LOST

My mother was a storyteller.

It was her magic.

The way she used to weave words and phrases in the tall alabaster towers of the Silver Islands. I remember running through the halls, my orange silks flying behind me and my sisters in front of me. We looked like butterflies. I remember my bare feet patterned with flowers and twining vines. I remember the way the golden bracelets that my aunts wore glinted in the the sun and the noise they made as they taught us to dance.

I remember gathering together in the harem, with my sisters and my aunts and my only baby brother. I remember colored smoke rising as the lithe form of my mother stepped out of dust and silks and stories.

I remember her words about witches and princesses from the Other Side. The tales about scarecrows and men made of metal. She told us about the mystical land above us where there was a city of green. She told us about a Queen with lavender eyes and her lover that flew around in a big balloon. There was a man shaped like a beast, and another that could turn into a dog. She told us these stories and when they were all over, my sisters would go to bed and there I would be. Begging for more. Trying to get my mother to tell me what happened after or later.

Finally my mother said to me,

“Once upon a time there was a wicked witch who took over the land and threatened its people. She would have conquered the land and thrown it into darkness. But heroes stood before her, a princess, a scarecrow, a tin man, and a beast. Together they defeated the witch and freed the O.Z. Peace swept across the land and for a time it was happily ever after.

But all stories end with 'happily ever after' if you stop them in the right place.

It is when you keep going, that the heroes fall.”

Sometimes in the dark, when I'm hiding, I remember my mothers words.

She was running again. Always running. For the last three years it

never seemed to stop. Day after day, you had to keep moving. Keep moving or die. Keep moving or join the gray faced residents of what was left of the O.Z.

Black hair and dark eyes, dressed in layers and layers of tattered clothing so dirty it was all the same color now. She'd gone too far south and run right into the patrols. Right into the middle of that terrifying noise of metal on metal marching forever. Her eyes were squeezed shut as she slid down a crumbled wall and prayed to any God from here or the other side that they didn't find her. Blank faces, metal that mocked human features, the tiktok men, servants of the Dark Queen.

As the noise died away she chanced a glimpse over the wall before she crept through the mangled buildings back towards the road. She'd gotten lost, taken a wrong turn as she made her way out of the land that used to belong to men. She was far from the center now. Every time she thought she might be close something would happen and she'd be forced to fly in the safest direction.

This was the farthest south she'd ever been though.

It was the coldest and the bleakest.

It was the land that the Dark Queen had risen from.

It bore her mark like any fine piece of craftsmanship.

She sighed and forced herself to keep walking, to keep an eye out for guards and another for anything that might be food. Maybe she could sleep in the mines tonight. Maybe she'd find a barn or another abandoned house. Maybe...

She stopped when her foot sank just a little as she stepped. Froze like a deer and blinked. She was in the middle of some southern ruins and her boot was slowly sinking into the ground.

A gasp was the only sound that escaped her as she tried to throw herself back but heard a sickening 'snap' and found that the ground was gone back there too.