Tilly's hand flew over her mouth.
“Oh! I don't know what's become of me! I should never have said such a thing! Please, don't tell on me. I'd be much obliged!”
Again Edora didn't quite understand, but she nodded her head all the same. Tilly stood tensely now, taking in another breath of air, as though afraid to talk for fear of her mouth betraying her again. Perhaps, this mysterious Edora was a witch. Hadn't she said that an elf had told her something?
“Now, Tilly, you're far too old to be believing in witches!” Isn't that what her mother had told her when she was only five? What would Mother think now when she was over a decade older? All fear that Tilly had erased now, though, and her shoulders relaxed as well as Edora said,
“Tilly, what's a constellation?”
“A constellation?” she repeated, “A constellation is a picture in the sky, you know of stars. What do you call them in your land?”
Tilly had thought that anyone as grand as Edora was bound to know more about everything than Tilly herself knew. This girl seemed young though. Though she looked as old as Midnight, Aurora or herself, she spoke much younger, almost like Lenora, the young daughter of the woodsman from Tilly's kinsfolk's kingdom.
“Light,” Edora said, with a little smile. She'd seen stars briefly when she'd awakened and wondered why the night sky was so full of morning. Mother had always made sure they were tucked in safely when night came.
“Night is no place for so young of a deer,” Mother had said, “There are too many dangers that we cannot see. It's better to be tucked safely inside. Now sweet dreams, my little doe. Dream of carrots and elf songs.”
She could feel the words of her mother in her now and Mother's voice had taken on a human quality, as though Edora's memories themselves were morphing into humanity. Even now she saw Mother begin to stand on two legs in her mind. Her eyes blinked wide at that. The elf had only said that her life would be forever transformed. But, Edora realized now, forever didn't just run forward. It ran backward as well.
“How long has the forest been here, Mother?”
“Forever.”
That was the answer. It meant that things had always been that way. So if Edora changed into a human, fully and permanently changed, then she supposed that must mean that her memories would be human as well. For no fully-human person could have memories of being a deer.
“Lights,” Tilly said, with a little giggle, bringing Edora back to the present, “Please don't take offense, Miss, but referring to the stars as purely light is like saying a kiss is leaning of the lips. It takes all the mystery, all the beauty out of it.”
Here Edora's ears pricked up. Or, at least they would have, if they were still shaped as a deer's. Beauty in something was what she was supposed to find. She rewound Tilly's words, trying to remember what she had said. A kiss. That seemed important.
“Tilly, what's a kiss?”
Tilly laughed and playfully batted at Edora's arm, forgetting her station in the moment of frivolity. When Edora did not join in though, Tilly sobered.
“Wait. Are you serious? You're not joking?”
Edora shook her head no, now feeling as though she must have done something terrible to wipe the look of sheer joy from Tilly's face. Tilly looked at her, once again, as though judging Edora's honesty, to really make sure that there was no joke at her expense. Satisfied, Tilly leaned back and, with a happy sigh, said,
“A kiss is when the person you love wraps his arms around you, leans in close and your lips come together. That I suppose is what a dictionary would say.”
When Edora's face clouded in confusion, Tilly tacked on,
“A dictionary, book of words.”
Edora nodded, mentally making a note to consult such a source. That's where the magic of writing must rest: inside the dictionary.
Tilly continued now,
“But, you asked me what a kiss is and I would say that a kiss is when you breathe as one person, when your dreams get all tangled up together and anything seems possible. Well, at least when it's a good kiss. And then it's just about the most beautiful thing, a whole world of new possibilities.”
“Tilly! Tilly, you're needed in the – ”
The words trailed off, as Tilly bolted from the rail and with a quick,
“Bye!” she was gone.
“The most beautiful thing, a whole world of new possibilities.”
The words replayed in Edora's mind. Right. That settled it. In order to be a human, she had to find a kiss. Oh yes, Tilly had said it had to be a good one. A good kiss. That's what she needed.
For a long time, she stood there, waiting for a kiss. And then, a spark of magic fused through the air. Edora turned and there, beside her, stood the woodsman.
“You are enjoying life in the palace?”
She nodded. He stood close to her, nearly leaning in. She held her breath, preparing to breathe as one. She ought to have asked Tilly for more details. How exactly was this supposed to work? Well, it mustn't be too hard. But, if it were the most beautiful thing, then maybe it was. Maybe, it was frightfully complicated and that's why there could be both good and bad kisses. Maybe, it was like making tea. Why, just this morning the queen had shook her head.
“You would think that tea would always turn out,” she had said, as she took a sip from the cup, “It always used to, when I was a girl. But then things weren't rushed. They were slower. Tea was tea, because people wanted tea. Now people want waking-up, a jolt, something like that and so their mind is not on the tea and the tea turns sour, because their thoughts are.”
Edora had tried to keep track of the conversation. Nothing was said about beauty in the conversation, though there had been some suggestion that slower was better. Maybe that was true for kissing as well.
“What do you think, Edora?”
“Yes, I agree,” she said to the woodsman.
“You do?” he said, his eyes wide, his face breaking into a smile. She wondered at this sudden elation over agreeing about the tea, but then she realized that she'd been replaying the queen's words and had agreed to them. She'd not heard a word that the huntsman had said. This memory while also living in the present was not at all something that she was used to.
“So we'll go then, tomorrow morning, at five.”
“Go?” she said, suddenly confused and trying to keep up with the conversation.
He nodded.
“On the hunt.”
A dread more fierce than any she had ever known seized her stomach now, tearing into her. All the color drained away from her face and she felt the world slide out from under her. Falling, she noticed as the stars turned off one by one.
Chapter Seventeen
Edora
“Edora, Edora,” Midnight was calling her name. She knew it before she opened her eyes, for Midnight's voice was higher than the other women in the castle. Hearing, attuned perfectly from being a deer, she had retained even as all else had begun to slip away. Her vision was blurry as she tried to open her eyes. The light hit her with a harshness, which she'd not expected. Life in the forest was gradual. The sun stretched itself across the horizon and she awoke slowly. Here life thundered with an abruptness.
“Edora? Are you all right?” She took in a face, shimmering with silver sprinkled across it, as though the stars had descended onto her and were clustered in her eyes. Midnight and she bore a striking resemblance.
The queen! Goodness! They hadn't called her in, had they?
“Yes, yes, I think so,” Edora said, trying to make sense of it all. Edora tried to sit up now, to put herself back onto her feet. In the forest, scrambling upright had never been a problem. Now though, her head spun.
“Easy, easy,” the queen said, her voice sounding like a song. As she spoke, Edora found a familiarity in her. It was as if her own mother had come to life as a human and was queen of a palace now. The queen put her arm gently around Edora and Edora sank against her warmth, bathing in it, like an animal basking in the sun.
>
Midnight stood, a look of discomfort crossing her face as she did.
“I'll have Tilly get some tea,” Midnight said, her words tumbling out unevenly.
Edora didn't quite know what to make of her. One moment Midnight seemed cordial and warm. The next, Edora felt like a burden.
The huntsman looked at her, worry creasing his forehead.
“Oh Edora, I was so worried for you. I've become so very fond of you.”
He had? He'd seemed cross that she'd left, that she'd gone into the forest. Was it possible that was a sign of concern? That he really did care and wanted to protect her? It seemed odd that a woodsman should want to protect her, especially when all her life she had run from them, but this wasn't all her life anymore. It was her new life. He swept her into his arms then, he leaned in, and he pressed his lips to hers. He did it without thinking, out of relief, without abandon.
“My kiss! My kiss!” Everything inside of her screamed. It was over all too soon, though. His lips pulled away, after seemingly barely landing on her own. There was no simultaneous breathing, no time for dreams to entangle. All that remained was slight pressure on her lips from where he'd pressed against her and a scratchiness from his bristles that had prickled against her lips as intently as the blackberry's thorns. She decided in that moment that the blackberries were better, for they had unleashed their sweetness to her. He had only left her feeling deflated. So much had been riding on that kiss; the most beautiful thing of all Tilly had called it. If a kiss had failed, then what hope did she have of remaining human? And, more so now than just for the protection that it warranted from the hunter, she wanted to be a person because there was so much that she wanted to learn!
“Edora needs her rest,” Midnight said, seeing her lay back, looking utterly forlorn. She fussed over her, the way that a sister would have. Apparently, all anger at her name's close proximity to Aurora's own had faded. In its place stood only genuine affection and concern for this lost girl.
“Thank you,” Edora said, when the woodsman had left.
“He's a bit abrupt, isn't he?” Midnight said, shaking her head.
Edora didn't know what to say, so she said nothing as Midnight went on,
“Not that I can blame him. He was clearly relieved. I know that if – if my sister were to awake now, I would be equally jubilant.”
Edora felt something in her heart at the words.
No, you wouldn’t. You'd be a thousand times happier. For she's your sister. He barely knows me.
She didn't say the words aloud, but she felt them move within her. She knew their truth as assuredly as if someone had spoken them to her. Even more so, she knew something else: Midnight had shown her a true kindness, by not belittling the huntsman’s feelings and by elevating his to that of her own. Edora knew that she must repay Midnight somehow, but what could she say?
“I hope your sister wakes up soon.”
There, it was simple, but heartfelt. Isn't that how she was supposed to become more human? By living, by feeling with her heart, one step at a time.
Midnight nodded.
“Yes, so do I.”
And then, Edora did something that she felt to be right. She reached out for Midnight's hand and patted it in her own. Midnight startled at the gesture and then she smiled.
“I'm glad you're here, Edora.”
And these words Edora knew that Midnight meant, more than any jealousy that had ever flared about her name before.
Chapter Eighteen
Aurora
“You miss her,” the hawkman said now to me.
“Shh,” I said, placing my finger over his lips, “Mustn't speak about such things. Only here exists.”
He nodded and kissed my finger before I let it trail away from him.
“What's it like?” I said now.
“What's what like, sunshine of my heart?”
I smiled. I liked how he called me that. If anyone in the waking world had said it, it would have sounded corny. But, there was a delicacy here that could never exist there. Being the sunshine of his heart was only something true.
“Flying,” I said, leaning back into his embrace. There was a comfort in him. My thoughts blurred in his warmth. It was easier not to constantly think of the waking world when I was with him. And the closer I was to him, the hazier my other thoughts were. Building a world, detailed and all encompassing was fascinating, but also exhausting. With him, I could pause and rest. One did not sleep in the dreaming world. Ordinarily, one was there for such a short time that this did not matter. It was the waking world that required sleep and a break away from it. But the world of dreams did not harbor this necessity. I had tried. I remembered having had dreams where I was dreaming and imagined that it would be possible. Indeed, as days slipped to weeks, I reasoned that it was not only possible but also very necessary. But, dreams within the dreams did not come. For I was asleep, yes, but this was a special kind of dreaming.
“Why don't you find out?” Simeon said.
“Find out how to fly? I don't have wings,” I said, looking down at my arms. Even as I said it, though, I felt myself rising.
“You can fly,” he said.
“I'll fall!” I said, laughing, as I rose higher. He swooped up, took hold of my hand and said,
“Trust yourself.”
I felt the wind surge under me. I had worried that I would fall, that I'd be pulled under, dangling in suspension. But now I felt as if I were upheld, supported by everything that I'd ever felt or known.
“Have you always lived here?” I said now to him.
“Here, in the world of the sleeping, the world of dreams, you mean? Or here in your own?”
I felt his hand surrounding mine as we flew over the expanses of wild meadows below.
“Both, I suppose,” I said.
“You did not conjure me. I exist independent of your creation.”
I smiled at that, gladdened to know that he was more than whim and fantasy.
“And as for the first part, I have not always lived here, but I have been here for a long while now. I used to roam the world freely, but that was before – ”
He trailed off, conscious that he must not remind me of my family and so he changed what he was going to say about Father's people and my mother's, to something farther removed, something that could not bring harm.
“Long ago I soared with your ancestors. Now I live almost entirely in their dreams. Their ways are fading, but I see that they are alive in you. I heard it in the song of your drum. It's a comfort, to know that we are not forgotten, to know that life is alive and beautiful.”
“But it is only a dream,” I said and I began to sink in the flight as my faith wavered.
“No, sunshine of my heart, it is real, it is truth. You are asleep, yes, but we are no less alive.” I felt his lips on my cheek then and felt the ground return gently under my feet. No longer flying, Simeon inclined his head toward me, slowly, allowing me enough time to move away if I did not wish for this to happen. When I stepped forward, not back, he took my cheeks in his soft hands and his lips pressed against mine. And then I soared.
Chapter Nineteen
Edora
The leaves of the forest crunched beneath her feet. It was an odd sensation, feeling the soles of her shoes between her skin and the land. This time she was not running from the palace, but she was seeking answers. The kiss had not worked. Tilly said it was the most beautiful thing. If it had not worked, then she needed another solution and fast. For already, she was feeling the pull of life within the castle. There was the acceptance of Midnight, the warmth of the queen and the wonder of the library.
Fedderlin was not at home when she reached his little cottage behind the brook. As she approached the trees, she looked in wonder at what she saw. Tiny doors dotted the gnarled bark, as though they had sprouted there as assuredly as the mushrooms and ferns that clustered around them.
Vines snaked their way over the trees, as the leaves crunched under her feet
. The forest was alive. Every cricket she heard pressing its wings together. Every beam of light, filtered through the branching trees, she saw fall to the forest floor below her. Berries saturated in her nose and she was tempted to reach for each one. She didn't though. No, there'd been enough thorns to convince her that some things were better enjoyed from a distance.
Some things, though, like these tiny doors beckoned to her and she was unable to ignore them. She inched forward, afraid that her new form would make the loud noises of the hunters that she'd run from all her life. If she looked like them, would she sound like them as well? Did the other humans realize that a tiny step in the forest sent a cascade of sounds to the animals? Elves, perhaps, were most privy of all to hearing such things. Situated between the animals and the people, they were guardians of this land. Once, the elves had lived in the palace and before that, long ago, the queen's people had lived among them, talking with the spirits of the forest, the Great Father Sky, the strong Mother Earth. Now only the elves remembered and could hear the magic of the trees.
The people prayed to their Great Sky God in the kingdom still, but so many of them did not know about the land they believed he had created. And those who said that the sky god was a turtle who dreamed the world into creation were long forgotten. Long-forgotten by most that was. Not by the elves. For here Edora saw it, as she leaned forward and then quickly stuck out her arms at the curious sensation of losing her balance, were tiny painted turtles on one of the doors embedded in the tree. Their shells swirled with a parade of colors. She reached out, her fingertips trailing over the shells, to feel what was there. Touching. She had the uncanny need to touch all. Never had she been so dexterous. Never had she felt with such ability. Yes, the feeling of the forest was gone from her feet, isolated by the soft soles of her shoes. But her fingers made up for it.
“Oh! Hello!”
An elf poked her head out of the door.
Edora nodded to her, tried to anyway and mumbled,
“I didn't mean to frighten you.”
While Aurora Slept- The Complete Trilogy Page 14