Эйми Бендер - The Color Master

But we need you, I said, and with effort, she squeezed my hand again. It is dark and glowing, she said, her eyes sliding over to lock onto mine. It is like loam, she said.

The sun? I said.

Tomorrow, she said. She closed her eyes.

When I got to work the next day, there was an elaborate thank-you note from the castle with a lot of praise for the moon dress, in this over-the-top calligraphy, and a bonus bolt of fuchsia silk. The absentees were returning, slowly, from their various tangents, when we received the king’s new assignment: a dress the color of the sun. Because everyone felt a little jittery about the Color Master’s absence and wanted to go with whatever—or whoever—seemed to work, I was assigned to the order. Esther told me congratulations. Sandy took over my rotating schedule duties. I did a few deep knee bends and got to work.

I liked that guy at the mine a little bit, the Manny guy, so I went back to ask about citrine quartz. He didn’t have any, but we had a nice roast-turkey lunch together in the spot of sun outside the rocky opening of the cave, and I told him about the latest dress I was making for the princess.

Whew, he said, shaking his head. What color is the sun?

Beats me, I said. We’re not supposed to look at it, right? Kids make it yellow, I said, but I think that’s not quite right.

Ivory? he said.

Sort of burnt white, I said. But with a halo?

That’s hard work, he said, folding up the cloth he used to hold his sandwich. He had a good face to him, something chunky in his nose that I could get behind.

Want to go to the faire sometime? he asked, looking up.

The outdoor faire happened on the weekends in the main square, where everything was sold.

Sure, I said.

Maybe there’s some sun stuff there, he said.

I’d love to, I said.

We began the first round of dyeing at the end of the week, focusing initially on the pale yellows. Cheryl was very careful not to oversaturate the dye—yellow is always more powerful than it appears in the bin. It is a stealth dominator, and can take days and days to undo. She did that all Saturday, while I went to the faire. It was a clear, warm afternoon, with stands offering all sorts of goodies and delicious meat pies. Nothing looked helpful for the dress, but Manny and I laughed about the latest tapestry unicorn craze and shared a nice kiss at the end, near the scrub oaks. Everything was feeling a little more alive than usual. We held another seminar at the studio, and Cheryl did a session on warmth, and seasons, and how we all revolve around the sun, whether or not we are willing to admit it. Central, she said. The theme of the sun is central. The center of us, she said. Core. Fire.

Careful with red, said the Color Master, when I went to visit. She was thinner and weaker, but her eyes were still coals. Her brother had gotten up to try to take care of her and had thrown out his back to the worst degree and was now in the medicine arena, strapped to a board. My sister is dying, he told the doctors, but he couldn’t move, so all they did was shake their heads. The Color Master had refused any help. I want to see Death as clearly as possible, she’d said. No drugs.

I made her some toast, but she only ate a few bites and then pushed it aside.

It’s tempting to think of red for sun, she said. But it has to be just a dash, not much. More of a dark orange, and a hint of brown. And then white on yellow on white.

Not bright white, she said. The kind of white that makes you squint, but in a softer way.

Yeah, I said, sighing. And where does one find that kind of white?

Keep looking, she said.

Last time I used your hair? I said.

She smiled, feebly. Go look at fire for a while, she said. Go spend some time with fire.

I don’t want you to die, I said.

Yes, well, she said. And?

Looking at fire was interesting, I have to admit. I sat with a candle for a couple hours. It has these stages of color: the white, the yellow, the red, the tiny spot of blue I’d heard mentioned but never noticed. So I decided it made sense to use all of them. We hung the dress in the center of the room and all revolved around it, spinning, imagining we were planets. It needs to be hotter, said Sven, who was playing the part of Mercury, and then he put a blowtorch to some silk and made some dust materials out of that, and we redipped the dress. Cheryl was off in the corner, cross-legged in a sunbeam, her eyes closed, trying to soak it up. We need to soak it! she said, after an hour, standing. So we left it in the dipping longer than usual. I walked by the bins, trying to feel that harmony feeling, waiting for a color to call me. I felt a tug to the dark brown, so I brought a bit of it out and tossed it into the mix; it was too dark, but after a little yellow-white from dried lily flowers, something started to pop a bit. Light, said Cheryl. It’s also daylight—it’s light. It’s our only true light, she said again. Without it, we live in darkness and cold. The dress drip-dried in the middle of the room. It was getting closer, and just needed that factor of squinting—a dress so bright it couldn’t quite be looked at. How to get that?

Remember, the Color Master said. She sat up in bed, her silver hair streaming over her shoulders. I keep forgetting, she said, but the king wants to Marry His Daughter. Her voice pointed to each word, hard. That is not right, she said, okay? Got it? Put anger in the dress. Righteous anger, for her. Do you hear me?

I do not, I said, though I nodded. I didn’t say I do not, I just thought that part. I played with the wooden knob of her bedframe. I had tried to put some anger in the sun dress, but I had been so consumed with trying to factor in the squint that all I really got in there was confusion. Confusion does make people squint, though, so I ended up fulfilling the request accidentally. We had sent it off in the carriage after working all night on the light factor that Cheryl had mentioned by adding bits of diamond dust to the mix. Diamonds are light inside darkness! she’d announced at 3 a.m., a bialy in her hand, triumphant. On the whole, it was a weaker product than the moon dress, but not bad—most people don’t notice the variance in subtlety, and our level of general artistry and craft is high, so we could get away with a lot without anyone’s running over and asking for his money back.

The sky, the Color Master told me, after I had filled her in on the latest. She had fallen back down into her pillows, and was so weak she spoke with eyes closed. When I held her hand she only rested hers in mine: not limp, not grasping.

Sky is last, she said.

And death?

Soon, she said. She fell asleep midway through our conversation. I stayed all night. I slept too, sitting up, and sometimes I woke and just sat and watched her. What a precious person she was, really. I hadn’t known her very well, but she had picked me, for some reason, and that picking was changing me, I could feel it; it was like being warmed by the presence of the sun, a little. The way a ray of sun can seem to choose you as you walk outside from the cold interior. I wanted to put her in that sun dress, to drape her in it, but it wasn’t an option; we had sent it off to the princess, plus it wasn’t even the right size and wasn’t really her style, either. But I guess I just knew that the sun dress we sent was something of a facsimile, and that this person here was the real sun, the real center for us all, and even through the dark night, I felt the light of her, burning, even in the rasping heavy breathing of a dying woman.

In the morning, she woke up, saw I was still there, and smiled a little. I brought her tea. She sat up to drink it.

The anger! she said again, as if she had been dreaming about it. Which maybe she had. She raised up on her elbows, face blazing. Don’t forget to put anger in this last dress, she said. Okay?