The Ghost of a Dream

She kissed him goodbye, knowing he wouldn’t remember her by tomorrow. In the warm embrace of their lips, she could feel his memories slowly dissolving like the seafoam frothing around their feet. With every passing second, she desperately held on to each moment of their shared days before the spell reached its completion. Princess Mynne ran away from the shoreline who’s salty tears following her eyes, leaving him to wilt away and become nothing but the ghost of a dream. 

Having finally found the time to have a secret audience Hugh, she waited in her garden where the last leaves of autumn remained, unyielding to the wind. Drowning in her inner world, her eyes pierced beyond as she felt her thoughts falling alongside the auburn leaves, her memories now a husk of time. Her simple wish became nothing more than a burden the more it came true. And the more of him she found in herself, the less of him she saw in Hugh as he executed all the formalities he once cast aside for intimacy. 

The more words they shared, the deeper her wounds became. Her image of him, the true shadow Hugh trapped in her psyche, was now a hollow silhouette in front of her. He explained how, like Mynne before the wish, he carried an emptiness where life’s graces drifted through, never settling or nourishing. Instead of the Hugh she once adored, she saw nothing but a mirror image of her own blackened heart, a cruel mockery of her fate. Unable to bear the fire she couldn’t extinguish in her marrow, she ran away from anything that could kindle it further. Yet, just like on the that shore, Hugh reached his hand out, inspired by a faint glow that was only able to illuminate what he lacked. 

Running as if chasing after something, she traveled past the leaf-covered bridge and delved into the thick of the forest. Like fiery tongues before her eyes, her memories blinded her with every detail. What she thought would be the clearest sign of life’s providence became its cruelest punishment as the dusty words of her younger self echoed from the cracks of her heart. Just to have one single act that could repair the immortal lacuna in the marrow of her being would have been enough. But now that she was positively overflowing with memories that always evaded her, she wished to become the very emptiness that once devoured her. 

A powerful strife possessed her, fuelling the fire to grow into something untamable. Having had a ceremonial meeting before, she still had a silken dress on, one that Hugh failed to recall from their last moments during a dance under moonlight. Its emerald sheen now only reminded her of her burning bitterness, possessing her to tear the fabric off of her as she ran like the wind. As if the material was trying to coil and crush her, she tore it off of her as if they were the once sweet memories themselves. They fell like the embers of her rage and the fall leaves around her, all participating in a primeval choreography. 

In the end, she was left with her simple garments and twin rivers of tears. An endless plain of trees surrounded her, decorated with a mixture of red, yellow, brown and even some greenish leaves on their crowns and on the floor. The soft winds swimming through the crispy leaves sang like chimes around her in a calm cacophony, soothing her tumultuous soul to the best of their ability. The ripping of fabric still echoed in her skull, even while she stood still to listen to the eternally recalled memory of nature’s goodbye. In the perfume of the forest, she realized how autumn remembered winter by virtue of its promise in the past; how the changing of seasons was but one eternally recalled memory of life’s unbroken providence and time’s indomitable hope. 

Eyes closed, she could recall with the blurriest details her last encounter with the magician of memories. Above the excessive amount of watches he carried, she memories traveled up ringwatches to his inked arm, coiled with musical staff lines and lines in an ancient language even she couldn’t decipher. Now traveling down that arm of music, she followed the notes by humming them to herself, enveloping herself the strangely familiar. The more she hummed, the more eyes seemed to latch onto her, as if every leaf stared and listened intently at every vibration in her throat. The crackling sound of the wind-tossed leaves mimicked the sound of an active hearth. It was such a comforting sound that she could feel the warmth radiating from it, spreading over her skin like a delicate touch. 

With her eyes open, she saw the fire dancing behind its cage and a table before her with a stack of books on the side and a cup of steaming tea closest to her. She jumped from her comfortable seat and looked around the firelit place, seeing the man in her vision sitting on a chair near the fire with a book in his hand and a cup of tea of his own on the table’s edge. His unbending calmness and the serenity perfuming every corner of the place enforced the idea that there was no danger whatsoever. She sat back on the sofa, facing him as if having done so many times before, feeling at home in this place her memories abandoned. Once she felt more at ease, the man looked at her and gave her an indecipherable smile as he closed his book and replaced it with a cup of tea. 

“I’m surprised that you remembered how to get here, let alone getting directly inside the castle and not by the entrance.” 

She wondered the same thing as she felt his gaze roll over her while he sipped his tea. When she finally collected herself and remembered why she wanted to see him in the first place, a deadly hatred bubbled within her.

“You should know why I came here, Nestor.” 

On hearing the sharpness in her tone, a much looser smile decorated his lips. The delicate yet savage golden rings piercing his lips twinkled in the firelight like fangs. 

“Aw, did your wish not come true?” 

One spark, and every part of her caught fire, compelling her to stand up and throw the tea in her hands directly to him with lethal intent. 

“You cursed me!” 

Her fury froze for a brief moment when she saw the liquid floating beside her and the cup a hair away from Nestor’s face, fixed in space. With one motion of his hand, he pulled the liquid back into the cup and placed both at the other side of the table from her. 

“I made this tea especially for you, you know. It supposedly soothed the nerves,” he said as he took a sip of it before cradling it in his lap. “It’s a very nice cup too; I only use it for special occasions.” 

“I don’t care about your stupid cup! I’m worse off now than I was before your damn spell!” 

“You mean that you’re worse off after having your one wish come true?” 

Deep down, she hoped that staring into the fire would burn her dark feelings to ash and kill them in an instant. But it was like looking into a mirror of her mind, seeing all that she loathed illuminate, devour and burn things she once believed in. 

“I just… I wanted to be happy, that’s all.”

Nestor leaned back, combing his hair with his hand and grabbing a handful of his locks. He listened to the ticking noises coming from the clocks on his rings as he looked at the rolled up sleeve of his arm, following the musical notes going to his elbow. Just when she was able to pick up his nervousness he leaned forward and laced his fingers, looking at her in a way that forced her to confront herself. 

“That’s not what you wanted, Mynne.”

Her eyes flashed to him, wide with vulnerability and dread. 

“Maybe that is what you really wanted in the end, but your wish was something far more grandiose than that, something just out of reality’s grasp. And that is exactly why you came to me, is it not? You know that I can bend the laws of the spirit, so you wished for me to shape yours in a way that would satisfy your ideals, am I not correct?”

A glossy veil covered her gaze, impossible to hide in the firelight. Still, she maintained her fortitude in his presence, knowing full well that he was able to see the cracks she concealed with her silence. 

“I gave you that which you wanted all along; memories that could mend the cracks instead of merely slipping through them. You wanted something permanent from what is ephemeral, and I gave that to you. And now that you realize the consequences of bearing soul-sculpting memories, you regret it entirely. Is that it?” 

His words only helped increase the strength in her grip as he squeezed the fabric of her clothes tighter. Even while she was bombarded by her own spirits, she clearly recognized the sharp sarcasm gently woven into his words and delivery, dodging the possibility of repair while mocking her for considering such a thing. A forced exhale rushed through her clenched teeth as Mynne slowly unclenched her fist and smoothened her dress, using the caressing motion as also a means to self-sooth. 

“You don’t know me. You don’t know how miserable I am, how hard it is for me to be intimately aware of so many things to the point where it becomes impossible to extinguish this forever fed and forever hungry fire that burns everything it illuminates and reveals.”

She took a moment to compose herself so as not to let the sparks of her fury fly so recklessly. But once she caught her breath again, he decided to give a retort.

“That doesn’t change anything about the case. Like I told you before, I could have done something about that aspect of you which would naturally conclude in you being a totally different person. But you wanted to have the chance to taste life at its ripest and I gave that to you at the cost I mentioned before you accepted it.” 

Her conscience boiled over, howling like a kettle and deafening her reason. With blind frustration, she jumped out of her seat, her patience vaporized. 

“You didn’t tell me just how much of him would be washed away. He’s not even a shadow of himself because of your spell!” 

“Oh, really? I wonder why!” 

Both of them stood up from their seats, their gaze chained to one another. In spite of his vaporized patience, he still cradled a sense of ease in his crescent moon of a smile. Every minute action of his successfully solidified the fact that the cause of all that went wrong was no one else but her. 

“It costs a lot of energy to leave an impression like that on a soul like yours that only recognizes pain as permanent and pleasure as fleeting. Naturally, there must be a balance and the memories of your precious little lover had to be transferred to you in order for it to stain properly without being washed away by your soul’s very own designs. A price is a price, and that just shows how powerful your desire was.” 

“So it’s my fault, then? Is it my fault for being stuck with my mind’s designs which I have hardly any control over? Is it my fault for wanting to know what it was like to have a precious memory that wouldn’t drown in the agony my mind conceives of without my permission? Is it my fault for being who I am?” 

“Yes!” 

Her slap resounded through the living room, popping like the firewood in the hearth. Its echo stained the silence and sharpened the crackling of the hearth, with each snap of the wood mirroring Mynne’s splintering soul. Painfully sensitive to her interior state, Nestor could only frown at what he heard and how he recognized the all too familiar nature of the affairs she wrestled with. Frozen in a position where his head remained turned away from her, he let the sting of her slap sink into his skin, feeling its vibrations weave through his nerves with a gray countenance. 

“I also wish that there was a remedy, you know? Even with all the powers I possess, there are some things that are simply out of my grasp.” 

A tender light twinkled in his eyes for a moment, compelling him to walk away from the fireplace and lead her somewhere else. Without a sign of any command, Mynne slowly followed him through the hallways of his castle. Despite not having a proper understanding or the possibilities of his intentions, there was something magnetizing about following his judgements, sensing that they lead to a kind of truth. Even if it was an uncomfortable truth, there was an essential comfort in it being a truth instead of another product of hazy fantasy. 

Down the winding stairs was a small corridor with two large doors on each side, one leading to the room he wished to show her. He expressly waited for her to be near him by a specific doorway, allowing her to study the intricate designs of the wooden door as she walked down. There were clusters of small statues and carved sceneries detailing mythic events interwoven with actual moments in time, dyeing reality in its own meaningful nature. Seeing the universe of the heart through such a simple medium in comparison to it already made Mynne lose track of her breath, becoming utterly bewildered when Nestor opened the door to his gargantuan library overflowing with books. 

Velvet-violet sunlight from a distant realm filtered through the stained-glass windows, illuminating every corner of its wooden interior. Walking through its wide paths, she felt like an ant journeying through a city, craning her neck to see the top of shelves and the other floors of the library. On nearly every shelf, there was a melted clock dripping over some of the books together with others hanging on chains, frozen just before a part of them melted onto the floor. What she thought as rainfall striking the eerie windows was nothing more than the endless sea of clocks ticking from all around her. 

She caught the perfume of a forest radiating from the books as if they were springtime flowers, reminding her of the vitality of life reflected in the dusty books. There were no words needed to explain to her that the room was older than the wood of the trees it was composed of, humming with an immamorial time. She opened one of the books to see texts and illustrations written by hand, but when he turned to her, capturing her attention and closed it in a heartbeat. 

“Each and every one of these books in this side of the library are books I have filled with my writings of all I have learned and seen based on the people I have helped and encountered in my lifetime. Most of them are long gone, and the rest are from those who are still alive.” 

He shook his head and let out a laugh with a crooked smile.

“It’s hard to even call it a lifetime if time escapes my life…” 

A sudden emergence of emptiness swallowed all the awe she had, turning it into potent dread. In the softest sense of hope where all felt whole and perfect and could be so, it became the most corrosive element in her being, burning through her in a way that hinted at no relief. 

“What do you want to show me with all of this?” 

Everything fell still when their eyes met, together grasping the silence whose end was beyond their strength to tame. 

“No matter how hard I try to help each and every one of them, let alone myself, it is all left to fortitude’s favor. But no matter the outcome, good or bad, it all becomes nothing more than dust on the shelves.”

Her last flame became snuffed out by his words. Still, she held onto her embers that shone like stars, decorating that fleeting image of a night sky that stained eternal in her mind. There had to be something more, something greater, something beyond her so as to find shelter in anything, anything but herself. In the unfathomably long halls of Nestor’s archive of hearts, that peculiar scent caught her attention again. It helped kindle her marrow, reminding her of the undying light trapped within. Its grace, as tender as it was, pulled her towards a fiery oblivion in an act of agonizing contradiction. But through the wall of fire, she tasted hope at its simplest form, divorced from the world; a sweet lie colored with fantasy’s seductive voice. 

“So what?” 

Mynne repeated herself.

“So what? So what if the end is always the same? As long as we reach it our way, it will at least be our end, an undeniably meaningful end by virtue of it being carved out by the one going towards their end. It’ll be their end, and I don’t want my end to be like my past and my present. I want something more, something I know you can give me without any trickery or stupid games.” 

The embers of her desperation stung him deeply, thawing his exterior to reveal, for a moment, merely a man. Before she could pick up on that, he twisted his frown into a wry smile, continuing to lecture her like a child to avoid being reminded of his own childlike powerlessness.

“And I’ve already given that to you, Mynne, and look what happened. You’re worse off for it. The very thing you thought would make you whole only emptied you further. That is the fate of all these people you see around you. They all tried to fill that void, but guess what? They drowned in their attempts to do so. All of them.” 

His attention drifts to an aisle of books where the violet light blossomed in mechanical butterflies whose wings amplified the minimal light they caught in the shadows. Their journey from shelf to shelf illuminated the lives of those whose wishes were fulfilled, documenting the psychology behind how they found the good even after the dark sacrifices. Even that required a sacrifice, one that would betray their once life-ablaze soul for but the ember of a dream. Not wanting to increase the content of that shelf, he looked back at Mynne with the fire he wished to kindle in her again. When he spoke, he noticed how he lost strength in his hand to continue clenching his fist.

“You say that ends are meaningful when that person dictates their own end, but you don’t even want to dictate yours. You don’t even want to be you. You just don’t know how to be yourself in a way that doesn’t let your flaws dictate your entirety. You are more than your mistakes, Mynne, and you need to do more than just see that, but live that.” 

“How?”

The question fell from her tongue as gently as the dust floating within the beams of light. 

“How do I live when that is all that I see?”

With a simple turning of his shoulders, he cradled the back of her neck to give her a light kiss on her forehead. Her eyes widened with terror as the echo of her last kiss with Hugh, saturated with hope, was mirrored here to extinguish its last remains. She could even hear its final embers crackling in clocks cacophanous whispering in the ringed hand behind her head. A sigh stumbled out of his mouth, reminding her of the lapping waves on the shoreline as his eyes sparkled like the moon glitter on the sea. When their eyes met, it was then that the silence was heard for what it was. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Every atom in her body howled like thunder, giving her the strength to run out of the library, the halls, and eventually leaving Nestor’s castle. While he didn’t follow her, or even tried to walk towards her, the leadlike weight of his words dragged her down. Everything around her seemed to be crumbling from their weight, tearing down the world around her to unveil glimpses of the world inside her.

Just like the taste of winter’s first breath and the snowfall mimicking rain and fall leaves in the outer world, her inner world was perfect.

It was nostalgia’s dye that revealed the crushingly irreconcilable nature of the two, erasing the perfection of the world around her. 

Instead, images of her moments with Hugh before and after the infernal wish became reflected in the snowy veil of the ivory abyss. She saw her very first interaction with him in the last dried leaves clinging to a tree, his laugh singing to her in the frigid breeze. Her memories fluttered around her like a rapid succession of static images, giving the fire of her soul a stage to dance on again. This time, instead of Hugh’s love, the stage was the indomitable grief hewn from his absence, searing her soul with every step of the dance. But in all the pain and burning without and within, strength was found in the revelation of freedom’s grace. For to walk on instead of succumbing to the elements, one must be free to take the first step. 

As she stumbled into the treeline, the part of her forehead where the magician planted his kiss began to burn with the cold wind. It was as if his gesture unlocked and opened a part of her, releasing it across the world. Her rare precious memories that were once the source of her life now flew away like passerine birds, locating the very places they were made of. A symphony of birdsong rippled through her spirit, showing her the last echoes of his voice, his gaze, his touch until his heart was but a dead whisper. Snow crunched beneath her feet in the rhythm of her memory’s fading heartbeat. She wandered like the flow of her breath and became nothing but the ghost of a dream.