanted to ask the computer guy downstairs. I’m not too worried cause my dad should be here soon, to get us, and he’s the kind of guy who knows how to fix things. Like, he’ll look at her and he’ll KNOW right away what she needs, and how to get it.

  Whereas I’m kind of like, one day, OMG, SHE’S REALLY SICK, and the next day, um, is that my imagination or is she sort of off-colour? And if she IS sick, will she get better on her own or does she need antibiotics? Or just to eat better and that?

  And so on.

  When my dad does get here and takes us back to our usual life, I’ll be able to see my real friends again — Tinsels, Corrigan, and little Warlock.

  Anyhow, I liked your letter but I’m not sure that the “Kala” girl is working for me.

  She’s kind of too much? If you know what I mean. The whole “artist and musician” thing — can’t she just be one or the other? And she can plough a field! And she’s so smart! I just sort of find I don’t like her that much. And does she have to have long glossy hair, or whatever you said? Next thing you’ll be telling me her eyes sparkle like dewdrops.

  Get a new girlfriend.

  And get back to me soon — like I said, I don’t know how long I’ll be here.

  Take care,

  M.T.

  As Elliot finished reading the letter, he looked up and there was Kala herself, walking toward him across the schoolyard.

  He hadn’t seen her since he left the note for her yesterday, and now, as he watched her approach, he saw that her face — especially her eyes — was sending him a complicated message. She was smiling but the smile had a tilt that told him that she knew his note had been brought on by the fifth-level Red. Her eyes laughed about this, but there was kindness too, and something deeper that said: Even if it was the Red, it was special, Elliot, and it kind of transcended Color.

  She meant she wouldn’t hold him to it, but she liked it all the same.

  Ah, thought Elliot, seeing all this, she’s amazing — and I’m sorry, but her eyes do sparkle like dewdrops.

  Over the next few days, winter snowstorms blew through.

  Then, late one night, an abrupt summer.

  Elliot was sitting on his bedroom floor, his research sprayed around him. The window was open to let in the hot breeze, and he was shirtless. Outside, the snow was in a frenzy of melting. />
  Eventually, the Butterfly Child would fly away for good — maybe sooner rather than later, seeing she was so sad — and the moment she did, Elliot would fly away himself. But lately he’d been wondering exactly where he’d go. His idea about the Lake of Spells and catching a Locator Spell was starting to wear thin, to fray around the edges — it even seemed childish and unlikely.

  So he’d ordered some new books on Colors, and these were stacked beside him now, alongside all his usual research.

  The Hunting Tactics of Third-Level Purples was the title of the first book. The next asked, Feeling Blue? Reimagining Cello’s Cooler Colors. Then: The Palette of Cello, or How to Paint the Sky — and so on.

  He sorted through the books and wondered why he’d ordered them at all — none of them seemed remotely helpful. A thin book called Thrupp’s Comprehensive Guide to Locating and Opening the Seams of Purple Caverns was followed by an even thinner volume, asserting that every word Thrupp uttered was demonstrably false.

  There was a long, chatty article written by a Color Spotter (a person whose hobby is tracking down Colors, taking photographs, and ticking them off lists — a little like an extreme bird-watcher) — who claimed he’d seen a concentration of third-level Purple caverns on the coast of the Inland Sea. Behind that was a manual put together by a Color Bender, which said there was not a single trace of Color in the entire Inland Sea.

  And now that Elliot looked closer, The Palette of Cello was actually an art manual. Nothing to do with Colors at all.

  So he let the stack fall, and turned back to the official documents. There was the coroner’s report on his Uncle Jon, the missing persons file on his dad, and the other one, on Mischka Tegan.

  He pushed these aside, and then he stopped, and pulled the latter back.