(Lost) The beginning
Feb. 20th, 2011 08:06 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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writing_shadowsThe castle shone.
She felt strange after the trip through the hedge outside her school and then the forest that seemed to bow and scrape at the feet of the beautiful lady in the green dress. Despite their deference to the lady, though, they plucked at Rosemary as she followed behind, scratching at her arms, her legs, the skirt of her uniform. It frightened her, and she didn’t know why.
But now the foliage petered away into fields of flowers on gently rolling hills as far as the eye could see. Rosemary smiled in awed delight. It looked, she thought, like a Maxfield Parrish painting. She liked Maxfield Parrish.
And there, rising out of the ground like…she didn’t know what it was like – nothing she’d ever seen, really – was the castle. It looked to be made of glass or crystal or diamonds. Besides the lady in the green dress, it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“Welcome,” the lady said in her bell-like voice, “home.”
Home. Some part of her whispered of a mother’s lap in front of a fire, but it was drowned out by the joyful songs of nearby birds whose eyes looked like her own. Home. This was home. There was nothing else that mattered now.
The lady ran her hair through Rosemary’s black curls, gently tugging the red ribbon keeping them under control out and casting it into the wind. They both watched as the ribbon writhed and danced until Rosemary, at least, couldn’t see it anymore.
The lady kept her hand there and began to walk again. With each step they moved a league closer to the castle. And then, as soon as Rosemary blinked, they were at the gates.
“Sweet Rosalba, my little white rose. What would you like to do? Anything you want. Would you like a sweet? Some cordial? You can have anything.”
Rosemary – no, not Rosemary; it didn’t sound right now – Rosalba considered. “May I have a sweet, please?”
The lady smiled her sparkling smile, reflected by the quartz walls of the castle. ”Anything you want.”
Rosalba – and so she was now, definitively – considered this. She thought about the war (what war? It faded from memory now), and about school (what did she want at school? Good grades, she supposed), and about….Every further thought faded with each step, every memory she could summon faded with each breath. It was like the life she had lived until now had somehow were a dream, a mirage. It wasn’t real. Not like this. This was more real than anything she’d ever experienced. It was like life, in technicolour.
“I want…” she said on the threshold, the gleaming door reflecting the lady in all her glory and then swinging open to reveal its tantalising wonders. “I want to come home.”
The lady laughed and pulled her in.
She felt strange after the trip through the hedge outside her school and then the forest that seemed to bow and scrape at the feet of the beautiful lady in the green dress. Despite their deference to the lady, though, they plucked at Rosemary as she followed behind, scratching at her arms, her legs, the skirt of her uniform. It frightened her, and she didn’t know why.
But now the foliage petered away into fields of flowers on gently rolling hills as far as the eye could see. Rosemary smiled in awed delight. It looked, she thought, like a Maxfield Parrish painting. She liked Maxfield Parrish.
And there, rising out of the ground like…she didn’t know what it was like – nothing she’d ever seen, really – was the castle. It looked to be made of glass or crystal or diamonds. Besides the lady in the green dress, it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“Welcome,” the lady said in her bell-like voice, “home.”
Home. Some part of her whispered of a mother’s lap in front of a fire, but it was drowned out by the joyful songs of nearby birds whose eyes looked like her own. Home. This was home. There was nothing else that mattered now.
The lady ran her hair through Rosemary’s black curls, gently tugging the red ribbon keeping them under control out and casting it into the wind. They both watched as the ribbon writhed and danced until Rosemary, at least, couldn’t see it anymore.
The lady kept her hand there and began to walk again. With each step they moved a league closer to the castle. And then, as soon as Rosemary blinked, they were at the gates.
“Sweet Rosalba, my little white rose. What would you like to do? Anything you want. Would you like a sweet? Some cordial? You can have anything.”
Rosemary – no, not Rosemary; it didn’t sound right now – Rosalba considered. “May I have a sweet, please?”
The lady smiled her sparkling smile, reflected by the quartz walls of the castle. ”Anything you want.”
Rosalba – and so she was now, definitively – considered this. She thought about the war (what war? It faded from memory now), and about school (what did she want at school? Good grades, she supposed), and about….Every further thought faded with each step, every memory she could summon faded with each breath. It was like the life she had lived until now had somehow were a dream, a mirage. It wasn’t real. Not like this. This was more real than anything she’d ever experienced. It was like life, in technicolour.
“I want…” she said on the threshold, the gleaming door reflecting the lady in all her glory and then swinging open to reveal its tantalising wonders. “I want to come home.”
The lady laughed and pulled her in.
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