Chapter Seven
I had only been away from my home for a matter of hours, but it somehow seemed like I had been gone for months. Everything seemed cold and empty, like the cavern itself had forgotten what it was like to have the touch and presence of a living creature inside of it. Even though I had lived in that cavern since birth, I entered into it with a sense of trepidation hovering just in the back of my mind. Nervousness pricked at me as I slid down through the hole in forest floor just above the mirrored realm and made my way down the large tree toward the reflected branches that made roots across the sky that had become the floor.
Something had changed within me and suddenly I didn't know where I fit anymore. The walls and crevices that had always welcomed me and had never inspired even a moment of fear now seemed strange and I wondered if I was going to be able to continue on with my solitary life in the way that I had for so many years. It was amazing how much something as simple as stepping above the ground and experiencing the presence, companionship, compassion, and betrayal of other creatures could change everything that I knew about myself, the world, and my perceptions of existence within it.
I slid down the vines on the tree, letting them carry me until my feet hit the solid wood of the tree branches. I looked down at the reflected sky, the black expanse streaked with the murky, pinkish grey clouds that broke up the sky and muted the stars both above and below me. For the first time I found it as strange as the Klimnu, the Denynso, and the humans had found it. I had always known that our world was a mirror of the one above it, and that what we saw was not what they did, but it wasn't until I had actually stepped onto the ground and saw, for the first time in my entire existence, the sky stretch over my head rather than at my feet that I felt the odd tug within me that said I was questioning something.
Just as I had told Elianna when she nearly fell into the sky through the stone floor I had created for them by reflecting the wall behind them into the expanse in front of them, the entire existence of my kind was based on belief and trust. We had to believe from the very first moments that we drew breath that what we saw was what it was, that it would behave the way that it was meant to, and to never question it. Questioning, wondering, even for a moment, could mean death. In not questioning, however, we never encountered the possibility that what we thought we were reflecting, how we were perceiving a situation, could possibly be wrong.
I was wondering about that now as I stood at the very edge of the reflected sky and pondered what it was that I was seeing. If that was the reflection of the sky, did that mean it was only the reflection of the sky as I perceived it? What if I didn't believe that it was the sky, that I believed it was glass, would that make a difference in how it behaved? Could it be that what I was seeing was not actually what was on the floor of the caverns, but what was being reflected by the caverns, meaning that there was something else actually there?
I knelt down by the edge of the sky and experimented by dipping my hand down into it. Like it always had, my hand slipped beneath the edge of the tree and into the cold space. I withdrew it and reached for one of the clouds. Holding tightly to the vine, I leaned slightly forward so that I could scoop my hand through the pink and grey streak that was like a faint wash of paint across the blackness. When I pulled my palm back, I watched as the pink and grey melted into cold water against my skin. It was just as I would expect it to be.
I sat back against the tree and closed my eyes. I remembered what I had thought I felt when I was standing in front of Bannack. In him I had seen the same desire and need for me that I had felt for him. I had believed that that desire was as intense and irresistible for him as the feeling that I had when I looked at him. I could only believe that because I had no other option but to believe it. Now, though, I realized that I did have another option. I could question what I believed about Bannack, and if I could question that, I could question what I believed about everything, including that the sky was all that existed on the floor of the cavern. Holding onto that feeling about Bannack, the realization that what I had seen in him wasn't really what was inside him, but what I wanted to see, I opened my eyes again and looked at the floor of the cavern.
This time I didn't see the sky. When I looked at it in those dark, silent moments I saw a pane of glass. No longer were the stars struggling to glimmer through the clouds. Instead, I saw only darkness, as if I was looking through it into the abyss deeper in the planet. I closed my eyes again, took a breath, and when I opened them I saw an expanse of thick, white ice.
I reached out over the ice and felt the cold rising up off of it, tingling against the skin of my palm. Releasing the vine that had been tethering me to the tree, I stood and stepped out onto the ice. The cold was almost painful against the bare bottoms of my feet, but I reveled in it, enjoying the sharp, undeniable feeling that told me I had created what I wanted to from my own perceptions. What I had told Elianna was absolutely true. She hadn't believed that the floor would be solid, so it turned back into what she had been told it was, and what she believed it to be, the sky. When I believed that sky to no longer be the sky, but glass, it had become glass. And now it was ice.
I didn't need my mirrored compact anymore to create what I desired. I only had to believe in my ability to change my perceptions and the perceptions of those around me, and I could create whatever I desired.
I walked across the ice until I reached the expanse of dark ground on the other side and continued forward, not glancing back over my shoulder to find out what happened to the ice when I looked away. The corners of the cavern still looked strange, but I forced myself not to look at them. I kept my eyes focused ahead and climbed my way down into the second chamber so that I could go back into my house.
The solar panels hadn't had the chance to power the lamps since I had left, so I had to rely on the soft glow from my skin to illuminate the room around me. I walked into my bedroom and removed my dress, not bothering to dress again as I made my way out of my house and toward the hot spring toward the back of the chamber that I had adopted as my bath. I sank down into the water, allowing it to soothe my muscles and ease the tension that had built within me.
I dipped my head back into the water to wash my hair and then braided it into a long plait down my back, and then twisting it up so that I could knot it around itself. The air of the cavern was cool around me as I climbed up out of the hot water and made my way back to my house, allowing my skin to dry as I walked. I felt like I was moving through a still, untouchable image, as if nothing was moving with me or responding to my presence. It was as if the emptiness inside me had extended out and taken the energy and light from everywhere I ventured.
Once I was back inside my house I reached into the bureau against my bedroom wall and pulled out a nightgown. I was just dropping it down over my head, intending to crawl into my bed and allow the world to disappear around me, when I heard a voice echoing through the cavern.