Colorless

by Rita Stradling

  “Perhaps a little closer to your size.” I put a hand over her head. “Plus a few inches.”

  She batted my hand away. “And what kind of dress are you looking for?”

  “One that would be easy to put on—without assistance—I don’t know.” I shrugged.

  She leaned in. “And why is this in secret?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Dylan Miller, I shouldn’t help you anymore—for the sake of my gender, I shouldn’t help you anymore.”

  “All right.”

  We stepped up to where the road turned into cobbles and crossed over to the horse road. When it was time for me to head the opposite direction as her, I turned, walking backward. “You don’t have to do it. But if you would, I’d owe you a big favor. Anything you can think of.”

  “Fine! We’ll see.” Turning, she walked up the horse road away from me, while I turned toward the stables.

  She’d steal me the dress, I was almost sure of it.

  The morning went quickly. Whoever had put Marc away had done a piss-poor job of cleaning him. I whistled as I scraped out the mud on his last hoof. Marc was once again the tolerant, food-obsessed horse I usually cared for. He’d finished his entire food trough and told me he wanted another with a nibble on my shoulder whenever I stood close enough.

  “Did they not feed you or clean you?” I asked as I picked out the last clots of dirt. Knowing Marc, it was possible they fed him a full meal and he was just trying to trick me into giving him a second breakfast.

  “Dylan!”

  The stable master hobbled swiftly through the aisle. Sweat dripped down his pudgy face and a somewhat frantic expression shone from his eyes. He grabbed the stall across from Marc’s, looking like he might pitch forward into it. “Dylan!” he yelled.

  “I’m here, Harvey,” I answered as I set Marc’s last foot down.

  The stable master spun, almost losing his balance. Panting hard, he limped across to Marc’s stall. “Thank goodness I found you.”

  Crossing to the door, I touched his back. “What’s the matter? You’re scaring me. How’s your leg?”

  I’d only seen Harvey run four times since Lord Klein hired me on. He’d had a bum leg as long as I’d known him, and the layers of weight he’d packed on since the injury didn’t help. Bloodshot eyes in a drooping, tired face found me.

  “The leg is—it’s okay,” he said on a heavy exhale. “The new master wants all the horses saddled and Goliath saddled for him.”

  “Goliath? Is he insane?”

  “I tried to tell him. I-I even walked up to the manor to remind him that Goliath is green-broke and only ever lets Lady Hazel or you ride him, but he wouldn’t have it.” He slowly crumpled forward into himself as he said it, like an old accordion.

  “He probably took that as a challenge—idiot.” I grabbed onto the stall door, gripping it hard. “He can’t ride Goliath.”

  “I-I tried to tell him. He said he didn’t think he needed an old, crippled stable master, especially if he’s too craven to saddle a horse.”

  I leaned down, staring Harvey in his watery eyes. “Listen, it’s better to quit now than to be charged with negligence when Lord Anthony falls off Goliath.”

  Harvey grabbed at his fleshy neck. “I-I’ve been working here forty anni, Dylan. The Kleins were like part of my family.”

  “Well, the ones worth caring for are gone now.”

  A tear dripped down his wrinkled face. “Where would I go? I’ve lived here half my life. My daughter, grandson—they’re all here.”

  I knocked my hand against the stall door. “Damn it!” Unlatching it door, I stepped out. “Don’t saddle Goliath. I’ll go talk to Lord Anthony.”

  “You’ll just end up losing the position instead of me. Maybe you can take Goliath out on a lead-line?” He looked down the row of stalls to where the ill-tempered stallion was watching us like he knew we were discussing his fate.

  Goliath wasn’t a gentle or tolerant horse, but he didn’t deserve what would happen to him after he threw Lord Anthony. Like everyone else who visited the manor, Lord Anthony had never been allowed to ride the stallion as per Lord Klein’s rules. I should have expected that the first demand the new lord of the manor would make would be to do exactly what had always been forbidden to him.

  “Unfortunately, I can’t afford to lose my position here for the foreseeable future, either,” I mumbled, remembering the monks’ behavior and Lady Annabelle’s friend, both of which I needed to be on the lookout for. “Hopefully, I’ll find Lord Anthony at least a little rational.”

  Harvey winced. “I do believe he may have had a couple drinks before I went up there.”

  “Is it…” I tried to look out the stable doors. “Did I lose track of the hour? It’s still before noon, am I right?”

  “About an hour or so away from noon, I think.”

  “That’s just wonderful.” I started striding out of the stables.

  “Come back here, Dylan, we’ll just have to saddle him!”

  Turning around, I walked backward. “Let me see what I can do.”

  I took the rest of the way up to the manor at a jog. The sunken servants’ entrance of the west wing of the manor opened at my approach. Several maids rushed up the sloping path between a rock-holding wall and the manor’s high, cream-colored outer wall. When one spotted me as I attempted to squeeze between them and the rocks, a taller, bespectacled maid leaned into another much shorter maid. “That’s him,” she whispered loudly.

  Two wide dark eyes blinked up at me before the pair ran on ahead. “Iconoclast…” one said, though their words grew too quiet to hear as I pushed through the group.

  As I tried to make it past, another maid stepped directly into my path. I leapt away, my muscles screaming in protest at the twisting motion as I stopped before her. “Don’t jump in front of a person like that, you could have hurt us both,” I snapped as I grabbed for the rocks. A second later, I realized it was Savannah—or whatever her name was—and she stood directly in the way to the heavy wooden doorway.

  “Move, please,” I said as courteously as I could.

  “Just wanted to say hello.” She grinned.

  “Yeah, fine, now get out of my way,” I said.

  “You don’t need to be sour. We can still be amicable even if I want to end the romance between us,” she said loudly.

  “I’m fine with ending your imaginary romance. And don’t practice your kissing on dogs, Samantha; let the poor creatures be.”

  She glanced around, but all the other maids had left. Still, she raised her voice, “I’m glad I didn’t let matters go further between us if I knew rejection would turn you into such a beast.”

  “Fine. I’m a heartbroken beast. I need to go.”

  Her lower lip stuck out in a pout. Obviously, she wasn’t finished making me suffer.

  When she opened her mouth to say something else, I raised my hand. “Say whatever lies you want about me—no one will contradict you. Just don’t approach me again. I’m not interested.”

  The servants’ door opened and I dodged around her, trying to catch it.

  An older maid looked over to me with red-rimmed eyes. “Oh, thank you, sir.” She grabbed the handle of a covered bucket that smelled foul even with its cover. She waddled through, carrying it dangerously close to Savannah, who rushed up the incline to be out of the way.

  I used the opportunity to duck into the servants’ passageway, which reeked of the maid’s bucket. I jogged through the narrow space, leaning into the wall to pass several footmen who had to be from Lord Anthony’s party with the way they dressed and were made up. My boots crashed against the worn, wooden stairs that connected the servants’ quarters and the main floor of the west wing.

  I pushed open the door at the top of the stairs only to stop and blink at the change in light.

  “Are you looking for Lord Anthony?” someone asked impatiently. When my vision cleared, I was nearly face to face with a servant stationed by t
he door, another made-up one I didn’t recognize. He was almost a head shorter than me, but his white wig piled up to my eye level.

  Leaning to look at the man, I said, “Yes, yes, Lord Anthony please.”

  “In his study.” He threw out a hand toward a place I’d visited many times. Lord Klein’s study.

  Nodding, I walked down the length of high windows in the drawing room to a tall decorative door at the end.

  I paused before the carved wooden doors, took a steadying breath, and knocked.

  “Let him in,” a man called from the other side.

  The door opened and another makeup-crusted face met me, the servant’s painted lips pinched as his gaze fell on mine. He stepped back. “Enter.”

  I scooted past him and into disarray. Lord Klein had kept his office so neat, but it looked as if every book had been taken from its shelf and every paper stacked to overflowing on the desk. In the center of it all sat Lord Anthony Klein, reclining in his chair with his attention fixed on the wide window to one side of the room.

  The moment I stepped inside, the painted servant rushed out. The door snapped shut behind me.

  Lord Anthony sat central in the room. He didn’t look at me, his eyes fixed away, staring hard at the window displaying the wide empty grounds. His dark hair fell in curls around his shoulders, long like so many lords wore. His face had that aristocratic refinement that was so common, too, among the peerage. The refinement of his features was somewhat dampened by a sickly cast to his skin tone, and the dark shadows that ringed his eyes.

  As he didn’t seem to notice my presence there, I stepped forward. “Lord Anthony—”

  “It’s Lord Klein now,” he said, still not looking over.

  “Pardon me, Lord Klein, if I could have a word with you about Goliath, sir.” I approached the desk slowly, but that still didn’t gain his attention.

  “I never knew a crippled man could run that fast,” he said, almost as if he was pondering Harvey’s tormented sprint in a scientific way.

  I stopped directly before his desk. “Harvey is very talented—he’s also considered the best horseman in Western Domengrad.”

  “That’s what my father always said, but I just can’t believe that a man like that could be of much use.” Finally, he turned his head, but not to look at me. He grabbed a bottle from where it had been perched at the corner of his desk and took a glass with his other hand. As he pulled the stopper from the top of the bottle, the sharp smell of the alcohol mixed with the musty, stuffy aroma of the room. “Would you care for a whiskey?” he asked, holding up the bottle.

  “No. No, thank you. About Harvey—he’s developed a new training method where you never need to hit your horse, whenever there’s a breach foal, he’s called—”

  “Seriously, man, contain yourself.” Lord Anthony—he would never be Lord Klein in my mind—laughed. “I don’t need you to sing the old cripple’s praises. You said there was something you wanted to request of me, did you?”

  I hadn’t, but that was why I’d come. Clearing my throat, I spoke carefully, “Harvey is the best with horses—but sometimes he gets tangled over his words when he’s in the presence of…” I gestured to him. “Great men.”

  “Does he?” Lord Anthony smirked, took a sip of his whiskey, and then gestured with his hand. “Please, continue.”

  “He didn’t know what your feelings would be on the statement, and he didn’t want to say anything that might offend you…”

  He set down his glass, seeming offended already. “And what would offend me?”

  “Not you, exactly. And it’s not a criticism of the monks—but he thought you might take it that way.” I affected a grimace.

  Lord Anthony’s eyebrows rose, the skepticism clear on his face. “The monks?”

  “Well, it’s a little strange, but they terrify the horses—Goliath especially. As mean tempered as Goliath is, he’s easily frightened where the other horses are usually less bothered.” I gestured to the window. “The monks usually arrive at noon. None of us want to go near Goliath’s stall when the monks are here—let alone try to saddle him. I could saddle him for you, but as scared as he gets, he might spook at the rustle of a bush. It’s up to you, of course.”

  “Ah, I see. The horse is fearful,” he said, sounding a little amused and like he didn’t whatsoever believe me.

  “It’s just what I’ve seen.”

  “This conversation is completely unnecessary. I changed my mind about wanting to ride before you arrived. I’ve already sent my companions ahead.”

  “I see.” I stepped away from the desk, holding up my hands. “I apologize for bothering you. I’ll just be heading out, then.”

  Lord Anthony stood abruptly, his chair scooting noisily over the wood floor. “I’ve been thinking quite a bit about yesterday—Dylan—that’s your name, right? Dylan?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lord Anthony walked around piles of papers and books, crossing to the windows. He said nothing for a few seconds before he whispered, “You will not see them. You will not hear them. You will not remember them.”

  “What the monks said, it’s been on my mind as well.” I stepped toward the door.

  Lord Anthony turned his head, regarding me with intelligent dark eyes. If drink was muddling his mind, his eyes showed no sign of it. “There are people I could imagine forgetting—my mother for one; she was never interesting or interested in me. There was a long parade of servants I cared little for growing up who I wouldn’t recognize if they were standing right in front of me. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

  I was getting a bad feeling that I did. I muttered, “That there are some people who are easy to forget.”

  He nodded. “But then, there are others—my father for one. Those people I spent every day or most days with. Those who were there for the moments that made me who I am today, people I doubt I could forget. How about that—does that make sense to you?”

  “It does.”

  He turned. “Do you have a family, Dylan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Imagine if someone erased one person from your family, your mother or sibling perhaps, from your memories—you remember the other parts—the words spoken to that person, the laughter, you remember how you felt—but where that person was…” He held up a fist and shot out his fingers like an explosion. “Nothing. What do you think would happen?”

  “I don’t know what would happen. I’d lose my mind.”

  “You are obviously weak of mind, then.” Taking a sip of his whiskey, he wandered back to the desk and took a seat. He swished his drink around in his hand, making the ice cubes clink against the glass. “But the true question—the question I’m asking you—is do you think you could completely forget someone so integral to your entire life?”

  “I’d hope not,” I muttered.

  He studied my face. “You’re what—my age, a little younger?”

  “I finished my manhood pilgrimage about a month ago.”

  “So you’re just a little bit older than me. And you worked for my uncle for—how long was it?”

  “Nearly four anni,” I said.

  “That’s quite a while. Were you close to my aunt and uncle?”

  I wanted to disconnect from his intense stare, but everything I did right now felt like it was being scrutinized. “As any servant,” I said.

  “What kind of servant are you, Dylan?”

  I looked around, trying to think of the answer he wanted. Though I could practically feel the presence of the door behind me, I knew I couldn’t just walk out—not if I wanted to keep my job.

  “I’ve been a stable hand mostly. I do some of the training. I’m good with animals, always have been, and they seem to be fond of me.”

  Lord Anthony opened a drawer in the desk. Reaching in, he pulled out a velvet bag and threw it across the desk with a loud clunk. “I’d like to offer you gold, thirty pieces, right now. But to earn the purse, you must first curse my uncle’s name, then wal
k across the grounds and spit on his grave right where it says, ‘Lord Warren Klein.’” When I didn’t move, he gestured to the gold. “Go ahead. Or do you need to bite the coins first?”

  “You already know I’m not going to do it,” I muttered.

  “What if I offered you Hope Manor? All you need to do is take a leak across both the lord and lady’s final resting place.”

  My hands clenched into fists at my side.

  His gaze flicked down to my hands before returning to my face. He didn’t smile, but I could practically feel the victory brimming from his too-sharp eyes. Gingerly, he grabbed the velvet bag off the desk and replaced it in the drawer, closing it with a loud snap. Looking over, he said, “You can go.”

  Hoping not to seem as rushed as I felt, I turned toward the door.

  “Oh, Dylan,” he called after me. “Since you say Goliath is craven by noon—saddle him for me first thing tomorrow morning, then.”

  I didn’t turn around. “If that’s what you want, sir,” I said as I let myself out of his office.

  12

  The Power to Destroy

  Annabelle

  My heart beat quickly as I hooked the three fingers I had left on my hand around the ladder rung.

  I was diminishing. No, that wasn’t exactly right. I was vanishing.

  For hours, I had lingered in the workshop, not quite able to force myself to leave. I’d needed to study the creations that my father and uncle had died to create. I needed to memorize Fauve’s lines and shading. Though I knew I was running down Joseph’s thinning fuel supply, I turned up the flame so I could fully inspect every nuance of each pamphlet.

  As I leaned a hand on the counter beside one of the pieces of art, my glove had collapsed a little more, exposing another transparent finger. I’d stared, not quite understanding what I was seeing for a second. The invisibility had slowly crept up my hand without me noticing. I felt nothing.

  Finally, it was all too easy to make myself leave, and I rushed to set everything right before extinguishing the lantern. I needed answers, needed to find out what was happening to me and how to reverse it before the invisibility crept up further. Faint light rested on me as I climbed up the shaft to the house above.