Page 23 of Colour My World
She nodded faintly. The candle flickered. The colours lingered. She pressed a hand to her temple and waited for them to go.
They did not.
“Papa… Where is Jane?”
Her father patted her hand and left the room. The moment the door closed, the brown mist vanished.
Elizabeth counted the seconds. At fourteen, the door opened, and Jane entered.
A soft ivory glow surrounded her. It was not harsh, nor did it flicker. It embraced her like untouched snow in the quiet of morning.
“Jane, you are here.” Elizabeth bit her lip against the sudden burn in her eyes.
“None of that now, dearest.” Jane fluffed the pillows and placed them behind her back. “Whatever is the matter?” She settled on the bed’s edge and took Elizabeth’s hand.
The glow remained. Elizabeth hesitated. “It may be nothing…perhaps the effects of the fall.” She glanced away, unsure how tocontinue. “Things appear…different.”
Jane’s brow creased. “How so?”
“I know it sounds strange. When I awoke, I thought it a trick of the light.” Elizabeth looked down. “But it has not gone.”
“It?”
“The colours.”
“Colours?” Jane’s brow creased.
Elizabeth swallowed. “Around people. Not in the room, not on objects, onlyaroundpeople.”
Jane tilted her head, an eyebrow raised.
“Why would I see such things? Am I going mad?”
“No, you are not mad.” She reached out, gently grasped Elizabeth’s chin, and studied her face.
“Why do you look at me so?”
Jane hesitated, then turned from Elizabeth’s face to stare at their joined hands. “Your eye.”
Elizabeth gasped. She pressed two fingertips against her closed eyelid.
“What of it?”
“I-I believe you must judge for yourself.” Jane crossed to the dressing table and returned with a small mirror, placing the glass carefully in Elizabeth’s hands. “It must have occurred from your fall. It is not your mind. I am certain of it.”
Elizabeth took the mirror and held it face down. She could not look, not yet. Instead, blinking back tears, she traced its edge, the cool metal pressing into her palm.
“Lizzy?”
Elizabeth swallowed. She tilted the glass. The polished surface caught the candlelight, momentarily obscuring her face in a golden sheen. She adjusted it and stilled.
The face was hers—the familiar lines, the bruises from the fall. Her right eye, purpled from injury, stared back at her with the expected shade of brown, hazel flecks correctly located. But herleft eye…
She turned to Jane. “What…has happened to me?”
“I know not. But whatever this is, Lizzy, you are stillyou.”
Elizabeth’s fingers trembled as she traced the cool metal once more. She wanted to believe Jane. To be reassured. To pretend.
