Amber light seeped from the hallway, illuminating the grass and trees. Mira hurried up the path, tredding on flowers and narrowly avoiding the empty iridescent husks left by beetles. She came to a stop, flushed and out of breath, at a golden chamber on the crest of a hill. It was filled with strange ornaments; tiny animals perched on pillars. Some were gold, some silver, and some ivory or crystal, all seated on blue silk squares. From one sweeping glance she found her favourite, it was a tiny ivory swan with a gold beak, inlaid with ruby red eyes. On the underside of the swan, she discovered when she picked it up, was a crank fittted into a niche in the pillar. She slipped her fingers into the grooves of the crank and hesitantly spun it until it halted with a satisfying clunk. Mira placed the swan gently back on it's pillar. As the crank began to turn, after the initial grind of gears and cogs, the room filled with an intoxicating sound. A familiar melody that drifted in the air and made the world around her sway, until she realized it wasn't the landscape that was swaying, but her. Slowly, then faster until all was blurred. She kept her gaze on the swan's red eyes, but they were darker... like wine, no, like blood. Nausea rushed through her stomach and she turned to find fresh grass in her face and the world on it's side.
Art by ATL Jewelers
Text by Lucie MacAulay
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