Colors by You

Chapter 1

Most people talked about the colours like they were magic. Granted, anyone who didn't have a foothold in the supernatural world didn't have much of a reference for what fit in the realm of fantastical and what didn't. Still, I wasn't going to lie and say they weren't pretty.

Slamming my car door shut, I glanced across the street where I parked. It was the kind of quiet that came with early afternoons, when neighborhood kids were still in school and parents were parked behind their work desks. Massive oak and maple trees lined the residential street, their leaves fluttering in reds, oranges, and yellows. It was still early fall, but leaves were scattered across the grass and asphalt road in pops of colour. I slipped my phone out of my pocket, snapping a photo of the scene.

After I got my colours, I started taking pictures. My neighbour's front door. The produce aisle of my grocery store. The billboard a block from my apartment. Ordinary things I used to pass by without a backward glance because they seemed so bland when they were just shades of grey.

Opening the passenger door, I carefully picked up the warm baking pan sitting on the seat, adjusting the tin foil wrapping overtop. Locking the car, I turned towards the house. Anna's home sat on the corner of the street. It was older, but charming, with a faded white paint job and blue shutters. Dense shrubbery marked the line with her one neighbour, and a patch of daisies sat beneath the left side of her porch. I walked up the front lawn, gingerly toeing around the cracked concrete step.

The shades were still drawn over the windows. I rang the bell, gnawing my lips. I caught the sound of footsteps from behind the door, then it opened. Anna's eyes went wide, a smile stretching on her face. "Holy shit."

"Hi to you too," I threw an arm around her neck. She wrapped both arms around my waist, squeezing tightly with a groan.

"Would it kill you to say you were coming into town?"

"That would ruin the surprise," I pulled back, giving her a once over. She looked good. Happy.

"How've you been?"

"Same as usual," I presented the pie tin, "I come bearing gifts."

Her eyes gleamed. "Apple?"

"Of course."

She took the pan with both hands. "I would say you shouldn't have, but that'd be like asking you to stop."

"I would never be that cruel."

She laughed, stepping aside so I could come in. My eyes reflexively traced across the living space, so familiar yet so, so not. I'd been here once before after I'd gotten my colours, and it'd taken all my willpower not to show it. Granted, Anna never had the perspective to notice – she'd only gotten hers a couple weeks ago.

"What brings you to town this time?" She asked, moving towards the kitchen. I followed her trail with a slow stride, my arms crossed over my chest.

"A couple of things, but mainly because my best friend found her soulmate and promptly disappeared."

She set the tin on the stove and I took a seat on a stool at the kitchen island. "I did not."

"Five texts in a month is not the picture of present."

"We were getting to know each other."

My gaze narrowed. "I'll bet you did."

She flushed, setting a water bottle in front of me. "I told you his name and how we met."

"It was a very vague and disconnected description. There was a bar, and drinking, and somehow his black car fit into all this?"

"It's a vintage impala. He really likes it."