“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.
She smiles at me, but there is something behind the smile. I see it. The opposite of all her words.
“Home,” I say. And there is something behind my smile too.
But the gong goes. And we vibrate like bells.
“Chop-chop,” cries a Statue of Cold moving through the hall, watching us. Because the Feast is imminent. Time to get dressed.
Our new garments, the ones they gave us in the bags, the ones we put on, are beautiful. “Just beautiful,” Lake says, standing up and twirling in hers. “Do you not think so, Moonbright?”
I look down at my new white-and-red dress, the only dress I have now in the world.
“Look, it has red roses on it,” Lake says. “Such pretty roses.”
But to me the roses look like other things. Tentacles or tangles of blood and guts. A web of veins. I tell Lake and she laughs.
“Tangled blood? Guts? How are you seeing that, Moonbright?”
“Or like the jellyflowers in the glass tank,” I say.
“Speaking of which,” Lake says. “Your jelly is obsessed with you.”
“Not obsessed,” I say.
“Didn’t you see it panicking when it couldn’t follow you in here?”
“I didn’t see.” I did. I don’t know why I’m lying to Lake about this. I saw its distress plainly through the glass when I was led away, and it made me feel strange. Why are you so distressed for me, jellyflower? I wanted to ask. But I couldn’t ask before the Queen of Snow, before the Statues of Cold, who were leading us away.
“How funny it was,” Lake says, though she doesn’t look like it was funny. She must mean something else, but funny is the only word that comes to mind.
“Yes, very funny.”
“It loves you. Love is funny, I guess.” She sighs. There is that longing again. That ripple on the lakesmooth surface of her face. But then it’s gone.
I wish I could stretch on the bed and smile at the ceiling like Lake. I wish I could wear my white dress of red roses and not see tangled veins.
“I wish I knew how I looked,” Lake sighs. “Before we go to the Feast. Because perhaps there will be princes there. I’d love to meet a prince. Or a princess. Royalty, at any rate. So long as I look good. Can you tell me what word I am?” she asks me.
I look at Lake. She is still lakesmooth, but paler. There are dark rings around her eyes like eye shadow. Like she went to a makeup counter and got a smoky eye from someone. Or they punched her. One punch for each eye. Her lips are blue now, blue as her eyes. Her white dress with the red silk flowers looks like guts spilling out of her.
She is looking at me, waiting for what word she is.
And then it comes to me. Swims up like a small gray fish. Dead. I look at Lake and I know that is the exact word for her face. But I say, “Beautiful, Lake. Beautiful.”
And Lake smiles.
“And me?” I ask.
And Lake looks for a long while. And then she says “Beautiful” too.
29
We are walking two by two in a dark corridor, up a twisting path to where the Feast will be. In celebration of our Beauty Journey. Held in our very own honor. Are we very excited? We should be, the Statues of Cold tell us. It’s a very long walk up a winding stair. Along the wall on one side, my side, is the glass tank again full of blue-green water where the red jellies pulse and swim. Some are very big. Some are the smallest things, like whispers. Lake walks beside me in the line again. We are partners in this Beauty Journey, it seems.
I would like to hold Lake’s hand, but she’s holding a silver tray.
I’m holding one too.