Illuminations

by T. Kingfisher

It was bad enough being bored. Being bored and inadequate was nearly unbearable.

“You must feed your heart,” said Uncle Alfonso. “With beautiful things and places you have never seen and books that bring you joy. Then your heart will grow back and you can paint again.

I don’t want people to have to keep forgiving me.” She squared her shoulders and looked Rosa in the eye. “But I was mean. Will you forgive me?”

“No fighting now, girls,” he called, in the jovial tone that grown-ups use when they think they’re smarter than children. “We aaaarrrren’t,” called Rosa back, in the saccharine tone that children use when they know they’re smarter than the grown-up in question.

“I thought you liked boys,” whispered Rosa. “To look at. Not to do important stuff.”

At the same time, images flicked through Rosa’s mind, too quick to follow—scenes of a long life lived gladly and well, an incredible depth of knowledge, and a love for his family that warmed her like a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day.

Hers was a soul that would gladly burn itself out in pursuit of art, and then give the art away at the end, because it was the act of creating that mattered, the act that made her feel alive.

Her legs had given out, but that was okay. Someone was holding her up.

They had made friends, insomuch as a beetle and an enchanted drawing could be friends.

“It’s easy when bad people die,” he told her. “And it’s not easy when good people die, but at least it’s straightforward, and you know exactly how you’re supposed to feel. But when someone who was good and bad dies, someone you loved, but who hurt you…then you don’t know how to feel at all. If you’re sad, it feels wrong, and if you’re not sad, that feels wrong too.”

“That seems complicated,” said Rosa. “And hard.” “People are hard,” Uncle Alfonso agreed. “Grief is hard, too.”