A blank slate

The thick silk dress found its way over my body and draped itself effortlessly down towards the floor. The colors imitating late spring: a cream, square top, fitting dress with apricot flowers and green leaves patterning the material. Three lines of ruffles decorated the top and the edge of the sleeves. Simple but elegant. Diana's signature style. Diana always comes up with the most beautiful dresses I've ever seen. Always perfect, right down to the hem. Her mother used to sew clothes for her when she was a little girl, and her father was a very talented artist. She doesn't talk of them much. She says they're in the past and it won't hurt for them to stay there. I think they died in a building fire when she was eight but I haven't asked Diana about her parents in years. I made the mistake of prying once, and for her sake, I won't make the same mistake again. But my guess is that's where she got her talent for turning me into some kind of goddess whenever I have to somewhere to go. Creating beautiful things is in her blood.

"What shall we do with your hair today, Miss Bay?" Diana asks. Pulling a few of my auburn strands back, as if showing me rough drafts of the million and one things she could do with my pathetic excuse for hair. "You're the expert, not me," I say, giving her a familiar smirk. She gives me a teasing glare. "Very well," she grinned back ruthlessly. As if she knew something I didn't. Suddenly a blur of her two hands are teasing my hair and turning it into what would appear to anyone else as a bird's nest. A scream of laughter escapes my mouth as I try to swat her hands away. "What?" She questions innocently. "You said I was the expert and I say this is perfect." I laugh at her as I stare at my reflection in the vanity mirror. Brown heaps of hair are scattered all across my head, giving me the look of just getting up out of bed. "This is the style these days, you know?" she jokes. "Exactly what Do- uh, Detective Alexander is expecting." I feel a wave of nausea that i thought had passed wash over me, despite her joking tone and the very light atmosphere. My green eyes gaze back at me and I watch as the happiness that was there just a moment ago dissolve into anxiousness and anxiety. Diana must pick up on this- as she usually does- because she begins to stroke my hair thoughtfully.

"It'll be alright, dear." She says with an amount of sincerity that's always surprised me. She begins working on my hair, talking while brushing out the tangles she caused earlier and pulling various pieces back to braid them. Forming something like a crown from my temples to the back of my head. "I'm sure Sir William hasn't gotten far," she continues cautiously. "He's always been one to run off from time to time, you know that. Don't worry too much about it." All the laughter from minutes ago has been stripped and her voice is wearing nothing but worry.

Diana finishes fastening the braids and curls the ends of my hair slightly. She places small flowers in my hair that looks like a pastel fire burning against my burnt wood colored hair. She makes me face away from the mirror so she can paint my face with natural earthy tones: browns and greens are spread and blended across my eyelids, making me feel like one of the nymphs in the picture books my brother, William, used to read to me when we were kids. Diana dabs some pale pink gloss across my lips. She gives a comforting smile and tells me I can look now. I turn around to see a stranger in the mirror. Diana has been dressing me and making me look at my best for as long as I can remember. I used to go to my father's parties and balls, and Diana was always there saying and doing the things a mother would usually do. Diana's always been there for me, even when I couldn't be there for myself.

"You're beautiful." she whispers.

"No, this dress is beautiful." I say breathlessly. "My hair and makeup and flowers...all of this is what you've done. "I am simply the canvas, Diana. A canvas is not beautiful, the art placed on it by the hands of an artist such as yourself is what makes it beautiful." I tilt my head around to see her face directly. There's such wisdom and time in her eyes that you could say anything and she might make you change your mind. Even if you pointed out the sky is blue she could look at you and you'd feel as if you've just said the stupidest thing ever said throughout mankind. She takes her hand and rubs the back of her knuckles against my cheek. They're soft and frail and smell of the garden. She makes a slight tsk-ing sound and kisses my forehead. "Nonsense. You know better than to say such foolish things." She says that as if she was having a conversation with a bird in the trees and it just sang a response that she disagreed with, though to anyone else she would seem like a mad woman. "But I am nothing but a foolish girl," I tease. "Surely that's a fitting title." I stare into Diana's hazelnut eyes and she removes her hand from my cheek and pats my hands, as they've been sitting in my lap, fiddling with one of the extra flowers that she placed in my hair with expert's hands. Her hair is graying faster than I remembered it had been, but she has aged gracefully and is the most beautiful person I know.

She gives a tight smile and says, "'You are only foolish if you choose to believe it.' That's what my father used to say." Her smile fades, then grabs my hands and helps me into a standing position. "Come now," Diana says. "You don't want to keep Detective Alexander waiting."

I step outside the carriage and into the crisp April air and immediately the wind is cool and refreshing against my face. The wind doesn't cut through my clothes like late January's did. Instead it fills my lungs and seems to be the only thing keeping me from fainting. I take shallow, shaky breaths as I walk up the the old, little building's doors and give it a firm knock. When I pull my gloved hand away I see a light layer of dust littered across my knuckles and attempt to dust it off, but my attempts are cut short when a tall, slender man in a pair of tailored pants and a white, open collared shirt answers the door. His thin glasses rest just on the bridge of his nose. His dark hair is disheveled and seems to glow from the fire slowly burning out in the living room.

"Yes, what can I do for you today?"

"I'm Veronica Bay. I'm here to see you about the disappearance of my brother, William Bay."

He looks dazed and distant. As if he's spent the evening out of his body and in another demintion. Just as I'm about to ask him if he's alright, something has snapped him back into reality and I'm face to face with a young, grey eyed detective that will hopefully bring me closer to finding my brother.

"Oh yes, of course! Please, come in."

I enter the cramped space and the smell of weathered pages and brown sugar assault my senses and cause my head to spin. But it's relaxing in a way. Almost familiar. Seeming to calm my hiked nerves. "So what exactly can I do for you, Miss Bay?" He says as he clears off a stack of geography books from a large, maroon apollstered chair, with gold buttons with intricate designs, tattered down the sides. His voice is low but full of youth. He couldn't be much older than William, I conclude.

"Well, actually I was hoping you could tell me." I say hopefully. Taking my seat in the apollstered chair. He makes his way over to a small, heavy wooden desk. It's covered in various papers and what appears to be a logging book. There's a small plaque that has Alexander's name on it. There's something else written across it but he turns it on its face before I can finish reading it. He looks up at me with thoughtful, yet concerned eyes as he pulls up an worn, wooden barstool next to the chair he placed me in. "You see, my brother has made a habbit of running off whenever he feels like it so it makes for a very hard time to get someone to care that he hasn't retutned. And I was hoping you might assist me in trying to discover the whereabouts of him." I try to keep the aching feeling of dread out of my tone and I'm fighting to keep my voice even, but I'm afraid my efforts only caused me to sound more frail. "And what evidence do you have that your brother, Mr. William, is not just out roaming the streets of Manhattan? That perhaps it had just slipped his mind to make someone aware of his whereabouts?" There was no judgemental questioning in his voice, just simple curiosity and knowledge needed for the proper procedures to be carried out.

"My brother and I are very close. He always let's me know where he's going and when. This is not like him. He wouldn't just leave," my voice sounds hesitant and shaky in my own ears. But Detective Alexander hasn't taken his eyes off me. He's paying close attention and keeping on my every word, but, "I see," is all he says.

The sun has begun to drift off into a hazy sunset of violets and golds, the rest of the sky is a dulling gray that seems to hang in the air like factory smoke. The light of day is fading and this is one more day of no answers.

After Diana helps me out of my dress I run a bath and silently slip into the warm, inviting water. The soaps smell of dogwood and orange blossoms, both bubbling up and popping against my skin. But even with smells of home taking hostage of my body something still smells faintly of old books and brown sugar. An odd combination that seems to linger far into the night.

I dream of oceans dropping off into nowhere and my brother's voice calling to me from somewhere I can't see. I can hear William's distant words echoeing across the water but they don't quite reach me. His words fall into the depths of the sea. I try swimming after them, pumping my arms and legs, willing myself to catch the words he said and bring them to shore, but I can't go anywhere. I'm stuck underwater with no way out. I try turning around but something grabs at my legs and pulls me further down into the abis. I see William floating towards the bottom of the sea, his blonde hair around him like a halo. I try to call to him but my voice has gone mute. I try to scream, but my efforts are in vain. The world is blackening around me.

I wake up to Diana shaking my shoulder and and placing a wet cloth against my forehead and collarbone. My throat is hoarse and dry, I can feel a layer of sweat covering my body. The room is still dark. If it wasn't for the lamp Diana turned on I wouldn't be able to make out the outline of her features.

"Are you alright, Veronica? You were having quite a fit in your dreams tonight. I could hear you all the way down the hall." She places her hand on my forehead on down through my hair. "I'm sorry, it was just a dream. I hadn't meant to wake you." She seems saddened. Almost absent, but I can't tell its intentions through the night. "Diana, what's wrong?" She looks at me with glassy eyes but turns away from my face. "Its nothing, dear. It just seems I can in never sleep these days." She gives a sad smile and makes a motion to say more but seems to decide against it. "Can I get you anything?" Is all she says. "No, no. I'm quite alright," I manage to say. "I'll be heading back to bed now." "Very well, Miss Bay. Goodnight." I give her a slight nod and she turns off the bedside lamp. As soon as Diana exits the room I let out a shaky sigh that I hadn't realized I was holding in. I glance around my room and then close my eyes. An image of William's dead body comes to mind and it makes me shake. Why had a dreamt him dead? My brother's not dead. He's... Wait, where is my brother? Confusion fills my mind and I can't focus on anything. I hear Diana's voice in my mind. "William's dead. I'm so sorry."