“Can you favor me something?” she says.
I look at her. “Course, yes.”
“Do you mind telling me if I look… how I look? If it’s beautiful at all? Because I can’t see a glassthing anywhere.”
“I can’t either,” I say. “Just these white faces on the walls. Do you see them?”
She nods, looking all around. “I see them. I see them and I don’t love them at all.”
She begins to do the opposite of smile again.
“Don’t,” I say. “Please. Look at me. I’ll be your glassthing.”
She looks at me and I look back at her for a while like I’m really looking. Like I’m finding the words in her face though I already know what to say. “You’re beautiful,” I say. “Like a lake of ice. Smooth and Bright.”
This makes her smile again. “It’s true?”
“Very. Can you tell me what I am now? What about me?”
She looks at me.
“There’s a Glow,” she says. “A Glow like a light. Moonbright.”
We smile at each other in the fog. Who needs glassthings when we can give each other our eyes? But oh god. Feet sounds now. We hear them coming our way. A gong thing ringing through the chimes. Rings through me. Making me vibrate like a bell. I watch the fog clear like clouds parting.
“Sounds like soon is coming,” the woman whispers.
“Sounds like soon is now.”
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.