An Incomplete Volume of Short Stories

Inside Your Head

       There, Lily saw a vaguely humanoid figure standing a few feet away, seeming to slightly glow. The figure had blonde hair paler than the face of the moon and eyes as cold and blue as a glacier with large, wings on her back that seemed as though they were made of glass. “Um,” Lily said, “yes actually. Can you help me?” “Of course I can!” said the figure, “Just follow me, I’ll keep you safe.” “Really?" Lily asked, her spirits soaring. "Thank you so much!” she said as the figure started walking away, or was she floating? Lily couldn't tell. “What’s your name?” Lily asked. “Nightshade,” the figure had replied. The name sounded familiar, though Lily was not sure why.

       Nightshade then gestured for Lily to walk in front of her as they once again began their journey towards the castle, knowing there was no other places to stay for miles. As they walked, the colors of the forest seemed to get a bit more vibrant and though Lily had been freezing just moments earlier, she no longer felt the bite of the cold night air. “It’s quite warm in this part of the forest, isn’t it?” she commented, looking up to Nightshade. “Yes, very” she replied blandly, not sparing Lilya glance, but instead focusing her eyes in front of her on the path they had stumbled across. Lily now saw that this path lead into a small clearing just ahead.

       As she followed Nightshade's gaze, Lily saw something that made her stop dead in her tracks as she felt tears come to her eyes and a familiar ache in her throat formwd signalling that she was about to cry. “Mom,” she whispered. The few thoughts that had been bouncing around her head left as she ran towards her mother, tears streaming down her face and blurring the edges of her vision. All the while, Nightshade floated calmly behind the girl, seemingly unaffected by the encounter. After all, why should she be? Lily thought. She doesn’t know that my mother died. And then it hit her like a brick wall, her steps faltering. Her mother was dead. Something in her head seemed to snap and she began to realize she was not, in fact, in a warm clearing of a brightly colored forest, teeming with life, but in the middle of a frozen lake, surrounded by darkly colored trees and deathly silence surrounding her. Her mother was not there. She never had been.

       Lily, now stunned, stopped and looked around to find Nightshade at her side, looking at her with a quizzical expression. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “I just-” said Lily “I thought I- Nevermind.” It was then she heard yet another strange noise. Not a rustling this time, but a shifting and she realized just how thin the ice she stood on was. Lily had never realized why the phrase of someone "being on thin ice" was a warning until this very moment. It was terrifying. Now that Nightshade was so close, she could also hear a faint whispering that seemed to surround her and Lily finally saw that something about her just seemed to be… off. Pixies she could deal with, but a mysterious figure who can put visions inside your head? Lily didn’t think she could handle that. “I can see you’re worried,” said Nightshade, in the same airy, concerned voice she always did. “But don’t worry,” she continued “Just stay with me, I’ll keep you safe.” Lily no longer felt safe as she understood that it was Nightshade who had led her to the middle of this lake on purpose and only then did she remember where she had heard the name "Nightshade" before. She had heard it in a Botany lesson with her personal tutor at the castle. It was a beautiful flower, but a poisonous one. If you eat more than a few berries, you’ll die. Beautiful, but deadly. Lily thought. Just like her.

       As the pair stood there, Lily began to ramble about the different toys she had at the castle, trying to look as though she had not yet understood Nightshade's plan as an attempt to gain enough time for her clever and mischievous brain to form a plan of escape. As she did so, she began to feel exactly how cold it really was on the surface of the lake and the temperature seemed to be dropping as it grew colder and colder. Lily was now becoming more and more aware of the creaking of the creaking below her as the ice strained to hold her weight. Just then it seemed that a plan formed out of nowhere and she began to put it into action immediately. “And those are my top 15 favorite dolls and their names,” she concluded. Nightshade looked thoroughly unamused, saying “We must go now if we want to get back to the castle before morning.” “I completely agree,” Lily replied, “Just one last thing," she continued. Lily then brought her foot down as hard as she could on the center of the hairline fractures that had begun to spread over the top of the ice below just moments prior.