The sleeping city threatens to swallow the young woman as she trundles through its looming gates and into the fields. The sun has long ago retreated from the horrors of the day. Now, silver rain paints the shimmering pavement, reflecting the golden light of the rings and moons, high above the wispy clouds.
Lily Reverie breathes a soul-deep sigh that turns instantly to hot fog and tickles her frozen chin. She has spent the night reporting inconsistencies in the Chasm, trying to ensure that magic continues to circulate the globe. Her mind is numb from facts and figures that a younger, more naïve version of herself would have found fascinating.
All-too-often-asked questions return to her exhausted mind: is this what it is to be an adult? Is she now the person she couldn’t wait to grow up to be? If she had it her way, she’d still be a child, pretending to be Captain No-Beard: pirate of the Infinite Sea.
But then she wouldn’t be engaged to Timothy. Dear, sweet Timothy… She sighs again—a contented, happier sigh—and crosses the arched bridge over the Waning River. She tilts her head to the sound of rushing water and chittering moonfish.
Her boot sinks into the ground and she curses, losing her balance. The lamps have gone out, dark clouds have crossed the sky, and she cannot see where she is going.
Suppressing a groan, she tugs her foot out of the wet soil and pulls a glove off with her teeth. Her fumbling fingers perform a complex pattern and she thrusts her arm forward. A gleaming golden trail relieves the dark and drifts along the path, like tendrils of hair floating in deep water.
Lily trudges on, her magic lighting the way. She smells woodsmoke and breathes it in, smiling involuntarily. He’s up.
The little cottage is rustic and charmingly small next to the towering city, and Lily feels a soothing anticipation driving her last paces before home.
She draws the golden trails back within herself and steps onto the front porch, thinking that there’s no place—and no one—she’d rather return to at an awful day’s end.
A young man sits by the door, a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. If a stomach can rumble with an appetite for wine, Lily’s gives her that yearning nudge.
“Hey, sweetie,” she says, liberating the glass from her fiancée’s casual grip, vaguely registering that her red armchair has been brought outside.
“Someone’s had a day and a half,” notes the wine-theft victim.
“A week—” Lily takes an unceremonious swig “—nay, a sordid month, condensed into a matter of miserable hours.”
She returns the glass (now significantly lighter) and Tim swirls the remaining wine, watching it seduce the porch light into its deep purple.
“You spend too much time there, Lils,” he utters grimly. “It isn’t right. Let me help.”
“It’s my job,” Lily retorts, sinking into the blissful embrace of the armchair, “and I work the required amount. Any less, the Chasm could combust and that’ll be the end of magic. Anymore—”
“And you combust,” Tim finishes.
At least it’d break the monotony,” mumbles Lily. “Who knew being a Magicist was incredibly boring… all those theorems and equations…?”
She feels her body relaxing and her eyes fall shut. A moment later, she hears Tim say, “Lily, honey, you can’t sleep here.”
“Hmm.”
“I brought the chair out because I thought we could have a nice chat, but it’ll have to go, when… it’ll have to go.”
Lily is lost in the chair’s divine depths, her body pressed so closely against the plush fabric that she and it may as well be a singular entity.
“You really love that chair, huh?”
“This is no mere chair,” slurs Lily sleepily. “This is a three-dimensional ode to joy. A landscape of leather and velvet: my queendom of peace.”
She can almost hear Tim grin. “Knew you shouldn’t’ve given up drama school.”
She opens her eyes, suddenly wide awake. “Maybe. If I hadn’t, I’d be able to act my way through this damn job every day. To pretend it’s okay. Because right now I’m tired of it. Tired of every tired smile I’ve had to plaster onto my tired face. I’m in my twenties and I feel about a hundred.”
Tim sets his glass down sombrely. “You think I’ve never had a bad day? The ones that feel downright apocalyptic—that are meticulously designed to drive you over the edge, everything heaping down on you, just you, and no one else, until you tap out, because you can’t take it anymore, and screw the world; what the hell do you owe it, or anyone—those days?”
Lily sits up straighter, lest she fall from the chair. “Right. Those.”
“Everybody’s had one. Most’ve had more. But I’ll tell you something. Because we live one day at a time, we get a reset. Every morning has the capacity to become the best day of your life.”
“Well, it’s almost morning now, and I feel horrible.” Lily stares desolately out at the midnight city. When Tim doesn’t respond, she looks at him.
He is looking back in a way that intoxicates her more effectively than any wine: lips slightly parted and upturned, eyes wide, pupils dilated. He draws breath to speak, and like velvet, his voice emerges, soft and delicate:
“Let’s go for a fly.”
Lily’s breath hitches, she tucks her hair behind her ear, and shyly takes his hand.
They lift off the ground, and with barely any effort they are soaring, flying, arcing over fields that look like layers and layers of warm, soft blankets aglow with fragile luminescence. As raindrops to an ocean, Lily’s worries fall away and are lost, and all she knows is the cold rush of air and the heat of Tim’s body that makes her feel more alive than she has in forever.
She casts a backwards glance to the city. The buildings rise like long fingers, reaching in vain for the sky. Some are lonely, some find company in groups, some lean drunkenly towards their neighbours.
She returns her gaze forward, to endless hills and sprawling farms.
The village in the next dale is washed in orange light. Hundreds of paper lanterns rise above the ramshackle huts and crooked streets. The morose assembly below sings a dirge, the deep timbres and sweet croons reaching Lily’s ears even over the wind:
“Of lost acquaintance, soaring high
We bid farewell, their legacy
Lives in us all, ‘til we, too, die
And so, they live on endlessly.”
“Who do you think died?” Lily whispers.
“Not sure,” mutters Tim anxiously. “Try not to think about it. There’s nothing we can do.”
They leave the lanterns’ lamented luminescence and the melancholy music behind.
A comet of violet crosses the dark skyline and Lily squints. “Oh, wow, that’s a callian!”
“A what?”
“You don’t know?”
Tim shrugs apologetically. “Been neglecting my magical studies.”
Passionately, Lily explains: “They’re flying horses with scales and violet wings that appear when they need to fly…”
“That’s amazing,” gushes Tim earnestly, but Lily falls silent. She knows she gets too excited about these things. But when the land rises sharply as they pass through a dense cloud, she can’t help but gasp.
The peak of a snow-capped mountain hangs upside-down from the sky, almost grazing the mountain below, onto which snow falls. But above, snow rises onto the peak of the inverted mountain. It’s like the space they are flying through is a giant mirror between the two opposing mountain ranges.
“This… is beautiful,” murmurs Lily.
“Just like a painting,” Tim agrees.
Lily takes a moment to simply gaze around in wonder. Then, she asks, “Okay, Timothy, what’s your point?”
“I have no point. Just soft edges.”
“Don’t be cute. Why the midnight sightseeing?”
Tim gives a lopsided smile. “We appreciate the world more from outside a bed, don’t we?”
They clear the mountains and now they’re over ocean. The sky is clearer; Lily can see all the constellations that were obscured. She’s always loved the way stars twinkle and turn as you pass below them.
“Lucky stars…”
“Hm?”
“Oh!” she laughs. “You made me think of that saying: ‘thank your lucky stars’. It’s about being grateful… I haven’t seen the stars in ages. In the city they aren’t visible, but here…”
Tim’s gaze is so soft that Lily melts into it. “You love them.”
“I can’t help myself. We owe everything to the stars; they’re the reason for all our light and life. Don’t you think that warrants a little attention on our part?”
Tim’s breath catches in his throat. “I… well, you said it all, Lils.”
Lily smirks. “Maybe, but I want to hear what you think.”
“All right.” Tim scoops her into his arms and carries her as they fly. With tender determination, he continues: “If the stars are what we thank, then I’ll thank every single one, until I run out—one for each of the reasons I adore you.”
Lily shivers with the thrill of his words. “Oh, Tim! That’s the most… why are you looking at me like that?”
He’s gazing intently at her. “I’m memorising your face, Lily Reverie, so even if I never see you again, I’ll remember it for all of time.”
“Timothy Dreemer, you’re the most ridiculous romantic. I just have one question.”
“Yes, m’dear?”
“Why would it be necessary to memorise my face? You’re going to be seeing it every day for the rest of our lives.”
A soft smile crosses Tim’s lips. It looks almost sad, but then Lily’s own lips are on his and she can’t tell anymore.
Sometime later, they pass overland and the stars are blocked out. Lily’s yawns deeply, wearily.
“Don’t worry, Lils,” she hears Tim say, as if through a tunnel, “we’ve still got time.” As he squeezes her hand, she succumbs to exhaustion; her head droops on his shoulder, and she is out.
She wakes what must be hours later, amid a wild lightning storm. The intermittent flashes illuminate mammoth-sized black cloud formations that look like lurking leviathan, warships at sea, or ruins amongst dunes.
Lily cranes her neck to look at Tim. He stares around, jaw set, with all the signs of someone trying hard not to close their eyes.
“Where are we, Timothy?”
He starts, his grip tightening around her. “I just… I didn’t know it was like this up here.” There is an odd edge to his voice.
“It scares me.” She clutches tighter to him, panic rising. “Can we go back down?”
Tim nods. They slip down through the grey masses, and Lily can breathe easy again as they soar above a splendorous view.
The first moon sets, while the second yawns vacantly above the starry horizon, on its way up to its pre-dawn post.
At the turning over between days, Lily feels as though she is on the edge of something. Her experiences become memories that no longer belong to ‘today’. That has become something else, which not too long ago she called ‘tomorrow’.
She doesn’t know what this new day has planned for her, nor what she has planned for it. All she knows is that here—in Tim’s arms, high above this wonderful world—is a good place to start it.
She sings an old lullaby in a light, whispered voice, partly to Tim but mostly to herself:
“The in-between’s pulled me to thee
The noisy world’s too much, you see
But starlit dreams have wooed us well
By silver streams, heard wedding bells.”
Above them, the two moons glow with a golden contentment, while on the ground, fields of silver flowers and stardust shine with a quiet serenity.
Lily laughs with unbridled glee. “It’s beautiful.”
Tim cocks his head, confused. Lily is looking around at the sterile white walls with excited fascination.
“What is, sweetie?” he asks tiredly, arms aching. He’s been carrying her around the room for quite some time. After her nap, she seems to have acquired boundless enthusiasm. He’s glad he’s managed to shake her out of her gloomy stupor, but it’s when she gets like this that she’s the farthest from reality. Yet she’s also the happiest he’s seen her in ages.
Exhausted, Tim sets her down so her feet touch the cold, tiled floor, and she sits on the stiff, rickety bed that won’t adjust properly; last week, they removed the screws so she wouldn’t hurt herself again.
Lily beams and gestures at the plastic stars and moons hanging above her bed, at the painting of snowy mountains by the door, at the drawing of a violet horse her nephew sent, resting on her favourite armchair that Tim brought in. But she doesn’t see the other patients in the ward and the doctors tending to them. She can’t see anything but the wondrous worlds in her mind that Tim, try as he might, simply can’t get to.
“Oh, thank you, sweetie, this was such a good idea… Look at it, Tim… Look at our beautiful world.”
“I’m looking, Lils.” Tim’s voice breaks, and his heart goes with it.
Lily has tears of joy in her eyes as she says:
“Isn’t it just magical?”