Brindle and the Staircase That Went the Wrong Way

Brindle was already on the wrong staircase when she noticed the light had changed.

She was a paintbrush — small, with bristles so soft from use that they fanned out like the tail of a sleepy bird. She lived in the clocktower, on a shelf in the painting room, right at the very top. The top floor was above the clouds. On clear mornings, Brindle could look down and see nothing but white and soft grey, and it made her feel like she was floating.

She had been trying to reach Possel.

Possel lived three floors down, in the clock-winding room, in her swirly purple conch propped against the wall. Brindle had visited before. She knew the way: down the red staircase, through the door with the brass handle, left at the room that smelled of oil and bells. Easy.

But today the red staircase was gone.

Where it had been, there was a blue staircase instead — narrow, curving, going down and then sideways and then down again. Brindle stared at it. She felt a little worried.

She went down it anyway.

The blue staircase took her past a room she had never seen. Inside, hundreds of tiny hammers were tapping away on their own, keeping the big clock going. Tap tap tap. The sound was soft and even, like rain on a tin roof. Brindle stopped and listened. She stayed a whole minute, just listening.

Then the staircase turned again, and she found herself in a room full of old windows stacked against the walls, each one showing a different sky — a pink sky, a green sky, a sky full of small white moons. Brindle looked at each one slowly. She noticed that the smallest window had a little smudge of paint in one corner, the same yellow she used sometimes. She wondered who had been here before.

Then she heard a familiar sound.

Tap. Tap. One claw, tapping on a windowsill.

Possel was there, leaning on the sill of her conch, one dusty coral-red claw propped under her chin. She looked at Brindle without surprise. She looked at the windows. Then she looked at Brindle again.

"You took the long way," Possel said.

"The red staircase was gone," said Brindle.

Possel was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Good."

Brindle blinked. "Good?"

Possel pointed one claw at the window room behind Brindle. "I have been wanting to show you that room for a long time," she said. "I just never knew quite how."

Brindle turned and looked back at the stacked windows, all those different skies glowing softly. She felt something settle inside her — quiet and warm, like a brush rinsed clean and set down just right.

She came the rest of the way in and sat beside Possel. They looked out the conch's little round window together. Below them, the clouds moved slowly past.

After a while, Possel fetched two small cups of warm tea that smelled faintly of honey. They sat and drank without hurrying.

When Brindle finally climbed back up to her shelf that evening, she noticed the red staircase was exactly where it had always been. She did not take it. She went the long way instead, just to walk past those windows once more.