Beautiful Blue World (14 page)

I WALKED THROUGH AN
open space, an uncertain landscape of odd slashes of red and brown and black.

A road formed beneath my feet, the gritty gravel looking sharp at first, then fuzzy, then sharp again, as it crunched beneath my steps.

I looked up; the landscape had been brushed through with a smeary gray, changing all the forms, as if wind tugged at their edges, making them indistinct and drifting.

And only when I thought
wind
did I feel it on my skin, whipping roughly by, raising up a howling noise.

Up ahead, on the road, a figure started to take shape, first built out of the grayness itself, but with dark gashes indicating eyes and mouth. Then brown hair became visible, and, in a surprising splash of color, a green cap.

“Father!”

The wind tore my breath from me.

“Father!”

But the fuzzy face turned, the figure stepped and shrank, moving away from me.

“NO!”

He would disappear into the great swirl of color and rush of noise; he would no longer exist.

“Wait!”

I fixed my eyes on the green cap, somehow growing dimmer and smaller as I ran toward it, my feet shoving the black gravel as I hurtled.

He was smaller, then bigger; nearer, then farther.

“Father! Wait! It's me! It's Mathilde!”

Finally he was within inches, his back still turned to me.

“Wait!”

I threw my hand out, and, while it looked as if my hand touched his elbow, I felt only air and that terrible whipping wind.

And when he turned to me, the features of his face were still black gashes, and they expanded to engulf him—until he disintegrated.

“No! Wait!”

My own screaming woke me up.

But as I came to, sweaty and thrashing in the immense darkness, a figure appeared in front of me.

I might have reached out, but fear that he or she was made of only wisps gripped me.

“It's Annevi.”

“Oh,” I choked. “Annevi.”

My mind filled in her form, sitting at the end of my bed, and, though my heart was still thudding hard, my panic faded.

“Why are you in my room?”

“You were screaming. For your father.”

“I'm sorry for waking you.”

“You didn't. I was up already.”

She hadn't tried to wake me, or comfort me. She was just observing me as if mildly curious.

My neck was hot and sweaty. I'd soaked my pillow.

“You aren't the only one who screams at night, you know.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Do you go into their rooms?”

“Not usually.”

“Why mine, then?”

“You sounded particularly terrified.”

“Well—good.” Why didn't she just go away? The show was over.

“What happened?” she asked.

Not to soothe.

Because she was curious.

I fell back against my pillow.

The wind, the swirling colors…

It hurt even to try to grasp it again—setting my head and my heart tight and racing.

Even if she didn't intend to help me, that didn't mean that it wouldn't help me to talk about it.

As the dream warped even further, I tried to recall it. To explain.

“I couldn't catch him. I couldn't hold on to him.”

“Your father?”

“Yes.”

When we'd both been silent for a short time, Annevi moved to stand up.

“Wait.” The word caught in my throat, as if I was still in the dream, trying fruitlessly to shout it. “Stay—stay with me.”

Annevi sat back down.

She didn't touch me, she didn't tell me it would be all right or even that she, too, worried about people from home, but curled up like a cat at the end of my bed.

For the first time since I'd left home, I fell asleep to the sound of someone else breathing.

A REAL CAT MIGHT
have wandered away in the night, but Annevi was still there when I woke and pulled up the black curtain.

She even stretched like a cat, and was still for a moment, looking around, remembering where she was.

“What are those?” she asked, taking in the one decoration in the room.

“Our handprints. Mine and my sisters'.”

“I don't have sisters.”

I wanted to smooth her rumpled hair, but I didn't. I'd never seen Annevi touch someone that way, gently; she always played so rough.

“Annevi? What did you bring from home?”

She paused for a minute. “I won a race once. Best in the school. Even better than the older boys. They gave me a medal for it.”

Something in my core went warm and cold at once.

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks. I wish they had races for us here.”

“You should tell the Examiner. I bet she'd like that idea.”

“The who?”

“The Examiner.”

“Who?”

“You know, the woman in charge.”

“Miss Markusen?”

Was that her name? I must have missed it when she introduced herself to the children lined up for the test, because I was late, talking with Kammi. And she must have told my parents, when she was taking away their daughter. I hadn't been listening.

“Why do you call her that?” Annevi asked.

“Because she gave us the examination, I guess.”

And she had been examining us ever since.

Annevi stayed quietly beside me for our morning walk, but she left to eat with Tommy, who had come to breakfast with us after an overnight shift, and Hamlin.

I peeled my boiled egg slowly, and ate it with big gulps of milk between bites.

Thoughts of going to talk to Rainer seemed like reentering the bad dream.

But after breakfast, I marched myself to the second floor, unlocked the door, and entered.

His paintings, now dry and warped, lay between the fencing. When I slid them to my side, they crinkled and crackled.

Rainer sat, knees up, in his own corner, his breakfast untouched. He, too, had a boiled egg, though his glass was filled with water rather than milk.

Milk was for children. Especially these days.

Even the egg seemed generous, as there weren't a lot of those, either.

Generous to give a prisoner.

The enemy.

Dark circles surrounded Rainer's eyes, as if he had been up the whole night crying. As if his dreams had been as colored by the paintings as mine had been.

But that wasn't right.

The paintings hadn't colored his dreams; his dreams had colored the paintings.

He wasn't much older than Tommy, after all.

“You should eat your egg,” I said.

He looked at me.

“You should eat your egg.”

He picked it up, cradling it, warm and smooth, in his hands. Then he gave it a brisk knock on the floor and started peeling it. He made it last six bites, and finished up with a swallow of water.

I studied his paintings. Something that looked like a house appeared in many of them.

“Is that your house?” I asked.

He didn't answer.

That wouldn't have made sense, for it to be his house.

If he had been fighting on the ground…“Were you in the Skaven lands?”

He knew I was there—of course he did, he had eaten the egg when I told him to. It was the opposite—he was making a point of knowing I was there, but choosing not to acknowledge me.

Which was an acknowledgement in itself.

He lowered his head, still making as if he was ignoring me.

My own dreams wouldn't go away.

Chasing, and failing to catch, Father.

Mother, Kammi, and Tye, Megs—all twisted red and black and gray as if burnt.

I wandered a road through blackened trees, or hollow shells of buildings, back on the bombed streets of Lykkelig. Looking for our house, which didn't seem to be anywhere.

I went to see Rainer a few times, but we didn't speak.

I stopped going so much.

I trailed through the living room instead.

Brid and Caelyn asked me to sit with them, but one afternoon Caelyn slid my papers back in front of her when I was staring into space instead of marking them.

She also finished my dinner for me, when I couldn't eat it.

The next morning I plopped onto a couch in the living room, not even pretending to do anything.

Gunnar eventually came over. “Mathilde?”

I stared at him.

“Lykkelig was okay last night.”

I rested my head back on the armrest.

“Do you want to come help us?”

He stood there, waiting for me to answer.

“No!” I yelled, sitting up. “I don't want to talk about who's being bombed!”

Gunnar walked away.

When he returned, he had the Examiner with him.

She sat down next to me on the couch and felt my forehead.

“Thank you, Gunnar,” she said. He went back to his group and sat down. “Did you find out something?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? Something's changed. Something's upset you.”

I didn't know if it was the kind of information she wanted, but it was the only thing I could think of. “I got Rainer to paint.”

She raised her eyebrows.

I brought the paintings to the Examiner's office.

She looked me over carefully, fixing on my face.

Could she see the dark circles under my eyes? I must have had them when she met me at school and when I arrived here; they had faded only to reappear.

When she was done looking me over, she turned to the paintings.

“Thank you very much,” she said, as if I had just given her a thoughtful birthday present, one that touched her.

“There's a house—or something, a building—that shows up again and again.”

“Yes, I see. Do you know anything more about it?”

“No.”

“Maybe you could find out? And also what his mission was in Sofarende.”

I sighed. “I can try.”

“Are you sure you're well, Mathilde?”

“Yes,” I said, but my voice did not come out very strong.