Chapter 22
I’m sitting on my bed, still wearing my nightgown. I look in the direction of the window, trying to define my spatial and temporal coordinates. The light coming from the outside has the brightness of summer mornings at 8 or 9 a.m. The hour has not changed since I entered the time machine, but from the look of what I am wearing I must have landed in a long gone century. My room is beautiful, arrases are draped along the walls, the leaded glass of the window is finely crafted, and the furniture is made of good quality wood, elaborately carved.
I am unaware of my current identity, but judging from the surroundings I belong to a rich family.
Memories of a dream flash back to my mind – or was it another trip like the one I am taking now? Is there a difference? I recall my mother’s words, “The royal family to which you belong,” she had said.
I am pondering if I am in the royal palace, when I hear a knock on the door.
“Please come in,” I say, not knowing what to expect next.
A stiff woman impeccably dressed in a long dark dress opens the door.
“His Majesty expressed his wish to see Lady Iris,” she announces.
So I really am in the royal palace.
I nod, as a rush of adrenaline abruptly gushes through me.
When the king steps forward he fills the door with his presence, and when I see him – for this first unforgettable time - I gasp.
I am not intimidated by his size, the authority he exudes or the power he holds. What knots my tongue is instead my own reflection projected on him, a resemblance between myself and this man so striking I doubt – now more acutely than ever before – about the uniqueness of my identity.
“Iris, my child, it is time for me to speak to you with great urgency,” my father the King tells me, his frown deepening as his gaze runs from my charcoal eyes to my naked arms, my legs and feet, pale and exposed.
I observe the apprehension in the king’s eyes with tenderness, loving for the first time the father I’ve never met before.
“I am here to listen, father,” I tell him, smiling.