The Blue Room Blues

They don't call it the Blue Room, of course. I always asked for it by that name, then backed up verbally and referred to it by room number. Eccentricities make the world go 'round, you know. It doesn't have a preponderance of blue. There's blue highlights, elegantly stenciled on walls and ceilings and hinted at on the inevitable pipes threaded throughout the building. There's blue in the rug, with patterns that hint at someone's conceit at an exotic, perhaps Asian design. The bedspread had a pale blue flower pattern, more like spring blossoms on winter's snow.

Somewhere in the morning in the middle of November, the morning light hits just right, and the room is painted in a blue hue. There's really nothing mystical about the time. Times generally aren't magic by themselves, although, I must amend in retrospect that the hour between three and four in the morning can sometimes have its horrors.

The light reaches from a pale slate near the window, a very faded denim blue painted against the curtains and shadows. Broad strokes of cobalt shade the glass, with cerulean vapors dancing just outside. None of those false blues, like tempestuous turquoise, ultramarine, or teal, unsure of whether or not they identified with their cousins blue or green. No, in this morning's light there's only the winter, none of the sun's gold to change the colour of the room.

It was then that I first saw him. At first I figured I'd imagined him, or that he was one of the many ghosts that were rumoured to exist on the premises. He was pale, almost translucent against the mist. His hair was long and white with perhaps the slightest tint of cornflower. He stood against the hill, in front of the tall trees whose kind I would not be able to describe except in, "Well, their bark is kind of silver." The trees hadn't given up the fight quite yet, holding onto a plethora of fall-tinted leaves, vivid in their tangerine and lemon, with hints of amber, bronze, and coral in the distance. The blue of this world only existed inside the room. Emeralds taunted me, rubies flashed in that moment, and I looked back into the darkness, caught for a moment staring at my hand, painted the colour of summer sky.

He moved then, and I saw that he cast a shadow, a long pale thing of smoke and obsidian, and it was complete to the two thin horns that rested on either side of his head. Thin horns of white, and then, as it passed through the shadows, true blue.

I made a noise. I don't know what kind, and his eyes turned towards me. I must have been one of a thousand noises that morning, between the whisper of leaves in the falling rain, the calls of morning, the murmur of traffic somewhere in the distance, but he looked at me, and me directly. His eyes were the sapphire colour that you remember as glowing and then reconsider as a trick of memory.

He looked at me, and I was the one who felt like an intruder. He was the one staring deep into the privacy of my rented room, deep into the secrets of the blue, and I, I was just an observer, a witness, of his presence.

The sun blinded me for a moment as it pierced through the clouds, and he was gone. I looked carefully, but my window looked upon only a limited slice of the outside. Morning had arrived, and with it, the dreams of the inbetween times were burnt away. The threshhold between night and day had passed.

The next year I asked for the same room.

I don't know if I expected to see him again. I had told myself that I had written him off as a fantasy, as a dream. I never asked the question about his horns, or the shock of white hair. Dreams. Dreams that had me stand awake and press my hand against the cooling glass as night fell, and I looked into the darkness, hoping to see...a dream? A wish?

I woke in the early hours, my cheek pressed against the window. My jaw hurt, and I rubbed it with my palm, blinking against the pale light.

He stood there, this time closer to the courtyard. He looked at me.

I looked back. This time I was not ashamed. I had the faintest feeling he was waiting for me. I took my time, looking at the faint horns that graced his long face. I saw that he had white sleeves, rolled up almost to his shoulders. He wore jeans so pale as to be almost white, one knee ripped out. He was barefoot, and his eyes were still that remarkable blue.

I pressed my hand against the glass. Was he looking at me? He nodded. I looked quickly for a way to open the window, but by the time I found a latch, the sun had risen strong enough to banish him. Or whatever it did; he wasn't there when I looked up once more.

A year more, and I woke in the pale lazulinus morning to see him sitting on the windowsill.

No words passed between us. As he saw I was awake, he pulled his lanky form from the open window, and moved towards the bed. I saw him turn around and close the drapes, leaving only a line of faint blue light. My hands wrapped around his horns, feeling their crystalline strength, and not asking questions, never asking questions, as I brought him close.

His eyes were just as intense in the darkness. He smelled like winter, like cold winds from the sea, the dust brought up from drying leaves, like the intensity of impending snow.

I asked for the Blue Room again this year. I clarified, asking for a room number.

"It's not available," she said.

I wheedled. I pleaded, as much as my position allowed. How did I tell her that it was important?

"We have a very nice room just like it next door."

I murmured a dissent, and hung up. How to tell them that I belonged in that room? I looked down at my hand, at blue traceries of veins. How to tell them that since that night I dreamed only in blue?

• The Horror Hour
• Silver Trees with Golden Leaves