Edwina Peterson Cross

THE TALE

The Count frowned into the wavering glass, straightened his frock coat and gave a tug at the bottom of his waistcoat. He had never quite reconciled himself to the dark waistcoat; it seemed the height of absurdity that the Queen of England's husband dropping dead and America deciding to have a war with itself should mean he must stop wearing his colorful waistcoats. Fashion made less sense that science which made less sense than politics which made no sense whatsoever. He peered into the dark, distorted mirror again, looking past his own image into the reflected darkness behind. He had certainly expected something more . . . scientific. He had expected metal and wires; gears and electricity; steam and sparks. What he had not expected was a murky room containing a long contorted mirror showing only himself, vacillating oddly, with a blank blackness behind.

"This is all very strange," he complained, turning to the small, wrinkled man working at a table behind him. His voice had come out higher and tighter than he had intended and he automatically modulated it back to a persuasive smooth, deep, velvet. "Why can?t I see you in the mirror? Or the rest of the room?"

The old man was pouring sand from one glass container to another, very slowly, almost grain by grain. It was a fine, golden sand that gave off a scintillation and shimmer every once in a while and smelled vaguely hot. "Glass only reflects what its movin." he replied shortly, never breaking the flow of the strange saffron sand.

"And why is that?" the Count asked evenly, trying to keep the impatience and sarcasm out of his voice.

The sand having finally stopped flowing, the old man glanced up through thick, bushy eyebrows. " 'ats a complic'cated scientific equay'shun.

He couldn't help it, the Count snorted out loud. "Scientific! There is nothing remotely scientific about this!" he waved his arm around the dim, bare room. "This isn't science! It looks like alchemy or . . . or voodoo."

"It looks nothing like voodoo," said a voice from the back of the room. The Count gave an involuntary jump and strained his eyes through the darkness. He had neither seen nor heard the door open.

"If it looked like voodoo we would have drums and chicken entrails. Alchemy? Maybe. Alchemy has acquired an undeserved bad name, but it is actually just a search for a specific chemical equation. Unless of course you are speaking metaphorically, allegorically or symbolically and pondering the underlying hermetic philosophy which, indeed, holds an image of the complex interconnection of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm and therefore has everything to do with what we are about here."

The Count felt his neck grow hot and he scowled at the speaker, a young man with a bland, waxen face, dressed in a flamboyant fashion that belied his pale countenance. The Count couldn't help but notice the bright scarlet waistcoat bisected by a thick gold watch chain with a jade green fob. "You were expecting electricity?" the young man continued mildly, "flashing helolights, tubes and suction cups?" A colorless smile lifted his lips, but didn't touch his eyes. "That would indeed be primitive and barbaric. What we have here," he ran a finger down the mirror's polished frame, "is the epitome of modern thought and conception, condensed into something that is both scientifically brilliant and esthetically perfect."

'Pompous young ass,' the Count thought sourly to himself, but he concentrated on arranging his features and modulating his voice in order to put himself firmly back into the superior position of this bizarre conversation. "It isn't precisely what I had expected, no," he said in his smoothest voice, "perhaps you would be good enough to give me a brief explanation."

The young man laughed, a dry, scraping laugh. "A brief explanation would not begin to explain and I doubt you would understand an in depth elucidation. Tell me," the empty smile was gone and the face was once again without expression. "Why did you come here today?"

"I came here because I was led to believe that I could be of service to mankind." The Count was glad to note that his voice was coming out perfectly; deep and flawlessly balanced between wounded righteousness and well deserved pride. "I was led to believe that there was something that I, and only I, could do that would further mankind's quest for knowledge, wisdom and understanding and I . . . I was willing to serve."

The young man merely formed his hollow smile again, leaving an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of the Count's stomach, directly behind his dark conservative waist coat; a creeping feeling that despite the Count's gallant words, the young man understood the truth quite well. And what was the truth? Well, there had been mention of quite a large amount of cash. There had also been innuendos indicating that certain political favors would definitely follow this 'experiment.' And he had, in truth, been intrigued by the part of the proposal that declared that there was something he was "meant to do" in the future. He had spent quite a happy hour last night with brandy and a cigar conjecturing about the superior position in which he could place himself when he returned with even a little knowledge of the future. He had always known he was destined for great things, he had just never considered reaching those things by way of stepping back and forth in time. Stepping into the future, at least; he had no interest in the past. He had considered that briefly, but decided almost immediately that the past was over, the past was dead, the past was . . . well, past; and it was something that didn't interest him. He was interested in the future, however. Especially a future in which there was something predestinate and marvelous that he was "meant to do."

As the Count's brain raced though these thoughts, the sallow young man had stood silently, without moving, his features smooth and vacant. Finally he spoke, his finger absently stroking the frame of the mirror again. "This incredible innovation was brought into being by several recent scientific discoveries which, through my advanced studies and elevated knowledge, serendipitously converged. While not as publically splashy as the internal combustion engine or an electric wire stretched across the Atlantic ocean, these discoveries were of much greater significance and ultimately phenomenal import."

'Oh! Of all the pretentious little . . .' thought the Count, but the young man was going on, his voice becoming rapid and louder.

"Soon after the first spectroscope was built, utilizing the dispersive action of the prism, I experienced a scientific breakthrough of magnanimous proportions. While attempting to calculate the cycles of sound waves, I focused a beam of light against a mirror which was attached to a vibrating object. This did, indeed, give me a count of the cycles of sound, however, I found that when I focused the light beam through a prism and against a convex mirror . . ."

The Count had completely lost the thread of the explanation now; utterly unaware of the meaning of the flying words, as he watched with fascination the young man's face finally became animated. His eyes were lit from within with a bizarre glow; his features twisting in an erratic rhythm; there was a pronounced tick in one eye, the eyelid jerking down convulsively on every third word; there was a foam of spittle forming at the corners of his mouth.

"A convex mirror . . ." he repeated, "and when this happened, my relativistic analogy was carried to its logical end! Since time begins to slow down at higher speeds, at the speed of light, at the curve in the spectrum, it stops totally and beyond that begins to run backwards! Matter, having contracted more and more, ultimately vanishes . . . into the future!" He took a deep shuttering breath and his face was suddenly wiped clean of expression once again like a thumb through hot wax.

"That is the scientific basis of this innovation," he continued calmly, his hand caressing the mirror's frame, "though I do not expect you to understand the complexity of it, I do assure you of its validity. Do you know the work of a man named Darwin?" he asked abruptly and intensely.

The Count was taken aback for a moment by the suddenness of the question. He was still feeling confused and disordered by the strange, rapid explanation of the mirror. "No I do not," he replied, trying to recover his dignity, "and I don't see . . ."

"Ah!" the young man interrupted smoothly, his hand still fondling the side of the mirror, "in the end he will make more waves than Bunsun's Spectrum, Otto's Internal Combustion Engine or Nobel's dynamite all put together." The young man threw back his head and laughed his short, dry rasping laugh. But, come my friend. You don't care about Darwin, Bunsun or Nobel . . . there is only one man on the planet you are interested in. Tell me, did my intermediary make the details of the contract clear to you?"

The Count narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out if he had just been insulted, but the young man continued smoothly, "I believe that the, ah, transaction is most certainly slanted in your favor. I will not offend you here with a gross repetition of the cash figure, but it is, I am sure you will admit, most generous. There are, of course, the contacts that will be made, the successful conclusion of that little matter pertaining to the Adjutant General and the votes of a certain number of delegates to be secured . . ." The young man had taken the Count's arm and was steering him toward the small table from which the old man seemed to have disappeared.

On the table was a thick, legal looking document and an elaborate old fashioned quill pen. The young man picked up the document and quickly flipped to the last page. "Just sign right here and we can be about our business."

The Count was no fool. He was completely aware of artful maneuvers and polished procedures, from all sides of every operation and he had no intention of signing his name to anything without having read and considered the extended meanings and possible traps in every word. As he bent to pick up the large document he noticed that the old man had left one of the glass cups full of fine golden sand; he picked it up instead. "What is this?" he asked holding the glass up toward the flickering light to see it better.

The young man gently moved the Count's hand away from the lamp. "It is a very special form of sand that is used in the preparation of the glass. You don?t want to get it too close to that flame."

The Count looked down at the delicate sunflower sand sparkling inside the glass. It did sparkle, he had been right about that; the flickering light caught and glimmered on bright specks like pieces of mica; gold dust or amber diamonds . . . He brought the glass closer to his face and peered into its depth; he sniffed at it; it had a sultry, heated, almost salty smell that made his eyelids droop.

" . . . what gives the mirror its burnished sheen," the young man was saying, "superheated, because we use no soda ash to lower the melting temperature, nor limestone to make the glass stronger. The result is the finest glass, the most delicate, the most rare."

The Count finished signing his name to the parchment and the young man scattered a small amount of the golden sand rapidly across the sheet. "Also excellent for setting ink quickly." The Count blinked and the young man's lips lifted into their lifeless, hanging, smile. "Shall we begin?" The Count felt a flutter of panic at the back of his throat, his eyes darted around the room, realizing that, in the darkness, he couldn?t see the door. "Now wait a moment," his voice came out high and squeaky, something he detested. He cleared his throat, but the panic was still there, fluttering its black satin wings. He made another attempt to govern the inflection of his voice. "I . . ahem . . . I have several rather pertinent questions before anything can commence here." He glanced uneasily at the large document on the table. What had he signed? Certainly he wouldn't, he couldn't, have signed anything without throughly studying it . . . but he had no memory of its contents.

The young man continued to regard him, his flat gaze constant and unbroken. "Fine," was all he said.

The Count tried to think quickly, but his mind seemed to be swimming in syrup, or molasses, or that hot honey colored sand. "Well, the first has to do, obviously, with returning."

"The method of both departure and return are really very simple," the young man explained patiently. "I will focus the light beam through the prism, you will walk forward into the light and through the mirror. The return journey is accomplished almost exactly the same way. On that side they will use a concave mirror."

The Count nodded slowly and tried to think what else he needed to know. Suddenly his mind seized on something that seemed to him, in his paradoxical state of flickering panic and lethargic thoughts, most important of all. "What about this thing I am "meant to do" in the future? What is it?"

"I have absolutely no idea." The Count was not surprised to see the young man's face smooth and empty as he made this startling statement.

By now, the Count was throughly exasperated; anxious by his own inability to concentrate; disturbed by the young man's unwavering, inane manner in the face of such strange and mystifying concepts. "What do you mean you have no idea?" his voice cracked, "If you don?t know, who does? That is the reason I came here in the first place and now you are telling me that you have no idea what this huge, important, 'thing' is that I am supposed to accomplish in the future?"

The young man shrugged, "It is evidently something that is known on the Other Side, that would make sense, wouldn't it?"

The Count had no idea what, if anything, made sense anymore. As the young man reached into the pocket of his frock coat, the Count's eye was caught by something large and shiny. Looking closer, he could see that it was a crystal, probably the largest crystal that he had ever seen. Parts of it had been cut and were smooth and polished while parts of it remained rough, milky and opaque. The young man picked up the lamp from the table and hung it on a hook overhead, where it swung slightly, casting lurching shadows around the dark room.

Looking toward the wavering glass the Count saw distorted images of himself, jerking and jumping in rhythm with the swaying lamp. He suddenly realized that though the young man was standing directly in front of the framed glass now, the mirror showed no image of him at all. A sudden panic beat in the Count?s throat again and he reached for the young man's arm, but as he did, that arm was raised toward the lamp and the lamplight streamed through the jagged crystal, creating a dazzling shaft of rainbows that struck the mirror in a voluminous splash of color. All the breath went out of the Count?s body in one exhalation. Beyond being like nothing he had ever seen before, it was like nothing he had ever imagined . . . every color of the spectrum, every shade of every color, reproduced ten thousand times then each split into a million pieces; a blazing kaleidoscopic tesselation shot through with multicolored ice; a glistening, iridescent opalescence crackling with variegated fire . . .

The Count's hand never reached the young man's arm, he paused, with his hand in the air, stabbed through the soul with singing color, took a step toward the mirror and . . .

All he could see was white. The sudden surfeit of color was replaced by the cool neutrality of no color at all. He blinked and realized that he was, after all, seeing different objects, all those objects just happened to be white. White walls. White rug. A strange, thick white rug that covered every inch of the floor. Long white lace curtains blowing softly in what was probably a white breeze.

The Count considered briefly whether or not he was dead. There didn't seem to be many facts on which to base the conclusion, one way or the other. He didn't feel particularly bad, he didn't hurt anywhere; except possibly right behind his eyes where there was still a lingering ache of color. He looked down at his hands; they were white too, but only because he was wearing white gloves. The sleeves of his conservative brown frock coat were still brown, his trousers were still a fine, soft fawn.

It occurred to the Count, in no particular order, that, in someways, he had no color in him either; that he was feeling a curious lack of concern at all these peculiar circumstances and that, just as his sight seemed to be functioning, so were his other senses. He could feel the breeze that lifted the airy white curtains like pearly moths against the tall, open windows; it was soft, cool and soothing against his face. He could smell the breeze as well; a crisp, salty savor mingled with a buttery warmth; the smell of the sun on the sea. In fact, he considered, cocking his head to one side, he could hear the sea as well; a hushed, repeatedly whispered whoosh that sounded close.

"And so," he said dispassionately to the still white room, "sight, hearing, touch, smell; four out of five, I suspect that means that I am not dead."

"Four out of six," said a considering voice, which made the Count jump and his pulse begin to race. "But," continued the voice, "I suspect you wouldn't know about that yet, would you?"

At first the Count couldn't even locate the voice in the large, echoing, milky room. When he did finally find the speaker, he could hardly see her, for, like the rest of the room, she was white on white.

Leaning back on a long, snowy reclining couch, at the far side of the room, near the windows, was a woman. He might have thought 'old woman' for her hair was white as well, falling in a long, thick, silvery braid over one shoulder. However, her pale skin was smooth and unwrinkled and her eyes belied the label as well. Though there were deep, dark shadows, like bruises, beneath them, her eyes were the only point of color he could see in the room; a startling, luminous green-gold like moonlight welling through autumn leaves. Her gown was the color of old pearls and she was covered with a creamy, white lace shawl.

"Let's see," she continued thoughtfully, "Freud? No he wouldn't account for anything. Never did. Sir Richard Burton, 1870ish. Dr. Paul Joire, 18 . . . 92?" She regarded the Count's clothing reflectively, "about right, I suppose."

The Count found that he was staring at the woman with his mouth hanging open. For some reason, of all the odd things that had happened to him during this strangest of days, this seemed the most bizarre of all; fantastic and insane in its preposterous normalcy.

"Sixth sense," she said, "Of course, it's a complete misnomer to lump it all together under one sense," she went on meditatively, as if speaking to herself, "since it contains so many elements . . . precognition, telepathy, psychokinesis, astral projection . . ." She focused her oddly colored eyes on the Count again. "Sixth sense," she reiterated like a teacher repeating a lesson to a slow pupil, "ESP. Extra Sensory Perception. Paranormal phenomenon . . . seems like a good bet since you just walked in here through a wall."

The Count continued to stare at her for six heartbeats before he whipped around, looking behind himself. For the second time in a just a few minutes, or perhaps a hundred years, all of the breath was expelled from the Count?s body like a bellows suddenly slamming shut. What he saw behind himself was, indeed, a wall and nothing, but a wall. A tall white wall with the barest trace of a tiny rainbow flickering in the center of the chalky expanse.

"Yes dear," said the woman mildly, "a wall. What was it you were expecting?"

The Count could only stammer; "g . . . glass . . . a glass . . ."

The woman?s eyebrows rose, "a window? No, a mirror! Humm. Seems to me I read a book about traveling through a mirror once. And then of course there was Alice. Interesting conjecture. I take it someone on the other side of this mirror told you that you would be able to return by the same route?" The Count could only nod numbly.

"Makes sense," she continued reflectively "the problem being that this sort of thing ultimately never makes sense." She looked up at the Count's stricken face, and sighed. "People are always concentrating on the most complex and complicated things and completely missing the most elemental. Well, come my friend," she beckoned him toward her with a small movement of her hand. "Since you are here you might as well test out your fifth sense and make sure it is working."

The Count approached the couch and found that beside it a long, low table had been laid. It was covered with a white linen cloth and a vast variety of food. However, the table was only a few feet off the ground and there were no chairs. "You sit on the cushions and there really are no table manners." She smiled at the Count?s confusion. "I'm sure you don't find that terrifically comforting right now."

The Count lowered himself slowly to the floor and sat awkwardly on a white pillow he found there, his long legs folded up like a grasshopper, his frock coat fanned out behind him like a sail spread upon the sea. On the table there were huge bowls full of shell fish, oysters, clams, ebony mussels and red shrimp lying in beds of lettuce. There were platters of fish, grilled sardines and tiny saurels snuggled into nests of fresh bread; bowls full of woven rice rich with sausages, beef kebabs with laurel and garlic. Piled togther were cataracts of fruit and cheese; Serpa, Serra, Rabaçal, Azeitão, oranges and figs, pears, pineapples and avocados. Toward the back of the table were large platters filled with lavish cream cakes, dishes of cinnamon rice pudding, thick slices of Tomar, bowls of marmalade and nuts. The vast array of food, as well as his strange position on the floor, made the Count feel disoriented and dizzy and he merely sat on his cushion and stared at the table.

"Uh hu," said the woman on the couch, who had still not moved, "fifth sense nonexistent. Maybe you are dead after all." She laughed dryly, "I'm joking, my friend. Of course you don't feel like a huge meal after the shock you have just had. Have some wine and some bread. Perhaps a little cheese. It will make you feel better."

The Count poured wine from a tall cut glass container into a thin, simple wine glass which was etched with the form of a swimming otter. It was a surprisingly good Madeira and after a few sips he did, indeed, begin to feel a little less shaky. He broke off a small piece of bread, absently wondering why, with all of this rich food so near, he had smelled only the sea a few moments before. He could certainly smell the food now; the scents weaving and wafting around and through each other; the rich savory smell of sausage; the aromatic perfume of rosemary, sage and laurel; the tang of zesty garlic; the opulent spicy scents of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and coriander; the sudden sweet-tart smell of quince which made his mouth begin to water. The Count realized he was hungry after all, terrifically hungry and he reached for more food.

"Tell me," the woman said suddenly after quite a long pause. "Why did you walk into that mirror?"

The Count was unpleasantly reminded of the blank faced young man asking, 'Tell me, why did you come here today?' The large sum of money passed through the Count's mind, the promised political favors; how he had been tricked into signing the parchment by the sleepy, salty smelling golden sand. He wondered what he had signed. Probably his own will, leaving everything he owned to the man with the pale, waxen face. "I walked into that mirror," the Count said bitterly, "because I am a fool."

"Ah well," said the woman dismissively, "the fool is often the most intelligent and wisest person in the play."

The Count stared at her incredulously, momentarily struck dumb. "Shakespeare," he finally managed to say.

"Indeed," the woman answered dryly, "amazing as it seems, The Bard is with us still."

"I haven't even asked where . . . when I am" the Count said slowly.

She raised an eyebrow, "does it matter?"

He considered this, and then gave a tired shrug. "Probably not. Is this the twentieth century?"

She shook her head, smiling slightly, "twenty-first."

The Count took in a deep, slightly shaking breath. "I took a long step when I walked into that mirror."

"Umm," said the woman, "one small step for man, one giant step for mankind."

He gazed at her, slightly astonished. "But . . . that?s . . . that?s perfect!" he said, "that?s exactly . . ."

"Pfft!" she waved the whole thing away with a small movement of her hand. "It's plagiarized. Besides it's poppycock." She smiled a wry half smile. "Of course, there are many things to tell you about . . . flying machines; people in space, walking around on the moon; some diseases eradicated, other?s have taken their place . . . see that tiny black box over there? It is more magical than any mirror. It can answer almost any question in a matter of seconds and can take you virtually anywhere in the world just by pushing a few buttons. Politics on the other hand," she went on dryly, "politics are pretty much the same. I think you will feel very much at home and find that nothing has really changed at all."

The Count looked at the strange woman carefully. "How did you know I was a politician? Are you a scientist?"

She laughed out loud. "Good heavens no! But you are certainly a child of your times! If you had come from only a few years earlier you would have been asking if I was a witch! I might be a witch, but I am certainly no scientist. No, my friend, just a lucky guess . . . an educated guess, but just a guess."

The Count was silent for a moment, thinking furiously, but when he spoke, he spoke slowly. "The real reason I walked into that mirror was because they told me there was something marvelous that I was supposed to do in the future. No," he added feeling suddenly that only the bare truth would do in this bare white room, "no one said 'marvelous,' I added that myself. They said there was something that I was 'meant to do' in the future. It seemed very important and very . . . special."

The woman closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the cushions of the couch. "Words are slippery little demons, aren't they? Meaning slithers between them like snakes in a vat of eels." She opened her eyes and looked at the Count with something that might have been sympathy. "My dear, don't all of us have something we are 'meant to do' in the future? Otherwise, what would be the point?"

As the woman's meaning became clear in his mind, as the two interpretations of the word 'future' slid past each other and congealed, the Count revised his label of himself from "fool" to something much stronger. For a second he felt a burning rage, he felt like throwing something, like breaking something then suddenly he was just too tired to care. Exhausted beyond exhaustion, with a weariness that made his bones hurt. He dropped his head into his hands.

"On the other hand," the woman continued reflectively, after a moment, "It may indeed be that you need something from this future. I mean, really, when you walked into a mirror why did you end up walking out of my wall?"

The Count looked up wearily into her bright, woodland eyes. Something she had just said . . . "What do you mean I may need something from this future? I thought it would be something that I must do . . . that only I could do."

"Um," she replied shortly, "well that is because you think too much, or because you think like a man," she added. "Men always think that they have to 'do' something. Macho, butch, manly, virile, rah, rah, rah." She smiled at the Count's startled face. "Yes, dear, I know. Women don't talk like this where you come from." She laughed again, throwing her head back slightly and then wiping the sides of her eyes as she continued to chuckle. "Isn't progress divine? Now, sir, what, I wonder is it you are searching for?"

"I . . . I didn't know I was searching for anything" the Count stammered, but right on the heals of this statement he knew it wasn't true. He had been searching for something . . . money? influence? social position? No, all of these were only a means to an end. Power. For some reason, as the word came into his head he felt a flaming shame that seemed as though it must be blazing hot and scarlet in the cool, white room.

"No, my dear, you needn't be ashamed," she said softly. "You are not the first, nor will you be the last. It is a historically well established want and no," she added gently, "you didn?t speak aloud. I told you I was a witch." She regarded him, her head held to one side. "The thing is of course, that what I inquired about were your needs and what you thought of were your wants. There is a great deal of difference. You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just may find, you get what you need." She chuckled again. "I am full of plagiarism today. Do you know who said that? The Rolling Stones. If you listen carefully enough, the mountains will begin to speak."

The Count could only shake his head. "I am very confused," he said faintly. The woman smiled again, a dazzling smile that made the Count remember the radiant rainbow against the golden mirror .

. . "You are, indeed," she answered, "and that is exactly the point. She finally moved, leaning forward toward where the Count sat on the floor and taking his chin in her hand. Her face registered pain at the movement and then an intense, profound concentration. She gazed directly into his eyes. "I do believe," she said finally, "that what you are looking for is your tale." A look of confused shock passed over the Count's face and she added hurriedly, but with laughter in her voice, "T-A-L-E . . . as in a story." She released him and leaned slowly back against the couch, sighing deeply and closing her eyes once again. "I wonder what it will be?" she said dreamily, "An adventure or an allegory? A fable or a fairytale? Will it be historical or heroic? A myth or a mystery?"

"You believe that I have come forward in time because I am looking for a story?" the Count asked incredulously.

"No dear," she answered mildly, her eyes still closed, "not A story, YOUR story. Once again, there is a very big difference." She opened her eyes slowly and smiled an even slower smile. "Now, I like gifts," she said, as if this random declaration made perfect sense to their on going conversation. "I like to receive them and I love to give them. I like them wrapped in bright paper and hidden in big boxes. I like gifts for holidays and special occasions and for no reason whatsoever. I am, however, not in the habit of giving gifts to strange men who walk through my walls. Nevertheless" she held up a finger to stop his protest, "Nevertheless. I like you and I intend to give you a gift. Such a gift as you have never received. Such a gift as you have never imagined."

The Count had reached a point where he had absolutely nothing to say. It seemed that there were no more words left inside him. He stared at the woman mutely and finally managed to croak a very inadequate, "thank you." What on earth would this mystifying, bizarre woman consider a gift of this magnitude?

"Indeed," she answered nodding. "Now walk to the window, look out and tell me what you see."

The Count climbed stiffly to his feet and walked toward the tall windows, which he could see now were actually massive French doors. Moving past the billowing curtain, he pushed the doors open with both hands and drew in a sharp breath.

The achromatic, albinic alabaster of the room ended here. Outside was a small terrace, high above an azure sea; a flawless sky of peacock blue reached down to meet the foam tipped waves. Reaching into the distance, the waves caressed a rounded coast line of huge smooth rocks and pale, golden sand. Before this fact could even register, his eye was caught by color and looking directly below he found another, larger terrace and a third below that, just above the sea.

All three terraces were filled to excess and spilling over with bright bougainvillea in every imaginable shade of purple; lavender, amethystine, orchid, grape, hyacinth, lilac, magenta, deep plum, almost black; and amidst the vivid riot of purple was a woman . . . dancing. A shiver ran up the Count's back, from the base of his heels to the top of his hair. He could hear no music, but it didn't matter; she was dancing to the color around her; she was dancing to the rhythm and harmony of purple. She was dressed in a flowing dress of lily white and her hair was red, but that didn't matter either, every curve of her body, every lift of her arms breathed, sang, shouted and whispered: purple. She twisted, she stretched, she spun; she lifted her face to the sun and arched her back.

"And so?" came the voice from behind him, "what do you see?" The Count had entirely forgotten the existence of the white woman on the couch. He turned to face her slowly, his pupils dilated despite the bright light. He was silent for a moment and then answered softly, "I see a goddess."

The woman nodded and said matter-of-factly, "very good. She is a goddess; she is a treasure; she is a swan; she is muse; she is my sister. She is also a witch, just by the way, but more to the point, she is a Cantadora."

The Count blinked, trying to bring his whirling thoughts back from the sweet purple sunshine to the still white room. "She is a story-teller?" he asked.

"Obviously." The woman regarded him through narrowed eyes. "Don't get any antiquated, archaic ideas here. I am not giving you my sister, we don't do things like that any more. Besides she is taken." She paused then added firmly, "quite taken. The gift I am giving you is a chance."

"A chance . . .?" he stammered.

"Exactly," she answered curtly, "the chance of a lifetime," she paused, considering, "actually, the chance of several lifetimes. The chance to have your story told."

The Count blinked again, he glanced around at the tall doors that held the enchanting, entrancing, promise of purple. He swallowed hard and when he spoke his voice was hollow and humble. "What do I need? What must I do?"

The woman on the couch smiled broadly and there was a brief, green-gold flash. "What do you need?" she mused, "how about a purple waist-coat? Or better yet, some purple jogging pants. What must you do? Well, my dear, you must do what you were 'meant to do' all along . . . let's see . . . do you know how to waltz?"