Happy Holidays, winterthunder!
"Yeah," she said, turning. She did seem more intrigued than she had a moment ago. "I guess. I like red better. It has all that, plus pizzaz. Plus something. You know." She jumped into the air, red hair flying, and when she came down she was in a stance like she was about to deliver a karate blow. The Them approved of karate on general principles, regardless of any actual skill they possessed at practicing it. It was violent and effortless and very pretty. Wensley was about to reply to Pepper when his mother's voice drifted down the hall.
"Brian's here!" she called.
"All right!" said Pepper, bounding toward the bedroom door to throw it open. Brian came in wearing a hangdog expression and dripping wet. And filthy, naturally.
"It's rainin'," he explained, unnecessarily. "I don't think it's supposed to be rainin' so hard today. It's Saturday." It never rained on Saturday around here, but nevertheless, raining it was. They all looked gloomily out the window at the driving greyness.
"What's your favorite color, Brian?" Pepper asked, without giving him a moment to unwrap the dirty scarf muffling his head.
"Er?" said Brian.
"Color. Just say one, don't think about it."
"I don't know," he began, and his eyes fell on the canvas where Wensley had gone back to his spiral. "That's a pretty nice color."
"No, he's already picked black, you can't pick black again," Pepper insisted, with a trace of impatience.
"I meant the board he's painting on. It's clean," he explained, wistful. "Like everything's been swept away."
"Yeah," Pepper said, eyeing him. "Okay, whatever. If you-" But she broke off as Adam came in. There was no call from Wensleydale's mother or knock at the door, just Adam and Dog wandering in as though they belonged there. The rest of the Them did not seem surprised. Dog made himself at home by shaking himself violently, spraying dog-scented water all over the room, then panted affably.
"Hello," Wensley said, adding some black dots to his spiral. Now that Adam had arrived, there seemed to be little point in finishing the painting. He was sure to be distracted in a minute.
"Hi," said Adam, taking a seat on Wensley's bed. "Whatcha doing?"
"Abstract minimalism," Wensley began, but his response was nearly drowned out by Pepper.
"What's your favorite color, Adam?"
The Them went silent. Here was a truly momentous question, one that deserved a great deal of consideration before any answer was given…
"Don't have one," Adam said. The others stared at him.
"You do too, you just don't want to say," said Pepper. "You have to have one." This was delivered in a more tentative way than the words would suggest. The tone was unusual for Pepper, but she knew that if she was to actually get into an argument with Adam, she'd most certainly lose.
"I don't," Adam said mildly. "I don't have to. Anyway, seems kind of stupid to make yourself like just one."
But Adam stopped speaking there just as Pepper had. The four gathered knew that Something else had captured their collective attention, something intangible and unnatural. Everything looked exactly the same, but it was as though there had been a sudden change in the quality of the air; a Presence in addition to themselves was making itself known right here in Wensleydale's bedroom. Adam's fair head turned sharply.
"Hello," he said with surprise. The others saw empty air. Adam saw Agnes Nutter.
"Helloe," she said, looking perfectly solid, inclining her head politely. There was a river of mirth bubbling underneath her voice, as though at any moment she might burst out into giggles.
"I deyliver this wonne in personne, as theye haf byrned mye booke," she said cheerfully, without a trace of bitterness.
"I have to ask you a question, too," Adam said, mindful of the Them all gathered around with worried expressions, watching him converse with the empty spot below the shelf holding Wensley's comic collection.
"Oh?" said the witch. She did not seem surprised.
"Yeah. This question's really important," he added, sniggering a little. Adam had seen the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail twenty-six times, and could not resist such an opportunity. "What's your favorite color?"
The woman looked pleased, as though this was not an eventuality she had considered (a rare occurrence). "Noe wonn has askedd thye questionne befor," she said. "Itt is greene."
Adam was about to ask another question, but remembered Pepper's prodding.
"Why?"
"Oh," said Agnes, beaming. "That woode be tellinge. And nowwe, I speke profysy." She pointed a tremulous finger at Wensley's spiral, though Adam guessed that the tremulousness was more for dramatic effect than due to age or any strong emotion.
"This payntyng bye wonn who sees thye worlde thru byts of glasse. Ye must take yt to the place of artes of the younge, to gainne rewardes." There was some further muttering about 'green,' and she vanished.
"Changed my mind," Adam announced, turning back to the others. "I like green."
"Why?" asked Pepper, with a healthy degree of suspicion at Adam's sudden change of heart. The Presence was clearly gone - even the memory of it was fading quickly, as memories of supernatural events tend to do - but that didn't mean it hadn't taken Adam's sanity with it.
"That'd be telling," said Adam triumphantly, "but I reckon it's something to do with all the trees an' grass. Nature, that's what really matters. Important things like this, anyway."
Wensley began to point out that the Earth viewed as a whole had more of a bluish tint, but at a quelling look from Adam, he subsided.
The painting did sell at the local Young Artists' Competition and Art Market. It was not for a bajillion pounds, as the Them had speculated (and the things they would have done with a bajillion pounds ranged from buying their own spaceship to getting some kind of hole-digger for Dog so that he wouldn't have to dig his own), but it sold. The amount turned out to be just enough to allow Wensley to buy his mum a reasonably fancy gift for Christmas (a rather nice end table she'd had her eye on), and to get himself a new set of paintbrushes. Ironically, perhaps, this was all he had been silently hoping for all along.