Chapter 2 – Grown-up Colors

“Sasha Vinoche!”

Enzo Vinoche, who turned fifteen this year, caught his younger sister sneaking over the lemon-colored front door and growled.

“I told Mother you were asleep. If she’d caught you sneaking out, you wouldn’t have been allowed to go out for another ten days.”

“Thank you, Enzo.”

The scent of chocolate wafted from Sasha’s mumbling lips. He’d told her to stay home and eat chocolate, but she’d just gobbled it up and gone outside anyway. Enzo pressed his forehead in exasperation. He wondered if she even realized she’d nearly died not long ago.

“What about the homework I gave you?”

Surely she finished it before running off?

Enzo’s gaze narrowed.

“I really wanted to do it, but the notebook accidentally flew away in the wind.”

“All of it?”

Enzo crossed his arms and asked crookedly. Sasha nodded without a hint of hesitation.

“The whole thing!”

“If you’re going to lie, at least put some effort into it.”

Enzo’s eyes flashed like a snake caught at night, and Sasha, sensing danger, hurried to change the subject.

“Forget that, listen. I met someone in the forest today—a person I’ve never seen before. He was wearing a uniform.”

“A uniform?”

Enzo pressed her for details. After hearing Sasha’s explanation that the person in the forest wore a black uniform with a blue collar and gold buttons, Enzo finally relaxed.

“That’s the Sarsaye Military Academy uniform. Earl Lafayette’s son, who attends the academy, is at the castle. It’s his last summer vacation before graduation.”

Somehow, Enzo’s tone felt like he was scolding her for not knowing. Sasha pouted her lips. She knew the Earl’s son from here was attending Brissen’s top school; she just didn’t know what the uniform looked like.

“So the person I met is Earl Lafayette’s son?”

“Of course not. Did you even listen? The Earl’s son stays at the castle. It’s probably a school friend or guest.”

“I see. I didn’t know which school he attended.”

Looking closely, Sasha was unusually excited. Her round cheeks were red like cherries, and her big eyes sparkled with curiosity she couldn’t hide. Enzo, who had stopped rubbing his chin, asked,

“Did he scare you at all?”

“No. He wasn’t interested in me at all. I asked if he was lost, but he just ignored me and went back to sleep.”

Recalling being ignored, Sasha quickly became sullen. Her drooping eyes were so big and clear, they could have covered half her face. The flat bridge of her nose wrinkled, and her white, plump cheeks rose with it. She looked just like a rabbit caught by the ears. Enzo put his hands on his waist and stifled a sigh.

Sasha was a very lovable child, and she knew it well. Whenever she was in trouble, she skillfully used her charm to wriggle out of situations—whether intentionally or unconsciously. Because of this, Enzo had been struggling to teach her lately.

“Sasha. You want to go play in the forest again tomorrow, don’t you?”

Sasha, tired of the nagging and twisting her body to escape, stopped at those words. Enzo’s eyes shone as he thought hard. He’d found a way to tame this little troublemaker.

* * *

Back in her room, Sasha flopped onto her bed. She looked up at the ceiling, trying to find a color in her room that matched the hair of the boy she’d met earlier.

Sasha’s room was filled with all sorts of odds and ends. They were all things she’d inherited, picked up in the Manolie forest, or made herself. Her favorite was an old paraffin lamp, at least fifty years old, inherited from Grandma Elodie.

Grandma Rollo’s blunt assessment was cold,

<It’s wonderful, Sasha! Like a mysterious, ancient antique museum.>

While Grandma Elodie’s admiration gave Sasha some comfort. Both were good people, anyway.

Remembering the bouquet of purple cockscomb she’d picked on the way home, Sasha jumped up from bed.

‘Where would it look best?’

After much thought, she put it in her favorite glass bottle and placed it by the sunlit window. The shell-shaped bottle with a pink ribbon was a perfume bottle Mr. Vinoche had bought for his wife in Laurent. Sasha had begged for the empty bottle as a birthday present last year.

Sasha sat on a tassel cushion that had been popular ten years ago and thought about the boy she’d met today. He looked to be about Enzo’s age, but felt much more grown-up than. His hair was a color she’d never seen before—like the chocolate she’d eaten earlier, or the fir trees in the forest. But it wasn’t brown. It was a very soft black.

‘Now that I think about it, what color were his eyes? Blue? If I saw him one more time, I’d know for sure.’

She wished tomorrow would come quickly so she could return to the forest. Enzo had promised that if she finished her homework in the morning, she could go for a walk in the woods in the afternoon. If the boy was a Sarsaye Military Academy cadet, he’d stay until the end of summer vacation. Of course, that didn’t mean he’d come to the forest again.

If he was a guest of the Lafayette family, he’d stay at the Earl’s castle. Maybe today he just visited the forest on a whim. There was no guarantee he’d return. Still, Sasha somehow felt the boy would be lying in the same spot tomorrow. She didn’t know why, but it just felt that way.

Sasha tilted her head back dangerously—enough that the grandmothers would have scolded her if they saw—and noticed something on her desk. At the bottom of an envelope with a lion drawn on it, stylish initials were written. It was a letter from the Hawthorn Mansion. Enzo had told her to tear it up immediately, but Sasha hadn’t.

The boy, said to be the nephew of Dr. Bresson, the village doctor, had come to the Manolie villa last spring. Even before he arrived, the people of Manolie had long called the red-roofed house with the large hawthorn tree in the yard the Hawthorn Mansion.

<He’s very sick.>

Sasha listened to Dr. Bresson explain that the boy from the Hawthorn Mansion was unwell and lived only indoors.

<Sasha, you’re the kind of girl everyone likes. If a cheerful child like you talks to him, he’ll feel better soon.>

The doctor, asked to find a friend for his nephew, first visited Mr. Vinoche’s house—because Sasha Vinoche was the child who could smile most prettily in Manolie. Sasha happily accepted the offer. The couple, famous lawyers from Laurent, paid well. And Sasha knew the Vinoche couple was struggling to save up for Enzo’s studies abroad.

One early summer day, the boy Sasha first met under the hawthorn tree had eyes of greenish gray. They resembled the color of seawater on a cloudy day. Sasha loved that color, so she believed a boy with such eyes must be a good person.

But he really was a little tyrant, much like the cloudy sea. He’d be kind one moment, then shout if things didn’t go his way, and later apologize. He was impossible to predict.

On a day so hot sweat began to run down her back, Sasha confessed at the dinner table that she didn’t want to go to the Hawthorn Mansion anymore. The Vinoche couple worried. Dr. Bresson praised Sasha for contributing greatly to the boy’s recovery, and said the boy adored her like a little sister. So he asked if Sasha could keep visiting.

<It’s just childish whining. If you coax her, she’ll soon agree to go again. Sasha is a good child.>

Mr. Vinoche felt awkward at the doctor’s earnest request. Dr. Bresson had once cured Enzo’s tuberculosis and was a benefactor to the family. And Sasha hadn’t seriously insisted she didn’t want to go. The Vinoche couple concluded it was just a mild complaint. Sasha agreed. She was simply tired of going to the Hawthorn Mansion every day, and her claim that she didn’t want to go was a lie.