Philomena

 Grace 

The old castle rose out of the darkness, out of the silence that drifted about the place. It stood on a wide slope, moonlit snowdrifts piled against the half-ruined walls. Their unarranged patterns of dark and gaping windows became one with the design. The walls that surrounded this place were made to protect the royal family and its descendants, to echo with their laughter and be the shelter they needed for the millennials to come.

Individual snowflakes twirled peacefully, making their way to the ground; some making their way inside the castle. Their movements were conducted by the winds outside, choreographed to a pristine flow. Despite the soft orchestra of movements, the snowflakes blinded the night with ice-white dust.

A single breath, delicate and pale, danced against the moist and numbing air. She blinked thoughtfully as the frost gently hugged her overly blushed face. She was captivated by the soft and dusty illusions of light that sat on her lengthy eyelashes, clouding her vision slightly. She adored the snow, but more so when it was falling through the cracks of the circular sky window above her.

Her pale and frail hands reached out to the sky in an attempt to catch yet another snowflake. Her eyes glistened, dismissing the urge to blink, as she examined the small and heavily crafted flakes. Despite the tremors that erupted through her body, snowflakes melted instantaneously in the calm of her palms.

In a steady haze, like a dream, water slipped through the cusps of her hands. Upon the stone floor, frozen mirrors so many lay scattered from one another. She stared into the newly formed mirror, its structure in disarray.

The resilience of red against her ivory skin brought life to the stillness of her reflection. Astoundingly, the roundness of her curls were kept in place from the night before. And the night before that, and the night before that. When she smiled the girl looking back at her smiled. And when she frowned the girl frowned as well.

Why can she not tend to a name and face of her own? I am Philomena Grace Irvine, not her.

Yes, indeed that was who she was. Princess Philomena Grace Irvine, first of her name, last descendant of the royal Irvine's, and a symbol of the Angels Reprieve. Yes, the image etched into the water was all of who that title appears to be. However, the glamor of her reflection lacked a key essence to one's existence. What was that something anyway?

"You win this time you fraud," Philomena mumbled her words as she glared at her reflection.

A hushed whisper ushered its song into Philomena's ears. Simultaneously, a howl from the winds came forth. Philomena's resistance was to no avail against the sheepish grin that spread. A summer delight in her laughter carried into the wind and enveloped the walls around her. Her eyes scoured the God forsaken room, hungrily consuming everything in sight.

The far corners were a void of darkness appearing as a never ending entrance to despair. The gold embroidered into velvet chairs succumbed to a rust beyond decomposition. There was no support in the structure of the furniture, many had collapsed in on themselves. With luck, the disarray of the unrefined stone floor was an afterthought from time to time.

A flutter of colorful whispers whirled behind Philomena. Instinctively, she pivoted from the tip of her toes. She gave no mind to the second nature of her movements, derived from the very restricted dance she despised so long ago.

The light of the moon captured the waves of Philomena's hair that flew through its wake. Silver flowed around her until the moon was captivated no more, dismissing her hair into the shadows. The richness of her violet cloak did not let the weight of darkness overshadow its hue. The glow of Philomena was its beacon of hope to rise in pigmentation.

The white of a semi-translucent sphere emitted the same light of the vast majority of stars swept through the night. It appeared to move up and down with a repetitive increase and decrease of its aura. In a corner once devoid of life, the sphere began to spin in its radiance.

In a leap of faith, the sphere plummeted down, coming dangerously close to the floor. It sprung back up into the air and exploded into a burst of shimmering and blinding lights.

A wave of red rippled through the lights. In one commanding motion, the red ushered the white light behind it. The light behind the red silhouetted the shape of a heart, fortifying the density of the sovereignty behind its existence.

With the collapse of the red, it danced into the skirt of a dress. Above it, a woman, sublime, stood attitude. Her beauty was in comparison to Philomena's, but simply more refined and touched by time. They shared the same pearly skin, voluminous silver curls, and slender fingers with a delicate touch.

However, where Philomena's eyes sparkled in the enchantment of an emerald green, the woman before her possessed holes filled with the same darkness of the castle. Philomena's lips were a rosy peach tint, rounded and full. The woman's lips were the same red as her dress, streaked with scars. Left exposed by her dress, a decoration of fatal wounds sunk into the bare arms and stomach of the woman.

The maiden was unmoved by the immense differences, smiling in sorrows stead.

"Salutations Mother dearest!" Philomena beamed in much delight. "What of the others?"

Her question was like the call of a fire. Simultaneously, various spheres of light, similar to the aura of Philomena's mother, ignited. Their soul transformation took no time. One by one, they all took on the form of someone different in royal or common elegance with different flaws and disfigurements.

The sensation of lonesome grief washed away. The essence of the divine glamoured over the darkness that was before.

As spirited as the room was, the slightest sound fell short on any ears. Their whispers were no more, and the winds managed to keep to themselves. A man dressed in a long royal blue tunic and golden epaulets approached Philomena and her mother. Attached to his cracked breast plates was a golden cloak, slashed and tattered through its length.

His crown appeared to have been eroded by the Earth with jewels missing from their beds. Philomena's soft and rounded face complemented his own, only gashed scars across his face set them apart. The structure of his shoulders were hard and broad, but he carried a timid nature within them much like Philomena's being. His hair was unlike hers, deep waves of auburn. Patches of black spread unevenly through his olive skin. Yet, his cheeks managed to keep the same blush as Philomena.

He lowered himself on one knee and gave Philomena a deep bow. Lifting his head, he extended his hand for her to take. A giggle erupted through the fingers Philomena clasped over her mouth.

"Oh Father, you really do not have to!"

In spite of her words, Philomena placed her small hand on top of the semi-translucent palm her father offered. Her courtesy was generous, her pull on her fathers fingers were not.

Philomena danced with her father the way royalty did in their reigned days. She commenced divine movement with all the ones she had lost long ago. Through the ones she loved the most, she found an adagio tempo that would not diminish her soul.

There was familiarity, but no clarity in their names. For so long they had been gone. Their sounds carelessly flowed away. Yet, she carried on with them and vowed to relearn them.

They danced through the night, over the damp old stone; through the snow that swept through the castle and down its halls.

And Philomena never wanted to leave.