Glenn and Kevin stopped in their tracks, trying to catch their breath, frozen in amazement.
Around the lake were hundreds of gloriously shining bodies, some alabaster, some ebony, some the deep green of moss or lapis blue, all of them joined hand in hand. The lake glittered and the hills glowed with the light from their skin. Even as Glenn watched, more carriages arrived from paths all around the lake. Some were drawn by horses and some by packs of wolves that rose to nearly the height of a man, with pelts the purest snowy white. One carriage swept down out of the sky, drawn by thousands of sparrows whose bodies alternated between shining red, green, and gold. And then there was the singing, hundreds of voices lifted together in the knight’s song. Soon the prairie was full of radiant bodies painting the lengths of the hills and the trees with the lights.
The party converged on the lake, everyone arranging themselves in several concentric circles and rotating around the shore. Kevin moved up alongside Glenn and grasped her hand. She spared a moment to look at him. She couldn’t help but laugh. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes were wide. She imagined she looked nearly the same.
Glenn squeezed his hand back, anchoring herself to that small bit of reality.
When she turned, the surface of the lake began to stir. The waters were turning in the direction of the light’s revolutions, forming a whitecapped whirlpool that soon grew to take over the entire lake. By now the revelers were all massed around the churning water. Glenn and Kevin stepped off the path and onto the grass, approaching slowly, unable to resist the pull of the beauty below them. The roar of the turning water grew and grew.
Tiny flares of light began to shine beneath the surface of the water. As the singing surged, the lake’s surface exploded and thousands upon thousands of these lights erupted into the sky, washing the land for miles around with an ecstatic silvery glow. The singing stopped, and Glenn peered up into the sky and saw that they were not simply points of light, they were thousands of tiny bodies, flitting and tumbling through the air. The only sound now was the sound of their laughter.
“We are the Miel Pan.”
Glenn turned. To her left, where seconds ago there was only empty space, was the swan woman. Close up, lit by her crown of stars, she was more beautiful than anything Glenn had ever imagined. Her hair was as fine as cobwebs and floated around her in a kind of halo, as if she were standing underwater and her hair was caught in invisible tides. Her skin was a perfect ivory white, her eyes a glacial blue. Warm light exuded from her every pore.
There was much more to her than beauty, though — she seemed to radiate a barely controlled force, something old and violent, a restrained frenzy. It was terrifying and thrilling all at once. Being this close to her made Glenn’s heart thrum in her chest.
“There was a time when we roamed the hills and the waters of the Magisterium and were worshipped.” Her voice was musical, but distorted and strange. “Now we are prisoners of the Magistra. She tortures us by giving us the world for one hour each night and then snatching it away again.”
As the swan woman spoke, her body faded like smoke caught in a gust of wind. Glenn could see the lake and the hills through her.
“Time is running out,” she said. The blue of her eyes gleamed like the tip of a dagger. “But you can join us if you wish.”
She held out her hand and smiled, revealing row upon row of jagged teeth. Kevin’s hand squeezed Glenn’s tight. The woman made a rough sound like laughter and then glided down the hillside to join the others.
Glenn turned to Kevin, and in that second, the white light that had illuminated his face and everything around them suddenly blinked out. Glenn turned back to the lake to find all of it — the swan woman, the carriages, the Miel Pan — gone, and she and Kevin were dropped into complete darkness and silence, as if none of it had ever happened.
Glenn stared down into the night, shocked at the emptiness of it.
“So,” Kevin said slowly. “You, uh, believe in magic now?”
Glenn started to laugh. It leapt out of her and the harder she tried to control it the more it carried her away. Kevin was laughing too, and together the sounds of their voices brightened the night around them as they stumbled back down the path toward camp.
“But how?” Glenn said, breathless. “How is this possible?”
“Magic!” Kevin called out, hooting up into the trees. “It’s magic!”
“But if there’s magic, real magic, then what else does that mean?
What else is there?” Glenn was babbling, her thoughts coming a thousand a second. She stopped in the middle of the trail, remembering the pilgrim stones and their markings. “I mean, is there a god? Like, an actual god?”
“Are there vampires? Ghosts?!”
“Dragons?”
Kevin laughed. Somewhere along the path his hand found
Glenn’s waist and then his arm was around her, drawing her in close.
Glenn’s body quaked against his as she laughed.
“I mean, if this is possible,” Glenn asked in a hush, “then what else is?”
Kevin stopped and turned her to him, his hand pressed flat on her back.
“Anything,” he said.
Glenn’s breath left her parted lips and filled the narrow space between them with a white cloud. His lips, full and thick, were as close to hers as they were that night on the train platform. Had she felt this pull to him then? This heat? That night seemed so far away. Her heart was racing. They were tumbling together down a steep hill, out of control. Where might they end up?
Glenn closed her eyes tight, blocking him out, blocking out the Magisterium. She scrambled for clarity, fighting the pulse in her veins that wanted to drive her farther out into strange waters, out to a place she could never return from.
Alnitak, she thought, imagining the steady blue light of the stars.
Alnilam. Mintaka.
Glenn whispered the words over and over until she slowly
emerged. The pounding in her chest slowed and the forest became a forest again, a place of trees and leaves and cold, empty dark.
She staggered back from Kevin. His hand dropped from her waist and lingered in the open air between them. “I think …” Glenn began, but her words dissipated.
Kevin reached out to tuck a length of hair behind her ear, his fingertips brushing her cheek as he did it. His hand hovered there, the heel of his palm hot against her cold cheek.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We can go back.”
Glenn wanted to say something else, thought there was
something she should say, but she couldn’t get ahold of her thoughts, so she nodded and they made their way down the path. As the trees
flickered past them, Glenn felt as if she was standing in the center of some great doorway, part of her in one world, part in another. Her head was light and floating. Every step was nearly a stumble.