Page 135 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
No one can help me here.
The shadows consume me. And yet still I fall.
The stone and dirt I pass turn to smooth, dark glass. An endless tunnel of mirrors. In their surfaces, I stare back at a face that isn’t mine: the face of my uncle.
Or is it me?
AmIMalice?
“Naei!” I shout, refusing to believe it. “Naei!”
Laughter echoes all around, shivering off the glass walls,taunting.
Even in death, my uncle mocks me, just as I always knew he would.
Curling my hands into fists, I lash out, punching the walls, shattering them.
Naei, naei, naei, naei!
But still my uncle laughs.
Still I see his image reflected in thousands of glass shards that rain down over me.
“Stop!”
I punch the walls until my skin cracks.
“I’m not you!”
Until my knuckles bleed.
“I’llneverbe you!”
A flash of white light envelops me, blinding me, burning away the darkness of the seemingly endless tunnel.
When it fades, I blink in wonder as I find myself standing at the entrance of a wondrous glade composed of naught but beauty.
A crystalline waterfall spills into a nearby pond, sending rainbows glittering in the mist. Weeping willows droop along the shoreline, trailing their long branches across the rippling surface of the water. Laughter rings forth like melodious bells from people I can’t see. Their voices sound far away. Elsewhere.
The sound of their distant joy lures an ache to my chest. I long to join them.
But I know I can’t.
The only person I see is the vague silhouette of a man sitting at the pool’s edge. He seems to be composed of light—more a flicker of heat than anything else. A quiet melody lilts from his direction, as if he is humming to himself, despite the fact that he is a man without any true form.
I know without being told that he has no body because he is a creature of Spirit rather than one of Earth like me. That he has simply made himself visible enough to me now so that I know he is here.
So that I know he has been waiting for me.
My heart catches in my throat as I cautiously approach, striding with bare feet across the lush, velvety grass that leads right to the water’s edge. I stare at the shimmering fish swimming through the pool rather than at the man himself.
His quiet humming stops.
« Sit with me? »
I obey without thinking, settling at his side.
The moment I do, his arm wraps around my shoulders and pulls me in close for the embrace I didn’t know I needed.
