“I feel so heavy!” I said, trying to keep my balance.
“It's gravity,” Midnight said now, “You've not been affected by it like this for quite awhile. Lying down is so much easier. Just keep going. Hold onto the rail.”
“What rail?”
I looked to my side, very carefully avoiding any backward glances. No rail was there.
“It's in front of you. Just keep going.”
“You can see in front of me?”
“Can't you?”
“It's just a fog,” I said.
“Oh,” Midnight said, “That explains it.”
“Explains what?” I said.
“Why your balance was off. I didn't want to say anything, but I was worried that you were having such a difficulty.”
“Now you tell me,” I said under my breath.
“Hey, I didn't want to worry you,” Midnight said, “Just keep going. You're doing fine.”
You can hear me?
This I didn't say aloud.
“Yes, I can hear you. And no, I'm not being bossy.”
“Seriously?” I said, “you can hear my thoughts?”
“It's the sky, Aurora. We're linked, stronger than we've ever been in this moment, in these moments, however long they last for.”
“But, why do you seem to know so much more about this than I do?”
“Aside from being older and wiser?” Midnight said with a smile.
It feels good to joke! Good to be able to tease Aurora again! I could hear her thoughts, that she'd done it to convince herself that this was more than just some fleeting opportunity. This was the way back to me, back to reality.
Just act like everything is normal and –
“And then it will be,” I said, finishing her thought.
“You can hear my thoughts too,” Midnight said now. She sounded slightly surprised, but only as if there had been a pop in the other room, not one directly in front of her.
“I'm paying attention now, now that I know to,” I said. Then, I smiled, thinking of my teacher.
“Who is the hawk man?”
Midnight said.
I shook my head, a little smile coming over my features.
“Uh—uh. Some things I don't want to share, even with you.”
◆◆◆
Now, Midnight saw Aurora alone in the dream world. She saw her take up an arrow and aim. She saw the man rise, as though sprouted from the ground. And then Midnight saw as he leaned into her sister, as he took her in his arms, as he brushed his lips across her, and as he was there for her when Midnight had not been able to be.
Midnight's heart jumped at that, welling at the thought of her sister, at the love that there was and then pooling with sadness that she had missed so much of her life. Dream worlds stretched longer than reality. The girl who had fallen asleep was no longer there. Now, a young woman stood before Midnight in the thoughts.
Perhaps, it was a silly thing to think, for one who herself was only seventeen. She'd been Aurora's age only last year. But, Aurora was her little sister, the youngest in the castle. Midnight had never equated their ages to being the same level. Midnight was always older, not just chronologically, but at each age. When Midnight was seven, she was older than when Aurora was seven. When Midnight was twelve, she surpassed Aurora's twelve years. It's not that Midnight thought less of her sister. Indeed, perhaps, it was that she thought more of her. She wanted to preserve Aurora's youth, her simple uncomplicated life as long as possible. That was why Aurora was never supposed to best her sister and make her unselfish wish. If she did, then she was growing up, she was slipping away from the ability for Midnight to protect her.
◆◆◆
“How long will we hear each others's thoughts?” I said now.
“When you step from the last stair, the bond is broken.”
There was a finality in the words. Was it possible for our bond to be severed? I hesitated. Now, as I neared the end of the staircase, the fog was clearing. I could see the final three steps below. They looked simple to move across. No longer were they jagged. My footsteps were sure, secure in their placing. And yet, I paused. Maybe it was against all the rules. Were there rules for a mission such as this? Maybe. But even if there were, I took the risk anyway. I needed this moment, so that I could follow my heart's rules.
“Midnight, I won't let you down.”
I heard in Midnight's heart the choke in her voice. As if her eyes were welling up now, I reached instinctively for a handkerchief from my pocket.
Midnight, still able to hear my thoughts, shook her head just slightly.
“No, Aurora. Don't let go of the rail. You'll fall.”
I took hold of the rail, stronger. I didn't dare argue with Midnight or contradict her and tell her that there was no longer a fear of loosing my footing. Sometimes, really loving someone, meant letting them believe they could catch you even if there were no danger of falling.
“Midnight, I won't let you down,” I repeated.
“Aurora,” Midnight said, softening her voice so that all the bossiness of being an older sister would not be present in it, “You have never let me down. Be careful. I love you. I will see – ”
Though I had stopped on the stairs, my footing was no longer where I had placed it. In fact, the stairs were no longer there at all. They were dissolving under my feet. Midnight's voice was fading,
“Midnight! Midnight!” I shouted to her, but it was too late. The connection was gone. I was on my own. Moving through the castle felt like I was in a dream. When I'd been asleep and was dreaming, I felt awake. In the land of the waking and now by myself, everything was up to me.
Chapter Nine
Midnight
I wandered through this land of dreams that Aurora had inhabited for months now.
“Aurora, my goodness you – ” I paused in my steps.
“What are you doing back already?” I said. A shadowy haze pooled around Aurora. It was as if I were looking at her through a fog and underwater.
“I thought that I had summoned you.” Aurora's words played through my mind now and I realized the terrible mistake that I'd fallen into.
“How brave you've been!” Aurora's image only appeared more strongly now.
I spoke to myself aloud, to sort my muddled thoughts.
“Right. I can't think about her at all. About any of them. About – Think about something else. What? I'm thinking about dreams. I'm thinking about being asleep. I'm thinking about Au – oranges. I'm thinking about oranges and apples and the garden and roses and Au – I'm thinking about confetti streaming down and balls and birthdays and Au – ARGH! I'm thinking about nothing. I'm thinking about loneliness, about my sis – UGH!”
I fell backwards in a heap, not because I'd lost my balance but simply because I'd exhausted myself. In frustration, I lay there, as if I'd fallen back onto my bed in my room and not onto the billowing layers of the dream world. The moment that Aurora had slipped from this world, it had paled in color. It was as if someone had walked to a chalkboard and wiped across it. Remnants remained, traces and pulls of colors, hints of shapes, but the details had disappeared.
“Clever,” I said aloud now, when I realized what had consumed Aurora for months.
I painted the dream world in every detail I could imagine. Maps, in the minutest detail, sprung into being, as if I'd turned the world into a classroom. Where Aurora had spread her visions outward, expanding with more land, I built vertically, surrounding me in a wall of enshrined images. Here is where I would wait, safely stowed away from any summoning thoughts, until Aurora returned.
Chapter Ten
Aurora
“In the tree of life, your soul is the roots, your spirit is the soil.”
Mother had said those words, long ago, as I had walked with her through the garden.
“I want you to know that you have strength within you. You are more than just a fleeting sunrise. I know that you think that Midnight is strong, that the night lasts longe
r than the day.”
She'd said it as though looking into my future, into this very moment.
“Thank you, Mother.”
I wanted to go to her, to seek her counsel, to throw my arms around her, to bathe in her warmth and to know her now as a friend, the way that I knew Midnight. Midnight was always the one that I felt closest to, for Midnight was unable to send me to my room, to issue orders, or to be disappointed. That was it, wasn't it? Mother could be disappointed. Father too. Midnight couldn't. Ever. There was a safety in her, a security.
I walked to the room. I'd forgotten what it was to live in shadows, to dart from room to room between the moonlight. There was only light in the world of dreams. I'd never seen a star. I looked to the window now and smiled.
There sat the seven sisters. Midnight had been so proud when first she'd located them in the sky.
“Look Aurora! It's us!” Midnight had said.
“But, I thought it was seven sisters?”
“We're better than seven sisters. Besides, I'm seven and my love for you is bigger.”
I had smiled. Midnight was protecting me. Always, even then. Even now, having traversed into the land of dreams. But now it was my turn. I watched as the Aurora Borealis flickered on the horizon. Was it fading or was it my imagination? I'd have to hurry to finish the caper on time. Now, I saw it. The dreamcatcher looked so small. How could it have caused all of this? I neared it and reached tentatively for the silver threads. I felt the strength of Midnight in them.
My feet had carried me to her room, without even realizing where I was headed. I had promised not to wake her, but one peek wouldn't hurt. I stood before Midnight. How peaceful my sister looked! Never once had I questioned whether I should have used my birthday wish as I did. Now more than ever, I knew that I'd made the right decision. How often had I run to Midnight's side, heard her screams and been powerless to help my sister? How often had I wished that I could do something?
And then, most merciful of all, I had been able to. My birthday, which I had ticked off on the calendar, counted down the days in earnest, had come. It was not the presents or even the beloved ball that I had yearned for. No, it was the wish. Finally, for one brief moment, I would have all the power that I needed. It was what I'd counted on, all that I bargained for. I'd not wanted anything more.
Now, though, I was cheating. I was begging for more power, to walk among the real, without disturbing them, so that I could reset the wish but without any of the prior terrible results remaining.
Had such a thing ever been accomplished before?
The library.
Yes. That was it. I would have to consult the books, the chronicles of the kingdom. There were many secrets in the library, knowledge tucked into the age-shimmered pages of the books. And there was something else as well. Locked behind the regular books, there was a tiny elf door left over from the days when the elves had inhabited the castle. Now, they remained in the forest, long gone from the stone walls. It was a mystery why, something that I had never been told.
I found the book that Mother spoke of, the one of dreams and doors, quicker than expected. How wonderful it was to run my hand across the pages again! I searched through the contents, scanning for anything that might be of use. And then, tucked at the back of the book. I saw it. My poem. The one that Mother had told me was specifically for me, when I had found it when I was little and I knew that it was meant for me to read it.
Northern Lights
Swirling twirling Arctic sky
Colors vibrant in disguise
Vivid smoke in flashes of light
Metallic rainbow soar through the night
High above the snowy fields
where animals bury in snowy shields,
The Aurora Borrealis soars
over the lands, the seas and the shore
Polar coats on bears turn blue
As the northern lights paint them too
Sweep of green, burst of red
Trailing the sky as the clouds below tread
I read it, smiling, remembering my childhood and all the times that I had pictured those polar bears turning the colors of the rainbow. But, somehow, something was missing. I didn't feel a tingle of excitement when I read it. There was no inclination that anything at all had happened to wonderfully transform my world.
Maybe the answer couldn't be found in a book. Maybe this was too big of a problem for me to solve in that way. I started to close the book, but as I did, my eye caught another poem. It flickered from the page, but like a flame too bright, it wasn't time to read it, not yet. It was enough to know it was there. What did spark brightly, though, was this thought,
I have to leave a sign.
The idea had been building in me since I stepped from the dream into reality. I would seemingly remember having wakened when I was asleep again, but how could Midnight be certain that it wasn't all just a dream?
Midnight was the practical one, rooted in the real. I was the dreamer.
I'd have to leave a clue for Midnight, so that she'd remember what needed to be accomplished next. Something that only Midnight would understand, something –
I smiled, first in a whisper and then laughing in glee. I clapped my hand over my mouth to prevent anyone from waking up.
Yes! Perfect!
Chapter Eleven
Midnight
Aurora stepped from the world of the waking, where all were asleep, and crossed back into the world of dreams. As she did, I appeared to her, shadowy at the top of the stairs.
“Stop! No! I'm trying so hard. Picture it, the walls, the turrets. Throw up the spiderwebs and more spiders.”
“Spiders?” Aurora laughed, “Midnight, what are you doing?”
This was different from before. Aurora did not come as a wash of shadows and colors, but as a voice, clear and loud and talking to me.
“Is it you? Really?” I said.
“It's me,” Aurora said, laughing, “It's me.” Now, as she stepped back into the dream, I hugged her.
“You have no idea how hard it was not to think of you!” I said. Aurora spun in a slow circle, taking in the murals, the leaves, the insects, everything in perfect, minute detail.
“I can see that,” she said, as she turned.
Something settled over me then. I had created more in one night than Aurora had in months. Of course, I was only in a small area. Perhaps, Aurora had ventured out further, beyond the walls of this place, into areas that had remained hidden from me.
“You missed me,” Aurora said.
“It's impossible not to think of you,” I answered. Then, a thought struck me, “Aurora?”
“Yes?”
“How is it – I mean, what helped you to be able to not think – how'd you do it?”
“I thought about you – wanted to anyway – plenty. Don't you question that,” Aurora said, gently, “But, I had to be calm, deliberate. Who knew how long I'd be here? Besides, there was Simeon.”
“Simeon?”
A man, looking more like a hawk, appeared before us now, the man that I had seen in Aurora's memory.
“This is Simeon,” Aurora said with a nod.
I blinked. He was so – so old. Wasn't he? Oh, not in the way that texts in the library were old or elves in the forest. He wasn't even anywhere near Father's age. He was, however, most assuredly a man. That is to say, he wasn't a boy. He was a man. Aurora was introducing me to a man. It sank in heavily now.
Simeon flickered away, seeming to realize that this lapse in the order of night and day was temporary and that Aurora needed every moment with me that she could find. How did he know that? How could he sense so much about her? No one had been able to do that before, except me. It wasn't jealousy that pricked me, though, but curiosity and a deep sense of loss. I was losing my bond to my sister, the longer that she was away from the waking world.
There was no time to think about that, though, for my eyes were drawn to the sky. The dawn seemed to be approaching, but trappe
d in this dream world, how could we be sure?
“You must go,” I said now.
Aurora shook her head, not at all understanding me.
“Go? Where am I to go, sister?”
It was so long since I'd heard Aurora's voice against me, so soft, so stubborn. In that moment, she was perfectly Aurora: strong, capable and yet wasting time on the details.
“But, how does the horse run faster than the cow? Yes, but why is the sky only blue sometimes and gray others? Yes, but when will we see the first snow? Yes, but I want to understand what makes the mechanics behind the machine work. How does it spin? Why does it work? Where will we go? When can it be? When will you save me, Midnight? Why did you fail me, Midnight? When will I finally get to wake up, Midnight?”
The dream world was a cruel manipulator, spinning what it had with what never was into inescapable binding. Stronger even than Rumpelstiltskin's silver and gold threads, the dream world had the ability to trick and to deceive, to convince one that something had happened or that one did not love.
“You must return to Simeon or wherever else you will remain happy and safe, until we are united again. And now it's my turn, to set all into motion.”
Chapter Twelve
Edora
Edora wound her way through the cavernous castle. The rooms were immense, with the ceilings stretching ever higher. She felt as though she were traipsing through some long abandoned cavern. But Edora the deer had never ventured into such a cave. The bears lurked there, intent to prey upon the unsuspecting deer. It had been one of her mother's most fervent lessons: Stay away from caves, my little doe. There is too much trouble there. Remain in the open, where you are free, where you can see, where you can quickly take refuge by darting behind a tree.
As she moved deeper into the stone walls of the castle, plush carpets pressed back against her feet as readily as the spring grasses would have at home. Silk thread tapestries lined the walls and oak floors shone with blinding brilliance, as they'd been highly-polished by the maids. As she looked at the tapestries, Edora studied each tiny face. They were alive, though they were only woven. She reached out, so needing to touch everything now that she had this new ability. A castle rose in majestic beauty from the craggy mountaintop of the scene. It was pale, reflecting the light of the omniscient moon, which stood guard from above. She traced its outline, holding her breath, afraid that if she pressed too hard the castle would disintegrate beneath her touch. Now her hands danced across the tapestry, earnest in their search for clues. For clues? But for what? Not knowing, but pressing onward, Edora's fingers scrambled. There was something here. Something was begging for her to open her eyes and just see it – whatever it might be.
While Aurora Slept- The Complete Trilogy Page 11