When the two brothers left the posticum, Luc led Ishmael across the small courtyard to an archway. Ishmael stopped at its threshold, a bit unnerved. “This wasn’t here before. There was only the entrance back there.” He pointed to the arch leading to Luc’s posticum.
Luc nodded, unsurprised. “The stones were at work.”
Ishmael remembered the rumbling he had heard just before he opened the door. He touched the stone of the archway. It felt warm, but very solid. Ishmael shook his head, then passed through into a much larger courtyard. Again, this space was without color, but it seemed shinier than the smaller courtyard they had just exited.
“Papa’s really gone?” Luc said.
Ishmael nodded.
“It’s just hard to believe he’s not there chasing the sheep or fixing a fence.”
“It feels pretty empty without him. Of course, it’s felt pretty empty ever since you left, too. Now it’s just emptier.”
As they walked, Luc pointed with half a heart. “This is the Great Courtyard,” he said. Paved with slabs of stone, the space extended to a collection of buildings and walls. In the center, a fountain splashed.
At their left was a building with rounded windows and multiple chimneys. “That’s the refectory. We eat there. That other building”—he pointed to a large domed building on their right that had a bell tower adjoining it—“is Wright Hall. And that doorway over there”—he pointed to one of the arched doorways in the wall opposite them—“is where we’re headed. That’s the entrance to the Hall of Hue. Come on—Color Master should be in her office.”
They walked across the Great Courtyard and through the arched doorway. To the left and ahead of them were two matching squat buildings lined with dozens of windows.
“Dormitories,” Luc said.
There was a tower at the end of the second dormitory, then a cloistered walkway leading to another arched doorway.
Luc led them through the arched doorway and down a hallway to a workroom. Ishmael stopped in his tracks. The room was easily three times the size of the barn back home, with light pouring through enormous leaded-glass windows. Around the perimeter of the room, single colors circulated through vials and tubes in complicated machinery. Directly in front of them were rows of workbenches. At the rear of the room, a large stone sink stood next to a doorway leading into another room. At their left, vials of color hung suspended from a rack, lined up neatly in the order Ishmael remembered from the splintered light in the barn. Empty vials dangled from another rack next to it. Stone jars stood in the back left corner.
Several bands of color hung in the air—some spinning slowly, some whirling in a centrifuge—each one projecting from a clear crystal stationed beneath. Ishmael edged closer to one of them to get a better look as the colors spun overhead. They flowed together, so that he couldn’t tell where one band ended and another began.
He stood spellbound at the sight. Warm sweetness stretched through his arms and legs, momentarily releasing him from the worries of the farm and his family. Strangely, even though he couldn’t have imagined such a place existed, he felt like he was home.
“Like it?” Luc asked.
Ishmael smiled. That was an understatement.
Just then a woman poked her head out of a doorway to their left. Though she, too, glowed in the same way Luc did, everything else about the woman bespoke disapproval, from the incline of her head to the hard light glinting off her spectacles to the stance of her tall, thin body. Even the color of her robe seemed to agree. It blazed ferociously.
“And who is this?” she said.
Luc steered Ishmael around to face her. “Color Master, this is my younger brother, Ishmael.”
“Your brother?” The clipped words were just as disapproving. “And how did you come to be here, brother of Luc? Did someone let you in?” Suspicion showed in her eyes.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I knocked at the gate, but no one answered, so I tried the door and it was unlocked.”
Her eyebrows rose, and she looked at Luc. “You brought him for testing, I presume?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled, but she didn’t return the smile.
“The sight rarely shows up this early, and never in the same family line,” Color Master said, shaking her head. “Certainly, in all my years as Hall master for the Hall of Hue, I’ve seen it only once.”
This information was a strange relief to Ishmael. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to be tested after all, and he could just persuade Luc to go home, though he would be sorry to leave this room of color.
“How old are you?” Color Master said.
“Eleven, last spring,” Ishmael replied.
“Hmm.” Color Master made a tent of her fingers and tapped her lips. She looked at Ishmael, sizing him up. Her eyes stopped at the large splotch of that brilliant hue on Ishmael’s boot. Ishmael immediately slid the marked boot behind his other ankle. Color Master angled herself to study Ishmael’s boot. She tilted her head and squinted behind her spectacles.
Ishmael slid his foot farther back.
Color Master picked up a large canvas bag. “Since the day is fine, we’ll go outside. Would you care to join us, Luc? Normally I test privately, but since you are family, I’ll make an exception.”
“But I don’t want to be tested,” Ishmael declared.
“Come, come, now. Just nerves, my boy.”
Ishmael opened his mouth, but nothing came out. How could someone so very tall be so utterly wrong? And why wasn’t Luc standing up for him? Luc knew he had to return home. He couldn’t leave Mam alone on the farm.
And just like that, inspiration struck.