Girl of Iron and Magic

14.

14.

10 YEARS BEFORE THE WAR

Learning to speak for the first time was a monstrous task. Her mouth and tongue weren't used to making the necessary efforts to create the right sounds. She was also used to staying quiet, to never have verbal conversations with the outside world.

To never speak her mind.

Mr. Henri had no interest, or time, to teach Lotte to speak. Miss Yudo seemed to like her less now that she could clearly agree and disagree with things.

There was no one to help her—but when had there ever been?

Lotte kept trying. She feared that if she didn't try hard, her voice would go away, like how some flowers bloomed only during the short months of spring.

She continued to paint, forming words with her mouth as she did. Her budding speech abilities opened a new compartment in her imagination, bringing forth unexplored pathways.

She could suddenly reflect back on things and give her paintings names. Her new creations became even more in demand, they began to drift from the realistic, into the realm of surreal dreams and nightmares.

"This..." Mr. Henri was visibly shaking from foot to scalp as he stared at her latest painting. "This is your best one yet," he whispered, drawing up a chair.

He sat there, staring at it, for over an hour.

It was a large piece, three feet in width and five feet tall. The canvas had been custom made to her specifications and she had had to use a step ladder throughout the process.

It was a portrait of sorts. A girl sat in the foreground, staring absently over her shoulder, long hair billowing in the wind. Behind her, the background was a world of grey and black, bruised with aubergine purple. There were smoking factories and decrepit looking buildings, starved-looking monsters and grey men in bowler hats, with thin-fingered, grasping hands reached for her, pulling the away the brown out of her hair and and the pale beige from her cheeks.
But the girl's body, inside, was a riot of colours, motion and fantasy. A circle of multi-coloured but faceless children danced in her heart, flowers bloomed overhead with hummingbirds and butterflies darting between them. Scores of imaginary animals ran up the walls of her image, as stars, moons and suns swirled among wispy luminous clouds inside a jungle of unusual shapes. Nothing was the colour it should be, thousands of shades and hues patterned the girl's inner world, crisscrossing, colliding, contradicting. This created a mosaic of sorts, making it impossible to see all the levels of detail in one glance. One had to stare and stare to fully explore all the worlds of this painting.

"My goodness, even the outside has hidden surprises. There's always a darker darkness, isn't there?"

Lotte nodded her head.

"Everything is moving in this painting, even the buildings move. But outside I see everything is travelling straight lines while inside it moves in circles and spirals..."

Mr. Henri grasped his chin. "She's you," he concluded. "Extraordinary and beautiful."

Lotte didn't know what to say—she never used to have this problem. Thus she settled for, "Thank you."

"No, my dear, thank you." He looked at the painting and shook his head. "This level of skill. What will you do when you'll be an adult?"

"I... will do..." She formed the word with her lips a few times. "Better."

That made Mr. Henri grin. "Has it a name?"

Lotte nodded, looking at her painting. It had taken her the better part of two and a half months. She had spent panting this more hours than she could count until she finally decided that it was complete. And yet, every time she looked at it, there were always small changes she wished she'd have made.