O Morn of fallen frost,
shiverthrill of chill,
see how You beam down the slanting sunlight?
Now all is carpeted in glittering diamond,
and we are all rich.

The red clouds over the island suddenly cease their pouring, in deference to the Lady that appears beneath the oldest, tallest tree.  The swollen moon shines softly on her garments, lunar white, then crimson red, with deep black shadows.  The wind tosses her long dark hair about with the clouds.

She steps out from the shifting shadows of the tree, into the full light of the moon.  She raises her arms in reverent greeting and her voice in lilting song…

Awake, awake!
you ancient watchers
Awake, awake!
and let me in
Come down, come down
from your waiting houses
Come down, come down
and let me in*

As her words spin out into the soft storm, she grows silent as the houses across the lapping waters.  She sinks into a warm steaming pool cradled by the arm of the island.  Her eyes flutter closed, her lips curving in pleasure.

Eventually, the crimson clouds can contain themselves no longer, and they burst forth in warm red rain.  When you blink, the Lady is gone, leaving only a swirl of steam upon the water, and the memory of her song in your mind.

* Awake! by Sharon Knight

She sits down on the grass, the dark skirts of her nightdress billowing around her, produces quill and inkpot from nowhere, and begins to write rather ramblingly on the back of the partner-pages:

I dreamt of waltzing with Darien and with Bloodwing… dreamt we were at the party yesterday bidding goodbye to the Caledon Regency Hospital that the good Doctor created, sharing secret smiles that they’d been allowed back into SLife.  Dreamt that Qlippothic was there dancing too, flirtingly steam-scalding some dapper gentleman.  In truth, none of us could attend: I because I was required elsewhere, and they because they’ve been banished from this world.

Darien and Bloodwing and Qlippothic inspired me with fun and kindness, years ago, when I was so low in spirit, waiting for Death to just come and take me.  In thanks to their loving attention, I found new life and even found the courage to walk in the light of the sun.  A metaphorical injection of reanimation serum, passed through friends’ hands, and smiles, and kind words.  And now they’re gone.  I wish so much I’d made more time to spend time with them when they were still inworld.  Now it’s too late, and I find myself actually missing the stinks of reanimation fluid and engine oil and sulfur.

I can still smile for them, at hope for their happiness in other worlds, at the opportunity to read of their adventures… but at this moment, it’s not quite enough, not the same as seeing the smile in my friends’ eyes.

The Lady makes a gesture towards what must be the phonographe… and the music shifts from a mournful waltz to a passionate tekno paeon.  She starts dancing hard, furiously tearing up the grass and moss beneath her feet.  She screams along with the music, and you can see why they also call her The Banshee.  You wisely back away.

She makes a gentle curtsey to you in greeting; asking after your health and happiness.  As the conversation lulls, your eyes stray to the Tree at the center of the grove: it looks just slightly out of place there, as if it just… appeared.  But of course, that is ridiculous; trees do not move… do they?

Like a dreamer, the rest of her words do not make a great deal of sense…

That… that is my Tardis.  Was it you I showed it to, those ye– weeks ago…?  It’s very large inside, you know, as they all are…

She’s been growing.  For more than three years, subjectively, now… and so, so late I am in finding a good name for her.  She has carried me from one end of the universe to the other, and to a few stops in between.  I haven’t the courage, yet, to push her to show me that first Big Bang, or the… final gasp of nothingness at the end of Time.  She could, though… she has held me in her branches, been safety, even safe enough to host a meeting with a sort of god…

She’s got a name now… would you like to hear it?  I was talking with the Old Man this morning and… it just came to me.  The Eternity Tree….  Isn’t that lovely?  I planted her into herself, in a place beyond nothingness, in the Void of Everything… and she has grown so, so lovely.  So strong, her roots and vines and branches spreading out and out, drawing sustenence from the stray flashes of… what are they flashes of?  I don’t understand it yet, it’s all strange maths.  But she is well-fed, and well-loved, and now, she has a good name.  The Eternity Tree.  The “ETT” for short… that was the Old Man’s idea.

She looks at the tree lovingly for a few moments: at the branches that sway to a breeze you do not feel, at the pale blossoms that may fall but never touch this ground.  And then her eyes grow dark at strange thoughts.  Her next words are slow, as if unsure of every word, every thought…

He… He said I… something about having it within me to move beyond the need for her, even her.  No, not the Old Man, The… The Other.  He said I was… powerful.  Very, very powerful.  Blood of the Ancients… I do not understand it.  How can IT BE?!

She crumples to the ground, long dark hair falling around her like a cloak as she weeps in confusion, a great tumbling wave of released tension rolling out in dense crimson droplets, staining her face and fingers and gown.  She looks up at you, a visage like desperate murder, her eyes wide and wild.  She seems to look through you… and then the peace returns to her bloodstained face.  She smiles softly, beatifically, a pale bloody angel.

He said He wouldn’t– didn’t want to harm them.  Is He… is He looking out for me?

She smiles, and dabs at her eyes and face with a black lace handkerchief, laughing a little at herself.  She glances up at you, blushing a little.

I’m so sorry… you’ve found me on a strange day.  No– no, thank you, I’ll be fine.  Really, I… think I’ll be finer than ever.  Please… you should go.  I have much to think on and… should leap into the water to wash off all this… blood and darkness.  Yes.  Today I should feel light!  I’ve seen the dead regenerated and come back to life, enjoyed the fond regard of a… ehm.

I should feel light.  The Eternity Tree will always be there.

She smiles softly as you enter and says not a word… but turns the book to you, so you can see what she has written…

A young miss once owned a parcel of land in Caledon, on the seaside.  It was a pretty parcel, but a little one.  There was a great old oak tree, gnarled and comfy as a grandpa.  There were wildflowers, bright blooms in blue and red and yellow.  And there was just enough room for her little cottage, with a little pot-belly stove to boil the water for her tea.

The young miss had tried to coax the garden into what she thought a garden should be, which was of respectable roses and violets, all in rows.  But the earth was dry, and the wildflowers brambly, and each time she thought she had some cleared away, those behind her would start to swallow her roses.  Some days she felt it took all her effort just to keep the sea from eating away at the land.

Wearied of working so hard, she took to sitting on the little porch with her tea, and gazing out over the water.  There was an island out there, an island several times larger than her little parcel.  It had great grand trees that scraped the sky, rolling hills of green grass and moss, and a little pond filled by the rain.

The young miss spent less and less time on her garden, and more and more time looking out at this island, and daydreaming how much nicer it would be to live there.

Slowly, the wildflowers began again to encroach on her rows of roses and violets.

After many days of watching the island and seeing no one on it, she borrowed a little boat from her neighbor, and traveled over the water to it.  As she walked across it, she fancied the air was sweeter here, the sun brighter.  The earth was rich and dark, and everything that grew here (seemingly wild) was lush and healthy.

The young miss knew that the island was owned by a strange Lady, but she never saw her, or any evidence of her passing.  After several days passed, she became sure the Lady must not ever visit the island, indeed must be so rich she might not even remember it was hers.

So the young miss began spending most of her time on the island; she would brew a large flask of tea on her own little stove in her own little cottage, then take the neighbor’s boat out to the island.  There she would spend most of the day, strolling about and enjoying how much better the island was than her own land.  At first, when she got hungry she would take the boat back to her cottage and get a little food, then come back.  In later days, she would bring a basket with her bread and cheese and tea for her all-day trips.

Eventually, she grew so confident that the island was neglected by the Lady, that she took her meals from the isle itself; the plump fruit that hung so heavily in the trees, the numerous berries and nuts, and even the quick silver fish swimming in the lagoon.

The young miss thought, That Lady does not need or even want this land; I, whose parcel is so tiny and poor, should have this island.  Perhaps I will apply to the Guvnah to sell my parcel and buy this one.  I have a little money saved, she thought, and thereby I might trade up, and be happier here.

And so her days from that point were happy, mostly, because she could never quite shake the feeling that some day the Lady might indeed land on the beach and demand what she thought she was doing there.  So she would always take care to look as if she were only visiting, with her basket lunch, and hid the weeds that she pulled and branches she trimmed inside.

Well, as so often happens, when we worry about a thing, eventually it comes to pass.  One day, the young miss stayed later than usual, and was just walking through the blue twilight to her, er the neighbor’s boat, when a strange sound made her turn.  There stood the Lady of the isle, dressed and tressed in rich dark velvet.  The young miss held her breath in fright, for the Lady was stranger even than the stories had told, having arrived without boat or airship, with bright tiny stars caught up in her hair and eyes.

The young miss froze in fear as the Lady walked towards her, smiling.  But rather than words of condemnation, the Lady made a warm greeting to her, and said what a lovely night it was going to be.  She stammered an agreement, then an awkward compliment on what a pretty island it was.

The Lady smiled warmly and thanked the miss for her compliment, and made a light lament that she could not spend more time there.

“But so very fond of this place, oh, I am indeed,” smiled the Lady.  “When I am done with a long day, tis here that I know I will find my rest.  Shall we go down to the beach?  The silver fish are less plentiful than they once were, so it will take some time to catch my dinner.”

But the young miss, mortified, stumbled through an apology and a curtsey, and said that she really should be getting back home.

As she pulled the neighbor’s boat onto the beach, she looked at her little parcel in the moonlight, and tried to remember how safe she’d once felt under that grandfatherly tree’s branches.  Her cottage was cold, and it took three attempts with shaking hands to get the fire lit.  As she curled up on her narrow bed, she resolved never to go back to the island, at least not until her own garden was just right.

But in the morning, when the young miss stepped out onto the porch, she saw that her neat little rows had been engulfed by thorny wildflowers, and that much of the garden had slid into the sea!  Now her little parcel was even littler, and she had a great deal of work ahead of her.

…

Now, I do not write this parable because you have come to my island, for you are very welcome here.  No, I write this because I once coveted something seemingly grand that was not mine, and neglected the fine thing I had, not seeing it through the work that it required.

I hope to remember this, and never make the same mistake again.  For now, I have a beautiful garden, made even more precious for the work put into it.

At her feet lie a stack of useless photographes… over-exposed, under-exposed, or blurred in strange ways.  Only three seem undistorted:

Don’t trust another to grow your flowers.
I think I shall plant my own.

Looking up into the great old spiderwebbed tree, you can see that the house lights are ablaze.  Every gas lamp pulses with flame, and every window shows candles dancing to music you cannot hear, not from down here.  The great wooden treehouse might seem in peril of burning, were it not so thoroughly soaked by the rain.

The Lady of the house and of this land has moved from room to room sparking this light.  A shift of the wind brings you the purifying scent of burning sage.

She is alone now, but something indescribable in her bearing makes it seem she expects not to remain so for long.

If you climbed the steps up to the door and looked inside, you would see her dressed in a simple flowing white gown, and smiling to herself in clear-eyed contentment.  But something silent tells you not to, so you don’t.

After some time, she steps out to the balcony holding a dark glass bowl.  Leaning out a little over the edge, she takes silk thread and a needle, and a bowl full of smooth white pearls: freshwater moonlight, each gleaming and unique.  With a careful knot between each one, she threads the pearls into a precious string: delicate but strong, silk of spinner and pearl of nurturer.

The great swollen moon glides across the dark sky… stately, effortless.

The Lady’s long string of pearls trembles all the way from her fingers to just over the waters of the firth, a long way below, as she ties more and more gleaming gems of nacre onto it.

Another twitch and twist, and the end of the thread drops down and touches the water, which rushes up it, as if longing to reclaim the oysters’ treasure. Then the leading pearl drops in as another is added to the top… and the long string now links the Lady to the waters.

She goes on threading, tying, spinning, for much of the night. Her deft fingers only ever pause to brush strands of twilight hair from her eyes, and once, across the silver locket at her throat.

The bowl at her side is deep with pearls. She will not be finished creating this for some time…

But wait. a postcard has only one page.  How were these inside it?

In any case, they are all captioned on the back, in violet ink…

Here I am about to step off of my 19th(ish)century timeship and into the 23rd century.

Here I am bidding a sad adieu to Caledon.

Here I am looking at the airship I am to step onto and wondering… is that designed for ramming?!

She holds a postcard out to you, and says very softly, her eyes closed,

Come in… come in.  Here, I wrote this to you, on my music-raiding trip to the 23rd century…

Having a great time in the future!  Wish you were here…

<3  ~Darkling

Now I have Time Lag.  lemme go back to sleep.

((thanks to Retropolis for the postcard )