by Mira Zamin
As Selene slept, she dreamed.
She sat in a slender, silver canoe that drifted down a placid milky river lined with willows whose gilded leaves feathered softly into the water. The sky was pure black, but she had no trouble seeing the path unfolding before her like a shimmering and ever-familiar pattern. She was content to let the canoe take her where it would. And from where there had been nothing but unyielding river, suddenly sprang a small dock.
With the greatest naturalness, she stepped from the boat and onto the dock, a new path lit before her, this one as luminous and pearly as a full moon. It wound through a forest of dark trees and disappeared into shadow. She stepped along the path, wondering where it would take her. It struck her to look down at her dress; it was as silver as her coronation gown—a...what? The image of something had fluttered into her mind, but she could not understand what it had to do with her. This gown glowed with an unearthly beauty.
She forgot the gown when she looked up again. An immense palace loomed before her, its spires and towers so lofty that they mingled with the brushstroke clouds and as she came closer it became evident that it was not made of stone or brick or even marble but of pure silver. Amazed, she touched it and snatched her hand back with a hiss. It was hot. Or it was cold. It was something that hurt.
“Do not touch that which is not yours.”
She whirled around, but she could see nothing. It was as if a black veil had been drawn over her eyes. It slowly faded and she looked around warily. Her neck prickled. Something...was not right.
An arched entrance yawned before her and with the path still glittering, even as it disappeared through the ingress. She followed it and then the scene fizzed and something new dissolved into reality. Music first. The piping of flutes and strums of harps. It drew her in, made her feet itch to dance. A golden light crept in, the steady burning of thousands of beeswax candles and as this light illuminated, it revealed a party of dancers, swirling in perfect harmony in a chamber of glass and mirrors.
It also revealed a colored-glass mass of butterfly wings.
She backed away.
Fingers caught her arm. “Ah ah,” a chiming voice chided. “Once you enter, you may not leave until the dance is finished.”
It was a Pari woman who spoke, with goldenrod wings and dark curling hair. The woman seemed familiar—had she not always known her?—but her identity flitted away as soon as Selene seemed to stumble upon it. The pari gave her hand to a man who promptly began gliding with her. He was human and his face was slack with blind enjoyment. Her fingers tingled. This was strange...
From his arms, she went to another man with the same flaccid expression. And then to another, each handsomer and duller than the next. And something...something ever-so familiar flickered at the corner of her eye, but whenever she turned, it disappeared, out of sight once more. “No...no...” Selene gasped. “I must stop.”
The woman with the goldenrod wings was at her side once more. “You must not stop.”
“Oh, but I must,” she insisted. Sharp threads pricked at her consciousness, like a needle poking a bubble. “I am Queen of Ghalain. I will stop if I wish.”
The woman curtsied, spreading her mint green skirts with supreme irony. “Of course. Might I offer your Majesty a drink?” A glass chalice filled with a burgundy drink appeared temptingly in her hands. “Surely your Majesty has grown thirsty from the dance?”
Do not touch that which is not yours.
“No...thank you...”
The glass vanished in a wisp of smoke. “Very well then. You must dance.”
Once more, she was assumed into the arms of gliding gentlemen. The familiar flickers grew more rapid, more evident, darting colors that she knew she had known somewhere...But where...Had there been anything but this dance? Her words echoed in her mind: I am Queen of Ghalain. What sort of place had that been? Her partner waltzed her closer to the glass wall. And there! There it was! That ghostly flicker! But it did not dart out of her sight, but remained steady. It met her eyes.
Auralia.
The word whispered in Selene’s ear, a faint and forgotten memory that was growing clearer and clearer. There she stood, behind a shadowy glass, a hairsbreadth and world away from Selene’s fingers. Other figures began crowding behind her. Her parents. Her other siblings. Beya, their nurse, Matiz the guard. The crowd behind the glass deepened and deepened, filled with faces she thought she knew. She broke away from her partner’s grasp once more.
Selene heard the soft beat of goldenrod wings at her side. “Release them!” she commanded.
The pari smiled. “I cannot do that.”
She beat at the glass, but it remained impenetrable. With the pari following her steps, she ran her fingers along the glass, but found no crack. It was a single continuous piece that curved around the boundaries of the room. “What have you been done with them?” she demanded.
“They are precisely as you saw them last.”
“Let me see them.”
“You may not.”
“Let me see them,” she persisted.
Her lips curled upwards. “If you so insist...” She caressed the glass. It shone blindingly and when the light faded there was a small door. “You may enter.”
Selene almost dashed in but something...something buzzed in her mind. “If I go behind the glass, will I be able to leave?”
Her smile grew wider. “Surely you wish to be with your family once more.”
Her family began hugging the doorway, unable to step forth, but she could hear their soft pleas clearly. “Selene...Selene...”
Willed by their whispers, the haunting sigh of the music, she stepped forward to join them.
“NO!”
She met Auralia’s terrified eyes.
Something cracked.
“Go on then,” the pari said. “You belong with them.”
Her gaze locked on Auralia, Selene backed away slowly. “No...I think not...”
The pari brought her face close to Selene’s. The scent of cloves enveloped her. “Surely you wish to,” she lilted enticingly. “Surely you...dream of it, long for it. Reunion at last. Here, it is yours. Taste it.”
Selene wrenched away from her. She felt fingers at her back, pushing, tugging. And she ran. Something pulled her forward, through the golden mirrors of the hall, the silver archway. The path was no longer moonlit, but as dark and shadowy as the surrounding forest, and more winding than she recalled it. Thorns scrabbled at her tattering gown, vines curled around her ankles. She tripped, she crawled, she ran. The path suddenly ended, right upon the dock. The canoe bobbed in the opalescent river in wait. Clambering in, she pushed off.
She faded.
Chapter Twenty-Seven