This house was made for someone without a soul. So I guess it makes sense that my mother wanted it so badly. I can imagine how her eyes lit up when she walked through the five-­bedroom, three-­and-­a-­half-­bath new construction. I’ll bet she thinks this house is the answer to what’s wrong with us.

When Tom, my stepfather, showed me the bathroom attached to my room with its own Jacuzzi tub, he said, Bet you feel like Cinderella, because he’s an idiot.

I should be happy for my mother and Tom, because the old house took so long to sell that it nearly destroyed their marriage. I should be thrilled I don’t have to hear the words terrible real estate market and bad location ever again. Neither they nor the listing agent had the balls to come out and say that no one wanted to buy a home on the street of horrors.

The worst thing about the new house is that there’s no way to sneak into my room. The dining room is right off the front hall, so when I get home from dance team tryouts, I can see my mother at the table eating Chinese takeout with Tom and Petey, their “oops baby.”

Petey is ten now. Mom married Tom when I was five. When I was a kid, I overheard her telling my grandmother that she and Tom both were done with children. Mom had Jen and me, and Tom had a college-­aged daughter with his ex-­wife. Four months later, Mom was pregnant with Petey.

So, totally an oops baby.

“Monica,” my mother calls. “We’re eating dinner.”

In other words, Don’t you try to disappear upstairs.

I plod into the dining room, the smell of the takeout souring my stomach. Everything hurts: standing, walking, sitting.

At the table, Petey is sucking up lo mein noodles. One slips from between his lips and falls on the screen of his iPad, because God forbid he perform a basic function such as eating without playing Clan Wars.

“Petey,” Mom says, “please put the game down.”

“But I have to harvest my crops.”

“Do you want the iPad to go in the garbage?”

“You wouldn’t throw an iPad in the garbage.”

“Peter.”

Petey’s eyes go wide, because Mom only uses his full name when she’s really about to lose her shit. I almost want to tell the poor kid it’s not his fault that Mom is acting like a psycho.

“Monica.” Tom looks up from his phone, finally noticing me. He takes off his reading glasses and breathes on the lenses. Wipes them on his shirt. “How were tryouts?”

“Fine.”

“The new Chinese place gave us extra fortune cookies!” Petey says, and I say, “Cool,” which pretty much sums up the depth of my interactions with my half brother.

Mom’s eyes are on me. I keep my own eyes on a carton of white rice. I grab a plate and spoon some onto it.

“What’s wrong?” Petey asks. It takes a second for it to sink in that he’s speaking to me. Tom is watching me now too. My mother makes a face as if she just swallowed down vomit.

“Can I go lie down?” I ask.

“Go ahead,” she says.

When I get to the hall, I hear Petey whine, “How come she gets to do what she wants?”

I practically have to crawl up the stairs to my room. The over-­the-­counter painkillers my mom picked up for me are seriously garbage. I would call Matt, my ex-­boyfriend, because even though he denies it, he’s friends with people who can get the strong stuff. But Matt graduated and he’s not in Sunnybrook anymore and we haven’t spoken since July.

My heating pad is still packed in one of the storage tubs Mom and I bought from Bed Bath & Beyond before the move. I dig it out, biting my lip. The nurse at Dr. Bob’s office said it would be like bad period cramps. But it hurts so badly I want to die.

I break into a sweat from plugging in the heating pad and flop onto my brand-­new bed. King-­sized, like my mom and Tom’s. She insisted—­the room would have looked too small with a queen.

They say you’re not supposed to put the pad directly on your skin, but I do it anyway and curl up on my side. I’d gladly take my flesh melting off over the pain in my gut.

A knock at the door. I grunt and Mom pushes her way in, holding a bottle of naproxen and a glass of water. “When was the last time you took painkillers?”

“Lunch,” I lie. I popped four before tryouts.

“You can have two more, then.” Mom perches at the edge of my bed. She might as well be a mile away. It’s really obscene, how big the bed is.

I groan and pull my legs up tight to my body, into the fetal position.

“I told you that you should have stayed home today.” My mother taps the naproxen bottle to her palm, shakes two pills out.

“Coach would have cut me from the team.” I accept the pills. Swallow them greedily.

Mom is quiet. She drums her fingers—­the nails rounded and coated with clear polish—­on my comforter. Her anxious tic. Finally: “Have you told Matt?”

“No.”

I can’t tell what she’s thinking—­whether she actually wants me to call Matt at college and tell him.

“He could support you,” Mom says, after a beat. “You don’t have to go through this alone.”

“It wasn’t his anyway.”

I stare straight ahead so I don’t have to see the look on her face.

When she stands up, her profile comes into focus. She looks sad for a moment before she catches herself. “I hope you learn something from this pain.”

My mother shuts the light off on her way out—­or at least, she tries to. She can’t find the switch at first, because it’s opposite where it used to be in my old room. Finally, she gives up, leaving me under the glow of the top-­of-­the-­line energy-­efficient LED bulbs.

She’s wrong, I think. Pain isn’t supposed to teach you anything. It only exists to hurt you. And she should know that better than anyone.

CHAPTER 1

HANNA

MAYBE THE MACHINE could see the words she never spoke. Maybe they blazed in her bones. Maybe if the people in the white coats blew up the pictures they’d see her thoughts, mapped like mountains and railroad tracks, across her ghostly skull. Hanna knew nothing was wrong with her. But Mommy wanted them to look. Again.

The room in the hospital’s dungeon carried the threat of needles and smelled like lemon candies tinged with poison. When she was little, the machine scared her. But now, seven, she pretended she was an astronaut. The rocket ship spun and beeped and she scanned the coordinates, double-checking her course. Through the round window, tiny Earth dropped from view, then she was in the darkness with the glimmering stars, zooming away. No one would ever catch her. She smiled.

“Stay still, please. Almost finished — you’re doing great.”

The flight director watched her from his monitor. She hated all the ground control people, with their white coats and lilting voices, their play-dough smiles that flopped into frowns. They were all the same. Liars.

Hanna kept her words to herself because they gave her power. Inside her, they retained their purity. She scrutinized Mommy and other adults, studied them. Their words fell like dead bugs from their mouths. A rare person, like Daddy, spoke in butterflies, whispering colors that made her gasp. Inside, she was a kaleidoscope of racing, popping, bursting exclamations, full of wonder and question marks. Patterns swirled, and within every secret pocket she’d stashed a treasure, some stolen, some found. She had tried, as a little girl, to express what was within her. But it came out like marbles. Nonsense. Babbling. Disappointing even to her own ears. She’d practiced, alone in her room, but the bugs fell from her mouth, frighteningly alive, scampering over her skin and bedclothes. She flicked them away. Watched them escape under her closed door.

Words, ever unreliable, were no one’s friend.

But, if she was being honest, there was another reason — a benefit. Her silence was making Mommy crazy. Poor Mommy made it all too clear, over many desperate years, how badly she wanted her to talk. She used to beg.

“Please, baby? Ma-ma? Ma-ma?”

Daddy, on the other hand, never begged or acted put out. His eyes lit up when he held her, like he was witnessing a supernova. He alone really saw her, and so she smiled for him and was rewarded with kisses and tickles.

“Okay, all finished,” said the flight director.

The ground control people pushed a button and her head slid out of the giant mechanical tube. The rocket ship crashed back to Earth, where she found herself in a crater of ugliness. The blobby people emerged — one with her hand outstretched offering to take her back to Mommy, like that was some sort of reward.

“You did such a good job!”

What a lie. She hadn’t done anything but come back to Earth too soon. It wasn’t hard to be still, and not speaking was her natural state. She let the woman take her hand, even though she didn’t want to go back to moody Mommy and another suffocating room. She’d rather explore the hospital’s endless corridors. She pretended she was walking around in the intestines of a giant dragon. When it exhaled its angry flames, they’d catapult her forward into another world. The one where she belonged, where she could race through a gloomy forest with her trusted sword, screaming the call that would summon the others. Her minions would charge behind her as she led the attack. Slash, crash, grunt, and stab. Her sword would get its taste of blood.

CHAPTER 2

SUZETTE

SHE SMOOTHED DOWN the back of Hanna’s hair where it had gotten rumpled during her test.

“See, not so bad. Now we’ll see what the doctor says.” Her tight smile forced her eye to twitch. She dabbed at the corner of it with her index finger. A terror clawed beneath her skin, making small rips in her equilibrium. Doctors’ offices, medical buildings: institutions of torture. They pressed on her like a heavy slab. Hanna sat with her elbow on the chair’s armrest, head on her hand, absorbed and expressionless like she became in front of the TV. Suzette glanced at the framed print that held her daughter’s interest. Squares of watery color. She tried to guess, by the movement of Hanna’s eyes, if she was counting the total number of squares, or collecting them in groups of similar shades. Hanna pretended to be unaware of Suzette beside her, and she read the usual rebuke in Hanna’s refusal to look at her. After so many years, she’d lost track of the moments for which she was being punished.

Perhaps Hanna was still angry at her for running out of bananas. She’d slammed her fists on the table, glaring at her naked bowl of cereal. Or maybe Hanna couldn’t forgive some perceived slight from the previous night, or week, or month. Hanna didn’t know that Suzette had resisted bringing her in for another CT scan — 500 times the radiation of a single X-ray — but relented to Alex’s wishes. Her husband’s concerns remain rooted in the pragmatic insistence that something might yet be physically impeding her verbal progress. He didn’t see what she did, and she could never tell him what was really wrong — that it had all been a mistake: She didn’t know how to be a mother; why had that ever seemed like a good idea? So she played along. Of course she’d have Hanna tested again. Of course they needed to know if anything was physiologically awry.

She considered her daughter. They looked so much alike. Her dark, dark hair. The big brown eyes. If only she’d inherited some of Alex’s fairness. She had Hanna put on a nice dress, brand-new knee socks, and Mary Janes. Suzette wore a silk shirtdress, loosely belted to show off her figure, and shoes that cost a fortune. It was silly, she knew, for both of them to dress up for a medical appointment, but she feared situations in which her mothering might be judged, and at least no one could say her child looked neglected or ill. And Suzette had so little opportunity otherwise to wear her finer clothes when all she did was stay home with Hanna. She used to dress up for Alex’s office parties and loved the way his lustful eyes followed her around as she sipped wine and chatted, enjoying the rare company of other adults. But no babysitter would ever come back, and they finally gave up. Alex, considerately, made the gatherings rarer and shorter, but still. She missed the casual normalcy she once had with Fiona and Sasha and Ngozi. She never asked if Alex talked about her at work, or if they all acted as if she no longer existed.

Nervous about what the doctor would say — how he might criticize her — she patted a jumpy rhythm on Hanna’s arm. Hanna pulled it away, lowering her chin as the colorful, blocky print continued to mesmerize her. Suzette held each part of her body too tightly — her crossed legs, her tense shoulders, her hands curled into fists. It made the tender part in her abdomen twist and squeal in protest and she fanned her fingers, trying to make herself relax. It was her first big outing since The Surgery, eight weeks before. They did it laparoscopically this time so the superficial part of the recovery was faster, though she’d asked the doctor to fix her horrible scar while they were there.

The misshapen canyon of a scar had always bothered her, falling in a deep, wonky six-inch diagonal on the right side of her navel. Alex insisted it was part of her beauty, her strength. A marking of survival, of the suffering she’d endured as a teenager. She didn’t need any reminders of those lonely and disgusting years, of the enemy within or her own mother’s deadly indifference. As it was, that first surgery at seventeen put such a fear in her that she’d put off Dr. Stefanski’s recommendation for another resection until her intestines were in danger of perforating. In the beginning, the stricture only caused a bit of pain and she reduced the fiber in her diet. She’d expected her heavy-duty medication — an injectable biological drug — to eliminate the worst of her Crohn’s symptoms. And it did. But as the inflammation receded, scar tissue built up around a narrowing in her intestine.

“Don’t take too much!” she’d pleaded with the surgeon, as if he was about to rob her, not restore her to health.

Alex had kissed her white-knuckled hand. “It’ll be fine, älskling, you’ll feel so much better, and be able to eat so much more food.”

Yes, reasonable assessments. If it wasn’t for her inconsolable fear of losing so much small intestine that she’d lose the inalienable right to shit on a toilet like a normal person. People did it every day — lived with ileostomies and bags attached to their abdomens. But she couldn’t. Couldn’t. The very thought of it made her start shaking her head until Hanna twitched, glancing at her with a soured frown as if she was already stinking up the room.

Suzette got herself back under control, at least so far as her daughter would notice. But her dark mind played on, resistant to more-comforting distractions in the weeks since her surgery.

What if she got another fistula?

That was the thing that haunted her every day since she agreed to schedule the procedure. The last time, it developed about six weeks after her emergency resection. She’d woken up one morning feeling as if she was sleeping on a brick, but the mass had been in her own belly, a pool of waste that needed to be drained. It had been eight weeks since The Surgery, so maybe the danger had lessened. Alex said his usual “one day at a time” platitudes. Dr. Stefanski said no no, just keep doing your injections, your inflammation markers are low. But in her head the oozing puss and shit waited in the wings, and what if Alex had to play the role her mother played, nursemaid, replacing the soiled packing in a wound that wouldn’t heal —

A quick knuckle rap on the exam room door dispelled her thoughts. Sometimes the presence of a doctor only made her trauma worse, but this one was here for Hanna, not her. And she was here as a good mother, a concerned mother, unlike her own. She pressed her palm against her tingling abdomen and made herself smile as the new doctor gusted in, grayer than the last one. His eyebrows needed a trim and Suzette struggled to maintain eye contact with him with his nose hairs on such display.

“Mrs. Jensen.” He shook her hand.

He pronounced her name as everyone did, incorrectly. It didn’t bother her as much as it did Swedish-born Alex, who, after nineteen years in the United States, still couldn’t accept that Americans would never make a J sound like a Y. The doctor sat on the rolling stool and brought Hanna’s records up on the computer.

“No changes from the scan she had … When was it? Two and a half years ago? No abnormalities of the skull, jaw, throat, mouth … upon examination or on the scan. So that’s good, right? Hanna’s a healthy girl.” He smiled at Hanna’s turned-away head.

“So … There’s no …?” She tried not to sound as disappointed as she felt. “She should be finishing first grade and we can’t even send her to school, not if she doesn’t speak. We don’t feel like she needs a special class — she’s smart, I homeschool her and she’s very smart. She can read, do math —”

“Mrs. Jensen —”

“But it won’t be good for her — it’s not good for her, to be so isolated. She doesn’t have friends, won’t interact with her peers. We’ve tried to be supportive, encouraging. There has to be something we can do, something to help her …”

“I know an excellent speech language pathologist, if Hanna is having trouble —”

“We’ve tried speech pathologists.”

“— she can be tested for any number of things. Verbal apraxia, semantic pragmatic language disorder …” He scrolled through her online chart, looking for something. “Maybe auditory processing disorder, though she presents atypically for that. Has she had any of these tests?”

“We’ve tested her for everything. Her hearing’s fine, no muscle weakness, no cognitive problems. I’ve lost track of all the tests, but she takes them, seems to think they’re fun — but she won’t say a word.”

“Won’t?” The doctor turned to face Suzette.

“Won’t. Can’t. I don’t know. That’s … We’re trying to find out.”

Suzette squirmed as the doctor flicked his overeducated attention between the two of them. She knew what he was seeing: the daughter, lost in her own head; the mother, a carefully groomed, but wound-up mess.

“You say she can read and write? Can you communicate with her that way?”

“She’ll write out answers in her workbooks, she doesn’t seem to mind that. We know she understands. But when we’ve asked her to write what she’s thinking or wants — any type of actual communication … No, she won’t speak to us that way.” Her interlocked fingers started hurting and she glanced down at them, a little surprised by how forcefully she’d been twisting them. She took hold of her purse strap and started strangling it instead. “She can make noises — so we know, maybe, she could make other sounds. She can grunt. And squeal. Hum little songs.”

“If it’s a matter of her refusing … Won’t requires a different type of doctor than can’t.”

Suzette felt her face reddening, as if her hands had moved to her throat, squeezing the life from her. “I — we — don’t know what to do. We can’t go on like this.” She gasped for air.

The doctor wove his fingers together and gave her a sympathetic, if lopsided, smile. “Behavioral difficulties can be just as difficult to manage as physical ones, maybe more so.”

She nodded. “I always wonder … Am I doing something wrong?”

“It causes strain in a family, I understand. Perhaps the next thing to try … I could recommend a pediatric psychologist. I wouldn’t recommend a psychiatrist, not until she has a diagnosis. In this age, they’re so quick to write prescriptions, and maybe this is something you can work through.”

“Yes, I’d prefer that, thank you.”

“I’ll send a referral through your insurance company …” He turned back to the computer.

Suzette worked the kinks out of her purse strap, feeling slightly dizzy with relief. She tucked a piece of Hanna’s hair behind her ear.

“I try to avoid toxic things,” she said to the doctor’s slouched back. “Not that all medication is toxic, but like you said, society’s so quick to find a pill for something, never mind the side effects. But if it’s not a disability … An organic solution, that sounds good.” She turned to Hanna. “We’re going to work this out. Find someone you might talk to.”

Hanna took a swat at Suzette’s fussing hand and curled her lip in a snarl. Suzette shot her a warning glare, then peeked at the doctor to make sure he hadn’t seen.

Hanna bolted to her feet, crossed her arms, and stood by the door.

“In a minute, we’re almost finished.” Suzette made her voice sound endlessly patient.

Spinning back around on his stool, the doctor chuckled. “I don’t blame you one bit, young lady, cooped up at the doctor’s on a sunny day.” Suzette stood as he did. “The referral will probably take a few days, then you can schedule something directly with Dr. Yamamoto. She’s a developmental child psychologist and has a great way with kids, very established. And hopefully Hanna will connect with her. They’ll print out all the information when you check out.”

“Thank you so much.”

“She might even be able to recommend some schools for you.”

“Perfect.” She looked over at her daughter, not surprised to see the angry scowl on her face. Through bad behavior, Hanna had made herself unwelcome at three preschools and two kindergartens. Suzette had come to believe that their mother-daughter relationship would improve only when they had some distance — when Hanna went off to school. And Suzette wanted their relationship to improve. She was tired of yelling “Hanna, stop!” and maybe she shouldn’t yell, but there were endless reasons — small and large — why she’d needed to. Plucking all the leaves off the houseplants. Pulling on every loose thread, no matter what it unraveled. Mixing a cocktail of orange juice and nail polish remover. Throwing balls against the glass wall of their house. Staring at her and refusing to blink or budge. Hurling sharpened pencils like darts across the room. Hanna had creative ways to amuse herself, and most of them were intolerable.

Since the doctor confirmed there was nothing physically wrong, then, for the sake of her own health and sanity, it was time to convince Alex that they needed to find a school for Hanna. Maybe someone else would succeed where she hadn’t in disciplining the girl. She couldn’t phrase it to him as a desperate need for her own time and space; she couldn’t make it all about herself. Hanna behaved quite lovingly in his presence, and often he saw silliness where she saw mischief, and her more-provocative antics he ascribed to intelligence. He remained blind to his own hypocrisy, all the things he explained away as normal while exulting her precocity. So that would be her argument: Gifted Hanna was bored; she needed more stimulation than what she was getting at home.

One way or another, she wouldn’t let Hanna continue to derail her life.

Another pause. Then, “Please. I’ve waited so long to meet you.”

I bury my face in my hands, wishing I was less scared so that I could cry.

HOURS SINCE THE ETERNITY CAUGHT UP: 9

He doesn’t stop pleading with me all morning. His voice has taken over my brain. It’s worse than any nightmare.

“You’re killing me here. If you don’t come out, I don’t know what I’ll do. I might hurt myself. I’m in so much pain…”

His voice grates at me, tearing away shreds of my control until I’m a fearful wreck. He’s got me surrounded, wrapped up in his words. He’s squeezing me tighter until I want to explode just to get freeof the pressure. I can’t escape.

I can’t even stop listening.

HOURS SINCE THE ETERNITY CAUGHT UP: 13

“Please just talk to me, Romy. Say something. I need to hear your voice. I’m worried you’ve hurt yourself.”

I wonder what he’s doing – whether he’s looking for me, wandering around my ship while he talks into the intercom. He could be doing anything, and there’s no way I could stop him.

HOURS SINCE THE ETERNITY CAUGHT UP: 17

“Romy, you’re being very silly. It’s rude to ignore me like this.”

I lie on my back and stare up at the crack between the wall and the edge of the stacks, where a greyish tinge of light encroaches on the blackness. My mouth tastes of bile and iron and mucus and salt.

HOURS SINCE THE ETERNITY CAUGHT UP: 19

“Don’t you trust me? Do you think I’m going to hurt you?”

I’m going to die. This is it. I have to accept it. I have no plan; no way of escaping him. Nothing to do except go to him.

“Come out, Romy.”

Why shouldn’t I? I’m just delaying the inevitable, hiding here like a coward instead of facing my worst fear.

Right?

HOURS SINCE THE ETERNITY CAUGHT UP: 23

His voice is rough now, after hours of murmuring and begging. All of the kindness and gentleness is gone.

“I’m going to give you one last chance to come out, Romy. And then I’m coming to find you.”

I press my palms into my eyes and bite down on a scream. I can’t face him. He’s going to kill me. And he knows I know – he’s not even pretending any more. He’s coming.

I can’t blink for fear.

He won’t find me, whatever he says. He can’t, not here. It’s impossible.

I’m safe, I know I am.

My face is wet with tears.

He can’t—

There’s a noise.

The stacks all shift like they’re falling, and I think for a moment I must have knocked into one and set off an avalanche, but then I see the light. It flickers across my hiding place, sending shadows dancing.

It gets brighter and brighter until a hand bursts through the boxes, then an arm and a head.

The head turns slowly, so slowly.

J looks at me. He smiles.

I catch sight of his wide grin before he shines his torch directly at me. It’s so bright that I’m blinded. That kick-starts me. I throw myself backwards along the side of the ship, straining to see past the bright spots in my vision.

A shadow lunges at me. Fingers grasp at my kneecap, skittering over bare skin and clasping around my calf.

His grip is tight when he tugs, pulling me closer. I let out a horrified scream and try to grab on to boxes, but he’s too strong. I slide towards him, packets falling around me.

I can feel his breath, hot against the inside of my knee.

I kick out with my foot and connect with something solid. He grunts, his grip loosening. I do it again before he can stop me. I can feel something wet on my toes.

I dive backwards, twisting to push my way through the fallen packets along the side of the wall. At any moment I expect to feel his hands on me again.

He yells, furious. It sounds far enough away that I risk looking over my shoulder.

J is stuck. The gap is too small for him. He can’t follow me.

He’s knocking packets out of the way, trying to clear a larger passage, but he’s too big. His torso barely fits.

I stop and watch him from ten metres away, half-hidden behind a large box of machinery.

He notices me looking and stops as well. His mouth, teeth bared in fury as he fights his way to me, transitions into a charming smile.

“Can you help me? I think I’m stuck.”

He waves his free hand at me. I slide back another metre, peeking around the corner at him.

“No.” The words come out in a whisper.

“No?” he says, feigning confusion.

“I’m not stupid,” I tell him. My voice is a little stronger this time.

J stares at me, and then smiles again, flashing white teeth. He wipes away the blood under his nostrils, from where I kicked him.

“I know you’re not stupid, Romy. I think you’re very clever.”

I wince. “Stop lying to me,” I say, spitting out the words.

At that, his bright blue eyes actually look surprised. He shifts. The packets around him skid, but he’s not trying to chase me any more. He’s settling in to talk.

CHAPTER 1

York, England-1604

I wasn’t ready to turn to stone.

I leaned so close to the small wall mirror that my nose left a grease spot on the glass, but I held still. Or tried to. I couldn’t control the trembling. The grease spot smeared.

My right eye reflected a bright blue iris, but it was the left side of my face that held me a whisper away from the mirror. Cracked stone blossomed from the chiseled marble that should have been an eye. The ball didn’t move, the lid didn’t blink. I lifted shaking fingers to my face. Petrification tickled the hairline of my eyebrow. A single infected hair protruded like a stone needle.

The plague was spreading.

I broke off the hair, as though that would help, but I knew better.

“Come sit, Thomas.”

I stumbled backward before facing the apothecary, Benedict Norwood. My one friend. Norwood stood at his dented and stained herb table, the backdrop of his curio cabinet displaying rows of green-hued bottles and jars, most of which held some sort of powder, paste, or plant.

He bent over my leather eyepatch, picking at the seam threads with a small knife. Norwood wore his color mask — deep green with gold laurels on the crown. Though no expression painted its face beyond two eye holes and a carved nose, it emitted a sense of calm. I imagined Norwood’s hidden expression as one of care and kindness … like his voice — a balm I’d come to rely on.

I felt naked without the patch covering my plagued eye. If any of the other students at St. Peter’s Color School saw me …

“Norwood, it’s spreading.” My voice was weak and childish — the opposite of what I needed on the day I was to become a man.

“Barely.” Norwood poked a series of holes in the new edge.

My breath quickened. “It’s stayed contained within my eye socket the entire past year since I caught the plague. Why would it spread? And now?” Why on the day of my Colour Test?

“Thomas Fawkes, come sit.” With a single whisper, he sent a thick olive green thread through the holes of the mask. They tied off in a perfect knot. Norwood muttered another color command and mixed a green paste in a wood bowl beside him. Then he removed his mask and leveled me with a stare so commanding, it left no room for panic.

When he took off the mask, we switched from student and professor to friends. I wiped my sweating palms on my doublet, straightened my cuffs, and sat on the three-legged stool before the counter. He lowered himself onto his own stool, across from me.

I glanced over my shoulder at the closed door. Then to the window leading out to the garden. “Shall we put the eyepatch back on?”

“In a moment. The paste needs to set a little longer.” He placed a black cowhide bag on the table and withdrew seven wooden spheres, each painted a different color and none larger than a chess pawn. “Focus on the colors, not the plague. Your Colour Test is tonight.”

“Norwood, if I don’t bond with Grey then the plague will spread to my brain. If I’m blind, I can’t bond with any color —”

“You worry like a woman!” He tossed me the Brown sphere. I caught it with one hand — my reflexes sending my palm up for protection rather than from aim. “Help me polish these.”

I halfheartedly snagged a spare rag and rubbed the cloth over the wood. It looked plenty polished to me. Besides, I didn’t want to become a Brown. My gaze strayed to the Grey sphere. It sat there. Still. Dull. Mocking me. What if, when I put on my new color mask, Grey didn’t bond with me?

“I was nervous my Colour Test, too.” Norwood spit on the Green sphere and rubbed it in practiced circles. “When my father handed me my mask for the first time, and I put it on, all fear fled. I looked through the mask at the spheres and, clear as the sun in the sky, Green glowed like a beacon. The moment I spoke its language, it bonded to my mask.” His smile grew and I found myself smiling with him. “It was magnificent. When Father passed the color power on to me, it was … well, you’ll understand after tonight.”

My hands stilled. Would that be my story? I pictured myself wearing my new mask in a few hours … and none of the colors glowing. Everyone watching. Father watching. What would I become without a mask? Without color powers?

Servant? Slave? Delivery boy?

No. The plague would spread and I would be consumed by the stone.

“Even if Grey does not respond to your call, another color might. And you need to be ready to speak its language.” Norwood rolled the Blue sphere to me. “Go on.”

I gave a final polish to Brown. “Brown obeys warmth and smooth authority.” My tone came out dull. I set aside the Brown sphere and picked up the Blue. “Blue speech is like poetry — rhythmic and flowing.”

“And Green?” Norwood rested a hand on his mask at his belt.

“Requires a calm and pleasant voice. It can sense your stress.” Reciting the color languages was like reciting a nursery rhyme. “Is this really —” “What about Red?”

I reached for the Red sphere — a sensitive color and the slowest to respond — but then my hand bypassed it, almost of its own accord. I picked up the Grey sphere, my fingers sliding across its textured surface. “Grey.”

Grey obeyed a firm voice. A command, not a request. Confidence. Authority.

I clenched my fist around it so tightly, a knuckle popped. “It has to be Grey. That is all I want.” Once I had my mask, I would spend the rest of my life commanding the stone plague to recede from my body.

“There is no cure, Thomas, even if you bond with Grey.” He sounded resigned.

“There has to be.”

“Others have tried Grey speech —”

“I am not others!” I slammed the Grey sphere onto the table. “I am the son of Guy Fawkes. The blood in my veins is the blood of color warriors.” I wanted to say more, but the walls of St. Peter’s Colour School were thin. And even in the heat of the moment, I dared not say what type of warriors my family were.

I barely dared to think the word.

Keepers.

Keeper warriors. Keeper defenders. Even though Norwood was a Keeper there was an agreed silence that always hung between us. The war between Keepers and Igniters was too real. That was why I needed to live. To find a cure for my plague — so I could join the fight.

“No matter whose son you are, this is your Colour Test. You must be adequately prepared.” He picked up his mask. He pressed it to his face and it seemed to melt around the edges, attaching itself to his skin. Then, with barely a whisper, he spoke to the green paste in the bowl and a thick stream of it spread itself on the inner edges of my eyepatch.

I never tired of watching color power.

A knock on the door. “Benedict?”

I startled, dropping the Grey sphere. It rolled into the folds of a cream-and-green gown. Emma Areben stood in the doorway — her oak brown mask firmly attached to her face with a white rose covering one eye.

I clapped a hand over my plagued eye, but the stiff silence was confession enough of my secret. She’d seen.

The girl who hung on the arm of my greatest enemy knew about my plague.

“I’ll be finished in a moment, Emma.” Norwood’s usually collected voice was stripped of all warmth.

Emma stared a moment longer, then whispered something. The Grey sphere soared through the air and back onto the table. Then Emma backed out of the room closing the door behind her.

Norwood and I sat in silence. Doom had come in the form of an elegant masked lady of sixteen.

My hand drifted down from my eye. “She saw —”

“I know.”

“It’s over.” I would be expelled on the day of my Colour Test. In front of Father and my peers.

Norwood picked up my eyepatch. “She won’t tell.”

I leaned forward and he affixed it to my face. “You can’t know that. She’s with Henry Parker. He wants nothing more than to ruin me. One slip —”

“She won’t tell.”

The green goo hardened and I adjusted to the stickiness. I tapped the eyepatch. Nothing in my sight changed — I was half-blind already — but I breathed in the safety that came from a hidden secret.

“As you say.” I didn’t see how Norwood could know what Emma would do, but I trusted Norwood. And worrying would do nothing to help me survive this terrible day. Too much was happening — the spread of my plague, the Colour Test, the arrival of Father who would present me with my mask.

Only with my mask could I bond with a color.

I would finally meet Father. It had been a year since his last letter. He stopped writing when I told him I was plagued. But until today, it hadn’t spread. It hadn’t infected others. It hadn’t done anything but partially blind me. I wasn’t endangering anyone.

Perhaps Father was ashamed. After tonight, he would be proud.

What did his mask look like? No matter how many times I’d asked, he never told me the color.

Grandmother was equally tight-lipped and her husband, Denis Bainbridge didn’t care.

Tonight, I would know. Tonight, I would see.

Norwood scooped the spheres into a pouch. I rose from the table, but hovered — not quite ready to reenter the drama of St. Peter’s Colour School, where I would dress for the dinner and endure Henry Parker’s insults and possibly be expelled for my plague.

“I expect Father will be ashamed to see my plague.”

Norwood’s eyes crinkled in the shadows of his mask eyeholes. “The great Guy Fawkes is traveling across all of England to bring you the mask he carved.” He placed a hand on my shoulder. “He ought to be nothing but proud of you.”

The great Guy Fawkes. The mighty solider. How could I live up to such a legacy?

“Thank you.” I strode to the door, then looked over my shoulder. Norwood still watched me. I grinned and raised my good eyebrow. “Get a firm look at my face, sir. For after tonight, you shall not see it again.”

* * *

I tied the final ribbon from my doublet to my breeches — both of which were newly fitted for my coming- of-age day by York’s not-quite-finest tailor. I combed my brown hair away from my face as best I could.

In only a few minutes I would descend the steps of St. Peter’s Colour School for the last time as a maskless. Father would be waiting. If Norwood was right and Emma kept her mouth shut, I would start my final year of training, complete with color power and mask.

I forced a deep breath. Confident. Commanding. What would it be like to receive my mask? To be considered a man? To hide my infection?

My right eye itched at the word infection. I rubbed it with my knuckle.

“Mr. Fawkes.” Headmaster Canon entered my room. Two keys of sky blue crisscrossed the center of his dark Blue mask. St. Peter’s coat of arms. I tried not to let my nerves show. I couldn’t read his face behind his mask.

Was this it? Was he here to confront me about attending school as a plagued?

“You should be downstairs already, boy. Guests are arriving.” His voice was as smooth and singsong as the Blue language he commanded. My fear fled, replaced by relief and then irritation.

Boy. Even today, on my coming-of-age day, the headmaster called me boy? I would not stoop to remind him that I was the son of Europe’s mightiest color solider — or that I would receive my mask today and then be his equal.

I perfected my posture and strode past the headmaster to the stairs with a curt, “Sir.” Halfway down, my steps slowed. I was about to see Father. My knuckles whitened against the bannister. What would he say about my eye?

I recalled Norwood’s words. Father was already proud of me. Norwood was proud of me — and he’d been more like a father to me than Guy Fawkes. I must go into this ceremony confident.

Commanding. I didn’t need Father’s — or anyone else’s — approval.

I entered the sitting room. Dark carved oak paneling covered all four walls, interrupted only by a white stone hearth. A fire blazed inside it, draping a blanket of warmth over me as I entered. My throat tightened, urged to whisper a command to the flame and see if it obeyed.

Of course it wouldn’t. Yellow speech was extremely complex and required the crown’s permission.

Other hues hummed around me, as though begging me to speak to them. Brown wood beneath my feet. Silver from the candle brackets lining the wall. Woad blue from a fellow’s doublet.

Oh to control them all! But I would bond with only one — that was the Keeper way. To lust after multiple was shameless. Greedy. The way of Igniters.

No matter that Headmaster Canon was an Igniter, I would follow the path of my family. After tonight, one color — I prayed it was Grey — would obey my voice.

I am the one you want. I startled and glanced around.

Which one are you? I couldn’t place its origin. And that made it the most alluring of all. Could it be Grey?

“Ah, the Cyclops has emerged from its den.”

I ripped myself from the search for the mystery color. Three older students hovered by the fire, pewter goblets of wine cradled in their hands. Their masked faces turned toward me.

Henry Parker — the spokesman of the three and as pleasant to look at as a muddied swine — lifted his goblet. His mask was split down the middle by the convergence of two shades of Grey, light and a dark. Threads of Blue, Green, and Brown revealed his bonding with other colors — his Igniter status.

A painted set of black lips resting in a side-smirk gave a final touch to Henry’s mask. That little smirk would keep him from ever being taken seriously. Father would know better than to include something so immature as a smirk on my mask, wouldn’t he?

Father.

I scanned the room.

Headmaster Canon chatted with some strangers near the entrance — both too old to be my father.

My grandparents — Denis and Edith Bainbridge of Timble Hall — stepped into the room, leaving their cloaks with the entry servant. A few professors examined one of the school bookshelves holding tomes about color languages.

Then I caught the curled dark hair. The oak-brown mask. The painted silver eyelashes and a white rose over one eye. Emma Areben joined Henry’s crew. I once thought her beautiful — mask and all, despite having never seen her true face.

She’d arrived at St. Peter’s a year ago, already masked.

I envied her for never having to take St. Peter’s test. The Colour Test was one “student honor” I wouldn’t have minded foregoing. She and Henry would graduate tonight after I and my maskless peers told the Colour Test.

She turned her head my way and I darted my gaze to the rest of the room.

Father wasn’t here yet. I’d expected him to arrive with Grandmother and Grandfather. I glanced out the window. Rain. That explained his delay.

“Have you decided which colors you’ll start with, Cyclops? I suppose you don’t care, as long as you have a mask to hide your deformity.” After years of Henry’s barbs, I should be able to handle them better. But to endure them on my coming of age day … Why was he present at all?

Teeth gritted, I walked away, mainly so I wouldn’t hear Emma’s laugh.

I heard it anyway.

I crossed the room to greet my grandparents — the two who had raised me long enough to send me to St. Peter’s. Grandmother, her broad-brimmed hat like a crown atop her feathered hair, wore a dark petticoat with a modest neck ruff. Both she and Grandfather wore black — most appropriate for such an occasion. Their masks matched, as was custom for a married couple: river-Blue carved with the swirls and flow of rushing water.

I embraced Grandmother, but when I shook Grandfather’s hand, I scanned the entryway for a third person. It was empty save for the maskless servant. His eyes remained downcast. No father to carve his mask.

Where was Father? Was I to receive my mask before the test or was he to present it during?

“Thomas, let’s step outside.” Grandfather took my arm. “I would have a word.”

My knees locked. Outside? For a word? Now? To do so now, and with the rain? It had to be bad news. Now was not the time for bad news.

Grandfather steered me toward the door, but Headmaster Canon called out, “Thomas, come here, boy.”

Boy again. Fueled by nerves, my feet obeyed his singsong voice and I left — no, fled — Grandfather’s news.

I walked past the testing room. The door hung open, though the interior remained lit by only a candle. The seven color spheres rested in a line on the surface of the table. Awaiting me.

I walked on.

Headmaster Canon led me to the strangers. One man wore a slate-Grey mask at his belt and the other a Brown one textured like tree bark. “This is Master Connor,” — the Grey inclined his head — “and this is Master Haberdasher.” The Brown held my one-eyed gaze, then the Headmaster went on. “They both seek an apprentice and will join us for dinner and for your Colour Testing.”