Flicker Blue 1: Plain Jane

by Brea Nicole Bond

  ***

  “Come on, Sophie. Did you even wash your hands?” Hollis dropped her hand with a disgusted flourish.

  “Obviously,” she replied, pointing at her half-dried hair. “Pretty hard to wash your hair without doing your hands in the process.”

  “Well, you look like you brought half the kale plot back home with you. Here…use this.” He handed her a cuticle brush and turned on the sink. On the counter next to her, he pulled an assortment of bottles and compacts out of a large rectangular green bag and arranged them on a wooden tray. His father would have rolled over in his grave if he knew that his only son possessed a bag full of make-up. He’d collected it a little at a time since the first production he’d helped the commune kids put on. Sophie herself had purchased a few of the items for him from the thrift store on her forays into town—she went every other week to tend one of market stalls—and he had amassed an impressive variety of paints and powders since then.

  Not for the first time, Sophie wondered what Terrance, her stepfather, would have thought of Hollis’s plays. They were only short productions of classic stories put on for the neighbors, but they were far more frivolous than anything he’d allowed in his day. She was deeply proud of her mother for recognizing how much joy the farm residents found in the simple entertainments, or how much pride the children took in creating them. Burying Terrance was the hardest thing Hollis and Sophie had ever endured together, but Hollis’s life was so much easier now. He would probably have agreed…not that she would ever dream of voicing such a thought out loud.

  Just the night before, Hollis had staged an assortment of Greek myths for the pleasure of the neighbors. Dinner was eaten outside on long makeshift tables before the stage he’d built with some of the older kids last year. Sparrow had made a stunning Athena, and the sight of little Dyl Arlen running around like Hermes with glittery cardboard wings taped to his ankles would be a source of laughter for weeks to come. A couple of the neighbors had pulled out guitars and played at least a dozen songs together afterward. Toward the end of the evening, Adam and Sparrow’s dad had joined in on his mandolin—an occurrence usually reserved for more formal occasions, like weddings. That sort of celebration had never spontaneously taken place when Terrance managed the commune. But something about Hollis was pure magic. The kids adored him, and while the adults remained a bit polarized in their opinions, they had no authority to prevent him from spreading his magic to the rest of the farm.

  “Sophie? You’re doing it again. Please scrub your nails so we can get on with this. I promised Jenn and Sparrow that I’d do their make-up, too.”

  Sophie looked down at the untouched brush in her hand and the free-flowing faucet. Her hand snapped forward to turn off the valve. She wasn’t like some of the other girls, who needed to be reminded not to waste the water supply. What is wrong with me today?

  “Sorry. What time are they coming up?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Um, ten minutes or so. We have time. Let’s work in here, where I have more light.” He carried the tray to his bedside table and took the shade off of his lamp. When he moved her dressing chair directly into the bright glow, he motioned to her. “Sit here.” He sat down across from her on the edge of his bed.

  “How do you want me to fix my hair?” she asked as he swiped a sponge filled with cold liquid pigment across her cheek.

  “I don’t. Just relax and trust me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Good. Now stop talking and close your eyes.”

  Ten minutes passed painfully, and a small tap sounded on their bedroom door. It cracked open. “Knock, knock…” sang a sweet voice from the hallway.

  “Come on in,” Hollis answered, and he stood up to meet them at the door. Sparrow bounded in and gave him a hug. Her fiery curls were arranged in an intricately braided crown around the top of her head, though a few small wisps had already managed to escape. She wore a princess costume that looked suspiciously like some old curtains that once hung in the Thatchers’ living room, and she was beautiful. Something about the lightness in her step suggested that she was well aware of the fact. Her brothers would certainly be busy keeping an eye on her tonight.

  Jenn came into the room slowly. She was a rare only child among the commune kids, and she’d always resisted being treated like a sibling by the rest of them. It was as if she didn’t know how to let them love her. At fifteen, she was only a year and a half younger than Adam, yet she had never once been a part of any of their games. The kids older than her had played together, and the kids younger than her played together now, but Jenn existed somewhere in the middle. She was darker than most of the others, with deep olive skin and inky black hair that she shared with her mother. Tonight, she wore a simple black dress. Her hair hung loose, so it was hard to tell where it ended and the dress began.

  “And what are you?” Hollis asked, little Sparrow still enveloped in his arms.

  “I-I’m a witch,” she answered, her voice sounding unsteady and a bit crushed. “You can’t tell, can you?”

  Hollis held out an open arm and pulled her into the embrace he shared with Sparrow. “Not to worry. No one will question your costume after I’m through with you.”

  “O…kay, I guess.”

  He sat them down on Sophie’s unmade bed. “Just let me finish up with this one,” he said.

  “Ha! This one needs to be about finished, anyway,” Sophie snorted. “How much longer is this going to take?”

  “Nearly done, now.” Hollis worked a brush onto her closed eyelids, then directed her to look up as he pressed powder into the sensitive skin beneath her eyes.

  He’s spent an awful lot of time on my eyes, she thought as he picked up a tube of mascara. “Seriously, Hollis? You already stuck those fake eyelashes on me. What do you need that for?”

  “Just relax…” he whispered as he twirled the wand through her eyelashes, now long enough that she could clearly see them. “…and we’re all finished. Let’s get your dress.”

  Sophie stood up and twisted her stiff neck from side to side, then turned to the two eager girls seated on the bed behind her. Jenn flinched, and Sparrow let out a delighted squeal. “What?” Sophie asked as Hollis began carefully guiding the dress over her plain cotton slip.

  “You have to let her look in the mirror, Hollis,” Sparrow demanded.

  “In a minute. First these.” He revealed two long black lace gloves. As Sophie put them on, she noticed that he’d altered each finger to end before the knuckle. “Aaaaand, this,” he finished as he flipped a long piece of a similar black lace onto her hair, which was dry now but definitely tangled. When he was confident that he’d fixed it securely with a dozen tiny combs, he steered her to the mirror.

  Sophie’s reaction was the same as Jenn’s had been, and she nearly tripped over the hem of the dress when she jumped backward. “Whoa,” she whispered, and the beautiful, terrifying creature in the mirror mouthed the word with her. “I’m a bride?”

  “A corpse bride,” Hollis corrected as he fluffed out the skirt. “You told me once that the only way you’d ever get married was over your dead body…well, what can I say? I was inspired.”

  As Sparrow launched into a fit of giggles so contagious that even Jenn couldn’t resist joining in, Sophie took a closer look into the mirror. Her pale blond hair and fair skin seemed bright white against the dark black and purple make-up around her eyes—she was nearly the same color as the unadorned bits of the dress. Her eyes were usually a light shade of bluish gray that tended to reflect whatever color she was wearing, but framed so heavily in black they were enormous and almost as white as her flesh. This is so creepy. She turned her face to the side to see her profile. Every detail of the black lace was visible over her light hair. “You are a genius,” she said to Hollis with a wicked grin.

  He bowed. “And you are my muse.” The siblings shared a silent, holding glance—an instant that nobody else was present in the room—and then simultaneously blinked. “Go cle
an your fingernails now. So, who’s next?”

  “Ooh, ooh! Me!” Sparrow cried.