Carousel Tunes

The music changed into something lilting and smooth as a lullaby. It filled Mira’s head with fog, as if she were half caught in a dream. It was familiar, it stirred a memory in the back of her mind. She saw, in a flash, like summer lightning, a face beneath a skein of murky water, tinged red like wine. She reached for the memory but it slipped away from her; she did not care. The music was too beautiful to think of horrible things.

She closed her eyes. The music blossomed behind the darkness of her eyelids, into flowers as red as fire, that darkened to a colour as rich as blood. They burst with golden polled that became dust. They whirled and whirled, spinning as if on a carousel. Among the flowers were feathers, black as ravens. There was a music box, a brass flute overgrown with vines and thorns. They spun and spun and Mira fell closer to them in the darkness. Her fingers tingled, though she could not see them. Her entire being was drawn into the music, and whirling pictures that came with it.

“I wouldn’t recommend closing your eyes,” Valentine said in a voice like black velvet.

Mira nodded. “It was the music,” she said. Her voice was wild and horse, as if she hadn’t used it in days. 

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Art by Anonymous