Furthermore(68)

“I suppose it’s not,” said Oliver, but he was very quiet now.

“But you don’t want to?”

Oliver shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just—I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I’m afraid.”

“Of what?” said Alice.

“Don’t you see?” Oliver closed his eyes. “No one would like me if I didn’t trick them into it.” And then he looked at her, really looked at her. “That’s why I was so terrible to you in middlecare,” he said. “It wasn’t because I thought you were ugly. I didn’t think that at all. It was because I knew you didn’t like me, and I couldn’t convince you not to. I didn’t understand then why my persuasion wouldn’t work on you—I didn’t know about your ever-binding promise—and it scared me. Here was the one person in all of Ferenwood who wasn’t swayed by my lies, and she didn’t like me. It confirmed all my fears: If I let people be themselves, they’d all abandon me. My parents wouldn’t love me.”

“But, Oliver,” she said, squeezing his hand, “I didn’t like you because you were one of the most sincerely rude people I’d ever met. You were arrogant and unkind and a horrible, raging skyhole.”

Oliver groaned and got up to leave.

“Wait!” she said quickly, grabbing his tunic. “There’s more, I promise.”

Oliver shot her a hard look.

“There’s more and it’s nice,” Alice amended.

Oliver relented, sinking back into the couch. “Alright then,” he said. “Go on.”

“Well—look at you now! You’re the nicest person, and so friendly and loyal! Who wouldn’t like you now? Your parents would adore you. And anyway, I think you’re wonderful, and you can trust that to be true. No tricking required.”

Oliver had turned a blotchy sort of red. “You really think I’m wonderful?”

Alice beamed at him, and nodded.

Oliver looked away and mumbled something she couldn’t decipher, but he was smiling now, the silliest look on his face, and Alice was smiling, too, looking even sillier than he did, and they just sat there a moment, neither one of them being skyholes, and Alice realized right then that Oliver was her first best friend.

It was a moment she would never forget.





Finally, Oliver cleared his throat.

“Now I’ve told you all my secrets,” he said. “Will you tell me yours?”

Alice bit her lip and looked into her lap. Her heart had begun to skip in nervous beats. “You already know my secrets, Oliver. I wish I didn’t have to repeat them.”

“Alice,” he said gently, “I don’t understand. Why won’t you accept that you have an incredible talent? Why does it bother you so?”

Here it was.

Her greatest heartbreak of all.

The talent she didn’t want, the one she wished she never had, the one she convinced herself wasn’t really hers, and all because it didn’t work where it mattered most. Alice wanted to tell Oliver the truth, but she was afraid it would make her cry, and she desperately didn’t want to cry. Still, it was high time to talk about it, and Oliver had earned the right to know.

“So,” she said, nodding. “I can change the colors of things.”

A chill coursed through her; her stomach was already doing flips. She hadn’t talked about this since long before Father left.

Oliver took her hand and squeezed.

“I can change the color of anything. The sky,” she said. “The sun. The grass and trees and bugs and leaves. Anything I want,” she said softly. “I could make day into night and night into day. I could change the color of the air we breathe, of the water we drink.”

“But you don’t,” said Oliver. “You don’t. And I don’t know why. So much talent,” he said. “So much talent and—”

Alice shook her head, hard, cutting him off. “So much talent,” she said, “and I can’t even change the color of me.” She looked up, looked at him, her eyes wild and desperate. “I could change you,” she said, and touched a finger to his cheek, his face flipping colors from brown to red to green. “I could turn you ten shades of blue in the time it takes to blink,” she said softly, and dropped her hand. “I can change the colors of everyone else, but I can’t change this skin,” she said, raking her fingers down her face. “Can’t change my eyes. Can’t even make myself look more like my own family,” she said, her voice breaking. “Do you know how hard it is,” she said, “to have the power to change everything but myself?”

“Alice—”

“I have no color, Oliver.” Her voice was a whisper now. “No pigment. I don’t look anything like the people I love.”

“But, Alice,” Oliver said softly. “The people who love you wouldn’t care if you had giraffe skin.”

Alice focused on the rug under her foot, and nearly smiled. “Father probably wouldn’t mind,” she said. “Father would probably love me no matter anything.”

“And your mother,” Oliver said, “she loves you, too,” but Alice shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said, and bit her lip. “Mother was so excited when she first learned of my ability—Father was the one who told her, even though I asked him not to.” She hesitated. “But after Father left, something happened to Mother. Something changed in her, made her mean.” She paused, remembering. “Mother made me practice—every day in the mirror—she made me practice turning myself a different color. But it never worked, and Mother soon tired of me. But then she remembered how much she liked ferenberries—”