attempt with colored pencils instead

a little cleaner methinks

(pg. 1 & 2)

Chapter Two: The Encounter

(Illustration by Rosie Sullivan)

“So what are we going to do? I guess I kind of believe you…” Emily looked so disheartened at this that Patrick decided to feign belief for the moment. “I mean I do believe you. And whatever it was in the garden may have caused this weird allergic reaction. I guess the only thing we can do is investigate. Maybe its like a snakebite, where the object that caused the problem is the same one that has the cure. Do you feel okay enough to go with me and see?” he said.
“Yeah, I actually feel fine. It just looks strange, that’s all,” Emily said, “But we need to sneak out, so that my mom doesn’t see us and send me back to bed.”
Emily got out of bed, arranged the pillows and blankets so that they looked something like her snuggled under the covers, and they crept downstairs toward the room she shared with her younger sister Matilda. Standing around the corner of the hall to all the Watson children’s bedrooms, Emily whispered to Patrick, “I have to grab shoes and a sweater. Just wait here.” She could hear her three youngest siblings happily playing in the bedroom at the end of the hall, but saw no sign of the others and ducked into her room.
It was obvious that the twins had been at it again. They were obsessed with building—forts, castles, and booby-traps, much to Emily’s chagrin as she was the one always tidying up after the dynamic duo and falling victim to their trickery.
She tiptoed to her closet over the spilled toys and through the fuchsia yarn strung across her side of the room, looking as though a clumsy spider had crawled across the bedend through the chandelier, around toys, and the open armoire drawers. “What are they up to now?” Emily thought, paying extra attention to where she tread. She made it successfully to the closet, was about to open the door and
“BOO!” Matilda sprung from the inside of the closet, garbed in what looked to be a homemade superhero costume. Emily jumped back and ducked as Martin emerged from behind the curtains, bounced off the bed flying toward Emily, arms flailing. “Did we scare you? Did we scare you? Huh? We sure scared you didn’t we?” Martin said as he stood up from his not so graceful landing. “Yeah…” Emily said as she dug through her disorganized closet trying to find two matching shoes and a coat.
“Hey…Mom said you were sick. Where are you going?” Matilda said, with a suspicious look. “Can we come with you? I mean, it will keep us from telling Mom…” Emily found the other shoe under the bed, quickly slipped it on. She stood up and placed a firm hand on each of their shoulders. “Whoa Em, whatcha got on your arm?” They both were mesmerized and looked a little scared. Over their heads out the window she could see the sun was getting lower by the minute and realized there wasn’t time to figure out how to convince the two that telling mom about Emily’s excursion wasn’t a good idea. So, bending over slightly and looking each of them in the eye, she said in a stern voice “My arms are fine and yes you can come, but not a peep out of either of you until I say, you promise?”
“Cross our hearts,” they said in unison.
“Right. Okay, follow me.” Emily and the two following her crept out, motioned to Patrick who had himself squeezed halfway in the linen closet, unable to completely close the door. Down the backstairs and through the kitchen, they narrowly escaped being exposed by their brown and white pug puppy, Pete, who always got excited when people were going out. Martin quickly scooped him up as they exited before the little dog could let out a single yelp and blow their cover. Their shadows like long creatures trailing behind them as they hurriedly crossed the spans of knee-high grass, the group of five (dog included) took one last look toward the now matchbox-sized Watson house before entering the cedar grove that stood between them and the Pember property. Emily looked at Patrick, at the twins, at the puppy, and lead the way.

*******

“Ugh, who knew being a super hero was so exhausting and that a cape could be such a pain,” Martin complained, disgusted with the number of times the blue blanket tied round his neck had gotten in his way, flipping into his face and getting caught in his legs. “We’re almost there,” Emily said. Not a minute later they had reached the edge of the grove, and in the twilight Emily could just make out the maze, this time less inviting than the last time she had approached it. She felt a slight chill scurry up her back.
“Um Emily, are you sure we ought to do this now…?” Patrick said.
“Patrick, it was your idea in the first place. For goodness' sakes, stick with me on this one and stop being so frightened by everything!”
“I’m not scared at all, Emily. I’ll protect you,” Matilda said, assuming a superhero’s position, hands on hips, chest out, standing tall. “Thanks Matilda,” Emily said, giving Patrick an annoyed look. “At least someone’s going to, even if she is four years younger than the one who ought to.”
Patrick sheepishly shuffled his feet and looked at the ground.
“Well let’s go then. It’s getting darker by the minute and the last thing we want is to get lost in that thing,” Emily said, and grabbing each of the twins by the hand they approached the maze, with Patrick and Pete right behind them.
*******

Chapter One: The Cough

It began with a cough—Emily's concern about her condition. It was a small one, but a cough nonetheless. The girl hardly made a noise at all, but this slight clearing of the throat constituted a cough in the mind of Dr. Fiat, who, unable to discern the true problem with the ailing child promptly took this as an opportunity to tell Mrs. Watson that Emily was "Merely suffering from a bout of the common cold."
"But the spots, Dr. Fiat. I've never seen such spots on any of my children—or any child for that matter," Mrs. Watson replied.
"Yes, it is rather curious, that mottling of the skin..."
Here Dr. Fiat wondered whether there was such a thing as "mottling" or if there were only "mottled"; but he did so hate to be wrong and even more to be corrected, so, as was his practice, the doctor relied upon a false self-confidence and a method of distraction, not giving it a second thought once he saw that Mrs. Watson hardly seemed to have her wits about her and was ready to believe nearly whatever he said. For most of his life Dr. Fiat had kept his clients, colleagues, and familiars thinking him a credible man in this way. Only his mother had been able to distinguish the truths from the less-than-true things that came out of his mouth, and she had been dead some fifteen years due to a rare case of dyspepsia—or at least that had been the diagnosis presented by her son.
"Well I must be going," Dr. Fiat said. "Treat it as the common cold, Mrs. Watson. Inundate the girl with chicken soup and keep her snug in bed, and I guarantee this bug will be gone by Friday. Do call me if there are any other problems."
"Yes Dr. Fiat," Mrs. Watson said, being the type of woman who readily accepted a quick-fix solution if it meant one less worry. The mother of eight, Emily sometimes imagined Mrs. Watson's worries, if lined up (supposing worries had definable dimensions and could be arranged heel-to-toe like shoes) were enough to make a straight line to Singapore. But, then again, worries weren't this way and this thought was just as unrealistic as the majority of the ideas that flitted about in Emily's head.
"Let me walk you to the door. Thank you ever so much for stopping by..." Their voices trailed off as they walked downstairs, leaving Emily alone in bed, wide-eyed, mind buzzing.
She doubted what Dr. Fiat had said, next to certain this was not merely a cold, for she was fourteen and quite familiar with that type of illness. While she did not know what exactly was wrong with her—why cloudy splotches covered her arms, legs, hands, and torso, appearing as though a fog were trapped between the first and second layers of her skin, with some places a pea-soup fog and others just a light haze—Emily felt in her gut that it was because of yesterday morning. It was early yesterday morning that she sneaked into Mr. Pember's garden when no one was looking; and it was yesterday morning that she was drawn to that thing waiting at the center of his overgrown hedge maze.
*******
Emily looked down at her arm and could tell that it was getting worse. "What am I going to do?" she thought. There was a slight knock, performed simultaneously with the opening of her bedroom door. Two apprehensive grey eyes peered around the edge. It was Patrick.
"Hey. I heard you were ill, so I thought I would stop by,” he said, once he had entered the room, still standing by the door awkwardly but in the room at least. Patrick walked up to Emily awkwardly, which was really the way he always was, but Emily thought he seemed to hesitate a bit more than usual.
The fact of the matter was that Patrick wasn’t terribly fond of being sick. Ever since he had gotten the chickenpox and Strep Throat at the same time, he tried to stay away from sickness and the potential for it as much as possible. As Emily appeared quite normal, with her splotches completely covered by the mounds of blankets that Mrs. Watson had piled upon her, Patrick relaxed a bit and placed a math book and a few worksheets on her bedside table.
“Ms. Marin gave me your homework in case you felt well enough to do it, " he said, walking to stand by the large window of the room. He looked outside at his own house a few hundred yards to the left and the countryside of Galesburg. He had never been in this room before; but then again, there were too many rooms to hold the too many children in the Watson household to keep track of.
“So what’s wrong with you anyways?" he said blatantly, "It must be kind of bad if your mom found it necessary to put you all the way up in the attic!” Once again concerned, he turned toward her, fiddling with a silver figurine of a dog he had found on the windowsill and waiting for a response.
Emily was silent, watching him. She didn’t know whether to tell him, even though they were best friends and if she was going to tell anyone it would be him. She couldn’t decide whether she was more afraid of this strange reaction she was experiencing or of having people—especially Patrick—think she was completely nuts.
“It doesn’t seem to be getting better so I really ought to tell someone,” she thought, and in a quiet but steady voice she started. “Well, the thing is Patrick, you probably won’t believe me...”
*******
“Wait, what happened?” Patrick said, giving Emily the same look he would have given her if she had told him a colony had been established on Mars and her family was moving there in a month. “I touched it and it was smoothish and warm but also cool and when I touched it, it felt like it was moving… and the air around me felt thinner and the morning fog seemed to swarm around it and get thicker and I think…I think it was almost…well…breathing.”
Emily wondered if it was a bad idea to have told him and was starting to doubt even herself and her memory, wondering if the cloud patches had made there way into her brain.
“Let me get this straight,” Patrick said, at this point pacing back and forth across the small room. Had Emily been less stressed, she would have laughed because he looked so much like his father, the Reverend Ellington, as he worked through his sermons. Pacing in the pulpit, brow furrowed, Emily always enjoyed watching the Reverend more than listening to him, preaching and gesticulating as though, if he put his hand out just enough times, he could coax the truth or whatever it was he was after out of thin air.
“Yesterday morning you woke up early, couldn’t go back to sleep, and decided to go for a walk on the path that edges Mr. Pember’s property. You ended up going through his garden to the overgrown bush-maze thing at the back of it, walked through it and at the center found a white living hot cold stone-like thing that you touched and now you’re sick?” He stopped pacing and looked at her like she was crazy. Maybe she was crazy.
“No I am not!” Emily thought. “I am certain that is what happened and there is no other explanation for my skin. Even Dr. Fiat couldn't come up with one.” She was determined to have at least one person believe her.
“Patrick, look…” she said, displaying her arm to him, hoping this were adequate proof that her story, or at least some aspect of it, was valid. Patrick’s eyes widened and in two swift strides he was next to Emily's bed, her arm in his hand, peering intently, baffled. “Wha…well...uh Emily, what is this? It’s almost moving on your arm…or in your arm…or something. And you can see it through your skin or all of your pigment has been replaced by whatever that is… I don’t get it.” He looked up at her. “I don’t get it. It looks like you’re condensing…I mean like there’s condensation underneath your skin…like you’re turning into, well, a cloud.”

A Sepia Colored Life

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