Before the Dawn

by Kristal Lim

It took Sam a while to tell them exactly what had happened. Earlier, she had dropped by Gracelyn's house so they could go to school together like they usually did, but Gracelyn hadn't been waiting for her. So she and Gracelyn's mom had then gone to her cousin's room to check up on her and they found her lying still in bed. At first, they thought she was just sleeping, but then Sam noticed her chest wasn't moving and she wasn't breathing at all. Gracelyn’s mom had called the paramedics immediately while Sam herself gave her cousin what CPR she knew. For several long seconds, it seemed like they were going to lose her. But Gracelyn started breathing again when Sam redoubled her efforts at resuscitating her, and the paramedics had then arrived just in time to take over from Sam before she could fully surrender to her panic. After that, Gracelyn had been taken to the hospital while Sam, though terribly reluctant to do so, had been made to go to school.

  "My Aunt Joni said she'll call if there's any news at all," Sam said, wiping away the tears that had never stopped flowing while she was telling them her story. "Oh, God! Why would something like this happen? She seemed totally fine the last time I saw her."

  "And when was that, Sam?" Aline asked, feeling sick to the pit of her stomach at this latest news.

  "It was," Sam frowned in thought, "well, it was during your party. I didn't see her or hear from her at all yesterday because I slept most of the day. And I barely woke up today!" She shuddered. "I wasn't feeling all that well myself when I got ready for school, and I even thought about just getting my mom to call in and tell them I was sick. God, if I had done that, who knows what would have happened? Maybe no one would have seen something was wrong with Gracie in time!"

  Sam's crying was renewed but, this time, it was in relief that they had been able to help Gracelyn before something much worse could have happened to her. Aline hated doing this to her friend especially when she was so upset, but she kept asking Sam questions until she got the answers she needed about the mysterious stuff happening to them. Like everyone else, Sam had a hard time remembering what had happened to their group during Aline’s birthday party and she was equally vague about her memories from last night. Cassie and Meran pretty much said the same things, which kind of made them annoyed because they said Aline was being weird with all the questions she kept asking them.

  While Aline was talking to her friends, Trevor had been listening in though he never said a word. He kept shooting meaningful glances at her, however, and she knew he was trying to tell her that she should let the other girls know what was going on. And she really wanted to, she did, but something made her bite her tongue. Trevor remembered some of the stuff that had happened to them for some reason, as she did (and Aline was betting it had something to do with that silver leaf that had cut them both), but her friends didn't seem to be aware that there was anything strange about their tiredness and memory gaps. So she didn't want to freak them out by telling them an insane fairy tale about going to a weird ball in their dreams and dancing the whole night away until their feet were sore or, in her case, bleeding. So, flashing Trevor an apologetic glance, she didn't say anything to her friends about her suspicions and wild theories. But when homeroom was over and they split up to head for their different classes, she grabbed Trevor by the hand and led him out of the school grounds as quickly as she could.

  "Wait. Hey." He tried to get her to stop for a minute. "We're skipping class?"

  "Absolutely," she replied. "I can't sit around all day when I could be doing something to understand this crazy whatever it is going on. Gracelyn's life could depend on it. If we stay in school today, we'll lose all these hours we could be using to check stuff out. And by the time classes are over, we wouldn't have enough time to do anything before night comes and the whole thing starts again."

  "Okay," he nodded, seeing her point. "So, where are we going? And you better explain to me, too, why you didn't clue your friends in on what's happening. You should have told them, Aline. They deserve to know what's going on."

  "But they don't seem to remember any of it," she said. "I don't want to scare them. And I don't exactly have the means to convince them that I'm telling the truth."

  "We have the silver leaf," he reminded her.

  She shook her head. "It's not conclusive enough. The only way they'd believe that there's something special about it is if they get to use it at night in that ballroom. And that's something we shouldn't let happen. Every night we spend there seems to hurt us in some way when we wake up the next morning. I mean, didn't you notice how exhausted everyone looked in class? Like they were walking dead, or sleepwalking."

  "Yeah," he agreed with a frown. "That’s true. So where are we going right now?"

  "This whole weirdness started during that party we had in the Ballroom, so we're going to check out the place and the woods near it where you said you found yourself in after that first night. And, while we make our way there, tell me exactly what happened to you last night after you left my house," she said.

  Since they didn't have their own ride, and since Aline couldn't really walk for long distances due to the condition of her feet, they had to take a circuitous bus route to get to the Ballroom. So while they traveled, Trevor started telling her about his own strange experiences.

  "I woke up in the woods after that first night the weird stuff started happening," he began. "Like I told you before, I couldn't really remember complete details of how I got there, but I thought I was chasing you. Then I went to see you at your house last night, we had that talk about stuff that happened to you, and you gave me the silver leaf. I went back to the woods after that, stumbling around in the dark with a flashlight like a crazy person, and I must have wandered around for hours, hoping I'd find some kind of helpful clue." Then his story became stranger.

  He thought he had somehow fallen asleep and he was dreaming when he first noticed the air begin to sparkle with tiny lights. What looked like dust motes became clearly visible, except that they glinted and twinkled in the moonlight. He watched them dance around in the air for a while before he realized that more and more of them had gathered together and were slowly joining together and forming themselves into shapes. Soon, what appeared to be a grove of silver trees had come to exist in the middle of the woods. Then, sweet music started playing and the woods rustled with the sounds of footsteps. To his astonishment, kids they knew in school along with several other townspeople began showing up with dreamy expressions on their faces. They were dancing, and they all slipped into the silver grove where they seemed to disappear between one step and the next.

  "It took me a while before I decided to follow them," Trevor said. "I had no idea what could have been waiting for me in that place so I really didn't wanna go after anyone. But then I saw your friend, Cassie. She was dancing, too, and she disappeared into the grove, so I thought that maybe you'd be there on the other side as well. I went in and, God, you wouldn't believe how amazing and unbelievable everything looked. Everything was silver and shiny and I just wanted to lie down and look at all of it for hours. Then I remembered the leaf you gave me and I wanted to check if it matched the ones I saw on the trees. I took it out of my pocket, and that's when I cut myself on it. And it was like waking up, though I'm sure I never fell asleep. Suddenly, everything became kind of creepy, and I saw that everyone was moving like they were being pulled by the music and not because they wanted to be there, you know."

  Aline nodded in understanding. Yes, that was exactly what it felt like to hear that music, like you couldn't help but obey it and dance. She took Trevor's hand and squeezed it to encourage him to go on.

  "The next place we passed through had trees made of gold," he continued. "And that was when I noticed that people's clothes were changing. Suddenly, everyone was wearing these fancy clothes, except for me. I also noticed that they seemed to be ignoring me, though I kept trying to get people's attention and ask them what was going on. Then, we came to this place with trees made of crystal or something."

  "Diamonds," she corrected softly, r
emembering one of her dreams. "They were made of diamonds."

  "No. Really?" He looked astounded. "Shit. I could have broken off some of the leaves and be set for life." He chuckled and, for a moment, they were just two kids sharing a laugh about fantastic things that couldn't really exist in the real world. But, with everything going on, were they even still fully in touch with reality? Aline wasn’t so sure of that anymore. "Anyway," Trevor shrugged after a minute and went on with his story, "there was a lake next, and there were small boats with lights that were waiting to take everyone to this castle. I joined a couple on their boat and it just started moving on the water without anyone I could see guiding it or pulling it. Then we were all in the castle, and I kept following everyone until we came to that ballroom. And that’s where I saw you. And you know the rest."

  She smiled at him. "You helped me escape." Briefly, she told him what had happened to her before he found her running in the corridor. His face took on a grim, angry look when he heard about the Prince's attempt to seduce Aline, but he said nothing. Finally, she finished up with that scene in the ballroom. "How did you know cutting me with the silver leaf would wake me up?" she wondered.

  "Actually," he confessed with a sheepish look, "I didn't realize you were dreaming and that it would wake you up and make you disappear. I just thought it would make everyone like ignore you or something, the way they ignored me."

  "So you took a big fat chance?" she was incredulous. "But the Prince and Raven didn't ignore you, or didn't you notice that?"

  "Yeah." He was almost on the verge of blushing with embarrassment. "Everyone else pretty much just looked through me, but those two saw me clearly. And, I don't know. I'm sorry for taking a risk like that without even knowing if it would pay off, but it was like I just knew that I should do it, you know. Like it all felt–familiar."

  She kissed him to let him know she wasn't actually angry or anything that he had taken such a gamble with their lives that way. She knew better than anyone how desperate they both felt at that moment when it looked like they could never escape the Prince's Court. "Thank you for being there, and for what you did," she said. "And I understand what you mean about just knowing certain things when it comes to whatever's happening to us. It all feels familiar to me, too."

  "Yeah, it's familiar," he agreed. "But what exactly is happening?"

  "You wanna hear an insane theory?" she asked.

  "Go on."

  She smiled crookedly before speaking. "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," she said.

  He frowned. "Excuse me?"

  "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," Aline repeated. "Except for some differences of the creepy, crazy variety, we could be in that fairy tale. Or that fairy tale is happening to us."

  "Okay," he said slowly. "You need to explain what you're talking about."

  She gave him the gist of the fairy tale she remembered reading when she was younger. She also told him about the strange dreams she had been having about drowning and that first time she had dreamed about walking through the groves of silver, gold, and diamond trees. "But, of course, this version we're living through doesn't seem to be as child-friendly," she concluded. "The fairy tale I remember said the Princesses danced all night till there were holes in their shoes. I have bleeding feet. And I certainly don't have twelve sisters, and you're not a veteran soldier with an invisibility cloak, and there is always the very real possibility I've gone mad and this is all in my head."

  Despite the seriousness of her tone, Trevor was smiling. "So the Princess married the soldier, huh?" he asked.

  She rolled her eyes at him. "Please. It's just a fairy tale."

  He laughed. "Well, I'm glad that at least in fairy tales, the poor guy ends up with the Princess. That certainly doesn't happen a lot in real life, especially in high school. The popular girl would never go out with a poor transferee who worked as a waiter during her birthday party." His tone was light and joking, but his eyes betrayed what he was really feeling.

  And that made her understand a few things about Trevor. "The popular girl, because she is popular, can date whoever she wants," she told him firmly. "And if she wants to date a transferee who works part-time as a waiter, she can do that because she doesn't care what anyone else thinks. And our high school isn't so cliquey that we'll get stoned to death if we date outside our social circles. You've seen too many teen movies." She smiled to take off any sting in her words and, just to be sure he got her meaning clearly, she kissed him again.

  The sound of a throat being cleared made them pull apart from each other with guilty looks. An elderly woman seated in front of them was giving them her most disapproving glare. "You kids should be in school!" she scolded and then went back to sitting as stiffly and primly as possible on her seat.

  They both smothered their laughter and behaved properly for the rest of the ride. They then got off the bus near the Ballroom, and Aline thought the place just looked sad in daylight without any of its night-time glamor when they walked up to it. Trevor confirmed that the Ballroom was closed up and only the employee whose job it was to look after the club during the day was inside. "He was the one who found me wandering around the basement earlier. I told him I must have fallen asleep and no one had noticed that I was still inside when they locked down for the night. He looked at me like he thought I must have been doing drugs down there."

  Aline frowned thoughtfully at the building. "He'll probably be even more suspicious when you show up again and ask him to let us poke around the place," she said. "And, besides, I think the woods would be a better spot to search for any clues since that's where you saw the silver trees. So I think we should start there. Help me walk around, will you?"

  "Of course." He came instantly to her side. "Do your feet still hurt bad?"

  "Right now, they're just kind of throbbing in this dull, painful way. I'll manage, though. But I don't understand why they're bleeding when the others' feet are just really sore," she complained.

  "Maybe it's got to do with that leaf," he suggested. "You said you got cut by it before you danced at the Prince's ball the first time."

  "But my palm is okay after I got cut by it last night," she pointed out. "And your hand seems okay, too."

  "Well, we're not dancing around on our hands all night now, are we?" he said, which was a good point.

  She let out an exasperated sigh and scowled. "So that stupid Prince and his creepy pal Raven enchant the people I know and hurt Gracelyn, plus they have probably ruined my feet forever so I can never wear sandals again, and they’re gonna try doing it all again tonight, and I have no idea how to stop them. Oh, we have to find a way to stop them!"

  "We will," Trevor promised. "Somehow."

  With a desperate hope, they went into the woods in search of some answers.

  ~~~

  Chapter 10