Fairy tales: 1-3

These stories are dedicated to Abigail and Stephanie, who helped me edit

Night wanderings

The full moon shone over a grove in autumn; a chill wind whirled dead leaves in front of a wooden bench into a short lived vortex. A man in black walked towards the bench, his footsteps echoing in the cold night air, startling a raven who flew away silently. He took a breath and sat on the bench, closing his eyes as he breathed out. When he opened them he blinked. A woman in a sheer white gown stood at the edge of the park; she seemed to be glowing, illuminating the shadowy buildings behind her like a silver torch, making her jet black hair gleam.

She did not move as he stood and walked towards her uncertaintly when he was within touching distance she spun and ran, letting out a ringing, childish laugh. He sprinted after her as she ran down the shadowed street she was facing. The man followed, paying little heed to his path as she led him on, still laughing. It seemed to him as he followed her down a narrow alley that she was laughing harder. The shadows were blacker here ––the only light came from the aura around the woman, giving the grimy walls a slight silver gleam as she ran by; her footsteps echoed a moment before his did as they ran down the alleyway

The man grew oblivious of his way through the shadowy labyrinth of a city as he followed her onto another street, then down another alley, this one thinner than the last. Her pace never slowed, even as the man tired. He was glad when she led him onto a main street. He slowed, despite his fear of losing her.

By now the moon had passed its peak in the sky and the stars seemed dimmer. He began to run again and she turned a corner. He followed at a staggered run and turned the corner in time to see the hem of her silver dress and hear a ringing laugh that echoed far more than the city would’ve permitted; he ran, though slightly slower than before.

And when he made it through the alley he saw her standing still. She looked him in the eye and gave a mischievous smile and laughed as he watched with slack-jawed disbelief as she faded into thin air. And in only a few moments she was gone. A girl in tattered black stood in her place, her shaggy black hair blew in the chill wind.

Something compelled him to follow the girl as she turned and ran, though he found himself inwardly groaning the entire time he followed her down the wide cobblestone street. He began tiring as they came up to the park where he had begun. She was leading him straight to the bench; he stopped just short of running into it and watched, convinced it was a dream, as a raven flew into the brightening sky. He shook his head as his mind cleared; he had no idea why he felt tired enough to fall over, and when he tried to remember all he summoned up was a hazy shadow of a memory. He sat on the bench and closed his eyes. He almost opened them again when he heard a distant laugh.

The Lost One

He did not remember how he came to be where he was: in a dark, cavernous building, nor did he remember his name; he only remembered a longing for a thing called ‘light’, he only remembered the word and it’s meaning; all he knew when he thought of it was an unformed image churning in the darkness at the edge of memory. The silence of the great building rang out like church bells and smothered the sound of his footfalls as he ran between the towering rows of bookshelves. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment. The ceiling was so high anything that looked down would have seen him as a small speck, moving towards the central hall.

The central hall was a trench between the ranks of smaller aisles and towering bookcases that marched to either side. There were other halls, but none were as wide or as clear; often the smaller halls were cluttered with dusty books often stacked upon tables or on the floor in columns. This hall was largely clear, despite the darkness he could make out a pattern on the carpet that ran the length of the hall, only a vague tracery of two lines twineing around each other in the center like two charcoal vines.

The hall stretched into obscurity in either direction, the only marks of its continuity were the shelves that marched along on either side out of sight. He followed the carpet; he did not know his direction, he had made too many turns to be sure he hadn’t already traveled this way a thousand times. He resolved not to stray from his path for any sound; he would continue until he reached the wall. He repeated the resolution like a mantra until the words lost meaning.

There was a sound down one of the aisles and he stopped. He turned his head down the aisle squinting as he looked for the source of the sound. His mind screamed for him to keep his course, but he disregarded his screeching inner voice and detoured into the aisle he had been staring down. He sprinted down the hall after the dissipating sound. When he reached the end of the aisle, a thin hallway cluttered impassably with dusty books and tables. He turned around, his spirit a little lowered, and plodded back to the hall. He might have hurried if he had known the passing of time; he only knew the difference of the night and the day as words. As it was, he walked at a speed that seemed right to him.

When he reached the main hall he resumed his march to its end. As he persisted, it seemed to him like a march to the end of the earth. He tried not to think of how long he had walked. How many times the sky had turned from dark to the thing called light and back he had spent wandering around. Mania was pushing him forward —he was racing to the end now, shelves and spaces (like endless towering prison bars) blurred past him. He could see the end. The doors were smaller than he had thought, two knobbed panels of gray wood. He fumbled at the doorknob, barely lucid enough to turn it. He howled with joy as the door screeched open and light poured in. Out! finally out! When his eyes adjusted he collapsed at the edge of the flat faced cliff and wept.

Stargazers

“Grace.” her mother’s voice echoed in the black.

“Yes Mother?” Grace answered, looking around in the void. She had never been much of a dreamer, not one to remember them at least. Up until Grace heard the voice it had been a normal dream, nothing but void, she had not even been there. Perhaps that type of dream was simply a synonym for sleep, but here she could look down and see her feet above a void and feel her heart begin to pound. The world was fading into focus.

It wasn’t her world, not her apartment or anything she’d walk past on her way home from the academy. Her world was a brightly colored marble from where she stood, looking on from the wastelands of the moon. She turned away from her clouded, glassy world and looked to her mother; she couldn’t see much of her’ only the gauge contours of her form by the half blocked stars behind her. She rushed forward and wrapped her arms around her mother. “You’re here! I can’t believe you’re here!” Grace said. Her mother returned the embrace. Grace pulled away after a few moments

“It’s so nice to see you again.” She said, “will you walk with me?” Grace nodded; her eyes had adjusted completely to the dark and she was able to see her mother now, a grainy, vague, and gray, but still an easier thing to see than an incomplete outline judged by blocked stars. She walked by her mother’s side and was surprised when they did not walk into a crater that sat in their path, instead they walked over it, as if on a glass bridge. As they walked in silence, Grace began to notice the landscape of the moon fading. Soon it was replaced void, When Grace looked down she felt her stomach drop out of her body; below her lay the starry infinity, the same as what lay above. In front of her she saw another cloudy, glassy marble. “Have you been to Æthire yet?” Grace shook her head.

“I can hardly pay for my apartment,” she chuckled bitterly, “how’d I afford a spaceflight?” Grace answered as they began to walk again with silent footsteps on an invisible bridge. The world faded from stars to parallel rows of houses, their invisible walkway was now the road between the identical two story houses that extended straight on out of sight. The neighborhood was deserted and their footsteps made no sounds. “So this is what it looks like?”

“Hardly.” Her mother answered. They continued walking in silence. “I really hope you visit sometime,” She said after a few moments, “you could at least visit my grave.”

“I tell Gavin to leave flowers for me!” She shot back defensively. Her anger faded. “It’s just… I can’t —not now anyway,” she continued, subdued, “someday I hope I’ll be able to, but not today.” She finished. Silence cast itself over them like a blanket. Her mother stopped abruptly.

“Someday’s good enough for me,” she turned towards Grace, she could see her mother smiling. “I’m just glad you remember me.” Grace wrapped her arms around her mother tightly. “I think you’ll be waking up soon,” she said as Grace stepped away, “will you remember any of this?” Grace shook her head. Before she could start crying she closed her eyes. The last thing she saw was her mother’s smiling face.

Grace woke, groaning and bleary eyed. Idly she tried to grasp at the remains of her dream. They slipped away from her and she was left with an inexplicable melancholy as she sat up and readied herself for the day.