The first time I ever saw her I was very young. I don't remember how old I was, but I remember that Father had just given me my first wooden sword and I would swing and jab it at my brothers and sisters and pretend I was a knight. We chased each other all around the castle, one time even making such a racket that Father himself came marching out of a meeting with the foreign minister to tell us off.
That night I had climbed sullenly into bed and pulled the covers over my head in shame. William, my personal servant, just chuckled at me as I sulked and told me the next day would be better. Then he blew out the candle and left.
My dreams were bitter and turbulent that night. There was some sort of a sword fight, and Father was there, and I was trying not to run away but I was too frightened, and that was when I first saw her. It never occurred to me to be afraid, but I was struck with the strange angelic quality of her presence as she paced her way quietly through my dream. She never acknowledged the existence of the figures of my dream, nor did she acknowledge my presence.
I can recall exactly the feeling of awe I felt at being in her presence, and the sort of childlike naivety I felt toward her beauty. I felt as though she must have been some sort of an angel.
The next morning the confrontation over the wooden sword was all but forgotten, and I proudly announced to my brothers and sisters that I had been visited by an angel during the night. Of course they all laughed at my silly notions, and as I became more and more adamant about the existence of my angel they began to scorn me. My sister Lucetta sat me down and calmly explained that I had been dreaming and made the whole thing up in my head, and that I was just too young to know the difference. Although I was upset by her words, as well as the ridicule of my other siblings, they planted doubts in my mind about the existence of my strange visitor. Yet I continued to insist upon the existence of my angel if only to prove them all wrong out of spite.
After some weeks the angel had not reappeared in my dreams, and without any sort of proof or theory to follow, I let the subject drop and the whole conflict was soon forgotten. Very soon the visit began to loose clarity in my mind, the details slipping away as often the finer points of dreams do. And as I grew up and grew older I began to believe that that was all it had been; a dream.
