I
In the first dream, roses climb the walls and surround the castle. Their thorns are thick and brown, stalks twisted together to create an impermeable mass. At the heart of the tangle he sits and waits. The chair by the window has cushions made of silk, blue like the sky at evening or the center of a cornflower. There were servants once, and people to talk to before they all succumbed to sleep. Now the castle is still and silent. He counts time by the breathing of the maid, curled on the floor next to the bed.
He is waiting for someone.
II
In a clearing in the forest there's a coffin made of glass. The dwarves crowd him impolitely, full of adjectives, sleepy, grumpy, (dull, witless, beardy.)
The apple is poisoned, they tell him. You'll have to find another way.
He knew that, already. He did. But the dwarves seem so keen on offering their opinion that there's little he can do to dissuade them. The coffin upsets him some, though the reason for it is vague and clouded.
Someday her prince will come.
He wonders a little what it would be like, to have that kind of perfect faith. As long as the dwarves are around, he might as well ask them. How to wake up. It's an important question. He remembers that much, if not the reason why, behind it.
Sometimes a kiss works, the dwarves say. He scowls and they laugh.
III
The glass shoes pinch, in the third dream, and he doesn't want to be at the ball. Women shimmer and twirl around him like many-coloured lanterns; their partners are men in top hats and coattails. No one yet has asked him to dance, and no one will, though his clothes are fine and he is fair. Touched by fairies, they whisper, and they keep a distance, as though he has a dark look about him. It wasn't fairies though. She was his godmother, that was all, and he wants to protest but maybe in the end those two things were the same.
He has only to wait until midnight, and then things will go back to the way they always were. Maybe then he'll have more than talking mice for friends.
IV
It is important to remember one thing, if all else fails or is forgotten, and that is this: it is forbidden to enter the west wing. It's a little like being held a captive, though lately his host has exhibited rare moments of surprising kindness. The most recent of these is the library, with golden shelves from floor to ceiling and rolling ladders he can climb to reach all the best books. He perches halfway up with a teacup on his shoulder, poring over stories filled with rafts, and daring seaward escapes.
We could escape on a raft, the tea cup says. If this castle had a moat.
What about the curse?
Sometimes, you've just got to live with the shape you're dealt, the tea cup answers with his crockery mouth.
No. The book falls from his hands. There should be a loud sound, but he doesn't hear it land.
V
The fifth dream sends him falling down the rabbit hole. It is a slow descent, not at all the pell-mell hurtle through the earth that he would have expected. There are patterns on the tunnel walls, dimly lit. It reminds him a little of something else, some other place, this closeness in the dark. A secret place perhaps, from an island far away.
When he lands there is a rabbit, small and white and cottontailed. It disappears into the shadows on four swift legs and he follows, feeling suddenly taller as the space shrinks down around him. Where there was silence a moment ago there is now a soft ticking, the frenetic heartbeat of a clock urging him on. Such precious little time.
The rabbit, once caught, is wearing spectacles and a waistcoat. He makes note of it, to remember later. These are the details she always liked to hear.
You're late, says the white rabbit. His black beady eyes are filled with reproach.
I know.
He is late.
It's a very important date.
VI
The sand is too hot; it burns his feet, and the sunlight stings his eyes. The heat here is like a liquid, golden and full, tainting the air with its sticky-sweetness and making even the act of breathing a laborious chore. At night the desert is no less fierce, even from the lofty altitudes of a carpet in flight. There are the furtive, hidden places, where tigers' heads come roaring from the sand to swallow the imprudent whole.
There is a tiger in the palace, he knows. It guards the room, with its wide, sandstone balcony, easy access for any beggar or thief with the initiative to climb.
Do you trust me?
He's been here before, he thinks, hand outstretched and the gaping blue ocean of darkness all around them. He's been here before.
Do you trust me?
Maybe he's never truly left.
VII
In the final dream, there are no briars, and no dwarves. No glass shoes to bite at his heels, no beasts and no rabbits. There is sand, but it is of the perfect temperature, a soothing warmth at his back, and in between his fingers and toes. Leafy fronds sway lazily back and forth, caught in the same breeze that ruffles his hair, sends a pleasing chill down his spine.
The beach has many shells. A clever hand could make charms of them, and so he does; on this beach, there is little else to do. When he's finished, he'll have to give it to someone. Charms have no power when crafted for oneself.
He'll wake up soon, won't he? The voice is both familiar and far away. A dream within a dream.
Riku…
He clutches the charm tight. The shells splinter within his hand.