“We all need teachers in our lives,” Eleanor said soothingly. “Different times, different lessons to learn.” She smiled, and I could see a hint of wickedness that had probably gotten her into trouble as a teenager.
“My husband taught me how to tango,” she said. “He was very handsome. Nearly as handsome as Liam here. And he was a wonderful dancer. He’d take me to dances on Friday nights—because Saturday night was for Mass, of course—and we danced up a storm.”
She lost herself in the memory for a moment, her smile so happy. And then she seemed to shake herself out of it. “I do sometimes get lost in the past. It’s the danger of growing old, I’m afraid.”
“Better to grow old than not,” Liam put in.
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Every person we meet can teach us something. What’s harder is to find the perfect teacher for the very thing you need to learn. All magic has a color,” Eleanor continued. “The best person to train you isn’t someone whose magic is precisely like yours, but one whose magic complements yours, not unlike colors on a color wheel. Yellow and purple are complementary, for example. Each brings out the best qualities of the other. Yellow and green are not. They clash, create tension. We do not need more tension here.”
With her free hand, she gestured elegant fingers toward the rest of the room. “Bring me the quartz, please. It will be on the sideboard beside the alabaster.”
Liam nodded, rose, walked to a dark wooden buffet with several drawers with silver knobs, the top cluttered with trinkets and memories. No—not cluttered, because Eleanor probably knew where everything was. But definitely full. He carried back a clear, angular rod of quartz about the size of a candle.
“Thank you, dear,” she said, and placed the quartz on the table beside a taper candle stuck into a blue and white tea saucer. She slid a long match from a small box, and with an elegant flick of the wrist that sent the nose-ticking scent of sulfur into the air, she set fire to the wick.
The light bloomed through the quartz, sending a rainbow of color across the table in front of it. I’d always loved rainbows. There was something soothing about them—about the ordering of color, I guess. Every shade in its place.
“Now,” Eleanor said. “Your hand, child.”
I offered it to her again.
“First,” she said, “we find your color.” Her soft, cool hand guided mine in front of the quartz.
As soon as skin touched light, the rainbow of light shattered, and split, all colors fading except a line of faint orange.
Eleanor smiled. “Interesting. That’s a lovely shade. I’d call it ‘pumpkin.’”
“You can see the color?” I asked carefully, hoping not to offend.
“It’s not just a color,” Eleanor said with a smile. “It’s a reflection of magic—the trail that’s left behind in our world from the magic that comes from theirs. In their world, it’s magic. In our world, it’s electrons.”
“Eleanor enjoys science,” Liam said with a smile.
“All women of intellect must,” she said, “or at least be conversant in it. That’s how I’ve managed to learn of their world what I’ve learned so far. Reading, experimenting, vigorous note-keeping. Learning as much as I can from the Paras I’ve met here.”
“Have you met many?”
“Quite a few. Most of them are lovely people; some of them are not. Not unlike humans, in my experience. Now, keep your hand there, if you would. Liam, will you please bring me my notebook?”
Liam walked back to the bureau, pulled open a door on the buffet, and slipped out a red leather book, its pages held together with brass posts. He extended it toward Eleanor, who felt the air for it with seeking fingertips before settling it into her lap.
She opened it, revealing what looked like a ledger of color. One half of the page held small painted squares of translucent color, each only slightly different from the last. It looked a little like one of the antique watercolor swatch books I’d seen in the store. The other half was a list in small and tidy handwriting too small for me to read.
Eleanor flipped through the pages quickly, the colors blurring into a rainbow from red to orange to something akin to the pumpkin I matched. She slowed, stopped on a square that looked remarkably like the light that still slitted through the prism, and lifted the small pencil attached to a chain around her neck.
She scribbled, paused. “What’s your middle name, dear?”
“Bridget,” I said. “It was my grandmother’s name.”
“And a lovely one. Claire Bridget Connolly.” She wrote my name, then let the pencil fall again. “And I’ve marked you down. Not your actual name, of course. I use my own code for your protection.”
“Sure. Are those all Sensitives? Each color?”