A crashing sound. Someone has dropped their mirror tray. Me, I have dropped my mirror tray. What a sound it makes. A rattling and a rattling. And then what a sudden silence. All the ones in black are staring at me now. The Queen of Snow, too, she has murder on her face.
I am frozen, but the sound has snapped Lake out of her trance. She tries to bend down to pick up my tray for me, but the honored guest raises his gloved hand like stop. Allow him, please. He reaches down and picks it up like it’s the most delicate thing. Smiles and hands it to me.
“Here you are, seedling,” he whispers. A soft ripple of laughter among the veiled ones. He turns away from me, continues to make his way to the throne at the table’s end where the Queen of Snow waits. As I watch him walk away, there is a pain in my heart, familiar and deep. This man is its shape. The hand beneath the black glove has stroked my hair in the dark. The mouth once spoke words like a cold breeze in my ear, making my heart drum and drum. The eyes behind the mask have looked into my eyes. Suddenly there is a name on my lips. It swims up like a quick, bright fish. “Tom,” I say before I can think.
All is dead silent again. All the veiled ones look at me. Hands stop clapping. The Queen of Snow’s face changes from murder to surprise. The man whom I called Tom stops walking to his throne, pauses in mid-step. I stare at the back of his white neck, a pale, smooth slash between the collar of his black suit and his waving dark hair. I stare so hard, salt water drips from my eyes.
“Tom Cruise,” I whisper.
Laughter. From the veiled ones, from the Queen of Snow. They laugh and laugh, even the Statues of Cold chuckle. How funny are the words Tom Cruise that I have whispered. They repeat it to themselves. “Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise, the actor? Oh, Seth, Seth, how brilliant. Stroke of genius, really. And the resemblance is striking. Take my breath away.”
I can’t laugh with them. I can only stare at the back of Tom’s neck. My fellow moonbright ones aren’t laughing either. They also stare at the one I called Tom Cruise, whose name apparently is Seth, their faces full of the opposite of laughing.
Meanwhile Seth takes his throne, smiles indulgently at the laughing table. Yes, yes, says his white smile through the mask. “It serves its purpose, I suppose.” He pretends not to look at me, but I feel him looking still. “Definitely it does.”
The table’s laughter at me makes him smile awhile, but then suddenly he doesn’t like it anymore. He frowns, and the laughter stops immediately.
He raises his goblet.
“Thank you all so much for having us,” he says. Us? I think. But aren’t you only one? And then he turns to us moonbright ones along the wall. “But we are not the only honored guest, of course. The true guests of honor are all around us here. We are so happy to have you.”
Some of the moonbright ones smile shyly. Most are still looking at themselves in their mirror trays, saying “Beautiful, Brightened, Poreless” over and over. Beside me, Lake is shaking. “I want to go home,” she pleads. “Take me there, Moonbright.”
Laughter again from the veiled ones, this time milder. Seth joins the laughter.
“Well”—he claps his hands—“shall we eat?”
Roaring applause.
“Oh thank god,” I whisper. “Lake, we’re going to eat now. They’re finally severing.”
Lake is shaking and shaking her head. “I don’t want to eat in this room. There are too many red jellies in that tank. How ugly they are.”
Two Statues of Cold step forward—the ones standing on either side of the tank, holding their nets. Now a great light shines down onto the tank water. It is the light of the full moon shining directly over the floating red jellies. Oh, it’s beautiful.
“Isn’t it beautiful, Lake?” I ask her.
“I want to go,” Lake is whispering in my ear.
“But we’re about to eat, Lake.” And inside, I’m thinking, Eat what? Eat what, I wonder?
“I’m not hungry, I’m not hungry!” Lake cries.
The Queen of Snow is frowning. She hears us. “Why doesn’t Tom select this evening’s catch?” she shouts, looking right at me and Lake with a scolding face.
Laughter again from the veiled ones. “Yes, Tom. Why don’t you?”
Seth isn’t smiling. He’s looking at me and Lake. Lake releasing a hand from her tray to clutch my arm. Telling me again that she isn’t hungry right now. Her house has thirteen windows. It’s on a hill, she believes. If I can only take her there.