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sawdust and diamonds
IP: 78.149.235.51
Posted on August 26, 2012 at 00:05:56 AM by Dyna Bowmore



There was a feeling of belonging to the attic which overwhelmed Dyna as she breathed in the indescribable grey gold filtered glow of her surroundings, standing in the first of the varied sections of the attic. The infiltration of light from the window behind her gave the various objects a certain vague structure but in no way dispelled the darkness. Here and there a thin beam of light threaded the warm brooding dusk and was filled with slowly moving motes like an attenuate firmament of stars, swirling.

One of the narrow beams lit Dyna’s forehead and shoulders, and another plucked at the rich hue of her dress. In the gloom her eyes could barely be seen, for the light upon her forehead sank deeper shadows, by contrast, through her face. But they were calm. The excitement that had wakened within them as she had returned had given place to serenity. Over her head vague rafters loomed and, as she gazed around, she noticed them, and unconsciously loved them. Although this was the largest part of the attic, it looked relatively smaller than it was, for fantastic piles of every imaginable kind of thing, from great ruins of instruments to broken toy parts spread from every wall until scant avenues were the only ways of traversing the great space. The jumble of this room had never put Dyna off – this was not a space simply to be traversed, no, she had spent long afternoons crawling deep into the recesses and strange caverns of the incongruous relics of Shaman. Inaccessible as the mounds looked, Dyna, if she had wanted to, could have very suddenly, if awkwardly, disappeared into the fantastic mountains.

This room was the darkest. Another portion of her attic, with stairs leading upwards to it, was the best lit, with real shuttered windows which were inaccessible from the roofs but showed the panorama of roof-tops, towers and battlements that covered the castle. In her attic, silence was there with a loud rhythm. The halls, towers, the rooms of the castle were of another planet. Dyna stiffened, lips drawing away from her teeth. What was that? She could feel him coming.

Ducking beneath the stuffed leg of a giraffe she swirled herself into the darkness, watching as the thick wood of the door swung open, a squealing of hinges like something being tortured. For a second, she wondered whether the fairy who so rudely disturbed her peace had put an invisibility spell on himself – but then a much more solid form appeared. She held her breath, eyes furious. She had misjudged her hiding place – if he walked to the window, which anyone would, he would see her unless she moved. She balanced the options in her mind, every muscle tensed. It was only as the light lit his aristocratic features that she recognized him, her eyes softening, but it that moment the floorboard beneath her foot rebalanced – oh aura – before he could turn, she was standing behind him, eyes wary.

She smiled as his hand fell away from his dagger. Was that trust a little too easy? For all his knowledge of her name, surely she could still have meant to harm him. Her large grey eyes met his, and then she looked beyond him, chin raised. She tossed her long hair and it flapped down her back like a pirate's flag.

I’m just… I’m not hurting anything! This is just as much mine as yours… Are you going to tell me to leave?

She stopped. No, she was saying it wrong. What had Christoph taught her? If you encountered anyone, you didn’t talk, you didn’t look in their eyes, and if they demanded an answer you said you were fixing something. Only, that wouldn’t work here, because he knew her name, which meant he knew she wasn’t working at the castle. She bit her lip. In another situation, he would have found her perfectly cordial and polite, but he was invading her childhood, just by standing there. In the half darkness, her mouth was all the light now found, rich lips, seeming too full of vitality, but her stillness seemed to accentuate the hallucinatory effect of the attic, as though every gesture was more a picture coming to life than a movement that might take place in nature. The dark red of her hair fell motionlessly and gave infinite subtlety to the porous shadow-land beyond her, showing it for what it was, not so much a darkness in itself as something starved for sunbeams.

What is it? Why did you come up here? I don’t like that you came up here, I – I didn’t think anyone came up here.

She frowned, upset that she was failing to obscure her connection to the place, and took a few steps closer to him, the light trailing down the bosom of her dress and onto her glittering slippers. She looked up into his eyes, darkly, forgetting her usual perfect manners, gripped his wrist in one soft hand.

Well?

DYNA BOWMORE


there's a bell in my ears... there's a wide white roar...






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