Chapter Sixteen
Vonetta
I’m walking the familiar trek toward the Lady’s dwelling. My feet are bare as I tread my path, and the soft green covering of the ground is cool and damp with the night underneath them. The white shift floats around my ankles, grazing my skin with the flowing fabric.
Every star feels visible, and the moon hangs heavy in the sky.
The gentle flicker of a candle is visible in her window, just beyond the mirror pool. But she is not within her home this night. She is kneeling by the water, her long and graying hair trailing down her back. Her head is bent over the water, and her hands rest on her knees.
When I kneel beside her, she does not acknowledge me. I open my mouth to greet her, but no words come out.
When I reach out for her, my hand passes through her as if I were made of mist. I am here, but I am not.
I turn my attention to the surface of the pool, its waters are still this night and look like glass against the night sky.
Though I wait, no image or movement appears on its face.
I try to ground myself in the land, but no energy rises up to meet me.
I am disconnected from this place, untethered to the earth beneath me.
“Vonetta,” the Lady says, speaking into the night. But not to me. She speaks to the pool before her. Passing her hand through its glassy surface. No ripples. “You must find a way through this. Heal this land, heal your Trinity.”
I cannot answer her, I cannot tell her I do not know how to do what she asks.
Because I am not here. My mind has found its way to the realm of dreams. I reach out for the mirror in front of me, my hands slipping into the inky black surface.
I lean into it, consumed by it. Willingly taken into its depths.
…