CHAPTER ONE

Gray water laps over the smooth pebbles at my feet. I stand alone on the rust-colored bank of a lake, a thin yellow nightgown clinging to my skin as a frigid wind mercilessly whips through the fabric. The horizon steadily grows closer, as if I’m walking toward it. I am walking toward it, but my feet drag through the sand and pebbles, hauling some invisible weight along my path. Pine trees, thick and green and dark, pass by on either side. Water rises higher, up to my hips, my throat, filling my ears. Clouds part to reveal a violet sunset, or is it sunrise? I can’t tell, not with those cruel, red eyes leering at me through the rays of light. Why will they not help me? Who does that hideous stare belong to? Gradually the gaze of my final witness consumes all the scenery around us until my vision goes black entirely. I compress down until I fold in on myself and disappear into the darkness.

The sudden blankness surrounding me is sharp and blinding, but it eventually dims, and I feel nothing. No pain or sorrow, but as if everything between my bones were hollowed out, as if I were floating even though my feet rest on presumably solid ground. I can’t really see what I’m standing on or tell if I’m even right side up. Everything is the same shade of white except for my gold-brown skin and whatever keeps darting in and out of my peripheral vision. Spinning to chase the mysterious visitor gets dizzying after a while; there’s nothing to hold on to so I can steady myself or orient my sight.

Gradually that changes as the emptiness fills with doors scattered on either side. No one comes in or out of them, and it may be the disorientation throwing my senses off, but no sound slips through the cracks between them and their frames either. None of the holes are big enough to peek through to test this theory. Maybe opening one will clear things up. The first one to my left could easily be mistaken for a palace entry; it’s one of the more ornate, gilded and inlaid with blue tiles the size of my thumbnail. Its patterns are soothing to trace, even with a trembling hand. A spiral handle fits perfectly against my palm but will not turn no matter how hard it’s bent.

My shy “companion” finally stops hiding after I trip myself circling around and searching through the barred doors for an exit. Floating alongside me are two tiny black orbs. They follow my every move, dancing ink fireflies in the white void. There are always two of them, right beside each other, always the same distance apart, constant as the silence. Hiding and attempting to outrun them proves pointless. They aren’t attacking or chasing me, but they aren’t terribly helpful without hands or a mouth either.

My own voice is gone, replaced by a deep burning that chokes any sound I attempt, so I can’t ask the spots anything. I don’t know that they would know anything, but it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Another doorway appears beside the first, equally beautiful but more rustic than artistic. Carvings of animals and strange symbols climb the frame, perhaps telling a story my mind can’t decipher. The dark wood is warm to the touch, and the black metal