[Problems with Squarespace; problems with illness; problems with imagination. I couldn’t open documents here for a week, until my son came over and showed me how to “refresh” the site. Frustrating to be so ignorant. Then I got sick again! But here we are now, characters in suspended animation, ready to be revived. I have two ways to develop them, but my imagination failed more than usual. Nevertheless, I found an interesting quote about mirrors, and since we are about to enter the Hall of Mirrors, I thought I would include it:
Found in “Chapter 13 of MacDonald’s 1858 novel, Phantastes: What a strange thing a mirror is! And what a wondrous affinity exists between it and a man’s imagination! For this room of mine, as I behold it in the glass, is the same and yet not the same. It is not the mere representation of the room I live in, but it looks just as if I were reading about it in a story I like. All its commonness has disappeared. The mirror has lifted it out of the region of fact into the realms of art. . . . I should like to live in that room if I could only get into it.” Yes. There it is, mirrors!
That reminds me, I’m taking some new medications to prevent strokes, but they also seem to be giving me numerous strange and perplexing dreams. I was asleep only ten minutes the other night when I dreamed I was eating something tasty; I woke to find my fist halfway to my mouth as if I were holding a fork or spoon, though no food. Then I was playing catch with a football, bobbled it, flailed my arms to keep from dropping it and hit the metal tray in front of me, which of course awakened me. Then there were the dreams of falling.]
The Prince followed the music of a flute this time to a door on the right side of the hallway; he pulled the golden ring, and the door opened toward him. Across from him was a full-size mirror with himself reflected. As he took a step towards the image, the counter self in the mirror took a step back. Godric raised his right hand; his mirror image raised his left. Suddenly, without warning, his mirror image began to expand until Godric was looking up at a giant version of himself in the mirror; he rushed forward to see what had happened, only to find himself falling slowly down what felt like a steep well lined with shelves all around. He was falling slowly enough that he could see the things on the shelves as he fell past them: certificates of valor, medals of various kinds of awards, books of his family’s history: The Illustrious Bolts of Nodd; Pride Before a Fall; How to Win a Rich Princess; The Way Up Is the Way Down At that point Godric hit bottom, not hard, but still hard enough to jar some lights loose in his head and send the room spinning…
@ # $ % ^ & * ~ ! / @ # $ % ^ & * ~ ! / @ # $ % ^ & * ~ !.
Amid the blinking lights in his head, Godric rose to his feet. He was indeed at the bottom of a circular well built well lined with shelves. He held his head in his hands till the bottom of the shaft stopped blinking and spinning. He looked up to see where the light was coming from, for it was bright at the bottom of the shaft. The walls themselves seemed to be disseminating the light. He looked down and saw a small golden door at the bottom of the well, a miniature version of the door into the room. The door was about a third of the size of a man.
Godric got down on his knees and pulled the small golden ring attached to the door. The door was locked. He looked around on the bottom self and found a bell jar covering a golden key. He lifted the glass and picked up the key, which he had trouble holding as it, like the door, was small. He finally got it between thumb and index finger and pushed the key into the lock on the door, then he pulled the door open and looked in. On the other side of the door was a formal garden of trees, shrubs and flowers, winding paths and mystery trails.
Godric stretched out on the floor of the shaft, reached through the small doorway, held each side of the door’s arch and pulled himself halfway through, then pushed himself up off a garden walk that started from the door; useful effort expended, Godric stood up. The garden was stunning. He looked around to see if there was a way back to the hall. There was no door out though in the center of the garden, he thought he saw another mirror, perhaps two mirrors. As he tried walking a cobblestone path that seemed to lead to the center of the garden and the mirrors, he found himself moving away from them, back toward the little door that had suddenly vanished.
Godric took a step forward but moved a step back. He thought to himself that he needed Philip for some reconnaissance work, but Philip had vanished like the small door the moment he entered the first room somewhere above him. He thought for a minute, then took a step back and felt himself moving one step forward. Walking backward but moving forward, he saw that he was at least moving toward the mirror or mirrors, or was it mirror of mirrors? He stopped again in the midst of a bed of tiger-lilies, a bed of swirling orange and black spotted flowers. He saw a host of bees building muscles on their sturdy legs from the pollen available on their stamens. He watched them for a time, then walked backwards to the next flower bed, which contained red roses in various stages of bloom, all healthy plants, no stages of rust or black spot. He wondered how a gardener could achieve such perfection, and he felt a tad envious, as he had tried one summer to achieve such perfection in his father’s garden in Nodd, but had failed. For a moment he thought about kicking one of the bushes, but he managed to control himself, laughed at the untoward thought, and moved on.
When he looked up, he saw again his image reflected in the mirror before him. Startled, he moved to one side; there were two mirrors, each reflecting the other apparently to infinity and beyond. He moved back between them and numerous selves moved with him, front and back. He reached out his right hand to touch the mirror before him and watched himself move his left hand in the reflection. When his fingers touched, a blinding white flash of light consumed him, causing him to close his eyes until the redness disappeared. He shook his head, opened his eyes; he was no longer in the luxurious garden, but in a dark wood before a narrow but swiftly flowing stream.
He felt his anger grow. “Stop toying with me,” he yelled into the trees. “Toying with me,” the trees echoed back. “I’m a Prince; I demand to be treated as such.” “Treated as such, Treated as such, Treated as such,” the woods echoed and re-echoed. The sound of dainty, tinkling laughter sounded in the distance, along with the music of a flute. Godric wanted to take out his sword, hew trees, and destroy whatever was continually mocking him. He put his hand on the hilt and started to draw the sword when the silliness of his anger over came him. He started to laugh, sank down on the forest path, when a sudden lethargy overcame him.
Godric closed his eyes, thought how lovely it would be simply to stretch out on the forest path and rest for a minute, or an hour, or a day. Why not a week, he thought? How long had he been at this quest anyway? He deserved a bit of time out. Besides, as far as he could see, there was no way out of the dark woods. Perhaps if he rested for a while something would open up before him. He started to lean back when the sound of some large animal came crashing through the woods. He jumped to his feet, all thoughts of resting vanished as he listened intently. It sounded as though he was surrounded, yet he saw nothing. Perhaps if he crossed the stream…
@ # $ % ^ & 7 ~ !
Godric made certain his sword was secure and jumped. Mid jump, mid stream, what appeared to be a hole in the fabric of the cosmos opened; instead of landing on the other side of the stream, Godric indeed landed on solid ground but solid ground in the midst of a room of weapons before him and tables of food behind him. Light gleamed off the bright steel on the walls and tables; he looked in awe at swords, katanas, scimitars, daggers, knives, throwing stars, fencing foils, shields of various sizes and shapes. On the tables holding the smaller weapons there were also gems of varying sizes and shapes: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, amethyst crystals, tigers eye. The tigers eye gem seemed to call to him. It was attached to a gold chain long enough to form a stunning golden-hewed necklace. He looked around to see if there was a proprietor, then remembered he had no money, only a gemstone of his own, the red veined heart that Adriel had given him. He touched his pocket; the gem felt warm next to his leg. Could he trade that for the tigers eye necklace? His desire for the necklace was overwhelming. He started to touch it, pick it up, then thought better of it and pulled his hand back.
Smelling the food behind him, Godric glanced at the gemstone necklace and reluctantly turned to look at the banquet spread on the other side of the room. Main courses of steak, pork roast, pot roast, with carrots, potatoes, squash, green beans all in plentiful proportions, salads of varying greens with at least nine different flavors of dressings—blue cheese, red catalina, vidalia onion, roquefort, orange catalina and so on, followed by desserts on three tables long—cakes, chocolate, German chocolate, angel food, cherry pie, mince in too many fruit flavors to list. It suddenly occurred to Godric that he was indeed quite hungry.
Godric wondered if the old fairytale caution applied here: if you eat the food of the royal fae, you will remain in their world while your loved ones and friends age and die. Like his desire for the gemstone his desire for the food was overwhelming. He could smell the smoke from the grilled steak, like a stake through his heart, he thought, as the various other smells from the well-cooked food assailed his nose and his mouth; his stomach growled like the wild beasts in the dark wood. It’s too much, he thought again; surely a bite or two could do no harm; yet, he had come all that way to meet and woo a beautiful Princess. Should the fairytale caution be true he would be lost in this land a hundred years. Perhaps a thousand. He had no idea about who found the food (or killed it!), who so expertly cooked and prepared the food, who served it. Suppose it turned to ash in his mouth or turned bitter and he would still have to stay out the lifetimes if that warning were true, a cruel, cruel choice, a cruel, cruel fate. Ignore his desire and move on, and that is what he did!
