Above the clouds, with the stars, sits a lighthouse full of books which wrap around the winding staircase until the tower’s peak hits the ceiling of the universe.
At this peak is a light which shines through a window. A long trail of gold which glitters brighter than any pot at a rainbow’s end. Those are just illusions you know. But this light, this light is real. It tickles the skin like cat’s whiskers and willow-the-wisps in the night. It is a touch which feels like home.
I go to this place when I need quiet and I want to be alone with the stars.
When I was little and saw shadows dancing through the path which the moon made from the sky and through my window, I discovered the lighthouse. I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t slept for many nights and many days.
I hid away in daydreams and would drift off on clouds until a scowling teacher or laughing classmate would jolt me back to the halogen-coloured classroom. I was the stupid kid. The one who sounded funny and said funnier things. I imagined dragons in the peeling ceiling dust and said a girl was a “grell.” I had meant “girl,” but it was taken as an insult, a made-up word for some fantasy creature they all knew I spent my days thinking about.
I curled tighter under my covers, humming to myself. A tuneless song which quieted the darkness. But still, I could feel the shadows, I could hear the creep of the moon. My bed creaked and I sat up, clutching my covers close. The moon’s path was directly on my bed now, it glimmered and shivered, like a daisy in the breeze. All white, with a splash of yellow which reminded me of an egg.
My stomach growled, I’d picked at dinner and had gone to bed in a huff. I decided to go raid the cookie jar but the second my feet touched the wood floor, the moon’s light slipped over my toes and caught my ankles, tight. Like the vines of ivy which ran in switch-backs across the wall in the abandoned house next door. The light pulled at my legs, not toward my bedroom door and the kitchen but toward my window.
I stumbled toward my window, pulled off kilter by the light. I giggled, it was nervous, it was confused, it was, maybe, a little excited. I had a diet of fantasy stories hopping around my head. At the window I leaned out and shivered as a cold gust blew past.
Stars blinked on and off in the black sky and the moon stood on its throne, round and full. The light brightened until it was less light and more a white spool of silk which tumbled off the moon and into my window. I gasped as I felt it, soft and solid, dropping in through the window and down to the floor. I picked up an edge and admired how it felt so smooth, like a ribbon the sky wore in its black hair.
I tugged on the silk, because I could and then saw a flashing light. Down at the corner of the street, the corner my house sat on, was a lamp post. Its light was flashing, blinking on and off, on and off.
The wind blew again and this time, I thought I heard voice: “step up the path,” it said.
“Hello?” I called, leaning out the window. The lamp post kept blinking, on and off. I pulled on the edge of the silk I was still holding. The wind gusted again, pulling it back and taunt.
“Up the path, my girl. Up you go.” The wind said.
“This? But it’s silk. I’m too big!” I wasn’t that big, I was small for my age but compared to the delicate feel of the silk, I certainly felt too big.
“Up the path.” The wind repeated.
I pulled on the silk again and the wind pulled back. It looked more like a thick tight-rope now. It could be okay but as soon as I got on it, I’ve have to get go. Quickly I looked around my room for something to hold the silk down. I dragged my old rocking horse over.
“Magic,” I told the horse, “I need you to hold onto this silk for me. I can’t sleep, so I’m going somewhere tonight. Just to explore. I’ll be back soon.”
The rocking horse looked at me, forever a calm, cedar wood face. I patted its yarn mane and set it on the silk. For good measure I tied the furthest end of the silk to Magic’s yarn tail. Inspecting it, I decided it would hold well enough and climbed up on the window sill. I swung my feet out so they went first and pressed the big toe of one foot on the silk path. It bounced and I nearly fell backward into my room from surprise. I shot a hand out and held onto the edge of the window frame before I tumbled feet over bottom and breathing heavy, I sat up, more careful this time.
Then I set one foot on the silk road. It dipped down but did not break so I put my other foot down. I wobbled, like standing on a trampoline but still, the silk road did not break. So I walked, developing the springing step of a trampoline, moving quicker and quicker as the movement pushed me up toward the moon with easy bounds. I laughed and moved faster.
All too soon, I was high and so close to the moon. All I could see was white like a sheet of paper. Then, this glowing shade burst around me in fractals like a shattered mirror and I found myself standing upon a rocky shore of black cliffs. The sound of ocean waves, like that of my baby music, crashing below.
It was night here too but not dark, the moon shone full and bright with thousands of stars in the sky. So many more than I ever saw at home. It was like someone had spilled milk across the sky. At the center of it all, at the peak of a far cliff, sat a white lighthouse with a light blinking on and off, just like the lamp post.
Curious, I began to walk toward it, wondering who might live in such a tall and bright place. As I got closer I saw it had a red door and in one of the windows a candle-light flickered. As if calling me inside. I knocked and waited for an answer.
Continued tomorrow in a Part Two: where our heroine will enter the lighthouse.
