Cross the highways of fantasy,
Help me forget today’s pain,
Take me to the far side of the moon and meet me on the other side,
Dream Weaver…
(Gary Wright)
Earth 17th Century
Transylvania
‘Oh little girls should be seen and not heard,’ according to my uncle, was law in our home, I resented this edict with a passion. He is so mean.
I would sulk and traipse off to my piano lessons in the village, but uncle would play what he called, ‘grown up games’ with all those village girls and leave me to my own devices which suited me just fine, but it did feel odd being a princess unescorted in the village outside the castle walls.
As far as my roguish uncle was concerned, I was too little it seemed to understand what went on between him and the local girls. I thought my uncle and his lady friend’s silly games were boring, stupid and uninteresting. I didn’t care anyway, they weren’t pretty, nor could they sing, or sew, they couldn’t even read me stories; they couldn’t do much of anything actually.
I would huff and shrug it off then thought of other things to amuse myself as I skipped along the path leading to the house where I would soon lose myself in my music. Melanie Oneida, a lady with long black hair like mine, and a pretty white lace dress and big pink bow tied at the waist welcomed me and took me through my paces in my advanced pianoforte.
One day, when one of my uncle’s lady friends visited I asked her to read to me. She looked at me as if I'd just grown an extra head and just put the book down and told me a story. I didn't really mind that she couldn’t read nor write, as she was a good storyteller.
“In a time forgotten by the scribes and the poets and dreamers, there was a realm where the most fascinating people dwelt,” she began.
As the tale unraveled, it moved from a pretty picture faery tale to something else altogether unpleasant. She was scaring me, her eyes darkened as she waved her thin arms to accent a point in the story where something horrible happened I almost cried.
Without knowing how, I was no longer in the room listening to the story; I had begun to live the story.
I was somewhere else; a princess by the name of Nehelenia, the name rang in my ears like a death knell. The sneering girl telling the story, for a second or two had become the dark crystal lizard queen.
I saw the death, the pestilence, the curse of mirrors and I was dizzy for a moment or so as I clung to my seat to prevent myself falling to the floor as I struggled to regain consciousness.
She giggled and softened the tone, huffing with impatience as if frightening tales were normal to tell a nine-year-old girl. Least she did try, sort of, but it was a strange story of dark places and awful monsters, bad people who hurt little girls, and a story that sucked you into its world as if it were real.
“Stop it!” I demanded.
“Oh little mistress, you need to be made of stronger stuff if you are to rule as queen yourself one day when your father dies, little Elizabeth.”
“Please go, my father will not die for many, many years, you dare speak of such things and address me improperly, you dreadful girl! I tire of your dark tales.”
“Very well, child; But you will meet your fate one day and you must be brave, for it will come sooner than you might expect, princess,” she almost spat out the words.
I said nothing as she gathered her belongings and was soon gone. They found her body a month later, she had been drained of blood; I had heard this from Jacque, one of the village boys. I wasn’t sorry to hear this news. I know that was awful, but that woman was wicked.
---
Oh, Elizabeth this, and Elizabeth that, stuffy adults, even mamma and papa are tiresome at times, what a young princess has to endure.
Yet their annoying admonishments help me forget the nasty dreams, they are silly things, I swear somebody gets into my dreams and tries to upset me. I hate them so. Today, my cares reside in fickle parental and family matters, when I would rather spend the day reading, or playing with the children of court.
“It is befitting of a princess to pay attention,” my mother, Queen Bathory would say, “harrumph!”
I would practice my posture and other deportment trials before my huge full-length mirror, pulling faces as I did my poor impersonation of my mother’s words.
Pouting, and sticking out my tongue, it was great fun, until I felt the cold crystal hand that came out of the smooth mirror grabbing my tongue and squeezing it hard.
“Child, you ought to be ashamed making fun of your mother like that. You are so unappreciative of her efforts to make a lady of you, brat!” the scary crystal face sneered as it chastised me.
The naked obsidian lady standing before me, hands on hips, eyes flashing red and blood all over her legs. She made me want to scream, but I almost gagged at the effort, such was the pain of her cold grip.
She looked like lignite, black and shiny. She was a demoness of some kind, of that I was certain. She vanished, a loud whooshing sound signaling her departure. I collapsed.
“I bid you farewell Elizabeth, remember me, my name… Metalia!” then she was gone.
---
I was taken to the shamaness; she treated my swollen tongue and cautioned me from eating anything hot or too large until the swelling went down.
I didn’t tell them about the ugly lizard tongued naked lady. She was scary, and there were the voices of little girls coming out of her mouth, crying out for help and the witch laughed as she squeezed my tongue and it had turned a nasty shade of purple.
I had bad dreams for a week and only a mild potion would grant me peace.
Silver Millennium
Dark Side of the Moon Kingdom
I was sore after the long walk to the mountains with my sponsor, Lord Iona and his wife Senoia. Footsore, bruised hands, tired muscles, I was a princess not a tomboy, but I had to admit it was fun after all the climbing was done.
We had a wonderful time catching fish in the clear stream and I saw my sprites, they follow me wherever I go where water might be present. They poked faces and tried to make me laugh while I was drinking, or eating; it was all I could do not to splutter my food and drink over myself, or anyone else for that matter such were their antics.
I survived my near bout of unrequited laughter, but only just, the sprites I would lecture on royal etiquette the first chance I got. They never listened though, but that was all part of their charm. Only I, the Crown Princess of the Dark Moon could see these beings.
When I slept, they came, from my mirror, or from any body of water. If I were relaxed or tired, they would appear and play with me, and they were hiding from the one they called, Metalia, a dreadful monster lady.
As I drifted off into the land of dream, I heard the sweet music again. So gentle, you would miss it if you didn’t listen properly, as it faded into the background my thoughts returned to present considerations. Mother always taught me to be attentive.
I then heard the sound of breaking glass and my body suddenly shattered into a billion shards of glittering confusion like smashed wind chimes.
Who was I, I was Princess Nehelenia, but I was also somebody else, somebody I did not like very much, a cruel lady with a face that looked as if she was sucking on a lemon - and so awful to those she didn’t like. She wasn’t me I knew that, yet she was, me, wasn’t she? If so, not how I am or ever wish to be.
I fell into a numb state, a mere floating witness to my suffering. I was crying but couldn’t hear my sobs, my body locked away inside thick black glass, trapped like a butterfly. It was dark, so dark – but then it began again and I lost myself to the images. Who was I again?
My faery guardian told me that the dream world was being cut off by dark shadow people whom had come from the sun. The faery queen, Cerciana, who would teach me to play her magical silver flute that was more like crystal than silver, explained that in times gone by, the sun people waged war against the rest of the galaxy.
Once more, I brought my brush to the canvas, losing myself in my latest phantasm. I had to admit though, that the tale did intrigue me. Shadows, souls collected and put into dark crystal life-size dolls that moved like people flooded my dreams. The dreams did not end, not even at fifteen solar rotations, I was an emergent young woman, comely according to the boys and young men of the realm who admired me and made no secret of the fact either.
I love flowers. Oh yes, and my personal garden is amongst the finest in the kingdom, but the Sun Queen who had come in my dreams as she continued to do more frequently these days, made me shudder as her giant obsidian flower made me cry due to the evil power it exuded. She told me that she was expelled from the Temple of Solaris for what the adults called, ‘unspeakable acts against the innocent of the material plane’ I covered my ears. She made fun of me saying innocence was tiresome. The dark crystal lady with flashing bright red eyes and a lizard’s tongue terrified me. If not for her horrific accessories, she would be pretty, and sweet too if not so, you know, evil.
Japan
Kyoto
Biwa Province: 20th Century
I had no idea that I was actually dreaming at the time, but it all felt so real, the dream world so vivid. I was this girl, Elizabeth Bathory. I cried all the way home to the palace. I loved that holiday house, once a place where I would run and dance with the butterflies and spend time with my favorite cats, read with my governess, paint, but she too had gone. I knew not where. All I knew was she had deserted me as had so many of the important people in my life.
I was now with mother, living in an old, but not unpleasant cottage with a pretty garden and a gentle brook at the base of the hill. Mother was often away, but there was always Jake Torero, my personal bodyguard. He was good fun to be around and he made me laugh whenever he had finished his duties and could spend some time with me.
I didn’t understand any of it, where the people had gone, why we had moved out of the castle, none of it.
Mother was not only a queen, but also a priestess of a secret order of Isis, if this was known by the Hapsburgs; it would mean certain death for us all.
Home was home, but my grandmother was another matter. Mother and I feared and disliked the nasty old crone who didn’t like me or mother all that much despite having given her life, she had always treated mother as if she were a housemaid.
“Child, it is a shame you look like your wretched mother. You are burdened with the legacy of the dark butterfly, and so to you it must fly.”
“Shut the hell up you witch, you’re not real!” I knew then I was dreaming, but I slapped this cow just the same.
Realizing I was hitting the pillow and that my cat Amethyst had jumped clear of the bed; I shot up panting.
Waking from another of those terrible nightmares was always an exercise in panic and palpitations.
“That damned dream again!” I breathed, reaching for the chair by my bedside, and pulled my MP3 player out of my skirt pocket and plugged in my earphones.
J-pop always chased off the monsters of my recurring dreams and I soon felt much better.
After a while, I put away my music player and felt around under my bed for the glass skeleton key I wore on a silver chain to the trunk in my wardrobe.
Now was the time for earnest investigation. After all, I had a lot to keep me occupied given the strange legacy I had inherited upon father’s death.
Mother and I would be all right. She told me the Order, known as the Shachihoko whoever or whatever they were, would make sure we weren’t wanting for anything. I would soon turn fourteen; my education father had already paid before he was killed.
The police had visited mother so many times I even knew them on a first name basis: Guárico and Jaime, nice guys. The detectives were hot, but I was feeling so sad every time I saw them.
I could only cry as I hugged mother when they sat in the living room and asked their questions.
I turned my thoughts away from these troubling memories and sought my quarry. Hidden beneath the lace fabric, the brooch of copper carrying the crest of the dark butterfly was pretty and very mysterious. this, a true prize for the little girl I once had been who sought the secrets to all things dark and unknown, but I had put it away and now, some ten years on I would take another look.
I reached for the glittering prize and heard a woman screaming as the pain shot into my hand.
“No, don’t touch it Nehelenia it will trap you again!”
I was distracted by the warning that seemed to come from all around me, but I didn’t understand, but oh, but do I now.
“Eep! You bit me, oh my… what is that!”
The dress mirror quivered and a host of miniature dark crystal faery-like girls was peering out at me. I closed my eyes and let my mind slip away.
Everything was so lucid. I had no idea where I was or how I got there but it didn’t matter right now, I was here and had to deal.
I was frozen in the grip of a painful night trauma. The shimmering black wings of the night butterfly, kissed by the light of a full moon, having extricated itself from the dream mirror, my mirror - my nightmares realized as I entered this alien realm, my fears on the wing.
I didn’t quite register it at first, the girl, with long dark hair, who was she? The setting, a Gothic and dark dank chamber with no sense of direction enveloped my disembodied form.
She walked with a sophisticated gait, flared pumpkin colored mini-skirt, figure hugging long sleeved top, black, and her stocking clad legs catching cobwebs as she moved along the dark forbidding corridor on high heels towards a room I couldn’t see, but knew was there.
I then noticed the blood on her well-shaped calves, claw marks by the looks of it, the stockings ruined. She seemed unfazed, oblivious of the fact. She then swatted a large spider the size of a dinner plate away, the woman huffing in annoyance as she pushed forward through the next wall of ancient cobwebs.
Obsidian faces, evil, hideous looking things with large red eyes and sharp teeth snickered, grimaced, made faces, as if they weren’t butt-ugly enough already. She moved past these unseeing or not caring about the monsters mocking her as she moved by each haunted alcove.
She had only one objective and nothing would dissuade or distract her from her course. Scary black beetles the size of a small cat scurried into shadow, squeaking their protestations, afraid of the beautiful woman.
The door opened and chained up against a stone pillar, I could see within an onyx mirror a silhouette of a girl. She was dirty, blood and mud soling her tattered party dress, once pretty was torn and frayed. The girl’s arms and legs covered in scratches and caked with dried blood shocked me. I noticed her hair that hung over her face was clean that pooled in her lap. She lifted her eyes, puffy and red from crying, to meet mine. I froze in terror.
Chained to the slender column was me, another me. How could anyone do this to such an innocent, but then I remembered the dark crystal lizard queen that haunted my dreams for years.
I screamed. I was gazing at my younger self-trapped within an onyx mirror. Then the child’s hair color had changed. I was confused. Was she my polar opposite? I looked again. She was being beaten by wispy wraiths. I couldn’t understand anything I was seeing, an illusion perhaps, some kind of cryptic representation of a tortured soul; I didn’t know.
