Illuminations, page 19
There was a sudden pause in combat. Scribblings turned to look at the new arrival. So did the Mandolinis.
“Oh my,” said Grandmama.
“Rosalita, you’ve outdone yourself,” said Uncle Alfonso.
The giant radish gave a baritone chirp. Tiny radishes swirled around it, rubbing against it like kittens with a big dog.
“Nice!” cried Cousin Sergio, and stabbed his palette knife in the air.
The very large scribblings all took a very large step backward and looked worriedly at the Scarling.
With a scream of wordless rage, the mandrake root swung down from the wall and began dragging its burnt arm across the plaster, scrawling eyes, teeth, claws, anything horrible and jagged and unpleasant.
Rosa slumped backward. She knew that she should try to draw another radish, but she couldn’t. Her arm was stabbing with pain and she was so tired.
Aunt Nadia dropped down beside her. “Rosa?”
Rosa shook her head. The room was spinning. She groped for Nadia’s hand and pressed the charcoal into it. “Don’t…don’t let…”
“The big one was too much,” said Serena over her shoulder. “I think she’s going to faint.”
Rosa wanted to say, indignantly, that she had never fainted in her life, but it seemed like that would take a lot of energy.
“Get her over here,” said Uncle Alfonso. He grabbed the edge of the table and began to drag it backwards, toward the nearest bay. Rosa crawled along with it, with Serena helping her.
She could understand why he was moving it—with the suddenly increased army of scribblings, they were badly outnumbered. It would be much easier to defend a bay than a table in the middle of the room.
It still made her feel exposed, as if he was taking her shield away and she was having to scurry after it. And she was so very, very tired.
At last—it seemed like a year later—he stopped. The bay was close behind them. The small scribblings might still come over the walls, but the big ones would have a harder time getting to them.
Aunt Nadia had crawled along with them. Her leg was dragging behind her, the knee already swelling. She wasn’t paying any attention to it. Instead she stared at the charcoal in her hands, turning it over and over.
Serena reached up on top of the table, grabbed a mug of tea that somehow had not been overturned, and pressed it to Rosa’s lips.
“Payne,” said Nadia slowly. “Payne! Crow!”
“What?” cried Payne. He broke away from battling the scribblings on top of the table. Rosa could hear his claws clacking as he hopped. “What is it?”
“You said Tybalt’s gift was rare.”
“It is!”
“You said that it was so rare that only Rosa could do it—and we believed you.”
“What?” said Payne.
“You were wrong about the Scarling’s charcoal,” said Aunt Nadia. “Rosa’s my brother’s daughter. The same blood’s in all our veins. And look!”
She pointed.
She had crawled across the floor with the charcoal in her hand, and it had left a jagged, awkward line on the tiles.
The scribblings were lashing furiously at the lines.
“It’s not an illumination, though,” said Payne. “It’s just lines. It’s just—why are they doing that?” He sounded baffled.
“I could feel it,” said Aunt Nadia. “It was when I went over the illumination against rats.” She started to laugh. “It’s old and it needs replacing and as soon as the charcoal hit it, it was like I had started working on repairing it. I could feel the magic.”
“It’s not possible,” said Payne, but he sounded uncertain now.
Her swollen knee was stuck out to one side, so Aunt Nadia had to kneel awkwardly on one leg. She began to draw—not a radish, but an angel.
“I thought the radishes were the illumination against scribblings,” said Serena.
“I’m bad at radishes,” said Nadia. “I’m quite good at angels. And we need a proof of concept.”
Her angel had powerful wings with a suggestion of feathers. The face was hastily drawn and slightly lopsided, but smiling. Nadia set her hand on the drawing, much like Rosa had, and murmured something under her breath that Rosa couldn’t quite hear.
The Scarling’s scream was louder this time, like an enraged monkey. Its monstrous scribbling began to peel off the wall, just as Nadia’s angel came to life.
It flew out from under the table and took its place alongside Cousin Sergio. It was only about two feet tall, but it hovered in the air beside him. Nadia had thoughtfully given the angel a sword, which it brandished at the cowed scribblings.
Payne drew in his breath. “You can do it too…” he said, sounding awestruck.
Nadia let out a short, huffy laugh. “And shame on me for not trying before, instead of working Rosa to the bone!” She started on a second angel.
The scribblings shook themselves out of their surprise and waded forward. The giant radish, the angel, and Cousin Sergio met them. The studio filled with chirps and chitters and a high, brittle singing that could only be the angel.
Paper flew. Uncle Marco plowed into a giant scribbling on his stool, knocking it to the ground, and the radish rolled over it like a barrel. The angel laid about itself with the charcoal sword and Cousin Sergio’s palette knives rose and fell. The scribbling with the face in the middle of its chest went down, half-erased.
For a moment it seemed as if the tide of battle was turning their way…but then the huge scribbling waded into the fray.
It had hands like hammers. One blow knocked Nadia’s angel flying. Cousin Sergio threw himself flat and had to scramble backwards to keep from being trampled.
The radishes formed a defensive line as the Mandolinis fell back to the table. Grandmama was limping but still brandished her ladle fiercely.
Nadia’s second angel came to life. She slumped backward against the leg of the table and looked over at Rosa. “That’s exhausting. Much worse than just a regular illumination. How did you make so many?”
“Our Rosalita’s young and strong,” said Uncle Alfonso. He leaned against the table, watching the radishes battle the scribblings. “Pass the charcoal up here, will you, Nadia?”
She did. He drew directly on the table. Rosa, beginning to feel a bit better, poked her head over the edge and saw that he was drawing something that looked vaguely like a badger, with a radish riding on its back.
“Will that work?” she asked.
“Haven’t a clue,” he admitted. “But it’s doing something…oh, look there!”
His badger and riding radish sparkled. Alfonso put his hand onto it and Rosa thought that he was pushing power at it, the same way she had with her giant radish earlier.
It rose off the table and let out a papery roar. The badger had huge claws, which it waved in the air. The radish rattled its leaves fiercely.
The drawing was only about two feet high—the table wasn’t that large—but it leapt down and charged into battle. The scribblings recoiled from it the way that they did from the radishes. It slashed at the hammer-handed giant’s ankles with its claws.
Uncle Alfonso, too, slumped, this time against the wall of the bay behind the table. “My goodness,” he said. “That was…like a whole mural’s worth of energy being pulled out at once.”
“Three of you?” said Payne in disbelief.
“We’re all Tybalt’s descendants,” said Aunt Nadia. “Sergio! Try one! Do the radish, though, those work much better than angels.”
Sergio snatched the charcoal away and set to work. After a minute, Grandmama whacked him on the shoulder with her ladle. “You don’t need to shade every scale!” she said. “This is not the time for perfectionism!”
The giant lifted its hammer and roared, bringing it down on the giant radish. The radish vanished in a shower of charcoal dust.
Rosa felt a strange pang in her chest and cried out, just as the giant radish fell beneath the hammer-handed giant. She actually felt it, as if somebody had flicked her heart with their finger.
“It’s no good,” she said, watching the giant stomp forward. “We need something bigger.”
“I don’t know if any of us can make something bigger,” said Nadia. “It takes so much energy…” She shook her head. There were dark circles under her eyes that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.
The tabletop shifted. Something very weird slid off it. The front half looked like one of Rosa’s radishes, but the back half was an enormous snake. Sergio was still trying to draw scales on it as it slithered away.
“Your cousin’s weird,” whispered Serena.
“Yeah, but he’s a genius.”
“He’s a weird genius.”
Cousin Sergio slid down the wall, clutching the charcoal. He gave Serena and Rosa a weak grin. “Tired genius!”
As the radish-snake unrolled, the genius of it became more obvious. Sergio had doubled the tail back on itself over and over, using every inch of the tabletop. The radish-snake was nearly fifteen feet long.
It spread its fangs and hissed at the hammer-handed giant.
Uncle Marco was up next. His radish looked suspiciously like a beetle and the leaves strongly resembled insect wings, but it came to life and skittered, clicking, into battle.
He grunted. “That does have a kick to it. Anyone else?”
“Not me,” said Grandmama. “I never had any gift for illuminating. Which is fine! Somebody has to keep all you brilliant artists fed!”
She cracked her ladle down onto a scribbling that was trying to sneak into the bay.
“Is it working?” asked Rosa. The studio was becoming a mass of battling charcoal lines. It was hard to tell who was winning. She could see that Nadia’s angels were no longer in the air, but the space around the giant scribblings was a mass of tangled lines. The radish-snake was constricting the hammer-hand and looked to be winning.
“It could be better,” said Aunt Nadia. She hopped on her good foot. “That nasty little root’s drawing another big one. Why doesn’t it get tired?”
“It’s a creature of living magic—” Payne began.
"Payne,” said Rosa severely, “are you sure? You’re not just guessing again, like with the charcoal?”
The crow looked abashed. “I…um. Well. Err…I think the Scarling’s yanking all the power out of the little ones to make the big ones.”
The hammer-hand, still half-strangled by the radish-snake, brought its fists down on the badger. The badger and its radish rider vanished in an explosion of charcoal dust.
The Scarling was sketching furiously. The drawing on the wall was even larger than the hammer-hand, a hunched over monster with grasping claws and enormous teeth.
Only the radish-snake, Marco’s beetle, and a handful of smaller radishes clustered around the table remained of the Mandolini’s defenders.
“We’ll have to do another one,” said Uncle Marco grimly.
“It’s not enough,” said Aunt Nadia. “It’s wearing us out faster than we’re wearing it out. I don’t know that any of us have the strength.”
And then Serena said, “Why don’t you do one together?”
THIRTY-SIX
The Mandolinis stared at her.
Serena tossed her hair back, looking annoyed. Her forehead was smudged with dust and she kept shaking her left hand, where a scribbling had gotten her on the wrist.
“We do it all the time at Studio Magnifico. You’ve got a big project, a bunch of you work on it. It’s how we did those tiles for the water system project, you remember?”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” muttered Uncle Marco.
“Yes,” said Uncle Alfonso. “Yes. That is a good thought. All of us together.”
He looked at the charcoal, and then handed it to Rosa. “And Rosalita should draw it.”
“Me?” squeaked Rosa.
“Your radishes are what is saving us,” said Uncle Alfonso. “You’ve got the best chance. Draw the biggest one you can, and the rest of us will give you all our power.”
“You’ll each need to add a little to it,” said Serena.
“And Serena and I shall make sure you have the time to do so,” said Grandmama. She linked elbows with Serena and hefted her ladle high.
Rosa gulped. “I’ll need more space,” she said.
They were in Aunt Nadia’s bay. Nadia grabbed the giant painting of angels and flung it toward the back, heedless of the damage to the image, revealing a bare wall behind it.
“Nadia, your angels!”
“The one on the left wasn’t working anyway!” snapped Aunt Nadia. “And if we’re all dead, I certainly won’t make my deadline! Now help me clear the walls!”
She attacked the opposite wall like a wrecking ball, yanking down the cards and bits of sketches pinned up on the plaster. Alfonso and Sergio leapt to help her.
Rosa turned the charcoal over in her fingers.
The biggest one I can…
She took a deep breath and began to draw.
Cousin Sergio was right behind her. He crouched down on the floor, waiting.
Rosa got the root-like face of the radish in, and the long fangs. She could feel the illumination pulling at her, like a deep current in the water, drawing her energy to bring itself to life.
She paused and passed the charcoal to Sergio. He thought for an instant, then drew a half dozen small, precise scales along the top of the radish’s head.
He handed the charcoal back to her. As soon as she touched the tip to the line, she felt Sergio’s energy flooding through her.
It was fast. Sergio’s power was like a hummingbird, moving at twice the speed of the people around him, a swift, fiery blaze.
No wonder he talks so fast—and it’s hard for us to understand him sometimes! He jumps from one thing to the next so quickly because he sees all these connections and doesn’t understand why the rest of us can’t follow along.
Rosa drew the line along the floor to the wall, then up as far as she could reach in a great round curve. At the top, Uncle Alfonso took the charcoal and swept it along the wall, and then his magic, too, was added to the illumination they were building.
His was a far steadier power than Cousin Sergio’s, as deep and slow as the bedrock that the city was built on. It anchored the illumination and gave it a solid place to stand. 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. His power grounded her, slowing the sudden hummingbird-race of Rosa’s heart, offering shelter from the terrible storm of magic around them.
Alfonso pulled the line down until she could reach it, and she took it to the floor and began to scribble in the leaves.
Outside of the bay, she heard the Scarling screaming in rage. Serena let out a yelp, and Grandmama said a very bad word indeed.
It all seemed to be very far away. We must finish this, thought Rosa dreamily. I must save them.
She finished the rough shape of the leaves and handed the charcoal to Uncle Marco.
He drew in the veins, half-leaves, half-beetle wings, and suddenly Rosa knew things about Uncle Marco that she had never suspected—how much his bad leg hurt him and how much he feared being a burden on his family, how he sought escape in paint, because in art, it did not matter if you had to walk with a cane or not.
The energy that surged into her from her uncle was so determined that it was terrifying. It was a warrior spirit, hammered and forged like steel.
“Why are you an artist?” demanded Rosa. “You should be leading armies!” Uncle Marco laughed.
“I may have done something of the sort in my youth,” he said, as Rosa began to draw the shape of the radish on the opposite wall, and suddenly there was an image, right there in her head, and Rosa was looking down at a line of men with swords, sweeping their blades up in salute. “But that was long ago and far away.”
Rosa began to fear that, far from not having enough power, the combined might of Studio Mandolini might overwhelm her. It was flowing through her, incredibly strong, the personalities of her family blending together into one great roar of love and strength and art. It threatened to sweep her away. She clung to the charcoal as if it were an anchor.
Just…got to finish…
She joined the lines together. Only the halo was left to finish.
Aunt Nadia took the charcoal—Nadia, who painted angels—and held Rosa upright with her free arm. “Together,” she said, and began to draw the halo in.
Rosa did not know what she had expected from Aunt Nadia—something prickly and spiky, perhaps—but what she found was that the prickliness was a narrow-armored shell over a bright flame. 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.
Rosa reached out and closed her fingers over her aunt’s, and together they drew the last line of the halo to the body of the illumination.
* * *
The flow of power instantly doubled. Rosa thought that she might have screamed, mostly in surprise. It didn’t hurt, any more than being swept out to sea hurt, but it was shockingly powerful.
She knew that she had to funnel that power into the illumination, but she wasn’t sure how. Before this morning, she’d never even made a full illumination before.
She opened her eyes—she hadn’t realized that she’d closed them—and saw the charcoal line around the great radish glowing silver.
What did that remind her of…?
In her mind’s eye, she saw the illuminated tiles fitting together at the water tunnel, the golden light rising from them, and the way the light had driven back the great wave of filth inside the water, like a monstrous serpent cowering away from the light.
The Mandolinis’ power working together was the color of moonlight, but just as strong as the golden light had been.
We can do this, she thought. Hope surged inside her, and the light flared brighter than ever.
