V

A long time passed. After a while, I raised my eyes to the window – but of course the window was no longer a window but a mirror. There I was confronted once again with the strange reflection of myself. Immediately the pain in my chest flared up and caused me to cry out in desperation. Clearer and clearer grew the image in the glass. I could see that the princess’s robe was open in front, revealing a deep wound in her heart, and I saw that she, too, wept. But she did not seem to weep as one without hope.

Perched alongside the mirror was the small gray bird. In the depths of his blue eyes burned two tiny, clear, red flames. He looked at me, and the warm, comforting glow welled up in my heart, though curiously the pain did not subside in the least. On the contrary, it remained steady, mingling strangely with the warmth.

But the oddest of all these odd things was yet to come. For out of the corner of my eye I now saw lying on the floor beside me the form of a body, dark and still as the night outside. When I stooped down to examine the face, I was astonished to find that it was my own. At this discovery, the warmth and pain swelled and mingled in my breast once again. But I was not unprepared this time.

Though I could not recall the passage, I felt certain that something I’d read in the little book had forewarned me of this: I was dead, and yet I lived. At the thought, I laughed out loud. So hard did I laugh that the tears ran down my face. Or perhaps I should say that I wept hysterically. Which, I cannot tell.

The little gray bird cocked his head at me and nodded solemnly. Then he sprang from the window sill and flew three times around the room. At the end of the last circuit he made straight for the mirror which had once been my bedroom window. To my amazement, he passed clean through. Without thinking, I bent down, lifted the body that lay on the floor, and carried it after him.

 * * * * * * * * * *

IV

At length I awoke, shocked to discover that I was alive. Beside me where I lay on the floor was a little book. Taking it up and opening it, I found myself looking into a small mirror attached to the inside of the front cover.

How strange was the image I saw reflected there! In one sense it seemed plain and ordinary enough – easily recognizable as myself. But in another way it was not like me at all. It was marked by a beauty, a depth, and a radiance which I found nothing short of astonishing. At the same time, it was laced with an ugliness I cannot describe except to say that it left me with a feeling of foreboding.

I turned away from the book and looked to the window. Outside all was dark. Gone were the moon and the star. There on the sill sat the small gray bird with still blue eyes. I stared at it dully for a moment, then caught my breath at a sudden new discovery: where I had expected to see shards of broken glass, I found instead bars of iron across my window.

I spun around to face the opposite wall. It also held a large mirror in which I discerned the same disturbing reflection of myself. It was the image of a princess, a beautiful princess whose loveliness had been marred in some way – precisely how, I could not tell. I think it was in her eyes that I saw it.

Again I turned away, but it was no use. All of the walls were hung with mirrors. They had, in fact, become large mirrors themselves, as had the ceiling and the floor. Above, below, and on every hand I was surrounded by disturbing images of myself. Even the window offered no relief. When I looked in that direction, I found that it, too, had become a sheet of bright reflective glass.

Alone with these awful reflections, I again became aware of the little book. Picking it up, I began to turn its pages and to read what was written there.

This led to a new discovery. I had quite forgotten about the deadly wound I had received from the Firebird, but now it came rushing back into my consciousness. For as I read, a burning sensation began to grow within my chest, low and smoldering at first, but increasing by the moment. I noticed that as I pondered certain passages in the book this burning became a mellow glow that filled my heart with warmth and comfort; but as I read others, it turned instead to a hot stinging pain, so that I could not help but cry out because of it. In spite of this, the words of the book so held me that I read on and on.

* * * * * * * * * *

III

 Once more he reached into the sack.  When he withdrew his hand, I saw perched upon his finger a small gray bird with eyes of piercing blue.  It was not a pretty bird.  But for its eyes it seemed to me quite drab.  I did not understand the still depths in its eyes.

“Do you know this bird?” he asked.

“No,” said I.

“This bird,” he said, “will serve quite well to bring you out to me.  For he is the Persuader.”

At that he gave a sudden jerk with his arm.  The bird fluttered upwards and burst into flames above his head.  I was dazed by a loud crack and a bright flash as of lightning.  The glass of the window shattered and I was thrown back violently into the room.

When next I looked up I saw the bird dazzlingly transformed.  To look upon it was as to look upon the sun.  It was huge and bright, like the legendary Firebird.  Its wings were two outstretched flames, its beak large and sharp as a sword.  I saw it hovering, poised in mid-air just outside my window.

Beyond it, at a safe distance, the moon and star timidly peeped out from behind the bank of clouds.  I could not speak; I could not utter a sound.  In an instant the flaming bird was upon me.  Already with its terrible beak it had pierced my heart.  I was stricken with a deadly pain.  Smoke and red fire filled my eyes and then gave way to darkness.  I knew no more.

* * * * * * * * * *

II

Then he opened up his sack.  It was filled with gifts, and somehow I knew that they were all meant for me.  I wished with all my heart that I might get a better look at them; but still I would not go out to him.

He beckoned to me kindly, saying, “Come and see for yourself.”  The things I saw there through the glass were not such as I would have asked for myself, nor could I ever have envisioned them even in my wildest dreams, yet I felt as if I had always wanted them.  Nothing in that sack was anything you have ever seen or imagined.  I was filled with wonder, but did not understand what I was seeing.

I turned my face away from the window.  “I will come another time,” I said.  “I am not dressed for the out-of-doors.  See – I am in my night things.  I will come with you when I am better prepared.”

“Better prepared,” he said to me, “you will never be.”

 * * * * * * * * *

The Firebird:  A Christmas Fantasy

I

On Christmas Eve I did not sleep, but stayed up late to watch.  The moon was high and bright and one star shone low in the sky.  At my window I watched them rise up from the black trees.  But for the candle in the corner the room was softly dark.

A little breeze stirred the dry dead leaves outside, but nothing else moved.  I watched the star shiver alone in the moonlight.  I saw the moonlight playing in the treetops.  I sat like this, alone, for a long, long time.

The candle burned low and dim.  Halfway up the sky the lonely star chased the moon, and I knew that the night had grown older and deeper.  The breeze died and the leaves outside my window fell still.  I watched and waited.

At length I saw him coming, up through the shadows on the lawn.  Slowly he came, bent beneath his heavy sack.  A light of neither moon nor star was all about him and clung to him as he came.  The candle in the corner grew suddenly bright.

The star peeped out through a window in a cloudbank behind which the moon had taken cover.  He came and laid a hand upon the window sill.  I faced him through the glass.

“Come out and follow me,” he said.

But I was afraid.

 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

VIII

The little dancer woke to see the city skyline standing black against a red-gold glow in the east. Directly above her head the Morning Star still shone bright. Behind her, in the west, the silver sliver of a new and waxing moon hung like a bright scythe in the sky. Beside her lay her friend, still, cold, and pale as the snow in which she lay. The dancer touched her hand. It was cold, cold as clay, cold as the pavement beneath her.

Not one thought of any kind crossed her mind. Not the slightest ripple of motion stirred the stillness of her heart. Not one tear fell from her eye as she sat holding her friend’s hand and watching the light in the eastern sky.

Suddenly one bright shaft of gold shot out from behind a distant spire. Then up jumped the sun’s topmost curve and a thousand rooftops flashed in the instant brightness.

An indescribable calm lay upon the dancer’s heart. The winter sun rose with quiet thunder. And as she sat gazing at it, there within the circle of its glory she saw a face – the face of her friend.

And now the Voice came to her once more, but still and soft this time, and full of quiet peace.

“Dance!” it almost whispered.

The little dancer stirred. She looked from the face in the sun to the face in the snow beside her.

“Was it you all along?” she asked. “Was it your voice I heard in the green hills and in the misty glens?”

“No,” came the gentle answer. “In dancing with the little girl you danced with me. And yet I am not the little girl, nor is her voice my voice.”

“Who are you, then?” she asked in amazement.

“I am the Dance!” came the reply. “Together you have danced well. Together you have won the prize. Very soon now you shall see my face.”

The sun was well above the rooftops now. Bright and blue grew the wide sky and all the earth sparkled in the new light.

The dancer smiled, contented. And then she too lay down and slept in peace.

THE END