When I walk between the star-skeletons, I cannot remember what living stars look like. And I do not care. They are better this way — dead things freed of the hopes and expectations they did not ask to carry. They are dead. They are free in their death. They are better now.
Isolt does not stop to wonder what broken wishes lie in pieces behind her. And she does not pause to consider who those wishes belonged to, or what they did when they realized all their hopes would never come true. She is not a fallen star to care for the bodies of her siblings, and the hopes and dreams of mortals do not wrap around her heart like the noose of her sister’s.
And when she looks into the mirror of a dead-star, she is not thinking of what it used to be.
It whispers to her (as all dead things whisper to her.) If she could Isolt would turn every star on the island to a risen thing, with moonlight-vines weaving their broken pieces back together and dahlias taking the places of all the wishes that had chained them down. She would turn them all into an army marching across that glass bridge to lay unwanted wishes on the backs of mortals, to carve lines into their skin with their hopes the way they had carved lines across the faces of the stars.
But when she presses her lips against the dead-star-mirror, it only trembles. And it sighs. And it slumbers in its death-sleep.
And the red-eyed unicorn watches her.
She shifts her blood-red gaze up, up to look at the blackbird with silver eyes peering down at her. And if it were not for the unicorn in the mirror (that her that is other in a way she aches to be), she might have felt then like a lion waiting for the sparrow to come within her reach.
But instead she only looks up and thinks how much the girl looks like another broken and dying wish hanging over the earth, as if at any moment she might collapse and be another star-mirror casting her reflection.
“To listen—“ she licks her teeth (her teeth that feel too sharp and not sharp enough at the same time.) “Do you hear them?"
When she tilts her head back at her, she does not need to hear her answer to know it.
And when she looks into the mirror of a dead-star, she is not thinking of what it used to be.
It whispers to her (as all dead things whisper to her.) If she could Isolt would turn every star on the island to a risen thing, with moonlight-vines weaving their broken pieces back together and dahlias taking the places of all the wishes that had chained them down. She would turn them all into an army marching across that glass bridge to lay unwanted wishes on the backs of mortals, to carve lines into their skin with their hopes the way they had carved lines across the faces of the stars.
But when she presses her lips against the dead-star-mirror, it only trembles. And it sighs. And it slumbers in its death-sleep.
And the red-eyed unicorn watches her.
She shifts her blood-red gaze up, up to look at the blackbird with silver eyes peering down at her. And if it were not for the unicorn in the mirror (that her that is other in a way she aches to be), she might have felt then like a lion waiting for the sparrow to come within her reach.
But instead she only looks up and thinks how much the girl looks like another broken and dying wish hanging over the earth, as if at any moment she might collapse and be another star-mirror casting her reflection.
“To listen—“ she licks her teeth (her teeth that feel too sharp and not sharp enough at the same time.) “Do you hear them?"
When she tilts her head back at her, she does not need to hear her answer to know it.
