Work Text:
Alicia,
I pen you from the rarely-used desk in my bedroom, watching the sun set on another morning without you here. The hours since Papa returned and you didn't have stretched on for what feels like weeks, as though the warped timing inside Verso's Canvas has escaped its frame and pervaded our manor.
Though Papa and Maman were locked inside the Canvas, and you haven't been much of a talker since the fire, our home is especially quiet without you. Papa cannot bear to breathe your name and refuses to step foot in the atelier. Maman has not left the bedroom since I placed her there, and refuses to even lift her eyes when I come to deliver her meals. To protect them both, I have taken to wearing the only key to the atelier around my neck. And so another burden falls to me. What a waste of precious minutes
I cannot comprehend how the Writers compose themselves to write what they do, when my bitterness seeps into the written word far easier than paint.
Streaks of ochre and gold formed cracks along the atelier's marble flooring, announcing the arrival of another sunrise beyond the curtains. The first thing Clea did after testing the door was locked and hanging the key back around her neck was draw the velvet open, welcoming dawn.
The third, since Papa returned.
In a mere few days, her duties had become routine. She hardly felt the brass weight clawing at her throat anymore. She no longer flinched when Papa stopped by to test the lock, no longer felt the gaze of their enemies on her back when she spent extended hours at her sister's side. There were still brief moments of fear and longing, but Clea swallowed them down and kept her smile plastered. It might only be temporary, she'd remind herself. Her sister could still choose to come back.
As a parting cloud bathed the workshop in placid warmth, Clea forced a deep breath and pushed her serving cart to the middle of the room. To Alicia, seated before the Canvas as Maman had been for weeks, wide eyes swimming with cream and powdered blue.
"Good morning," Clea greeted her. "I hope you had a peaceful night."
Beginning as she always did, Clea sat down on the stool beside Alicia and hefted an overflowing bucket off the cart's bottom tier. She dipped a washcloth in its suds, wrung it out, and gingerly wiped the sweat from her sister's forehead, and in the hollows between every scar marring her cheeks and chin.
Washcloth baths were not a ritual so much as a necessity. The body still worked while the mind was in the Canvas; though their abilities seemed like magic, there were deep and complex sciences behind them. The energy had to come from somewhere—and from a weaker Paintress like Alicia, who hadn't properly trained these muscles, her body would sweat, shiver, and start to seize up. As though she'd been sprinting for days on end.
With Maman and Papa, experienced as they were, these regimens were rushed, unappreciated. They lasted far longer before their bodies began showing signs of wasting, and even when they did, Clea didn't have time to tend to them. There was a war outside, a sister who could hardly stand to rise from her bed, and her own sidetracked grief, always shoved off to overmorrow. There was no time in her waking hours to do more than wipe away the obvious beads of sweat or split the curtains open.
For Alicia, she made time. The war pushed on, but now Papa was here to care for the bedridden and Clea had simply accepted that her own thoughts and feelings were insignificant.
Pleased with her work, Clea hung the washcloth over the side of the bucket. Next, she took a brush and elastic band to deal with Alicia's hair.
"How do you make such a mess of your hair," Clea pondered aloud, "when you don't even move? You make so much work for me."
For that reason, once she'd detangled Alicia's hair again, Clea set to plait it into something more manageable. Like they did as girls, after Verso got too old and fussy to let Clea practice braiding his hair—though Alicia never knew how to sit still like her older brother. She'd groan and flop her head around like a rag doll, only relenting when Clea threatened to tell Maman she was misbehaving.
The memory stung. "Alicia," Clea started, "I—"
It felt pointless to speak knowing Alicia would never hear her. She sat perched atop her stool like a mannequin, unblinking and unmoving. A statue frozen in time. A traditional sort of painting where the oil dries down, never to be scraped on or off again.
Clea brushed a cherry lock of hair out of Alicia's eyes. The kindness felt hollow with no one there to receive it.
Alicia,
I'm sure you remember from Maman's lessons that the light in a painting is meaningless without shadow. There is no happiness in our home without you here.
In your dream world, you do not see Maman's tear-filled eyes. Her frail body still wasting away in her bed. You do not see how Papa throws himself into politics and reading—everything but our family or painting. I do not know that he will ever hold a brush again. You do not have to see how I
You are blissfully blind within the Canvas, without a care in the world for the people you left behind. That accursed Painting has torn us apart. Alicia, how am I supposed to sit back and just watch you throw your lif
A rapid trio of knocks at her bedroom door tore her from her writing. "Clea?" her father's hoarse voice called for her. "Are you in there?"
"Just a minute, Papa!"
The last thing he'd want to see was her bloodletting her thoughts onto paper as their bitter enemies did. Clea swiped her pens and pages of smudged familial curses into her desk drawer, slamming it shut. Her stack of unmarked parchment went back into the bottom of her wardrobe.
Then, smoothing the wrinkles from sitting out of her skirt and trying to regain some semblance of composure, Clea opened the door.
"Yes, Papa?"
Renoir stood worn and hunched over, his stature diminished by the grandeur of the manor. The artistic gold and black he once commanded as the Dessendres' patriarchal figurehead was now the maw of—for lack of a better comparison—a Nevron eating him alive. He'd never sagged or relied on his cane so much before; decades within the Canvas had stripped years from him.
Yet it seemed he was desperate to continue draining what little of his life remained. Clea scowled, eyeing the box of wooden cigars he held.
"Again?" she asked, cutting him off as he opened his mouth to speak. "Those things are nearly as bad for you as painting!"
Hardened to her bluntness, Papa merely shook his head. "I only came to tell you that dinner is waiting in the dining hall," he said. "Will you bring your Maman her plate?"
"Couldn't you bring it to her yourself? Instead of hiding away in the library?"
"You know she does not want to see me."
"Or are you scared it will hurt to see her?" Clea spat.
Sorrow panged in his expression. He ducked his head and curled his whitened knuckles around the head of his cane.
Clea had always worn her candor as armor, sparing herself those intricate societal dances the rest of her family was mired with, but that never stopped guilt from slipping through the iron cracks. Her shoulders dropped and she nodded curtly. Obediently. Kind like Verso, soft like Alicia. These days, she was forced to wear the masks of all three Dessendre children.
"I'll bring it to her," she relented. Clea didn't have the heart to push him further. "But please, Papa, don't lock yourself away all night again."
Gently, he smiled at her. "I promise that I will try, Clea."
For now, that had to be enough.
Two silver cloches sat on a cart in the dining room, waiting for her. When she lifted one, she was pleasantly overwhelmed with the scent of herb and mushrooms.
While the manor's staff had been greatly reduced following the fire—naturally, the tragedy soured Clea into a rather paranoid woman—Papa had refused to part with the hired hands in the kitchen. He tried to insist the quality of their food was worth the relatively minor risk, but she knew better. It would have hurt his ailing heart to foist another needless task onto Clea.
Feeding Maman, however? Still her duty. As she did every morning for Alicia, Clea now pushed the cart to tend to her mother.
"Dinner's here," she announced, pushing the door to the bedroom open. Knocking was a formality Maman did not deserve, because she'd only use it as an excuse to push Clea away. "Poulets aux champignons. Papa chose one of your favorites."
Covered in layers of gold and purple sheets, her mother looked like a corpse ready to be laid in its coffin. Her empty eyes followed Clea's movements throughout the room, uncovering the cloche and setting the plate on the bedside table. Harsh grey lines wore into her expression and accentuated her red-rimmed eyes. Her arms were as skinny as sticks. Her lips were parched like she hadn't had a drink of water in months.
The mention of her husband distorted her face into a scowl. Papa had been right, though Clea rebuked him for saying it: Aline believed he'd stolen the Canvas from her, the last connection she had to her son, and she thought it self-righteous and foul that he'd ripped her clean from the oil while allowing Alicia to stay inside.
Clea personally did not care for the nuances and hypocrisies of the situation. They were both wrong, as far as she was concerned.
"Eat," Clea demanded. "I'm not going to feed you."
Aline stayed still, waiting for her to leave. After an idle five seconds—a chance for Maman to do it herself—Clea stepped forward and yanked the blankets off of her.
"And I'm not going to treat you like a child either," she bit.
Reluctantly, Aline sat upright and took the plate. Her hands were trembling as she lifted the fork; if she ever held a paintbrush again, it would not be with the firmness she used to possess. The confidence she held when teaching her children to paint. The Maman that Clea had once idolized and prayed she'd grow up to become. To instead become the woman sitting before her would be a grim and terrible future indeed.
Satisfied that her mother would get at least a few bites in, Clea re-covered the empty cloche and pushed the cart toward the door. "Do try to leave your room tomorrow," she told her. "I don't know how much longer I can stand Papa's moping."
When she turned back, Maman was hardly listening to her. Her fork clattered back onto the plate, her gaze glued to the streak of metal that whipped around with Clea.
The brass key that had come untucked from its hiding place beneath her blouse.
Maman's eyes were hungry, and not in the way they ought to be. Instead, she looked like a frightened and desperate young doe, eager to dive into the nearest dark hiding place for comfort. Into the Canvas. Where her husband and only remaining child would have to drag out her bloody carcass if they ever wished to see her again.
The hurt she'd been repressing boiled over. Clea clutched the key in her fist and stormed out of the bedroom, leaving the cart and her dinner behind.
Alicia—or should I call you Maelle now?
You know we are here. You know we are hurting. Why do you remain within the Canvas when you know what pain we suffer through!? Your memories are whole again, you are no longer affected by Maman's chroma, but you still choose to live blindly as Maelle. What does your false world offer that our family cannot? What does Verso's facsimile offer that I ca
All Papa wanted was for you to make something of yourself here. Back then, to brave your meek spirit and become as outspoken as the rest of your family. Now, for you to surpass your guilt and those scars and your lost voice, to grow into a young woman with the entire world at her mercy! He told you as much, but you refuse to listen to him. Only to Maman and her misplaced anguish. Only to me, and the grief-fueled temper I can't hold back. I wonder, if we had only done a better job of convincing you that you were loved and valuable and not doomed, would this have still been the outcome?
I could not have foreseen that the day I sent you into the Canvas would become another 33rd of décembre. But I should have known you were weak enough to fall into Maman's cycle and lose your sense of self. And I should have known what marks those years inside the Canvas would leave upon your bleeding heart—that you would see the world to be as real as Verso and I once did.
I do not know if I'll find the strength to say this to you directly, which is why I must write it down. Alicia, you see me as the most mature and infallible of all the Dessendre family, but that is not the truth. I feel as hopeless as Papa must have when Maman did not return from the Canvas. I am falling apart just like them. Just like you.
I never should have sent you into the Canvas. I miss you dearly, sister.
Clea
Verso's Canvas stood in front of her as a warning, a tableau of their endless, selfish grief that had lasted both weeks and decades. Its blues comprised all known shades—from sky obscured behind clouds to the deepest stretches of the river Seine. Like Maman did before she surrendered to her denial, or like Papa before he rushed into save her, Clea hovered her hand over the paint and watched its hues shift beneath her fingers.
"I'm going to do it," Clea said, looking down at her frozen sister. "I'll come in and I'll find you. And if you will not listen, I will unpaint you myself."
Alicia didn't react to the threat, of course. Clea knelt down beside her. From her pocket, she pulled out the letter she spent most of last night composing. After seeing Maman for dinner, unable to bear her brazen desperation to reenter the Canvas, she'd branded every single one of her thoughts onto the parchment until she finally had something she thought might convince Alicia. The bitterness was still there, same as her first attempt, but finally she felt she'd been able to express how deeply she cared for her sister. That fickle, familial love she struggled to speak aloud.
Once inside the Canvas, she'd find Maelle and hand her the letter. She'd beg her to come home, to seal the cracks in their family before the glass shattered.
And she'd agree. They'd return in a matter of hours—so quickly that Papa and Maman wouldn't realize Clea had been gone.
Right?
Suddenly, a memory burnt like bile in the back of her throat—glimpses of those few days before Papa followed Maman into the Canvas. Preoccupied with the Writers, Clea had paid his restlessness little mind, but there are flashes she intimately recalls: how he stroked his wife's hair in front of the Canvas, how he spoke to her and begged her even when she couldn't listen. He must have been more courageous than Clea, capable of saying it directly to her, but—
Where had it gotten them? Atrophied into the roles of gods, powering an endless war that left their daughters grieving not only their brother, but them too.
With quivering hands, Clea broke the seal on the letter and opened it, self-consciously rereading the words she'd scrawled last night. Did Papa speak similar things to Maman? Did he curse her and the choices she made? Did he then blame himself for her running?
Spurned by a sudden and debilitating fear, her hands creased the edges of the parchment, distorting the ink she'd spent hours poring over. In an instant, Clea felt five years old again, sobbing in her mother's lap over a ruined painting. Or were these tears more like Papa's? When he had to identify Verso's body for the officials? Damning herself for a fire she had no chance of extinguishing?
Clea knew if she entered the Canvas she would take on his role: willing to start a war if it meant saving her family. She knew—she had known, since Maman came back—that this was a cycle her family would not survive repeating.
This was a wheel Clea could not bring herself to turn.
Setting the letter in Alicia's lap, Clea stretched her arms and gripped her sister's shoulders. Weeks of grief poured from her in an instant; when the tears began to well, they couldn't be stopped. "Alicia," she whispered, as though that one plea might bring her back. As though it could make the threads unravel on their own. As though it could pull her from the Canvas, or keep her from ever entering it, or un-ignite the fire that stole their brother.
But her sister sat as still as the porcelain dolls they played with as girls, so fragile that another spoken word might blow her over and cause her to shatter.
So Clea spoke nothing. She laid her head in her sister's lap and, for the first time since Verso's death, cried.