Chapter 27

We're in a long line of us. All of us in white silk robes with red flower-fish things on the breast. Lined up, two by two, in a grand, dark hall where I've never been. Where are we now? Why are we lined up like this? Where does the line lead? Only They know. There's a perfumed fog still, all through the hall. There's the sound of chimes coming from somewhere. "Have you ever been here?" I ask my new friend, beside me. She's my partner in the line.

"I haven't," she says. "It's a no." She shakes her head. "Definite."

I see a woman in red at the very front of the line, at the very end of the long, dark hall. Two people in silver stand on either side of her holding out what looks like bags for each of us to take.

"Must be gift bags," my new friend says. Since we can't remember our names, she will call me Moonbright. And I will call her Lake. Just until the mist lifts. Until the blue pools of our minds fill back up with the words of us, and our names come swimming back like fish.

"This must be the way out, Moonbright," says Lake. "The exit. And look, they're giving us a gift bag full of samples. For keeping up the Bright and Smooth at home. The Lift. Oh, they are so kind."

"They are so kind," I agree.

"And our shoes and clothes to walk home in too," she says. "Must be."

"Yes," I say. "Oh, that makes such sense."

"Because how can we walk home in these?" She touches her white robe. "It would be silly."

"It would be very silly," I agree. We're moving along in the dark hall, two by two, toward the woman in red at the front of the line. The chimes sing and the mist grows thick.

Lake does the opposite of smile again. "Do you know where home is, though, Moonbright?"

"Home?" I try to think but all I see is the blue pool of water. I'm afraid again. "I think so. It's on a street, I believe. That I know for sure," I tell her.

"Yes. Mine too," Lake says. "On a hill, I believe. In a house with thirteen windows."

"Well that should be easy to find. We'll just count windows."

She smiles. "Yes, that's true. And roaring water. I live beside roaring water. Like a lion, it roars all night."

"Well we'll definitely find it, then. Once we're outside, we'll know where to go. We need outside to orient us, that's all."

"Right, of course. Hard to orient when there's a fog still. And all these chimes. And the dark filling my eyes."

A blond woman just ahead in line turns to look back at us. She is lakesmooth and moonbright just like us. She glows in the dark like we must. So beautiful, our breath is taken. She has old eyes in a very young face. "They keep it dark in the hall because of sun," she whispers. "It's our enemy now. We hate it and it hates us. Forever."

"Who says so?" Lake says. And her voice sounds like a fight.

"They," the woman says, pointing to the woman in red and the two people in silver at the front of the line. We're moving toward them steadily. Getting closer. I can see the flashing white of their smiles as they hand out the gift bags.

"But I like sun," Lake says. There's a frown in her voice now.

"Suns melt lakes of ice, remember?" the woman ahead of us says.

"Not all suns," Lake says.

As we move through the line, the wall on my side becomes a glass tank running from floor to ceiling. The tank is filled with blue-green water sparkly with light. Filled too with many red, strange-shaped fish. They look like pulsating mushrooms or flowers, each one trailing a tangle of tentacles.

"Like jelly- or brainflowers," Lake says. "Trailing spinal ropes."

"Yes." We watch them pulse prettily.

"Like hotels have in the lobby sometimes," I say to Lake, pointing to the tank. "The fancy ones. This must be a fancy spa place." I'm surprised at how easily the words come to me. "This must for sure be where we're checking out." When I say this, I feel so much better. This is the line to leave here. The long, dark hall leads to an exit. And then I realize I don't have my purse with the cards in it. Or my phone cell. Fuckshit. But maybe that's what they're giving us up front, our purses plus our shoes plus our clothes plus the gift bags.

"They must be giving us our purses up there. So we can leave and pay."

"Yes," Lake says, but she doesn't sound convinced. She's still looking at the jellyflowers in the tank. Pulsing with thoughts and dreams. "There's just so many of them."

"They're pretty," I offer, but I don't know. Are they? They scare me.

"I don't love them at all. Too jelly and hairy. Look, one of them is looking at you."

"It is? Who?"

And Lake points at the one jellyflower. Red and staring and floating very close to the glass. Pulsating softly. It's looking at me, Lake is right. I see its red eyes staring into my eyes. And then it moves when Lake and I move forward in the line. Moves with us.

"See how it's following you?"

"It is not," I say. But it is.

"It is. Maybe it loves you," she says, a little longingly. The longing creates a ripple of sadness on her lakesmooth face.

"No," I say. "How can it love? It's a creature made of jelly." And with my mind I tell the jellyflower to go, please go, swim away. But it won't. It keeps moving forward as we move forward. Head pulsing to the beat of my own heart. Tentacles fluttering like my nerves.

"How ugly it is," Lake says. She shudders. Draws her white robe tighter around her Brightened body. "And look at it looking at you."

"Yes," I say.

"Your fairy godfish." She laughs. "Maybe it wants to go home in your bag of samples. Will you take it home?"

I look at the jelly. Something fluttering in me as it flutters behind the tank.

"It would be very silly," I say to Lake.

"Yes. And how ugly it is too." She says it like she didn't just say it a second ago. "Though maybe you could kiss it. And it will turn into something less ugly. Like one of those silly stories—"

"And which story might that be?"

We look away from my fish and find we are at the front of the line now. Standing before us is a woman in red. She looks like a Queen of Snow, so white and beautiful, she freezes the breath in our lungs. Makes winter in my heart. She wears a long dress of red silk. I've met her before, haven't I? Looked into her blue eyes flecked with gold like twin suns each in their very pale sky. On either side of her are two Statues of Cold. They are not smiling. Their eyes are ice. The Queen of Snow does not appear to have my purse for me. Neither do the Statues of Cold. Then one of the Statues hands me a clear bag of clothes. My clothes, at last, I think. But these are white-and-red silk. Very pretty. Very pretty, but not my clothes.

"These aren't mine. There must be a mistake, sorry. I need my clothes to go home in, please."

The Statues of Cold smile. Then so does the Queen of Snow. "Of course these are your clothes." Her voice is terribly, eerily beautiful like the chimes. They nearly lull me into saying, Yes, of course these are my clothes, you're right. But I catch myself.

"No. I mean, they're very pretty. Thank you," I say, curtsying to the Statue of Cold who gave them to me. "Just not mine."

The Queen of Snow is still smiling with her eyes. "These are your clothes. And you are home," she says in her chime voice.

"Home? I am?"

In the tank beside me, I sense my following jellyflower hovering close by. Pulsing just behind the glass. No, no. No, no.

"Definitely," says the Queen of Snow, smiling.

"Oh," and I fill a little with relief. Though I feel my jellyflower flailing its tentacles as if to catch my attention. As if to say, Not home, not home. "I thought home was outside. I thought I'd have to orient myself."

And now they all smile coldly. "No need for that."

I look at Lake and she's smiling too. What a relief.

"So I can pay, then," I say. "For what you've done to me. Making me moonbright." Making my mind a blue empty pool, I think, more complaining. Will it ever fill back up with fish? I want to ask, but now is not the time for accusing words, I sense this. Even though I am the customer. The customer is always something. Not wrong. The other thing.

The Queen of Snow smiles again with her eyes. "You'll be paying soon enough. Now off you trot," she says, looking at me and Lake. "Run along and get dressed and ready for the Feast."

"There's a feast?"

"Oh yes, a very big Feast tonight. And you all are the guests of honor."

"Are we?"

Beside me, the jellyflower pulses more quickly. Like it's shaking its head.

"Oh yes. Isn't that wonderful?"

"That is," I say. "I love a feast. But excuse me, my purse is where?"

"You won't be needing your purse. In fact, you won't be needing those, either," she says, pointing to my feet. I see I'm wearing red shoes. "Or this, what is this?" She holds up my wrist, where I see there is a gold bracelet with an eye in it. How did that get there? The eye looks at me and I look at it. I smile and the eye seems to smile too. I had this eye, I think, in some olden time. I look back up at the Queen of Snow, who's now very frowning.

"Take them off," she growls. "Shoes and bracelet."

But they won't come off. I try and Lake tries and the Statues of Cold try. Even the Queen of Snow tries, grabbing my wrist and pulling, nearly breaking my shoulder bones. And still, there it twinkles on my wrist, all golden and untroubled. The painted eye unblinking and watchful. And now the Queen of Snow's frown is times a thousand. Yet she smiles over it.

"The power of accessories can never be overestimated, it seems."

"It seems." I laugh. I'm trying to lighten things. But no one laughs too. Lake stands beside me, afraid. "Shhh, Moonbright."

"Shhhh," I agree.

An exchange of looks between the Queen of Snow and the Statues of Cold.

"Move along," the Statues of Cold whisper to me. "It is already late." And then the Queen of Snow smiles again.

"Remember," she says, and now the Statues of Cold chuckle, "this is your last stop on your Beauty Journey. The final step on the Way of Roses. You are almost to the Roses. Run along to the Lounge now and get dressed in your new garments. Chop-chop. Can't be late."

And she laughs and laughs.