Page 93 of Dark Chains: First Link
The walls were covered in pictures.
Drawings were plastered on every available surface. They overlapped at the edges, pinned to the concrete with tiny pieces of adhesive that must have been scavenged from the school supply room. The paper was the same cheap, grainy stock that the children used for their lessons, but what had been done with it transformed the drab room into something that didn't belong in the enclosure because it was too bright, too full of life.
There were portraits. Dozens of them. Faces of women, some of whom Sullha recognized, rendered in colored pencil with a skill that shouldn't have been possible given the crude materials. The likenesses were uncanny, not because they werephotographically accurate but because they captured something beneath the surface.
And then there were the imaginary scenes.
A mountain range with snow on the peaks and a purple sky above. A city at night with pinpricks of yellow light in hundreds of tiny windows. A river cutting through a green valley, the water rendered in layered strokes of blue and white and gray that somehow conveyed movement on a flat page. A market scene full of people and stalls and color that practically vibrated.
Tomek's mouth was open. He turned in a slow circle, taking in the walls, and for possibly the first time in his young life, he had nothing to say.
Sullha remembered when she'd shared a room like this one. Before Tomek, before she'd been assigned a mother's room, she'd slept in a four-person room with women who kept their spaces bare because decorating required energy they didn't have. The walls had been gray concrete and nothing else.
Asira's walls were alive.
"When did you do all of these?" Sullha asked.
"It took several years and a lot of paper." Asira pulled a low stool from the corner and set it near the window where the light was best. "Drawing keeps me sane."
"These are amazing, Asira."
The reaction to the compliment was different from what Sullha had expected. Instead of brightening further, Asira seemed embarrassed, and something else that Sullha recognized because she wore the same expression when someone praised her gardening. It was the look of a person whose sense of self-worth was entirely contained in one skill, and being recognized for that skill touched a place that was usually kept locked.
"Thank you," Asira said. "Sit here, Tomek. The light is good in this spot."
Tomek climbed onto the stool and sat with his hands on his knees and his back straight, like a soldier reporting for inspection.
"You can relax," Asira said. "I need you to look normal, not like you swallowed a broom."
He slumped immediately, overcorrecting from rigid to boneless.
Sullha leaned against the frame, not wanting to sit on anyone's bed. She hated when people sat on hers, so she wasn't going to do it to someone else unless she was invited.
Asira sat cross-legged on the floor with a piece of paper on a flat board across her knees and a fistful of colored pencils. She looked at Tomek with focused intensity, as if she was reaching into his soul.
"Don't stare at me like that," Tomek said.
"I have to stare at you. I'm drawing your face. I have to learn it first."
"It's weird."
"Tell me a story."
"What kind of story?"
"Just use your imagination. Create a story in your head and tell it to me while I draw you."
"I don't know how to tell stories." He fidgeted on the stool, his feet swinging. "How long?"
"Not long. Tell me about something you like."
"I like the garden."
That was a surprise. Sullha was sure he would say the play yard, which was his favorite place.
"What do you like about it?"
"I like planting things and watching them grow. My mama taught me how to do sweet potatoes. You have to put the slips in the soil not too deep, or they can't breathe."
