Page 27 of Colour My World
She reached for her fork. The instant her fingers touched the silver, Lydia laughed. A spike of gold pierced the air. Elizabeth flinched; her fork struck her plate with a sound like shattering glass.
Her breath caught. The room blurred. She gripped the table's edge. Her pulse hammered. She needed air. Elizabeth pushed back her chair. The legs scraped across the floor.
“Lizzy?” Jane’s white light pulsed urgently.
Too many colours. Too much noise. Elizabeth staggered to her feet, nausea rising. “I—”
Her mother’s aura flared red.
Her father set down his knife. His tan remained unchanged. Watching.
Jane reached for her, but Elizabeth turned and fled.
* * *
In the stillness of her room, she sat at the dressing table, cradlingher face in her hands. The mirror before her sat silent and accusing.
She raised her head. One eye, the brown of her childhood. The other? Green as early leaves. The same face. And not the same. She closed her eyes and prayed.
“Thou art my refuge and my strength, my fortress in time of need. Grant me the fortitude to bear my trials with patience, the courage to stand firm in righteousness, and the wisdom to discern Thy will.”
She opened her eyes. No coloured mists. No flickering lights.
Only herself. And yet, not quite.
* * *
By December, Elizabeth’s strength had returned enough to permit brief walks beyond the garden. The fields lay bare under a pale winter sun, and the air held a crispness that stirred colour in her cheeks. As Christmastide approached, Jane declared that their duty to the tenants must not be neglected. Thus, Elizabeth found herself bundled into her warmest pelisse, accompanying her mother and Jane along the familiar lanes that wove between cottages.
Their first visit brought them to the Millers’ house, snug against the edge of Longbourn’s lower pasture. Thomas Miller, aged seven, stood stiffly by his mother’s side, his hair sticking up in untamed tufts.
“Good morning, Thomas.”
He scrubbed a sleeve across his nose and bobbed a quick bow, his eyes darting to the ground.
“Have you seen to the hens?” Mrs Bennet demanded, peering down at him.
Thomas shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I-I meant to, ma’am.” A ripple of light blue stirred about him.
Mrs Bennet tutted under her breath. “Meant to, indeed. Your poor mother must run herself ragged after you.”
Thomas flushed scarlet and stepped closer to his mother’s side. The blue mist wavered and then sank into stillness.
Beside him, his four-year-old sister clung to the folds of her mother’s skirt, her cheeks ruddy with cold. Around Sarah, Elizabeth saw nothing. No mist, no flicker. Only the bright, clean presence of a child.
Mrs Bennet handed over a parcel wrapped in brown paper: sugar, a bit of tea, and a shiny ha'penny tucked inside. Sarah’s eyes opened as wide as her smile.
No colours.
As they walked on, Longbourn Pond glistened under the weak winter sun, a shard of glass set into the muted earth. Their boots crunched over frozen furrows where the last rains had hardened to brittle ice, each step tracing a path across a field washed in silvers and faded golds. Bare trees clawed the sky, their dark branches etched against the faint grey of the clouds.
Elizabeth slowed, drawing in the picturesque: the icy blue sheen on the pond’s surface, the white lattice of hoarfrost in the ditch, the charcoal shadow of a hawk crossing overhead.
She could not have said why it pulled at her so.
Their next call brought them to the Taylors’ cottage, squat against the hedgerow. Six-year-old Johnny Taylor burst out barefoot despite the frost, trailing a broken spinning top in one hand. Elizabeth clutched Jane’s arm; a brief spell of light-headedness passed as quickly as it came.
“Mind your feet, Johnny!” Jane called, laughing. She patted Elizabeth’s hand.
