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89 chapter twenty-eight The BriGhT sun will BrinG lucy To liGhT During my happy days as a figurist at Magic Movies , I would sometimes take my ideas to the company president, hoping they would catch his fancy. But it seemed he and the others in charge had little interest in princesses and witches. “Four quadrants,”they’d say. “Hit the four quadrants.” I didn’t understand this at all, what it meant, and in jest I’d sort of punch the air with my fists: One! Two! Three! Four! POW! And then I’d nod my head in agreement. Not much for math—none of the Gold girls had been, though Merry had always liked to count money—I shrugged. I guess I now see what they meant; to make money, story-products must appeal to the parties with money, and that’s not usually a girl. A fact of our existence . Over the years,it did seem that robots and oafs won out and the fairies just faded. Vampires, too, held appeal, but vampires have never interested me: they’re so . . . fleshy. Luckily I still loved what I did—always had—always will—and so I would leave those meetings never disheartened . I would go back down to my capacious studio, 90 surrounded by my assistants, and get right back to work. Entering some numbers on a keyboard, I would watch a giant screen that took up a wall fill with color. For hours on end I would stare at a huge wall of one color and slowly tinker with it. Over a long period of many years, the main responsibility I had—and it was a huge job in the context of film, even in an age when viewers could customize their own versions of movies—was to invent color palettes for entire productions. What would look abstract to you, just a rose wall for example, to me represented millions of pin-point-size dots, each in a different hue, emanating a different balance of light. One day, after making an unsuccessful pitch to the executives about a girl, a fairy, and a library threatened with closure (“Snore?” one of the men said loudly when my pitch started), I returned to my studio to find Ketzia there. “Please,” she said. “Spare me my life.” “Ketzia, what do you want?” I exclaimed. Often Ketzia made no sense. She was always so sad—how could her brain be expected to organize thoughts? “You’ve got money,” she said. “I don’t want any of it, don’t worry. But I think you can use it to help me . . .” “I’ll do anything to help you, my sister,” I said, and wrapped my arms around her protectively. She was so frail, almost invisible. She was wearing an outfit of Merry ’s—little teeny mice made from real mouse fur lined her collar and cuffs and the hem of her skirt. Hardly surprising from one of my sisters. 91 As I stood there with my arms around her, for an instant that lasted a while,I was taken back to my childhood. And I remembered just how it felt there, that childhood full of children and often a chicken roasting in the oven, and the safety, the safety of that. My mother who when I was young would rock me on a chair with red cushions that itched. An Everflame in the fireplace. The refrigerator’s kind hum. I was surprised to find myself wavering on my feet. I righted myself and stood up a bit straighter. Ketzia was wavering too—had I sent her my thoughts? I have long feared I am reverse-telepathic. I take pride in my lack of neuroses, but that has been a quiet phobia of mine. It began in childhood, when my dolls began speaking my very own name after I sent it to them with my mind. I shook my head, clearing the path. “The bright sun—I think it is too much for you, dear.” I closed the shades of the studio but I was too late; Ketzia had fainted. This was no surprise as she could not have weighed more than one hundred, and she is taller than me. Two years ago,she had lost everything—just like Merry. Ketzia her husband,Merry her job. Both of them possibly children. I don’t know. Who knew? As far as I knew, Merry was living on the streets and was always drinking. As...

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