Blue

1. Change

RYLEE

***

I'm not very fond of change.

I do not detest it, but I don't like to be nudged once I'm well settled in a particular way of life.

Mom used to claim that 'Change is adventurous'. The glimmer in her eyes was enough to tell that she envisioned change as something exhilarating and daunting, like scaling a mountain peak in the midst of a storm.

Maybe what she said was totally true, but only for people like her.

The fierce and ballsy ones.
The ones who will deliberately initiate extreme changes in life, doing stuff like moving across continents, or actually scaling a mountain peak or running away from a foster home as a teenager (yup, my mom did all of that)

"You like this place, chica?" dad asked me, his eyes still glued to the mansion that we'll be moving in.
He was looking at our new home in Quintflake with a hint of some unusual emotion lingering in his eyes.

Maybe moving away from the city where mom breathed her last, was some kind of closure that he desperately needed.

"It's weird.... if you ask me" Austin absent-mindedly declared, as he checked out the all the dilapidated waste which was still lying in the front yard.

It consisted of some broken down furniture and weird show pieces. Austin had got his hands on some antique looking miniature wooden models of weird shapes and sizes, some of which were calibrated, and some with small pulleys and levers attached to them.

He put the models back into the heap of trash, which was yet to be taken away by the cleaners.
They definitely belonged to the previous owner of this mansion, who lived here a few decades ago.

"I think it's great" I smiled at dad, assuring him that I was fine with his change.

Of course, the whole process of moving to Quintflake made me feel shaky at first, but I was willing to adapt.

Like how I always do.

I pulled our luggage inside the house, as dad had already started settling his study. He was dusting the windows which brought ample light into his work space.

"Chief Detective Sebastian Thompson" our house help Julio greeted dad with deference and vigour. "We're glad to have you in our town"

Almost everyone in Quintflake treated dad in the same manner. Like they had pinned all their hopes on him.

The case of the serial killer who was at large in Quintflake was definitely a tough nut to crack. And that is why this case was handed over to dad, which led to our shifting here.

Dad smiled at Julio. "Quintflake is my town now".

Okay. Now this wasn't the diplomatic smile which he flashed in front of the reporters after busting some drug cartel, or after successfully negotiating with a bomber holding tens of people hostage.

This smile wasn't formal, wasn't hollow. As if he was actually happy about moving to Quintflake.

It's a fact that my dad is undeniably the toughest person to read.
But not for me, for in the seventeen years of my existence, I've developed enough methods to deduce his behavior, with a high degree of accuracy.

"Can I take one of these?" Austin called out to me, still contemplating over the fancy instruments he had found in the yard.

"But they are broken Aus" I crouched down to have a better look at the thing that had enticed him.
It was a cyan coloured glass compass. The glass had a small crack on the surface, but it looked very cool, nonetheless.

"Umm" I said "but only this one, okay?"

"Okie dokess!" he exclaimed as his face lit up with a precious little victory grin and he ran into the house with his newly found toy.

I smirked at how easy it was to make kids happy. My eyes fell over the 'trash' from where Austin had taken the compass. All of which was basically a marvel of some outstanding mechanical engineering or Physics.
I didn't really know.

There were other stuff in there like a glass box full of pendulums of varying sizes inside it and a disintegrated golden microscope. There was also a small, sophisticated and shattered model of the universe and a bronze phonograph with green glass attached at its base.

But the thing that amazed me the most was the name plate.
It was black with a name excellently calligraphed on it in diamond like sparkly ink. The ink changed colours at regular intervals of around five seconds.

The phenomena was so pleasing to the eyes that anyone could watch those colours smoothly morphing into each other for hours.

The previous owner of this mansion was definitely an artist.
A sciency artist probably, but an artist for sure.

And he also had a name which very much convinced me of the same.

Johan Ledger.

That was what the nameplate read.