Stroke of Midnight Plus Ten Years, Ten Days, Twenty-One Hours, and Twelve Minutes
Let us imagine an evening at the height of summer. The sun is setting, the air heavy and soft in those magical few minutes before the mosquitoes come out. In the forest the ruddy light filters sideways between the trunks of the trees; in the ravines it is nearly dark, the day's golden-green turned to blue-black with a suddenness that can be frightening to the uninitiated. But the children whose distant laughter we hear do not sound frightened.
They've grown up here. They've named every tree, catalogued every turn of the stream that runs through the wood and into the fields, meandering by their house on its way down from the secret places. Secret to everyone but them. Each rock is their friend, and though the forest does contain enemies, those are easy enough to avoid.
We need no path. Let us follow the laughter directly through the trees to where three small figures approach a clearing, their hands heavy with treasures: stones and pinecones, chestnuts and blackberries. In the clearing there is a cottage, snug though not exactly pretty, having had rooms added on at different times. But its windows glow with a welcoming light, and the smell of dinner wafting from them makes the children's stomachs rumble.
Let us approach a window softly, before the cottage's occupants shutter it for the night. A man and a woman speak companionably as they place the dishes on the table. They are generous with their smiles; their touches as well, whenever one passes close enough to the other. In their rather tight quarters, this happens frequently.
The woman raises her head at the sounds from outside; she smiles, says something. The man laughs a reply and pulls her close, playfully, and she resists, playfully. But by the time the door bangs open their embrace has become ardent enough to make the children sigh and roll their eyes.
Now let us fall back from the house and follow the creek that runs next to it: not downstream, toward what passes for civilization, but up, where it laughs through a ravine and between the shoulders of gentle hills, backward up small rapids, through a cut in the rock hewn by years of patient water, and into the narrow cave from which its headwaters spring. This is the deepest part of the wood, where even the children have not yet dared to explore. It is also a deep part of the stream, but the water is so clear that, in the daylight, one can see through fathoms as though they were inches.
Hours have passed, the moon has risen, though its glow barely makes it through the crowns of the trees. What little light there is finds a gleam of faceted glass, almost hidden beneath the shifting sands of the streambed. It winks and glitters, many-colored, tempting. But here there is no one to tempt.
Miles away, the children dream in one room and their parents love in another. Here, in the dark, the glass slipper sleeps alone.