Into the Wild(51)

She started walking down a smooth, white path. Silence wrapped around her. Even her steps were muffled. Soon, the silver woods gave way to trees of gold, then to trees all of diamond. She followed the path to the shore of a blue-black lake. The fat moon hovered over the horizon. Staring at the water, she felt déjà vu, as if she’d once looked across water like this, but no memory came, so she ignored the feeling. In a swath of moonlight, a flower-decked rowboat drifted toward the shore.

As the boat came closer, she saw it was empty. Slowing, it stopped in front of her. It stayed there, as if waiting. Was it waiting for her? Girl looked to either side of her, but she saw no one. She looked back at the boat, patient in the water. Wondering if she should be worried, she stepped into the boat.

The boat rocked underneath her as she sat at its helm. Leaning forward, she searched for oars. A wave tilted her toward the water, and she looked up. Without oars or sails, the boat was moving unerringly down the path of moonlight. She heard the sound of a trumpet.

Ahead of her, rising over the horizon beneath the moon, she saw an island castle, lit with candles along the battlements. Laughter and trumpet music floated across the water. In the distance, slow waterfalls seeped down mountainsides. “Tears of unhappy lovers,” a voice said behind her.

She turned quickly, and at the back of the boat, she saw the silhouette of a gondolier. With a black stick, he propelled the boat through the moonlight. She couldn’t see his face. “Who are you?” she asked.

But he only hummed to himself, jarring with the trumpet solo from the castle. Girl shivered. It disturbed her that he hadn’t answered. He had to have a name. Didn’t he? Looking across the moonlight, she saw another boat. Two rounded people sat facing each other. Who were they? Did they have names? As they drew closer, she saw they weren’t people at all. An owl strummed a guitar. A cat with a parasol sat opposite him. Behind the gondola, the shore disappeared in darkness.

She felt a bump as the gondolier pulled the boat into a candlelit dock. He gestured to the castle. Pale marble, the castle matched the moon’s glow. Spires stretched into the night sky. Roses and ivy wound halfway up their sides. A servant, face blank and shadowed like the gondolier’s, stood on the dock. He held his hand out to her. How elegant, she thought. Smiling, she took his hand and let him help her out of the boat. She followed him down the dock to shore. When she reached the foot of the castle, she looked back over her shoulder, but the flowered boat and its gondolier were gone. The owl and the pussycat drifted over the waves.

The servant led her through an archway (WHITE CLIFFS RESTAURANT, she read on the arch) into an ornate hall. She craned her neck at tapestries on the walls, but they were so high and dimly lit that she saw only swirled colors and an occasional human or animal face caught in an almost-scream.

The hall opened onto a balcony. Bowing, the servant left her there, and she walked forward. She was at the top of a spiral staircase that led down into a vast ballroom. Chandeliers with a thousand candles glittered from the ceiling. Mirrors, three stories high, decorated the walls between ivory pillars.

Below was the ball.

A single trumpet played. Laughing, lords and ladies and bears and lions and trolls swirled in a dance as colorful as a kaleidoscope. Silver and gold gowns sparkled in the candlelight, reflected countless times in the mirrors.

“My lady,” a footman said, “I must announce you. What is your name?”

She opened her mouth to speak, and no name came out. Her name . . . She pressed her hands to her forehead and tried to think. Who was she? What was her name? “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t remember.”

She remembered the huntsman. She remembered the knife at her throat. But what came before the huntsman? Something had to have come before the huntsman. She had to have been somewhere before she was there. She hadn’t been born there in the woods with the huntsman and the knife. Had she? Of course not. She felt panic bubble up in her throat. The farthest back she could remember was the huntsman—the huntsman who called her “princess.” She clutched the footman’s arm. “Princess,” she said.

The footman bellowed, “The mysterious princess from unknown lands!” She felt a surge of relief. She knew who she was now. For some reason that she couldn’t name, it had bothered her immensely not to know. Now everything was all right. She was Princess.

The lords and ladies halted their dance. In unison, their faces turned toward Princess. Oddly, the trumpet kept playing, and the bears and lions and wild boars kept dancing.