12 A Rather Beautiful Mystery

Chapter 12 A Rather Beautiful Mystery I think I need to lie down,' said Rockwell, tiny beads of sweat appearing on his brow. 'I know how you feel,' smiled Mrs M, looking fondly at Rockwell. And yes, Peanut, monoing the entire city has always been part of his plan, but twelve Big Xs would mean he could make it happen much quicker than we ever thought possible.' 'Part of his plan?' said Peanut, Surely, once the whole of Chroma is monoed, that's game over, isn't it? What else could he possibly want to achieve?' Actually, we think he wants to ensure that no one from

your world can ever visit our city again,' said Mr M gravely. 'I don't understand,' said Little-Bit as she scratched Doodle under the chin. 'Why would he care who comes to Chroma, if he's going to mono everything anyway?' 'Well,' said Mrs M, removing her glasses. 'Do you remember that I told you that most of your world's great creatives have visited Chroma at some point? That they have swum in the Rainbow Lake and, in some cases, spent a great deal of time here? And, while it's true that the lake boosted their creativity and helped them to become great artists, we shouldn't forget that in return, they brought their own special talent to the Illustrated City. They left their mark. A few even had entire districts named after them.' 'For example—' she pointed to an area on the map marked 'Vincent Fields'-'a Dutch chap named Van Gogh was responsible for the look of much of this area.' And over here—' Mr M gestured to the narrow district at nine o'clock on the map marked 'Dali Point West' 'young Salvador had great fun. What an imagination! A total one-off!'

'Well, we think White wants to stop that happening,' said Mrs M. 'He doesn't want anybody creative visiting the city. ' Right. So how did, er do they all get here?' asked Little-Bit. 'Well,' continued Mrs M, 'that has always been one of the great and enduring mysteries of Chroma. I mean, we already knew about at least one secret gateway between your world and ours, thanks to your daddy.' 'The Green Valleys portal, said Peanut, her cheeks flushing with pride, as she thought of Dad going through the very same doorway that she, Little-Bit and Rockwell had gone through only a few hours earlier. 'That's right, my dear,' said Mrs M, smiling. 'Gary was

one of our first and best recruits to the Resistance movement against Mr White. He did indeed reveal that gateway to us. We always suspected there were others, there had to be, but we never knew where they were. Not that anybody looked very hard—we citizens of Chroma had no need of a portal, after all. And the whole visiting-artists thing was always considered a rather beautiful mystery. These amazing people would appear out of nowhere, swim in the lake, produce their amazing art, and then off they'd go, having left their mark on our city. It was a win-win situation. 'The thing is, while artists continue to find their way to Chroma, tiny seeds of their talent will find a way to grow here no matter how much Mr White tries to mono the city, said Mr M. 'It's a system that's been working for centuries. So the only way he could totally destroy Chroma would be to stop creatives coming.' 'Yes,' said Mrs M darkly, as she put her glasses back on. 'That would break the system beyond all repair.'