Chapter 28

The Lounge is a grand white hall with red beds. It reminds me of a cage of ribs with many hearts. A perfumed fog here, too. Chimes play, very loud. They make my bones vibrate. They thrum in my skull. I am here with Lake and many others like us. Different ages, we seem to be, with skins of varying shades, all of them Brightened. Some of us, like the blond woman we met in line, have paid very good money to be here. Others, like Lake and me, are still waiting to pay.

"Everyone's Beauty Journey is so individual," Lake says happily as we enter the Lounge. "Like we are so individual." This word individual seems to make her very happy to say.

"Individual," I agree. So why, then, do we all look and dress the same? All of us so beautiful. All of us glowing in the dark. We are lakesmooth and moonbright. Some smoother and brighter than others, of course, and Lake and I among the smoothest, the brightest, it seems to my eye. There are no glassthings here, the Statue of Cold who escorted us said. The reason being simple. Because we are so terribly beautiful now that if we were to look in a glassthing, we'd never ever stop. And we can't have that. Then we would never make it to the Final Destination on our Beauty Journey, which is just around the corner, apparently. Unlike me, Lake is happy that home is here. That she doesn't have to find her house, the one on the hill with thirteen windows by the roaring water. It would have been hard to do that. Very hard with her mind and my mind in their current states, so sky bright and empty of fish. We might find ourselves lost on a street, looking for a hill, counting windows, turning around and around in our white-and-red silks forever. Scary. Especially since the sun is our enemy now. That's what the Statue of Cold said who led us here. That it might melt us. And we don't want to melt. There's a witch that melts in a movie, Lake said. Remember her dissolving into a black pool screaming. Terrible, Lake said. We don't want that. Lake wants to stay lakesmooth, a lake of ice. No, she's happy this is home. She finds a narrow red bed in a corner and she stretches out on it. "This is my bed," she says. "Home," she says, like she's insisting.

She smiles at me, but there is something behind the smile. I see it. The opposite of all her words.

"Home," I say. And there is something behind my smile too.

But the gong goes. And we vibrate like bells.

"Chop-chop," cries a Statue of Cold moving through the hall, watching us. Because the Feast is imminent. Time to get dressed.

Our new garments, the ones they gave us in the bags, the ones we put on, are beautiful. "Just beautiful," Lake says, standing up and twirling in hers. "Do you not think so, Moonbright?"

I look down at my new white-and-red dress, the only dress I have now in the world.

"Look, it has red roses on it," Lake says. "Such pretty roses."

But to me the roses look like other things. Tentacles or tangles of blood and guts. A web of veins. I tell Lake and she laughs.

"Tangled blood? Guts? How are you seeing that, Moonbright?"

"Or like the jellyflowers in the glass tank," I say.

"Speaking of which," Lake says. "Your jelly is obsessed with you."

"Not obsessed," I say.

"Didn't you see it panicking when it couldn't follow you in here?"

"I didn't see." I did. I don't know why I'm lying to Lake about this. I saw its distress plainly through the glass when I was led away, and it made me feel strange. Why are you so distressed for me, jellyflower? I wanted to ask. But I couldn't ask before the Queen of Snow, before the Statues of Cold, who were leading us away.

"How funny it was," Lake says, though she doesn't look like it was funny. She must mean something else, but funny is the only word that comes to mind.

"Yes, very funny."

"It loves you. Love is funny, I guess." She sighs. There is that longing again. That ripple on the lakesmooth surface of her face. But then it's gone.

I wish I could stretch on the bed and smile at the ceiling like Lake. I wish I could wear my white dress of red roses and not see tangled veins.

"I wish I knew how I looked," Lake sighs. "Before we go to the Feast. Because perhaps there will be princes there. I'd love to meet a prince. Or a princess. Royalty, at any rate. So long as I look good. Can you tell me what word I am?" she asks me.

I look at Lake. She is still lakesmooth, but paler. There are dark rings around her eyes like eye shadow. Like she went to a makeup counter and got a smoky eye from someone. Or they punched her. One punch for each eye. Her lips are blue now, blue as her eyes. Her white dress with the red silk flowers looks like guts spilling out of her.

She is looking at me, waiting for what word she is.

And then it comes to me. Swims up like a small gray fish. Dead. I look at Lake and I know that is the exact word for her face. But I say, "Beautiful, Lake. Beautiful."

And Lake smiles.

"And me?" I ask.

And Lake looks for a long while. And then she says "Beautiful" too.