Shades of Grey

Eyes and the Colorman

I walked slowly home, all the while cursing myself for my own stupidity. Not just for needlessly putting myself in jeopardy with the most unpleasant family in the village, but also for not taking the opportunity to make a deal when it presented itself. I mused that there might, in fact, be something wrong with me.

Something odd in the head that seemed to beg my own destruction. First Jane, now Courtland.

I flushed out the cut with the hottest water I could bear and affixed some newspaper dipped in vinegar over the wound. I then sat on the edge of the bath and considered my position. Sally Gamboge or Courtland—perhaps both—had, for reasons unknown, killed Travis. This in itself was incredible, and aside from keeping it to myself, I didn’t see quite what I could do to avoid them. I could only hope that Courtland might consider me so terrified by my near miss that I would be forever silent. In this he was undoubtedly correct—as he so rightly pointed out, I had no proof. Nothing at all. Not even a motive. It didn’t make any sense. Yellows don’t kill Yellows. They support them, nurture them—and, if necessary, lie for them.

I took a deep breath and stood up to stare at my reflection. I moved the light mirror into position so I could study my own eyes carefully. Preston had warned me about the Gamboges’ “putting everything in my path to trip me up,” and his comment, while helpful, put me on an entirely different train of thought. I had tripped over the wheelbarrow the night of Travis’ loss because someone had placed it in my path.

And what’s more, done so under cover of darkness.

I had heard my mentor, Greg Scarlet, speak of the theoretical possibility of being able to see at night, and although it was an interesting concept, I had never given it a huge amount of thought. The night was quite simply the night: an empty time, a hole in your life. Nothing happened, nothing stirred. A time to be safe, the time to be home.

I stared closely at the entrance aperture of my eye. It was, to my best estimation, barely a sixteenth of an inch across. Not much light could enter, which was why we all saw best in bright sunlight. But Greg Scarlet’s reasoning was that, since there was a large area surrounding the pupil, it would seem to indicate that a bigger entrance hole would be physically possible. And from what I knew about the basics of photography: bigger hole, more light, see farther into the twilight.

Unusually, this wasn’t all conjecture. Many of the Previous who were featured in pre-Epiphanic photographs and paintings were noted for their strange wide-pupil “hollow-eyed” look, and the fact that they could see at least tolerably well at night was pretty much uncontested. But the vast quantity of optical correctives that had been uncovered seemed to suggest that whatever night sight they enjoyed was at huge cost to clarity of vision. Up until now, I had thought seeing in the dark was a lost skill, like speed skating or the cha-cha-cha, but it wasn’t: Someone had been out watching me the night I attempted to rescue Travis and had placed the wheelbarrow in my path to see if I would trip over it.

There was someone in the village who could see at night.

“Eddie?”

It was the Colorman, and I jumped guiltily.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “You should sing ‘Misty Blue’ if engaged in thingy—you know the convention.”

“I wasn’t thingying—I was looking at myself in the mirror.”

“Vanity is an abomination, Edward.”

“I was looking at my eyes.”

There must have been something uncertain in my voice, for the Colorman nodded sagely and told me he’d see me in the kitchen if I wanted to talk.

I went downstairs ten minutes later to find that the Colorman had made me a cup of tea. I couldn’t even begin to think what an honor that was. Someone titled His Colorfulness making me tea. It put my mind at rest almost immediately. At least I had someone on whom to unburden myself, and it also resolved the whole “Do I snitch on Jane?” issue, for with the wheelbarrow mystery finally resolved, I had something positive to give him. He had, after all, showed me considerable kindness regarding the National Color entrance exam.

But the Colorman was surprisingly uninterested in the wheelbarrow.

“That’s it?” he said when I’d finished. “You fall over a wheelbarrow, and all of a sudden people are doing things they haven’t done for over five centuries? Nothing happens at night, Eddie, that’s the point.”

“The wheelbarrow couldn’t have been left there,” I explained. “Perpetulite removes all debris. I timed it the following morning.”

“While fascinating,” he said in a voice tinged with displeasure, “I find this wholly far-fetched. Really, Edward, I was hoping for a little more information from you—something about the theft of the swatches.”

I had disappointed him. I didn’t want to tell him about Jane, so thought I’d give him something he already knew.

“I don’t think Robin Ochre misdiagnosed himself.”

“I agree,” replied the Colorman. “Do you know who his accomplice was yet?”

“No, sir.”

He gave me a piercing look. He knew I was hiding something. If I told him there was nothing, he’d know I was lying.

“I don’t know. Not yet. But there’s something else.”

“Yes?”

“I believe someone did the murder on Travis Canary.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is this related to the swatches?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You have proof?”

“Not really.”

“What about a motive?”

“I’m still thinking about that.”

“A suspect?”

“Someone . . . in the high Yellows.”

“Well, now,” he murmured in a disparaging tone, “I’m beginning to think you are the sort of person who does a great deal with very little.”

He meant a liar.

“Now, listen,” he said, “is there anything else you want to tell me?”

As bad luck would have it, that was precisely the moment when Jane opened the back door. By the look on her face, she had heard the Colorman’s last sentence. The two cups of tea and the relaxed style of sitting at the kitchen table probably spoke volumes, too.

I looked up, and she blinked twice. If she was surprised or angry, she didn’t show it.

“I’m sorry, Your Colorfulness,” she remarked in a respectful tone. “I was just collecting the washing. Am I disturbing you?”

The Colorman turned to look at her. I don’t think he’d given her much thought before now, and he smiled in a manner that to me looked like politeness, but to Jane would have appeared patronizing.

“What’s your name, my dear?”

“Jane, sir.”

“Well, Jane, has anyone ever told you that you have a very pretty nose?”

Her eyebrow twitched momentarily. “People tend to avoid mentioning it,” she said slowly. “I’ve no idea why.”

The Colorman told her that if he lived here, he would make a point of praising her nose quite often. Jane replied ambiguously that he might “think differently, given time.” He told her there were some shirtsin his wardrobe that could do with a pressing. She bobbed politely and departed.

I tried to say something within earshot of Jane to at least set her mind at ease, but the Colorman held up a finger to keep me silent until her footsteps had reached the top of the stairs. “Greys are notorious gossips and busybodies,” he said. “Now, what else can you tell me?”

“Nothing positive, sir. But I’ll keep my eyes open.”

“Good lad. And please, keep your wild night-vision fantasies to yourself, eh?”

I didn’t stay in the house. I didn’t want to have to confront Jane if she thought I was snitching on her. Mind you, I didn’t want to face the Gamboges either. In fact, being in a crowd or hidden in the broom closet were probably the two safest options for me right now. I packaged up Travis’ effects and wrote his postcode on the front, reasoning that he would have relatives living with him at his last address. While I was dispatching this at the post office, I was handed a telegram that had just come down the line. Constance had replied to Jane’s poem.

TO EDWARD RUSSETT RG6 7GD ++ EAST CARMINE RSW ++ FROM CONSTANCE OXBLOOD SW3 6ZH ++ JADE UNDER LIME GSW ++ MSGE BEGINS ++ MUMMY AND I GREATLY MOVED BY YOUR POETIC WORDS ++ APOLOGIES FOR SUGGESTING ROGER FRONT RUNNER WHEN NO DECISION MADE ++ ACTUALLY HES DEAD BORING ++ WILDLY EXCITED AT POSSIBILITY OF YOUR SEEING BUNDLES OF RED ++ DADDY CAGEY ON HOW MUCH PERCEPTION SECURES ME ISNT HE A TEASE QUESTION MARK ++ LOTS OF LOVE CONSTANCE XXXXXXXX ++ MSGE ENDS

It was excellent news—tantamount to making me the front-runner. She’d even ended the telegram with “All my love” and nine kisses, which bowled me over until Mrs. Blood explained that it would be the same price for two as for nine.

I returned home, made sure Jane wasn’t in the house, carefully filed the telegram in my valise and then hid under the bed for half an hour, before making my way down to the sports fields. The news from Constance raised my spirits a little, but probably not as much as I might have liked. Courtland had intimated that I wouldn’t be leaving, but he hadn’t met the Oxbloods—and when they wanted something, they generally got it.