The Lost Rainbow Mage: Complete Trilogy Edition, page 22
There was something spooky about it all. I crossed my arms over my middle and sort of hugged myself. They were all in some kind of cult. How deep did this go?
The women worked efficiently, though. But as I studied them, my eyebrows lowered over my eyes, taking them all in. “No men?”
No one answered, and my mind kept turning. Maybe this was some sort of nunnery. Besides Marcus. Who had a wife. A religion based on color where women were subservient… It wasn’t the kind of place I wanted to stay. It wasn’t the kind of place anyone should be forced to stay in. Maybe the façade was nicer, but the guts of this place were as bad as the Facility.
Although why I’d be brought to a religious order didn’t make any sense. I didn’t have faith in anything. Except perhaps religion would be in direct opposition to whatever they were doing at the Facility. Not science, but religion. My mind raced at all of the options trying to present themselves to me.
“The men are outside,” Marcus said, and Alice watched him attentively as he spoke, her focus never wavering elsewhere. It was like he was the sun she revolved around. Disturbing.
She didn’t interrupt him, either. Perhaps she never had anything to add to what he told me, or maybe she just didn’t have sufficient ideas of her own. Though, she didn’t like to answer questions either.
Marcus continued. “The men work mainly outside, unless there are physical jobs to be done inside the house. Let’s go out, and you’ll see.”
There was something… something I imagined to be almost Amish about what I’d seen of the lifestyle so far. The women were all modestly and simply dressed, and now it seemed job roles were essentially decided by biological sex.
They must have taken my grimace as agreement because Marcus made his way toward a side door. Alice didn’t move until I took a step toward the way Marcus had gone. Then she brought up the rear behind me.
I followed Marcus and Alice out of the nearest door and onto a wide stone patio, with steps descending to a gravel path. Ahead of us lay gardens, both formal and also others where people bent low, working, or moved between raised beds. A variety of plants grew in many colors of green.
“Those are the allotments.” Marcus pointed toward where the people were working. “We grow our own produce, sell a little at market, whatever we need.”
“So this is a working farm?” I probed gently, when I had far more questions than just those.
The people out here had wide-brimmed hats, and every man was dressed like Marcus. Many of them, in so many gardens. Could this be all the men here? Were there more? Where did the black-suited mean man fit in?
In a field far away, something glinted and reflected.
“Is that a lake over there?” I shielded my eyes as I tried to make out the flash.
“It’s our solar panels.” Alice spoke up to provide an answer to one of my questions.
I blinked. Somehow, I’d decided she couldn’t speak. “You talk?”
She frowned, but she didn’t answer.
“Go on,” I said, finally.
She nodded once. “We utilize wind turbines, too. We’re completely off-grid.” She seemed to warm to the subject. “That way we can remain completely undetected by the agency—” The light in her eyes suddenly faded, and she brought her hand to her chest, her fingertips touching the base of her throat.
The man threw a glance at her, a look of censure from beneath lowered brows. “What Alice means,” he said, emphasizing each word like I actually needed a translator to understand what his wife had been saying, “is that you don’t need to worry about anything now you’re here. You’re safe and among friends. No one will look for you.” He chuckled dryly. “If they do look, they shouldn’t find you, anyway.”
My breath caught in my chest. For the second time, I was somewhere entirely secret. A place the real world probably didn’t even know existed, or if they did, they certainly didn’t know the inner workings of it. If I knew their intentions, maybe I’d be happy about it. But I wasn’t. Not really.
I was hidden from society again, and despite Marcus’s words of reassurance, that truth actually felt anything other than safe—especially after what I’d just been through.
“Look around.” He continued to speak, a note of pride in his voice. “You’ll just blend in. No one will find you here or take you away.”
four
Blend in. How was I supposed to blend in? Blend in? Who wanted to blend in? My hand strayed to my throat. No, it made me feel…
Trapped. Choked. Stuck. So many words could be used to describe the panic spreading through my chest.
“Come on. Let’s take a walk.” Marcus strode forward before I answered or agreed, clearly used to being obeyed. “This way.”
An image of me bolting away, only to be tackled a half-second later moved through my mind, and I still couldn’t decide if that was preferable to being trapped in another place because of who or what I was.
Alice waited beside me, clearly determined not to move until I did. So I followed Marcus, and Alice followed me, and once again, I went along with being held against my will.
Marcus strolled down one of the winding paths that led between the native Florida plants I’d only just started to learn the names of. The air was scented with both floral and fruity aromas as the flowers responded to the warmth of the sun. Big, beautiful blooms surrounded us, and it was almost easy to forget I was a prisoner.
Being outside in the sunlight was like waking up all over again, and I stretched my arms upward as we walked, almost calling the sun’s light into me. The house seemed heavier downstairs, the wood and soft furnishings darker, and being with the unrestricted light was… freeing.
Power and energy tingled inside me, and it was all I could do not to release it in laughter.
As we strolled, Alice pointed out flowers, naming them in English and in Latin, then telling me any medicinal or anecdotal uses they had. However, the medicinal uses of flowers held limited interest for me.
Their shapes and colors were far more interesting to me. The idea of seeing them on canvas, mentally matching the colors, following the curves, and painting the lines. It excited me. Maybe one day, I could bring my canvas and some paints out here and delve into expressing my own version of the beauty. I stopped myself, no longer moving along the path as my thoughts ground to a halt.
What did I mean, wanting to paint here? I wasn’t planning to stay. I needed to get home to Sweetwater, to my house, and maybe hope I still had a job at the salon with Bess.
I wanted to correct Marcus and Alice: I didn’t plan to stay, but my recent experience at the Facility still tasted bitter in my mouth. I’d been moved to solitary because I’d killed Adrian. It didn’t matter I didn’t know how or why I’d killed Adrian or even that I could kill him. Nor did Dr. Anderson’s involvement in any of it matter. No, as soon as they decided I was a danger because my powers weren’t easy to control, they moved me to solitary.
I winced when my heart twisted in my chest. Not that I blamed them. What did you do with someone like me who didn’t even know they were someone like me? What did you do with an accidental killer? I had so much to learn, and I didn’t want another Adrian incident to happen. Healing and helping. That’s what I wanted to do with my powers. At least here, I still had some freedom.
I shifted from side to side. If I ran now, they might throw me into their version of solitary, and I didn’t want to be denied what freedom I had or be trapped away in some dark place. I had to build on their trust and take this whole thing slowly.
There was a disturbance in the air in front of me, and I turned to study it. My heart thrilled when I figured out what it was. My hummingbird! My little feathered friend.
I smiled and held out my finger before thinking better of it and lowering my hand again. Maybe I didn’t want my captors to see it. But the bird darted closer to my face, skimming over my hair, and I laughed at the brief caress of the delicate feathers I’d captured so often in my art.
Behind me, Alice gasped. “Oh my.” She spoke with a voice full of awe, and she bowed her head reverently before continuing. “Marcus.” She clutched his arm. “A familiar is rare indeed, isn’t it? Even for those elevated highest among our kind.” She looked at my hummingbird again, then back at me. “Your talents must be unsurpassed—” Her eyes bulged and she started to gag, heaving in her breaths and gagging as they expelled quickly again, like she couldn’t get the air to her lungs.
Her cheeks reddened, and she clutched at her collarbones and neck, her movements increasingly desperate. The choking sound chilled my heart.
“Alice!” I blurted her name and moved closer. “We need a doctor.” But nothing would happen quickly enough to save her. Whatever she was reacting to, it was too fast acting. I took another step toward her. “What do I do?”
But Marcus cut in front of me, a thin, unfriendly smile on his lips. He edged me away from Alice. Then he reached out with the kind of confidence that said he knew what he was doing, placing his fingertips on a part of Alice’s tattoo, and he began to massage it gently. Slowly, her breathing became less frantic, and her face relaxed from the expression of panic, until she drew heavy, even breaths, and she rubbed at her eyes as though she was simply tired.
Marcus’s gaze hardened as he studied his wife, and when she caught his eye, it was like some kind of silent warning flowed from him to her. But the moment passed quickly, and he looked from her to me, his gaze amiable once more. Yet he didn’t move his hand.
“There now,” he said on a half chuckle. “There, Alice. Everything’s okay again.” But his touch didn’t leave Alice’s neck, and his fingers rested there as though he meant to remind her of his ownership. “You just need to remember to draw breath between your words and not let them take control. That’s all. Slow and steady, so you don’t get tongue-tied.”
Tongue-tied? What? Alice had nearly died, right? She’d nearly died from being tongue-tied? It was insane. And now Marcus stood there with his hand on her neck in a nearly-menacing way. An icy chill gripped my spine. She’d nearly stopped breathing right in front of us, and he was chuckling like she’d just tripped over her words? I didn’t understand it, and I wasn’t leaving until Alice was safe. I had power now, and that had to count for something, didn’t it? I could use it to help Alice as an atonement for Adrian and anyone else I’d injured because of Dr. Anderson’s demands.
“Now hold on,” I said. “I don’t think… Maybe we should take Alice back to the house and call a doctor.” My heart was still beating too fast. If I could get my hands on her, maybe I could heal her. There was enough light, and I’d eaten. I reached for the fragile-looking woman, but Marcus angled himself between us, preventing me from touching her.
“She’s fine,” he said.
I scowled up at him. “She was… What are you—” I bit back the stream of words, suddenly determined to speak to Alice at the first moment she and I were alone.
Alice gave a forced sounding laugh and blinked; tears escaped her eyes since they hadn’t yet stopped watering. She brushed them away as though weeping was a normal occurrence. “Nonsense. Like Marcus said, I must learn to breathe.” She laughed in that strange way again and sucked in a long, deep breath, as if to prove her point. “Have I asked what you used to do yet?”
Used to do. Those words sat hollow in my chest. “I am a hair colorist. I work in a salon.” I indicated myself and then the hummingbird, who was hanging a little farther back now. “I do this to people’s hair. Whatever colors they want.” My breath caught.
I missed my corner of the salon. I missed the creativity and the inspiration. I missed the clients and even their demands, because there were always demands, after all. But meeting each challenge was part of my satisfaction, so I gripped those feelings deep inside me and pressed them deeper, keeping them safe. I’d get back there.
Alice chuckled, the sound more genuine and lighter than before, but there was an almost derisive note now. “Well, I don’t think we exactly require those…” She trailed off briefly before picking up her thought again as she scanned her gaze over my hair. “Skills here.”
I could imagine that much was true. None of the women I’d seen earlier had even worn styled hair, never mind had any kind of dye applied. They’d all worn it pulled back from their faces in practical styles like buns and braids.
But I didn’t care that I couldn’t do my job here. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t staying—and neither was Alice, if I could help it, and I could pick that fight later.
“What do you do?” I served the question back to Alice. I was curious and interested, but I also didn’t want to continue to discuss myself.
“Oh.” She waved a hand, and my hummingbird danced back as if she’d been caught in the current of air from Alice’s hand. “We have a roster system. We divide the jobs here into categories—cleaning, kitchen work, gardening, etc. and we all take our turns. Obviously, some people might show particular talent in a certain area, so they might have that reflected in their daily tasks.”
My mouth pulled down at the idea someone might show talent at cleaning, but I didn’t say anything negative. It all sounded so antiquated. The inhabitants should be free to do as they liked.
“There are always plenty of things to do,” she continued. “Even childcare. The children are looked after by the community at large.” Her voice grew thinner as she mentioned children, and she turned suddenly desperate eyes to Marcus.
He behaved like she hadn’t even glanced at him, though, and walked a little farther down the path. “Still lots to see,” he called, and Alice quickly followed him, leaving me to trail behind them both this time.
“I really am sorry we don’t have more call for hair care here,” she said over her shoulder, but the words were empty. In a house where they were all already so busy with the menial tasks of merely existing, why would they have need of someone whose job it was to dye hair?
“Don’t you miss hearing from the outside world?” I hadn’t seen any form of communication here at all. No landline, no cell phones left out or visible as rectangular shapes in pockets.
“The men go to market each week.” But her reply didn’t answer my question at all.
“Do you ever watch television? The news?” Functioning off the grid was one thing, but how did they live with almost entire separation? They had to know if bad things happened in the world at large. Otherwise, how could they prepare or react?
Marcus cast a quick glance at us. “The news makes no difference to our daily tasks, not with how busy we are. It serves no purpose here.”
Again, my question hadn’t really been answered, but it was clear he had nothing left to say on the subject when he led us down a path and we arrived back at the house.
“I think you might benefit from a visit to our kitchens.” His tone resonated with disapproval, like I had somehow disappointed him, and I automatically bristled that he felt he could talk down to me in that way.
But one glance at Alice told me she was used to Marcus talking like that, and she simply followed him as he led us closer to the house, and a huge door that stood open. Alice was used to being sent or taken from one place to another, and I wasn’t.
Marcus stopped at the door. Heat poured out from inside the building, and I stepped back, bumping into Alice before she nudged me forward.
“Go on,” she said. “Marcus thinks you should see.”
I didn’t care what Marcus thought I should do. My trip outside was only because I needed to see what I was working with. So I wasn’t very interested in the kitchens here. No, I wasn’t interested in any of it. I didn’t want to stay. I’d viewed everything so far with gradually-mounting horror, based on the way Marcus spoke to his wife, and now even to me. It all made the morning worse.
When we entered the kitchens, it was a leap back in time. A huge fire burned at one end of the room, and a pot hung over it. There were multiple ranges against one wall, each with multiple cast iron pots on them. Benches ran down the center of the space, the wood faded, scarred, and well-scrubbed.
Women worked intensively in here. Some chopped vegetables, such as long, orange carrots, others carried heavy-looking pots and pans, and a couple manned huge sinks full of dishes. All their faces were red and sweaty, their hair damp and sticking to their skin and scalps.
“All of our meals are prepared here. They’re cooking for all of us,” Alice said unnecessarily. She mentioned it as though I should be grateful for whatever forced subservience went on here. Instead of being disgusted by it.
I’d pretty much worked that out for myself. It was clear this entire place was run like some sort of manor home that had seen better days, and it didn’t really belong here in Florida—assuming we were still in Florida. It was out of step somehow.
Everything inside this place was so old-fashioned and from a different time in history, almost like it was from another world or plane of existence entirely. Yet they were off-grid, running on renewable power.
A girl approached. “Marcus,” she called. She looked maybe six, but it was hard to judge.
Marcus spared her an irritated glance. “What?”
She dipped her head briefly before meeting his gaze, head-on, and there was a boldness in her eyes I hadn’t expected. “Kiran wants her—” She nodded at me. “In his office. He wants to see her.” She had the same tattoos as the other women I’d seen, but hers trailed over her collarbone and no higher.
They were no less pretty, though, glinting in the light as she moved.
Marcus sighed. “And why has he sent you rather than Lucian?”
The little girl shrugged. “I don’t know. I was just told to come.”
For a moment, Marcus seemed torn, casting glances around the kitchen before looking at the door the girl had arrived through.
“Greta?” Alice spoke quietly to the girl. “Is Justin well today?”
Greta tangled her fingers in front of her.
Marcus studied his wife and then the child. When Greta opened her mouth, he spoke as well, his voice so loud it drowned out anything she said.
