A Beginning,
The Year Nine Hundred & Ninety-Nine,
The Third to Last Night,
In which no wheel has an end.
Night fell at last where the mountains met the sea. The moon shone like a lanternfish’s heart twisted inside-out, hovering between clouds the black of ancient depth. Two children crouched in the darkness halfway up the mountainside, spellbound, watching the sea roll east, endless wave upon wave without end.
“Ready?” Jai whispered.
“Ready,” Ceder whispered back.
Their wheelbarrow had no wheel—it had long since rusted, bent, and broken off, but Jai thought they would be quicker away without it. The mountain was too steep to go by foot in the dark and this was their only chance, wheel or no.
Straining every fiber in his body, Jai grudged the makeshift sled to a building pace over the shale and loose rocks. This is too loud! He turned to check over his shoulder but there was no one there.
The mountainside declined quickly. Jai sprang into the wheelbarrow behind Ceder and they were immediately sledding downhill at an uncontainable speed. He braced his legs against the sides of the cart for stability and tried to steer left or right but he had as little control as a captain whose sinking ship is already halfway below.
******
From the Dawn of Time to Dusk of the Last Day in the Land of Lin there has been, there is, and there will always be a boy named Lion and a girl named Lilly, each as beautiful as summerset, sage as time unwound, more magic in their smallest fingers than all the spells of wry old warlocks, wizards wise, or wishing wells.
They made their home in a forest where the sky was forever cast in silver twilight, but the frozen sunset was a curiosity they both ignored and forgot. They stayed in their forest a thousand years and a single night beset them not. In the enchanted evening they passed their time without a care, inseparable but for the running and the hiding of their play, and only once would they succumb to sleep and in so doing lose their never-ending day.
******
Down the haggard mountainside the wheelbarrow hurtled breakneck into rocks the size of whales’ bones, recklessly off course up rising crests and peaks they sped, cascading over dips and crisscross fractures in the stone. Disturbed for the first time in a thousand years, knocked-loose sand and pebbles zipped past the children’s heads like swarming bees.
Jai held his breath and squeezed Ceder. Her back was clammy against his cheek. He closed his eyes and prayed, but the mountainside was mammoth and their ride down lasted longer than a dream disquiet.
******
Lion and Lilly slowly spun in circles in a moonlit pond and shared a kiss as if it was their first. Then Lion carried Lilly up to the grassy shore and lay beside her, gazing at the stars in the water. She smelled of rainy flowers, close against his droplet-freckled cheek. He smiled as he wrapped his arms around her waist. No sooner than that but they fell asleep.
When Lion woke up, Lilly was gone. The twilight that had graced their forest for a thousand years had given way to Dusk, and Dusk to Dawn. A strand of her hair was all that remained where she had slept—one golden thread, strung through a handful of heart-shaped flower petals, all colors of the rainbow.
He had never been apart from her before. Whether they played tag or ran and hid from one another for uncounted hours, he had always sensed her vividly—a warm spot, like the sun behind closed eyes—but he had never known this deep abyss that was suddenly inside his mind. His thinking plummeted and disappeared.
She was gone.
He knew nothing, now. But how can she be gone, when I have never wished it so?
He pawed at the ground beside him with unthinking fingers and, finding her abandoned flower necklace, scooped it up. As he stared at the glowing petals he felt his own light fade.
Water crystallized in his eyes. Numb, he pulled the necklace on. It circled gently around his neck, his first teardrop in a thousand years fell from his cheek, the forest disappeared, and Lion crashed into a hard world of dark water, headfirst.