I feel the air between us sour as soon as I frown. The immediacy of it—the sudden sharpness in my chest, the gust of cold that blows in through an imaginary window—startles me.
I realize it is because I am not used to people seeing me. Really seeing me, the way this boy does with his buckeye-brown gaze. Perhaps it is because there’s nothing left to distract; it’s just us in this dream, shut off from the rest of the world. Curtains drawn and dark. The room still. Certainly, I am not used to anyone acknowledging my pain; when he sees me jerk in fear, his ears flick back, and there is a terrible part of me secretly delighted by this acknowledgement.
(Terrible because it is insecure and so deeply pleased. It makes me feel real in a way I haven’t felt at all recently—real enough to be paid attention to, real enough to take up space. Heat rises to my cheeks, and I pull my head to my chest for a brief moment, looking away.)
But then he laughs at me. For the second time. His voice is low and rough, supremely self-assured; I see his gaze fall into a derisive slant. When he speaks, there is a lazy, acrid sneer in his voice: I’m so sorry, miss.
The sound of it scrapes my ears sends me jolting through a cycle of emotions. First, anger: how dare he speak to me like that? (I tell myself this is less about my birthright and more about basic manners, and I think I even believe it.) Then, when it fades, my chest seizes with slow, heavy guilt. I feel bad that I’ve snapped at him at all, rude as he is. How many times have I let my siblings get away with far worse offenses?
And after that I don’t feel anything at all. At least not over the bright shock and awe that slams through me.
The bones make a musical rattling. I look down, and at my feet I see them fall apart into sand; the next moment they come together again, but this time they are fireflies with yellow halos, and butterflies with a pearl-white wings. They rise up around me in a divine cloud. One even comes to land on the tip of my nose, where despite myself I cross my eyes to look at it and gasp. “Oh.” But there is the sound of a laugh in it: it is a noise of pure pleasure and surprise. I think I’m even smiling. It feels awkward and unlike me, but I can’t help it.
Then the room grows dark. I’m so distracted by the insects that I almost don’t notice it at first; all the dream-light bleeds out, the way it does in real life when I draw my velvet curtains. But the darkness brings a strange feeling to the surface. My vision goes blurry; it looks as though the walls are melting. That can’t be true, I think.
But it is. I see the cobblestones bleeding into one another. I see their grays and browns go dripping, dripping down the side of a wall that isn’t there anymore. And behind what once was my room there is—nothing. Just a thick, dark velvet that seems to shift colors so quickly it’s dizzying, and I want to panic at the sight of it—the infinite beyond, a darkness with no end, its many facets flashing from gray to black to blue to something I don’t even have a name for—but my body is so heavy. So, so heavy.
I’m staring at him, but my eyes are soft and dark now. The scowl has fallen away; I’m not quite smiling, but my expression feels unusually… well, dreamy.
“I apologize,” comes my voice. “For my rudeness.” I hear myself speak, but it’s not quite my the usual tone—it’s lower, and softer, and edged roughly by something almost like desire. “Thank you for the butterflies. I’m Miriam. By the way.”
