“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.
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.