Inheritance, Part 5 - Colors

"Everything?" Letitia asked after a moment of silence. "Everything is a lot."

"Why don't you sit down and have some breakfast," Rowan's dad said and pulled a chair from under the table. Rowan sat, staring at Letitia.

"Everything," she said.

"Chronologically?" Letitia asked, raising an eyebrow. "Well, she and I were born on July eleventh, me first and she a little after."

"Fine," Rowan said. Her stomach rumbled and she reached for a piece of toast. "Not everything."

"You want to know about the magic? Because she never told you about it, and now you have it," Letitia asked.

"And why she never told us about you," Rowan nodded and spread some strawberry jam on her toast. Her dad gave her a look that said you're really going to start with jam?. Rowan shrugged at him.

"I don't know what to tell you. I don't know why she never told you about us. Like I said yesterday, there was a falling out between her and our parents, but no one ever bothered to tell me what it was all about," Rowan could hear old hurt under the words. "I didn't know there was something going on with her, and then she left and my parents never talked much about her again, and not at all about what had happened between them.
"And about the magic... Like I also said yesterday, she got them when a great-grandmother died when we were four. She grew up with it. I remember hating her having magic when we were old enough to go to school, since it meant we had to go to different schools."

Rowan was chewing her toast slowly.

"But there was nothing special about her magic? Nothing that could have made her hide she had it at all? Even from us?" Rowan asked. Letitia shook her head.

"Her magic was nothing more special that anyone else's magic. A lot of the time that I saw she used her magic for making beautiful things. She made these amazing paintings, weaving the magic into them and using it to make them even more beautiful. She loved the way she could make the colors. Her best paintings weren't even pictures of things, just colors and weird and fascinating and beautiful patterns."

"I remember seeing one of her paintings," Rowan's dad said suddenly. He stared at his plate for a moment, remembering, then looked up at the other two. "She had it on her wall in her first apartment after I met her. I mean, I'm not sure it was hers, but it was like that. All colors, and patterns, and sometimes when I wasn't looking at it directly it seemed the colors were alive."

Letitia nodded, "Probably one of hers."

"I think I asked her about it one of the first times I was at her place, but I can't remember what she said. I haven't seen it since she moved out of that apartment. And she hasn't been painting since we met. She has occasionally written some poems though."

They were all silent for a while. Letitia took a sip of her coffee.

"I think what ever reason she had for hiding her magic made her stop painting," Letitia said, putting her cup back down on the table. "I can imagine she didn't want to paint if she couldn't use her magic for the work."

"So you don't actually know anything," Rowan said flatly.

"The answers you want? No. I'm sorry. I told you, I haven't been much in touch with her for over twenty years. You know her much better now than I do," Letitia said.

So you're useless, Rowan wanted to say.

"Why didn't you ever come to meet us before?" she demanded instead, reaching for another piece of toast.

"She never invited me over," Letitia answered. "Of course I asked, after the first letter she wrote me telling she had a husband and child now. I wanted to meet you. But she said it wasn't a good time. The way she had written it seemed to imply she'd ask me to come visit when she was ready for it. She never did. I didn't want to push it. I didn't know what was going on in her life and I was afraid even the letters would stop if I kept asking about it. I invited all of you over a couple of times too, but she never gave any reply, so again I thought it better not to push it."

"How long are you going to be in town?" Rowan's dad asked, changing the subject.

"I was planning on leaving this morning," Letitia said, not showing any sign of confusion at the sudden change of topic, "but I suppose I could stay a few days, if you want me to."

Rowan's phone buzzed. Aksa.

«And when are you at the bottom?»

«Apparently not today.» Rowan wrote back. «Let's meet in the park in a half an hour?»

She got a couple of yeses back while she had a go at some yogurt.

"I'm going out," she informed her dad and Letitia and headed back to her room to get dressed.
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Your topic for the day after tomorrow is Boxes.

~matu