Blue

“Shrinking, swirling, dampened violence.

 A muffled thrashing without might.

Snatched from consciousness, 

Paraded through the dreamgate,

They never knew 

just how deep

just how long the blue

dragged, pinned, plunged you down.”

-Anna Aquino- The year of the Blue misfortune.

According to her, they'd once been known to experiment. 

The three of them, each with long fingers and delicate wrists, worthy of rings and timepieces costing three times their combined fortune, would collect raw crystals and call upon tarot decks. Candles of questionable origin would flicker in their dark eyes as the eldest would turn over a scuffed card one by one. 

Major Arcana. Devil.

Sinful, indulgent. Greed

The youngest of the triplets' thin lips drawstringed shut, the middle, with short hair the color of pitch, barked a laugh that could crack marble. A breeze poured into the room through a cracked window, but the candle flames didn't flicker, but instead glowed a more sinister shade of red, smoke curling dark and heedy.

Unnatural, an omen.

Anna hadn't planned to spy on this one moment, she had thought them harmless, their tiny ears filled with shards of metal and their belts adorned with pouches of powders and holsters of various trinkets non-withstanding.

However, tonight was the night of the blue. 

And, they'd all been warned many, many times. Don't play fortune games on the night of the blue. Don't tempt fate on the indigo sundown. 

Anna knew that the Barron triplets wouldn't comply. They couldn't. They were each born with the same amount of freckles on their backs, but they matched three different constellations in the night sky, they were born minutes apart, but with souls tossed across centuries.

So, when the next card was drawn,

Major Arcana,  the wheel of fortune reversed. Anna gasped.

Misfortune, Bad Luck. Unforsen setback.

The middle child scrunched his nose and this time the little one laughed, snatching three dried figs from the bowl and stuffing them all into his mouth at one, devouring them down like an egg-eating snake.

The breeze screamed back through the window, the blue night ensconsing the candlelight, twisting it violet.

The eldest triplet paused to stay her long red hair, the middle child ran his hand along the woodfloor, catching a splinter.

Anna knew she shouldn't linger, watching through the ajar library door, but she was transfixed. She had to know if the legends were true. If the floor really did open up, if the blue came through, if you lost all your will to go on.

The youngest scratched at his short blonde buzzcut, and motioned to continue, dark eyes blinking.

The eldest plucked the last card.

Major Arcana.

Tower.

Destruction. Crisis. Ruin.

Now. The eldest's hand trembled and the wind rushed in. Glass window panes vanished without a crack or a shatter. The blue oppressed the room from the windows and the candle flames glowed an icy cerulean. 

All three opened their mouths, but instead of screams, only stillness spilled out. Time in the room stood still as the candle flames froze and an upset tarot card stayed in midair from the eldest dropping the deck.

In an blink of an eye, the youngest shrank into the corner, the blue swimmng up his ankles and ensaring his legs like a vortex of velvet.

The middle child's eyes sliced to the side, a fraction too late as the blue sent him tumbling into the middle of the room, knocking over candles that would never catch anything else alight ever again. The boy with hair black as pitch was rolled into a blue deeper than any black.

The eldest triplet by three minutes, with the constellation of Kilna the Seer on her back, simply began to darken from existence. Her entire form lost all vibrance and luster as she faded into the azure abyss that had opened its maw from the center of the soft carpet.

Anna couldn't tear herself from the sight. Her heart beating triple time.

The three of them, barely even existent, moved a limb, a long delicate finger, a tongue clicking, a jaw clicking, eyelids batting into the deep, barren blue.

Then finally, after an eternity, light snapped back into the once resplendant library.. the candles on the floor all snuffed out, never to light again same with the life that had once resided there. 

That night, Anna couldn't sleep, couldn't tell a soul, so she wrote, and scribbled, and scratched at paper like mad until her cuticles bled red.

Red she could withstand.

It was the blue she couldn't abide.