The Awakening of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  I stared at the fall of her brown hair, wavy, similar to my own, but hiding someone normal beneath.

  Black motion on the page forced my eyes down again, then the pen moved, slipping out from beneath my finger and rolling to the edge of my desk.

  Small inked fingers splayed to each side of my hands. My heart hammered harder. I could feel the paper pushing around the edges of my fingers, tiny inked digits trying to lift mine. I closed my eyes and swallowed. Breathe. In, out, in, out. I smoothed my hands across the flat paper. Normal. I took another breath and looked down.

  No inky fingers, no movement. The figures were once again standing in frozen torment.

  Ok. Sure, no problem. I felt lightheaded. My pulse was racing, and the beat of my heart thumped through the veins of my wrist. I looked to where the feeling concentrated. Dots of henna brown were forming a vague pattern across the pulsing skin. The creature I couldn't stop doodling was taking shape on my flesh.

  I looked up. The girl across my worktable was staring at me, eyes pinched. Her expression was a familiar mixture of horror, pity, and accusation, as if she was sure I was two moments away from slitting the skin I'd been staring at.

  I had heard the rumors. Quiet Little Florence Crown had become Mad Ren Crown. Covered in his blood, I had killed Christian, the fury of my psychotic rage causing me to blow the entire utility lot. Or, it had been a tragic accident that had caused my mind to snap due to his loss. Rumors had spread quickly at school of my insane ramblings. Why the specifics of my ramblings—concerning magic, electricity, and men with weapons—were never remembered, and hadn't spread online, was a mystery I didn't have the energy to care about anymore.

  Even the people I had been friendly with had that mix of expressions when they looked at me. I chose to stay far away from them most of all. It hurt more.

  Half a person.

  I was half a person now.

  My fingers curled, my veins pulsed, the henna brown dots darkened.

  I pictured a paper bag and my cheeks caving in and bloating out in its depths.

  Christian's voice yelled in my head, “Breathe, you idiot!”

  Breathe. Right. In, out, in, out.

  The henna dots faded to a light freckle.

  “Miss Crown. Lovely work,” an accented, luxurious voice said from behind me. Mr. Verisetti's long fingers placed a wrapped toffee next to my sketchbook. “Keep it up.”

  He moved around the table and said something in a low voice to the girl. She blushed, averted her gaze, then gathered her things and moved to another table. I shakily unwrapped the toffee and shoved it into my mouth. As soon as it touched my tongue, the smooth bottom layer melted. I closed my eyes. The rich, smooth coat settled in my mouth, then the next layer melted. It was like ocean waves riding over my tongue and softly crashing in my ears. Calming and settling me.

  There were no worries. The other students had stopped watching me. And the only magic that existed was in Mr. Verisetti's toffees. Even our cranky Calculus teacher loved them.

  “I desire your help with something, Miss Crown.”

  I looked up at Mr. Verisetti, and the classroom lights caught on the small gold cuff around his upper ear, the only jewelry he wore besides a wide black band around his left wrist.

  I checked my wrist reflexively. It was completely clear. I crossed my arms tightly, tucking my hands and wrists firmly beneath. Another layer of toffee melted, and I let my arms relax on the table, worries drifting away.

  “Sure.” I liked Mr. Verisetti. Everyone liked him. And he never called me Florence like some of the other teachers. He either used the very proper Miss Crown or Ren, the nickname Christian had given me long years ago. “What do you need?”

  My eyes wandered to the collection of prints that he had hung on the wall after he had replaced our old instructor four weeks ago. They were nice, simple pictures of flowers, gardens, and natural wonders.

  But weirdness suddenly hit and the prints swirled and became strange and fantastic. Moving like stylized videos—brush strokes lingering like tracers as teenagers violently battled each other with blasts of colored light and strange objects, while others raised zombies and storms. Hints of a magnificent hillside university landscape with fields of poppies and wildflowers vied with the scorched earth, death, and destruction of the foreground.

  “You have earned the glorious job of mixing paint.”

  I ripped my eyes away from a print of a girl standing over a boy on a field, restoring his life force—his back arched and his arms flung to the sides, caught in the stillness between death and life. It was hard to breathe.

  Mr. Verisetti was observing me with a smile.

  Another layer of toffee melted.

  My lips lifted in automatic response. It was always easy to smile at Mr. Verisetti.

  “Glorious.”

  He chuckled. It was smooth and rich, gliding along the surface like everything he did. Dark haired, with golden skin and eyes, I wondered, not for the first time, how old he was. I guessed thirties, but had heard all sorts of weird opinions from others—everything from being in his late teens to early fifties, as if he was whatever the person wanted him to be.

  “True glory,” he said. “The greatest artists are masters at mixing. Masters mixing for their masters.”

  Despite his urban hotness, Mr. Verisetti loved to speak in old world terms. Masters and servants, mentors and patrons. Giving up one's soul to art.

  “You don't want me to use a tube of Hot Pink Glitter Extravaganza?” I joked, feeling better—relaxing my tight shoulder and neck muscles. Art class served as my daily Prozac now.

  “Definitely not. We will use these.” He carefully placed eight dishes of crushed pigments in front of me and a jar containing what looked and smelled like linseed oil.

  Excitement sparked. “You want me to mix paint from scratch?” Something in me strained at an invisible leash in exhilaration.

  Maybe Mr. Verisetti would let me do a quick landscape after completing my task. My eyes moved to the prints on the walls. Maybe a fantastic hillside town? Maybe a girl raising the dead? Excitement thrummed within me at the thought, and I leaned forward with my elbows on the table.

  “Yes.” The conspiratorial look in his golden eyes reinforced my thrum. He placed a flat glass surface in front of me, then added a bell-shaped glass muller and spatula on top. Two other glass surfaces were placed to the side. “Interested?”

  “Most definitely.” The oil kit I had wanted to purchase weeks ago...I hadn't been able to ask for the supplies after returning from the hospital, even though my parents would have probably purchased anything I had asked for. The emotional need had lodged somewhere between my overwhelming guilt and despair.

  But now...the fervor to create a picture of resurrection from scratch was beating inside of me—heavy drum beats accelerating to a frenetic meter.

  “Patience, patience.” Mr. Verisetti's voice was soothing, but pleased. “These particular pigments will combine in whatever way you specify. Mix your first choice onto this.” His hand passed over the square glass surface. “Trust your instincts each time a decision forks before you. How does each color make you feel? For what might a color be used? Create the visual story and stir in the essence, matching the consistency of the medium to the narrative behind. Lay the groundwork, Miss Crown, for the manifestation of a magnificent...awakening.”

  The air felt heavier, the thrumming became a steady beat that swirled the air around it like a finger poking through a curl of steam.

  Something about his words made me pause, but another layer of toffee melted, and I let the unease dissipate as I relaxed again. Mr. Verisetti was examining me closely, so I nodded quickly, and fairly leaped to the task. I made my first pigment choice quickly and felt a thrum slide down my arm and into my fingers as I poured a small dollop of linseed into a crater of pigment, then carefully folded the mixture together, spreading and lifting with my spatula. The ache of loss flowed red.

  I considered the oth
er pigments and made a second choice. The departure of the other part of my soul spilled gray. I added a third. The loss of my very identity, so wrapped in another being, was a motley green. Sprinkle, pour, stir, consider, release. Far better than any other therapy techniques I had tried; the task discharged internal energy that had been plaguing me since Christian's death. The kind that had kept me awake night after night.

  Discharging, but bringing with it an intense canvas of white in my mind.

  My thumb dipped to the painted surface almost absently. I examined the swipe on my finger, longing running through me. I wanted to wipe my thumb across a blank page, form a circle, form anything.

  Mr. Verisetti had been a godsend to me, but for some reason had denied me the opportunity to paint, and strangely, I hadn't been able to pick up a brush at home. The desire to ask for a canvas formed, then stuttered on my tongue, hanging there between my parted lips. The urge to paint itched under my skin. Dried paint flakes buried beneath and needing water and brush to free them. But for some reason I couldn't utter the request.

  My eyes slowly drifted to my sketchbook on the table, and my thumb automatically extended. A circle...

  A cloth intercepted my thumb before it hit its goal. “Let me help.”

  I looked up to see Mr. Verisetti examining me, a smile hovering at the edges of his lips. He held the cloth cupped under my thumb.

  “Some of our greatest artists exploded and died before finishing their masterworks. The loss pains me. If only they might have exploded properly. Afterward.”

  I wiped the paint off on his cloth with a quiet thank you. The cloth was damp and the paint seemed to suck right off my thumb. I shook off the strange thought and concentrated on his words.

  “Exploded?” I tried to recall any artist who had combusted. I couldn't come up with one. The sounds of the other students intruded into my thoughts, their scratching pencils and quiet murmurs. I had forgotten there were other people still in the room.

  He carefully wrapped the smeared paint into the cloth, then waved his free hand, the edges of his eyes creasing, his lips entreating, as if he was sharing a secret. “Their artistic self exploded.”

  “Oh.” Self-destructing artists weren't an uncommon thing in history. All that lead poisoning.

  He put the cloth into a plastic bag, then placed it on a high shelf. “Such a shame. All of that passion and energy has to be funneled correctly. Make a misstep and boom.” He signed with his hands. “Artist and earth chunks everywhere. With nothing big enough even to piece back together or use.”

  I smiled in response to his entreating grin and dramatics. “That sounds dire.”

  “That is why a good artist must find the right...mentor. Are you interested in destroying the ordinary, Miss Crown?” He leaned toward me in the same conspiratorial, playful way. His eyes seemed oddly cold, though, intensely focused. I blinked, and they were warm again. “Destroying this world and creating it anew, even should it bury you in darkness?”

  “Will it bring my brother back?” The words wound from my tongue and released into the air.

  I couldn't believe I had just said that. But the last bit of the toffee unraveled and melted and I relaxed into my seat. Mr. Verisetti never gave me pitying glances or uttered useless clichés about time healing all wounds. He just accepted the strange things I said, without judgment, in the same way Christian had.

  I wanted to do anything to make him happy.

  He smiled. “Keep mixing, Miss Crown.”

  But it took a moment to make my hand obey. Distrust...no, trust. A headache crept along my temples and a bitter taste replaced the lingering toffee for a moment. I forced my hand to move. Forced my thoughts to my brother. The paint in front of me turned an odd lavender shade. Just this side of being identified as brown. It was a moody color. Nostalgic and sad. Haunted and trapped.

  I used the glass muller and pressed harder, thinking of Christian, of my failure in protecting him, of death and the afterlife.

  I stopped grinding abruptly. My mind—and the beat under my skin—told me the lavender was done.

  With my spatula, I collected the paint into the center, then slid the glass surface to the side. The bitter taste in my mouth grew. I lifted one of the two remaining glass surfaces and mixed pigment and oil into a pile of garish orange paint to match the taste. The mixture thinned and thickened as I added linseed or pigment. I ground with the muller to coat each particle, trying to find the right consistency, constantly feeling it was a hair off. That everything was slightly off. Another toffee appeared next to my hand, and I quickly unwrapped and placed it on my tongue.

  Sated and relieved, I finished the orange.

  Mr. Verisetti was usually a proponent of purely primary colors in warm and cool shades to start a palette, and even while allowing for a dollop of black, he would say with a slow smile—“Better to mix your own black, for there is no true black in nature.”

  We had always used manufactured paint on our palettes, though. When an artist made paint from scratch, maybe she could choose whatever hues she wanted with which to start.

  The sprinkles of lapis lazuli heavily called to me, so I dumped the lot onto the last glass surface. Crushed lapis lazuli made ultramarine paint, the pinnacle hue of the old masters. I added a bit of the crystal that looked like crushed glass and a spoonful of paraiba tourmaline, producing something exciting and exotic swirling within the oil.

  Just like the boy's eyes...

  Pressure gathered under my skin, and I stirred harder. I stared at the colors mixing beneath my hand, a charged reflection of the mix inside of me. Magic. It was like there were little zaps of static beneath my skin, whirling around, seeking an outlet.

  “An interesting choice,” Mr. Verisetti said, as he observed from his position in the chair across from me. One of his fingers reached across the worktable and tapped mine, and the electricity settled. “I have only seen such a color twice.”

  I would have considered the tone of his voice sinister, if it had come from anyone else. Something tried to smooth over me at the negative thought, and I struggled for a moment, my hand stilled above the paint.

  “Almost ready,” he said soothingly.

  A layer of toffee melted. Mr. Verisetti picked up the last glass surface, and rose from his chair.

  I looked down at my sketchbook. My pen was in my hand. A butterfly was emerging from a cocoon. I blinked at the pen. When had I picked it up? The butterfly emerged fully and quivered weakly inside the paper. Its wings grew stronger and steadier, and soon it was fluttering all over the page, hitting the edges, looking for a means of escape. I could almost feel the puffs of air on my fingers.

  I looked up to see the reactions of the other students, but they were all frozen over their projects, unmoving. No, that couldn't be right. I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes, then slipped from my seat and headed over to the art racks. I pulled out an old canvas.

  A self-study. I used to love doing self-portraits—delving into the deep recesses of my mind and determining how to present emotion and thought on canvas.

  The darkening afternoon shadows made the sketched features lackluster. I wanted to make the penciled long hair brown—maybe add a few happy red and gold highlights. To make the colorless eyes a festive teal with a ring of sapphire, instead of dark and empty. I wanted to paint a smile on my face. And at the same time, I couldn't see placing anything there other than the strained, haunted look of the sketch.

  Need.

  There was an easel next to me. A sudden addition worthy of my shifting dreamscape.

  I pushed the canvas in and turned to the easel. A fresh piece of paper was pinned at the top. There was one unmarked tube of paint, one toffee, and two pieces of charcoal in the bin—one a pencil and one a raw chunk.

  I picked up the toffee, turning it in my hand, then dropped it to the floor, my mind rejecting it. I wasn't sure why, but I wasn't going to eat toffees ever again.

  I lifted the raw piece of charcoal. It
felt strange in my hand, as if there was something just slightly off in the texture. I stroked a stripe of black down the page, bisecting it.

  Two figures quickly took form on the left side. I saw those lone figures in my head even as my hand worked on the right. One gone, one still here six weeks later.

  I looked to the right side of the line and saw I had drawn a box. Ornamented and alive. Sooty and vibrating. As if I could reach over, dust it off, and open the lid. I reached toward it, my fingers still wrapped around the charcoal stick. The lid moved. Just a crack of an opening, but it was there now where it hadn't been before. And suddenly, despite the insanity of the thought, I needed to see what was inside.

  Paint it. It was a whisper of a voice in my head, but I nodded along—yes, of course that is what I should do. I could almost taste the linseed. Without taking my eyes away, I blindly reached for the tube of paint, and energy shot through me as I touched it. Ultramarine blue with a charged edge squeezed out onto two fingers. Just like the mixture I had made, but with something—glistening—added, before being transferred to a tube. I didn't spare a moment to grab a brush. I had to get paint on that box right now.

  I had finally come unhinged, and I didn't care. There was something alive in the deadened paper world that contained a representation of my brother.

  My loaded fingers reached. The box fairly resonated with anticipation, golden light shooting out around its edges. Just one more inch to the paper—

  “Glorious,” a voice whispered.

  My hand jerked, and the paint flew in a wide arc as I swung to the right in terror. Mr. Verisetti wiped the paint from his cheek in one easy motion, then flicked it. No lingering smudge of paint marred his skin.

  I knew him—he had been my favorite teacher since he had begun teaching four weeks ago—but in the strange zone still holding on to me, there was something otherly familiar about him as he examined the paper. Or perhaps, familiar in an other way.

  “Glorious,” he repeated.

  “Um, yeah.” I inched away. This man I had considered both my savior and friend suddenly seemed anything but. It was as if I were straddling two worlds and seeing both—where he was charming in one, and deadly in the other. At a run, it was about a dozen steps to the door. At present, though, he would intercept me.