The dark has come... It surrounds the whole of me with heavy air and no escape. I reach to the magic for guidance. For light. For some thread of dignity. I touch without feeling. The magic is there, sparking, sometimes flame, but it is cold, supressed light and there is no heat to be gotten there. Somewhere in sleep I understand the dark and cuddle it to me. I live in dreams.

The dark keeps me. I have let it through the door and it swirls along the floor at my feet, tendrils from a black sea. The boy sees through and steps over. He cares for me with tender concern. He has met the darkness before and knows the ways of it. He pushes at my body toward the light with stern commands and an understanding beyond his years. He patiently waits for the light to tear at the lining of my cacoon and bring me back to him. He yells through it and his voice dully thuds across my mind, the darkness eating the light of it. He is delicately cut from paper. Should he turn sideways to me he would disappear.

I will wait alone. I work at the magic without want or need, the colors dulled but discernable. My tears dry chrystaline on my cheek as I weave. The magic comes easy, a task instead of a game, a rooted tree that I have but to water. I hear the voices reaching to me from the pages, I see faces of anguish and concern, thinking perhaps I have abandoned them. I am only sleeping. I am my own dream. I cannot be real and therefore cannot give them what they ask. I will one day soon walk over the hill and into myself, but not today. Not today.

The quest continues...

Go back to Stone's Throw! or go to Chapter 6