The Color of Paradox by A.M. Dellamonica

Author:A.M. Dellamonica
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-07-06T16:00:00+00:00

“What if I got close to him?” I said to Willie that night. “The Project must know more about whatever Peter does to . . .”

“To bring on the Souring?” She sat in a rocking chair in the parlor, knitting in front of the fire, playing at being an ordinary woman.

My mouth went dry. “The—”

“Sorry—that’s what I call it. What we saw.”

I swallowed. “It’s apt.”

“It’s useful,” she said. “I use it in the journals. I’ve cultivated a conceit that losing my husband made me a bit odd.”

“Ramblings of a daft young widow?”

She nodded. “Just in case someone unauthorized gets a look.”

“Whatever Peter does to bring on your Souring,” I said, “it’s bound to be one story. They chose him because he’s key, am I right? Because he’s a simple target?”

“So?”

“The Project must tell me which story. If he sees me as a friend, an older brother, or even a father figure—his own father died in the flu epidemic—”

She flinched, for some reason.

“It’s why he’s working as a paperboy, to support his mother. In any case, I’ll keep him off that one story.”

“You’re proposing to chum around with him for years?”

“Why not? I’ll make myself useful meanwhile: keep investing money, reporting gossip, maybe help dig out the next basement . . .”

“Jules.”

“. . . I’d need someone to explain the engineering to me, obviously. How does one secretly dig a second basement in a house that already exists?”

“Jules.”

“I needn’t live here in the house if you don’t want me underfoot.”

She pulled herself upright in her chair, sitting as prim and proper as a schoolteacher. I imagined I heard her sleeve tearing, and thought about running my tongue over the freckles on her arm: how far did they go? She folded her hands, seemed to fight an urge to wring them, and waited for me to run down.

“What is it?”

She said. “The timepress uses a radiant form of energy. It’s what makes us so sick. They told you that, didn’t they?”

“I’m not going to relapse on you. I live, I know it.”

She didn’t smile. “Chances are you will die of cancer within the year.”

“Chances?”

“Rufus has survived almost fifteen months, but...”

She meant the sickly Negro man.

“You have no great span of time in which to befriend Peter Rupert. You can’t jolly him along for a decade and hope to break his leg before he leaves for Japan. You—”

I was across the room before I knew it, grabbing at her, tipping the rocking chair. We ended on the floor, my hand wrapped around her jaw, and again that red desire swam up. To smash, to smash, to taste of her blood on my knuckles.

“You’re. Not. Dead,” I snarled. “It’s been years and you’re not dead.”

A little flicker. Fear? I am ashamed to admit I hoped so. I needed to see something beyond pity or contempt in her.

“Go ahead, then,” she said, and I realized my other hand was resting atop—was squeezing—one of her strangely firm breasts.

Trying to buy her life? Well, she’d all but

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