Accidents of Circumstance

Chapter 9: Kiss in the Dark

Word spread by dinnertime. Regina Vial had arrived just that morning, stepping out of shimmering air, bruised and battered and broken. She insisted on talking to Dumbledore, intent on warning him against Death Eater activity.

Then she had slipped into a coma.

Madam Pomfrey had done her best, but all she could fix were the bruises, broken bones and missing tissue. Regina looked presentable after dinner, and Madam Pomfrey allowed a maximum of two students at a time to see her.

For someone who had seemed larger than life, suddenly Regina became defined by absence, stillness and pale silence. Her gift for listening suddenly grew phenomenal, since there was no way to repeat anything back.

Harry, Hermione and Ron had visited during the day, then began to try and scour the books in the Restricted Section for information regarding the potions ingredients Regina had recited upon her arrival. Neville had said that he would take a shift to stay by Regina; students believed that talking to her constantly would wake her.

"You can't die, Regina," Neville whispered. "You made me believe in magic again, that I don't have to be an Auror to be good. I know I'm scared of everything, that my parents made me scared of magic. You made sense when you said I had other options, I didn't need to be just like Mum and Dad. Because I know I don't want to be..." Neville put his head down next to Regina's hand. The broken bones had been set and magicked into place. The skin had been repaired, the hole had sealed over and most of the discoloration was gone. He grasped her hand loosely. "You made me believe in magic, true magic. You can't just go like this, you can't die from this. You're so strong, you can't."

Pansy Parkinson had come into the hospital room and gently sent Neville away. He was shocked; usually she was just as nasty as any stereotypical Slytherin. She tried to cast a complicated healing spell, but all it did was singe the hair from her hands. Regina lay there beneath the blanket untouched and still breathing evenly. "I tried, Regina," Pansy said with a sigh, collapsing back into a chair. "It should've worked, I don't know why it backfired like that. It's better to try something than to sit and cry."

Draco came in while Pansy's back was turned, sitting in a chair in the far corner. All of the Alternative Magic class was set to take turns watching over Regina, but Draco wanted to see for himself that she was alive. He still had trust issues.

Sometime during Blaise's visit, Draco fell asleep.

***

"My darling dear, how good of you to come and visit me," he said, voice sibilant and slithery. He had taken on the form of a serpent, the winged and legged serpent from ancient history, before they lost their legs and feathers and were forced to slither on their bellies. "Let me pour you tea," he insisted, soft and dreamy.

Let me suck you back in under my spell, he meant to say.

"No thank you, Morgan."

"Pity. You would have done so well."

Regina sat down in front of the gate separating their two worlds. "Tell me what happened to make you attack us that night."

Morgan smiled, sharp angular teeth glinting in the pale moonlight, forked tongue tasting the air. His slitted yellow eyes took in her form. "Dear girl, there was just a beautiful broken bitch." Morgan slithered up to the gate on his belly and the light shone smoothly off his silvery scales. She knew it wasn't real silver, not all of it, only thirty pieces worth of it.

"Loral was one of the monsters I saw."

"Loral was quite the darling," Morgan crooned. He twisted the coils of his body so he could raise himself almost to eye level. "The good little witch at her witch trial, the smoking fat all delicious in the air. She was so beautiful when they set her on fire, my little witch, so achingly beautiful I think she even put you to shame."

"She's one of the monsters in the city."

"Darling dear, there are always monsters in the city. Cities are thick with them, such plentiful hiding places, you know. It's so easy to find a haven within the stinking bowels of that city you call home. Loral isn't any different from the others that have found a home there."

"Did you try to break her, too?"

Morgan snorted indelicately. "Darling, she was broken long before I got to her." Now he grinned his sharp toothy grin. "I just shattered her to bits." Morgan sighed now. "Such a blinding lack of imagination in you today, darling dear. And to think you once held such brilliant promise... Such a shame. Time broke you down bit by bit, how utterly dismal and banal. I wonder why I never thought of it myself..."

Disgusted, Regina got up and brushed off her pants. "You aren't telling me anything."

"On the contrary, my darling dear, I've told you everything there is to tell you. Now it's all up to you."

Regina got up, felt the world around her shift as she stood.

He lies in the heart of the garden and if you want him you'll have to find him and you'll be tested as you've never been tested before in your life. Trust me, little fallen angel, you'll break out your wings before you're through, or else you'll fall to earth and shatter like pieces of glass. You'll have to find yourself in the heart of the garden, you'll have to find the seeds of the garden. And when you know the truth of the garden, only then will you find all that you really seek.

Ready to go?

Regina felt herself being pulled, body rippling on air, becoming insubstantial.

At the edge of the forest is a gibbet. Swinging in time to the wind is the last loser, picked to blackened bones by the passing ravens and crows. The chimerical messengers had brought tales of this place far and wide, so all fey long since abandoned the place to the gibbet and the crows. The fireflies passed by, blinking their slow Morse code, easy circles in their endless summer courtship. The dancing days of the clearing were long over, replaced by the pillory, by the gibbet. Only the gibbet still remained, its strong rope still containing a body. The cages were still up, but empty. They were empty not because there had never been bodies in them, but because the remnants of blackened flesh had long since rotted away, and the bones had fallen through the holes in the bottom, piling up willy nilly underneath the cages. The skull had even fallen out, nicked here and there as it had been pushed out of the grating. Claw marks were etched into the dome of the skull, the work of previous generations of crows perching on them, pulling them through the metal grating.

The crows lifted up their voices. Someone was coming down the path to the forest edge, a steady, heavy plodding trod of determination. Someone was coming, after all this time. New food, new meat, someone new to meet and greet.

The crows circled overhead, cawing their excitement. The ravens flew in from the trees and perched on the crosspiece of the gibbet. They too began to cry, feeling the edge of someone important coming down the road. New food, new meat, someone new to meet and greet.

The fireflies blinked their slow and steady blink, circling past the birds. They landed on the floor of the gibbet, beyond the edge of the trapdoor. All in a row, they were steadily blinking their luciferase lights. They were waiting with the animal patience they had, waiting for something new to report to the chimerical messengers, waiting for something important and new. They could carry the excitement of the birds, the low dread chant echoing in their minds. New food, new meat, someone new to meet and greet.

The voice carried over the still air. The birds were startled by it, the steady blink broke its rhythm. No one sang on this desolate road to the forest edge. No one ever would sing in a sweet voice as if they didn't know what was here. No one who walked this path ever returned from it. The rope would close about their neck, the trap door would fall, and there would be the crack of bone in the neck. The breath would be released in a rush, a silent sigh of death. Then the feast would begin, when the nerves stopped firing their useless fire, when the body would stop jerking, when the wastes would be released by dead sphincter muscles. Or if not the rope, there was the cage, the living person squeezed inside and screaming in fear. The death would come slowly, not quickly, and the birds would watch silently, waiting for the inevitable end. The rusted locks would stand still, would never release the prisoner. And there was death by starving and thirst. With the last exhalation, the birds would come and pick at the bones between the bars, would begin to feast upon the offering of flesh they were given.

New food, new meat, someone new to meet and greet.

But the voice, the voice, the sweet voice lilting as if the end weren't known, as if the end weren't feared.

"Strength, a card of the Major Arcana..."

***

Draco had been startled awake with the sound of a chair being dragged across the hospital floor. He opened his eyes and saw Ginny Weasley sit down, Divinations book in hand. She apologized for having to study for a test she had the next day. "But I really do like this class, even if it's all made up. I mean, the cards don't lie, they work. I can trust them more than any book... I've had bad experiences with books. But having to do an interpretation... she likes it when we make it more dramatic."

Ginny settled into the chair and began to read aloud the history of the Tarot, then the cards of the Major Arcana. She stopped at that point, explaining that her test was only covering those two topics. She then began to read her notes out loud, sipping water every once in a while to ease her throat. Draco found that she took very good notes, and she was full of quips about Trelawney's class. Ginny was actually funny, if she let herself be.

"Don't let them take you to St. Mungo's when you wake up, Regina," she said suddenly, stopping in the middle of reading about the Strength card. "It's hard to live if you're there. It's no fun to be there, everyone listening to what you say looking for some other meaning, staring at you like you're poison and you're going to kill everyone by looking at them. They act like you're some kind of monster, some demon, like you should pluck your eyes out and swallow them to give them something to do with you. Everything you say there is twisted somehow, you're never normal if you're in there, right?

"And maybe you'll say something like that. Maybe you say that you can't trust them, you don't believe they can ever help you or understand. So then they take out a quill and they make notes, and they stare at you, and you know they think you're dangerous and that you'll hurt them somehow. You hiss at them, and they become afraid of them, and the nurses come at night with potions to keep you from dreaming. You wake up screaming and you don't know why, since you aren't really dreaming, but you do it anyway, and you try to take off your skin with your fingernails, but it isn't working. You want to gouge out your eyes, but they don't ever let you do that. There's pills and potions and lotions, and the walls are spelled to keep you safe. You can't hurt yourself in their isolation rooms. They take their notes and they mutter at themselves behind the glass, and you know there's something wrong with you and they can't fix it. They don't know what it is, they can't understand what's happened. And you begin to think they're right, you're poison, you're death on feet.

"And maybe after a while, you begin to believe it. You begin to want it. You know they think you're dangerous, and you want to be. You want to give them something back, make them understand the nightmares, why you keep screaming or trying to take off your own skin. But they never understand, they just look their looks and make their notes and they never understand why it hurts so much to breathe. They don't understand that ache inside, the hole in your chest that never seems to fill, the emptiness that gets work when it gets dark, like it's a reflection of your soul gone bad. You're nothing but an interesting bug to them, someone to pick apart to whisper about once they leave the room and lock the door. They only want to pick you apart, see you from the inside out, remake you into something they can understand. Or else..." Ginny drank the last of the water. "Sometimes they look like they'd rather put you into a rusted cage, see how long it takes until you fall apart."

Draco handed her another glass of water. Ginny, eyes wide with shock at having been listened to for all this time, nearly dropped the glass. Draco's hand closed around hers, catching the glass. "We don't want another accident."

"What are you doing here?"

"Watching over Regina."

His face was unreadable, and Ginny was gripped by an unreasonable terror. "How much did you hear?"

"Everything."

She made a choking sound, and tried to move away. She had to get away, suddenly it was much too much for her to handle. He would make fun of her, he would use her words against her somehow, he could use it against her brother or Harry...

Draco took the glass of water with his other hand and set it on the night stand next to Regina's bed. "They never said what happened to you after your first year. They all pretended like it was all right, you were all fixed."

"I only pretended to be," Ginny said, then could have kicked herself for admitting it out loud. To Draco, of all people...

His hands held hers between them. She looked at them dumbly, not knowing what was happening, why he was suddenly being so nice to her, why he didn't look at her with disgust as he usually did. She was poor, after all, wearing hand me downs from a second hand shop, carrying overused books that were too long out of date and hiding behind shadows to try and make people forget about her. She was the silent one. There was nothing special about her, nothing.

"What was it really like?" he asked, his voice silky and quiet. "No one ever talks about it."

"I don't like to."

"Tell me... Make me understand what happened."

"Why?"

"Because you had him take over, you knew what it was like to be out of control. Tell me what happened so I can make sense out of what's happening to me."

"But nothing's wrong with you."

"Something broke," Draco whispered, bringing her hands to his chest. "Here, right here. I don't know how to fix it."

"Maybe you're not meant to be fixed."

"My father said that about you, that you were supposed to be sacrificed, that you were supposed to stay broken. But you got fixed. Fix me."

His voice was so desperate, Ginny almost felt as though he might understand the quiet desperation she had felt at the close of her first year. "But I pretended," Ginny whispered. It seemed too awful to admit in her normal tone of voice. "I made believe I was fine, I said everything they wanted to hear, just to get me out. I did everything I could to make them believe I was fine, I acted strong and healthy. I still felt broken."

"But you're not, not really," Draco insisted. "You still walk and talk, you're still here, and you're just fine. You sit with them, you eat with them, you talk with them. You're still around all the rest of them, you act like you belong."

"I can't fit in with the others all the time. Sometimes it's too loud in the common room, sometimes it hurts to be near them. They don't know, they're too innocent."

"Yes."

"I can't tell them, I can't explain..."

Draco clenched her hands tighter. "Explain to me. Tell me, I want to know."

Ginny took a deep breath. It seemed almost too easy to confide in Draco, maybe because it had been his father's fault about the diary, maybe because he did honestly seem to understand how you could still be lonely in a crowd. "I became someone else, someone I didn't know. I was missing time, not remembering how I got into places, what I had been doing. But what I did remember was acting different. I didn't like who I was."

"But how did you fix it?"

"I still haven't," Ginny said slowly, wondering what the hell had been in that water to make her admit all of this. "I just pretend everything's fine. If I keep pushing it away, sometimes I can almost believe I'm normal, and not fucked up."

Draco blinked, and there was a slow smile spreading across his face. "Gryffindors swear?"

"They can if Slytherins can be nice."

His face darkened. "I don't think I can be."

"You're here, and you haven't told me off once. You haven't mentioned my hair or my freckles or my clothes or my books or my family."

"Somehow it doesn't seem important anymore."

"Why?"

"I've disowned my family," Draco said slowly. "Not really, but I won't take the Dark Mark like my father wants me to."

"So now what will you do?"

"I don't know... I never had a choice, so I never thought about what I wanted to do."

"Have you thought about it lately?"

"Maybe I'll apply to be an apprentice with Snape. I like Potions."

Ginny wrinkled her nose at his words. "But you'll be dealing with Snape."

"He likes Slytherins, at least," Draco said with a negligent shrug. He dropped her hands and traced the curve of her lower lip. "I don't know anything else I'm good at."

"Won't your family hate you?"

Draco could tell by the tone of her voice that she had probably never been truly hated by her family in all of her life. He had never known what that could feel like, to be so completely loved by parents with no strings attached. "I'm sure they already do," he said, his voice breaking slightly. He hadn't meant to show how much it hurt.

"Where will you go? You can't go home, then?"

It hit Draco like a blow to the chest. Ginny was right. He couldn't go home for the summer, since it would be a battle zone. His father would never allow him to remain at home and not be a Death Eater.

Ginny watched the emotions fly across Draco's features. He had probably never been so open to anyone else in all his life before. It was touching and almost disturbing at once. He was always so aloof, and Ginny was only beginning to think that perhaps he had been forced to be that way, never having anyone to confide in. She had to wonder why it was her, this skinny little girl in a different House that wasn't even glamorous or pretty, wasn't rich, and didn't stand out in any way other than the red Weasley hair. Maybe it was because she had seen exactly what he was up against, yet somehow had come through all right. Maybe he was hoping some of that luck would rub off onto him.

Draco leaned in slowly, and touched his lips to hers. It was a sweet, undemanding kiss in the dark, something she could move away from if she really wanted to.

But suddenly Ginny didn't want to. This fragile understanding was more than she had ever had in the past four years. There wouldn't be any need to deny the darkness that she was afraid of, since Draco already knew exactly what it was. She didn't have to pretend that she was pure and blameless, since Draco already knew what had been done. She didn't need to be anything other than Ginny Weasley, Survivor. And Draco didn't need to be anything other than a survivor himself. Somehow, it seemed so simple.

Ginny hesitantly responded to Draco's kiss, and touched his jaw with her fingertips, as though she couldn't quite believe it was happening. Draco licked the edge of her closed lip, and Ginny opened up her mouth, not quite sure what he was going to do. She gasped when she felt Draco's tongue touch her lip, her teeth, the tip of her tongue. Draco didn't push, just gently outlined Ginny's mouth.

Ginny pulled back first. Her eyes were wide, reflecting the dim candlelight. "Wow."

Draco's lips curved into a small smile devoid of sarcasm. She didn't think she had ever seen him look genuinely happy before. "Yeah. That was pretty good."

"Should we... uh... Try that again, maybe?"

Now he grinned. "Practice makes perfect, doesn't it?"

Ginny answered his grin with one of her own. "I don't mind practicing..."

***

The girl had run down the path, past the gibbet and birds. She kept to the hidden path unerringly, as if guided by magic.

The ravens and crows let up a cry, a raucous shout of disappointment. No, this wasn't the way the story should go, they shouted. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be written, it should have ended in their benefit.

The little blinking fireflies swirled up in an eddy and then disappeared. They were off to tell their chimera messengers what had happened, to describe the girl that had dared to run. The fey would be so pleased, since the girl was touched with a fragment of their glamour. They knew the girl, they knew her. She had known at least one of them, and they would want to know that one of theirs had passed the clearing.

Of course, the path only led on to the maze, but it was a detail the fireflies didn't know. After all, no one had gotten past the clearing before. The birds wanted their food, wanted someone new to meet and greet, and had lifted the others into the cages as they struggled their lives away.

Leave me the way I was before...

The path would twist out of sight, and the birds couldn't follow. Theirs was the place of the clearing. They had no right to be in the forest. They were spelled to stay in the clearing, to take all the clearing had to offer. Their magic didn't extend onto the forest path, and the birds squawked their anger. They were cheated! Cheated! No more meal, no more newness to meet and greet and eat!

A raven picked at a blackened bit of tendon thoughtfully. He watched the girl pass by with beady black eyes, black as the rest of him. He swallowed the tendon and then took to wing. He wasn't one of the other spelled birds, and was able to move out of the clearing. He could move on, but usually didn't. He had been bidden to wait for the one that passed the clearing and found the path through the woods. And now that she was here, he could take to wing and fly overhead, warning the others.

She's here, she's here and she's intent on entering the maze within the forest!

The message was acknowledged, and the raven circled around before alighting on a forest tree branch, watching.

The trees pressed in on the path. The path twisted, low branches dipped down to touch her hair, catch it in their twigs and leaves. There were rustling noises in the distances, deer or wolves or such things. They didn't approach the path, didn't like the smell of it. It too had been spelled once upon a time, and the faint traces still carried on the scent of the path. The protection spell kept the dangerous animals away, but didn't bother with those who needed to be on the path or the innocents who would cross it.

Of course, step off the path and you could be doomed.

The sun had long since disappeared, and an eerie green twilight was illuminating the forest. Dizzy patterns of fireflies spun past, an effect that seemed like animal Morse code. The sparrows cooed overhead, a soft sound. They flitted across the path, close to her, but not close enough yet to touch. They hadn't decided on her yet, knowing that she got past the ravens and crows but not how. Did she kill the birds? Did she simply walk past? There was a difference in how she escaped the clearing. Those who killed the birds were bad, those who ran could pass by unmolested. But there was no smell of blood and bone, and that was a good sign.

A murder of crows.

A parliament of rooks.

An unkindness of ravens.

Why were they so mean to the birds? A flock couldn't help what name it was called, but did it have to be so mean? Why did mortals have to fear the psychopomps?

There was a lake in the middle of the forest, and two girls were sitting on the bank of the lake. Empyrean stood up first, a solid block of a girl, wrapped up in a loose dress reminiscent of Roman togas. The other girl, Niue, had a similar dress, but in light blue as opposed to white. She had red hair bound up in little braids, and seemed to flit about like a human-sized butterfly. Empyrean stood still, and saw Regina first. She didn't say a thing, but stood there almost defiantly. Niue saw Regina next, then waved. She made the introductions on their part, and Regina introduced herself. Then Niue ran up to her and pulled on her hand. "Oh, do say you'll come and be our third sister? It's been so long since such a one has passed by, and so long since we've had a sister..."

"What are you talking about?"

"Our third sister was mortal. She was so beautiful, and she was so mortal... We're waiting to reestablish our triumvirate with another sister..."

Now the quiet one spoke up. "She won't be our sister, Niue."

"What do you mean? Of course she will? Just feed her some, drink her some, lay her some, sleep her some, sit her some... If she's here long enough..."

"Look at the girl, Niue. She needs be on her way. She's on a Quest if I ever saw one."

Niue pouted. "But I wanted a sister. I wanted a sister..."

"I have somewhere else to be..." Regina began. The two sisters were ignoring her.

"Niue, it's not our way to force it. She must go on her way and complete her Quest."

"You fail in it!" Niue cried, pointing at Regina. "You fail in it and come back to us and be our sister!"

And then the sisters disappeared.

"Well now I'm fucked," Regina whispered. There was nowhere to go but around the lake; the trees had closed in all around her and looked thunderously dark.

Regina moved along the twisted path, the path her own mind set for her. This was the way that felt right, the way that seemed to take her towards the labyrinth in the center of the forest, rather than skirting its edges. She wanted the labyrinth, for in the center of the labyrinth was the monster she had to slay. Loral was the monster, keeping everything bound up in this shimmering half-world. She was the one that had lied at the trial, had said that Morgan wasn't obsessed with Regina at all, hadn't been there that night he snapped and attacked her and her parents. Once Regina slew the monster, she would be free, teleported to the real world.

Regina had last been talking to Liane (made in my own image) and then everything had fallen farther away from her, as if she were being stretched. And then she was here, a world of storylike characters, as if she was reading a fairy tale.

Up ahead was a dirt path. The trees were thinning out a bit, and there seemed to be a small cluster of huts at the end of the path. The huts looked as though people had been interrupted in the middle of their daily routine. Head imprints were still in pillows, blankets were tossed askew, coffee and breakfast was set out on the table, dolls were dropped onto the floor. A thick layer of dust had settled over everything. A soft whistling wind blew threw the broken windowpane in the hut Regina was standing in. It sounded almost like a sigh, a moan of discontent.

I forgot my dolly.

Regina spun around, half afraid she was going to see a little girl in the doorway, dressed in a ragged white apron over a dark brown dress, bare feet and straggly hair. The girl wasn't there, though. No one was. It was only the wind.

Wasn't it?

I wanted to pick up my dolly, but I'm not allowed anymore.

"Why aren't you?" Regina whispered, not knowing why she was whispering to the wind.

I don't have hands anymore. They cut off my hands.

"Who did? Why would they cut off your hands?"

Because I wouldn't kiss them, because I wouldn't let them touch me, because I wouldn't lay down for them. They cut off my hands because they wanted me to be ugly, to depend on them, to submit to them. But I didn't.

"Where's your dolly? Is this the one?" Regina asked, pointing to the doll on the floor.

Yes. They think they're wise. They think they know everything, but I know better... Look inside my dolly. I couldn't carry her away, I had to leave her behind...

Regina carefully picked up the rag doll from the floor and dusted it off. As she did so, she noticed that the seam in the back of the doll was loose. She carefully picked out the threads, wondering what she would find.

A big black spider crawled out of the hole.

Regina dropped the doll with a cry, hands falling apart as she jumped backwards. The spider crawled out and then walked calmly across the dusty floor to the hearth and crawled inside of it. Regina looked down at the doll, expecting it to seethe with black spiders, but it was just a limp rag doll.

Go on, it's safe. I didn't know the spider was in there.

Regina picked up the doll and picked apart the threads again. Inside was a leather scroll.

You need to get to the labyrinth, after all. There's the way to go.

"Why are you helping me? Everyone else... I don't know what they want from me. Why are you helping?"

I was like you once. Before the forest swallowed me up and my hands were taken.

"Where are you now?"

You're standing over me.

Regina jumped back, and stared at the layer of dust beneath her feet. They concealed anything that might have been underneath it, and she hadn't felt anything upon entering the house at all. "Wh-What?"

"They took the villagers and buried me under the floor where they found me." The voice was loud and living now; the girl was standing on the hearth. Her arms ended in stumps; her hands had been unceremoniously hacked off. "I had been hiding from them, and I had hoped they wouldn't think to look for me here. These huts... that's all that's left of the place. It's all that's left of my home village once they were through with me."

"But what did they want?"

"The prince thought me beautiful, and wanted me. I said no. So the prince's chancellor cut off my right hand to persuade me. I still said no. He then cut off my left hand, and I still said no. The prince was in a rage now, that I wouldn't give in, that he couldn't force me to his will. And so he struck me down himself this time. I got a gash across my neck, down into my shoulder. It killed me. And then the chancellor had the village killed, and me buried under the floor."

"How long ago was this?"

"I've lost track of time. I was never very good at learning how to count. But too many summers... enough for me to learn how to speak properly. It's easier to learn this way, now, by listening to the Silver Sisters speak, listening to the Golden Tree and the Jade Pendant."

"I don't know where those things are."

"They're on my map. Auntie Gravestone made it for me."

"Auntie Gravestone? That's a name?"

"That's what we called her. She lived in the cemetery, and we didn't know her name. They said she was a witch."

Regina took a good look at the map. A small bonfire was drawn in at one point, with what looked like a small bird coming out of one white egg, a black one beside it. "Is this the phoenix drawn here?"

"The Phoenix of the White Egg, you mean. Auntie Gravestone told me about that. The phoenix builds the nest of incense, gold and myrrh, and will consume itself in flame. Then out of the white egg it had laid, the phoenix will be born again. Out of the black egg... no one knows what hatches from the black egg."

"A dragon, maybe?"

"No one knows."

"I think I want to find out," Regina murmured softly. Curiosity killed the cat; satisfaction brought her back.

The ghost was silent. Looking up, Regina saw that she was gone. The map remained in her hands, the major landmarks of the forest clearly defined. The landmarks never moved, only the trees' positions. They were sentient beings in this forest, and moved of their own volition.

What was held in the phoenix's black egg? If white was birth and creation, did that mean black was its opposite? Cracking open such an opposing egg might uncreate the world, restoring it to chaos. Or the black egg very well could be the phoenix's opposite in mythology. Or the egg could be completely unrelated to the phoenix, giving slow rise to a different creature not known to be a relative of the phoenix.

Suddenly, Regina just had to know what was in the black egg. Curiosity, that supposed bane of existence, was pulling her there rather than to the labyrinth entrance.

She pointed her feet in the direction of the black egg, and began to walk.

***

***