Dispatch from a Colored Room
Page 13
there was dirt under her fingernails, a ragged cut just at her hairline. "Simeon Leblanc, am I right?"
The yellow-haired man smiled. "I can't think of the last time someone called me Simeon. What told you?"
The well-dressed woman pointed at his throat. "The scar. I'm a physician. Hana Tailleur."
Leblanc shook her hand. "Good. We need people like you, now more than ever. What can I do for you?" His eyes flickered behind her; she looked back, following his gaze, but saw nothing unusual.
"You're throwing in with your... what would you call her? Your stepmother?"
"I call her by real name. But we can call her Pel. And yes." Neither his face nor his body seemed to change, but something about Leblanc's gaze intensified, and Tailleur felt an icy lance transfix her. “We don’t support the resistance. It was a decision carefully taken. And not negotiable."
"I won't negotiate. I just wanted to ask you a question about your grandfather's illness."
Only razored silence came from Leblanc. His eyes flickered again to look behind Tailleur.
"The chancre he described. I'm not a neurologist, but the principal symptoms would have been problems with movement. Tremor, difficulty walking. Not behavioral problems." She paused a moment, searched his grey eyes with her own. "Hard to tell from the letters what he was suffering, of course. He didn't talk much about the symptoms, did he?”
Something in Leblanc's gaze seemed to say Go on.
"Well," Tailleur said, setting her stance against Leblanc's examination as she might against a gale, "he wrote the letters by hand, did he not? So you can tell for yourself." She blinked once, staring at the air in front of her, then met his eyes again. "Honestly, I can't believe she said she'd put a dandelion out, after what they did to your grandfather—"
Again, it was difficult to tell what exactly had changed in Leblanc's face, but where she had seen a slender pillar of ice and steel, Tailleur now saw a gangling boy. His grey eyes looked at her, brimming with terrible questions; then they looked back behind her again, and coldness and hardness settled back into his posture, his hands, the jut of his chin. She looked back again, still seeing nothing. "Wait here," said Leblanc, "we may have need of you—" And he was gone, leaping the seats two by two toward some indistinct and unmemorable object at the back of the theater, from which her gaze slid like water on glass.
Connect with Matt
If you enjoyed this story, please help me write more:
First and foremost, join my mailing list! That’s where you’ll hear first about new releases, promotions, and general updates on my writing. You’ll also receive a free copy of my post-post-apocalyptic science fantasy, The Dandelion Knight—a novel in the same world as this story.
Leave a review! Reviews help show readers that other people care about my work enough to comment. I love good reviews, of course, but the important thing is that you took the time to write the words. A critical review is better than no review!
Have a read on my blog (https://www.cobblerandbard.com), and subscribe via email or RSS if you’re so inclined. You can also find me on Wattpad and Twitter.
Thanks!
Matt Weber
Enjoying unemployment more than is strictly good for me
January 18, 2016
About Matt
Matt Weber is a data scientist by trade, a neuroscientist by training, a father and husband by love and grit and happenstance, a coffee junkie by necessity. He lives in central New Jersey with his wife and children.