Marigold was the word plated across a low wooden gate. She rolls her lips; beyond the gate she can see the swamp and the hill rising above it. Her parents are in the front, her sister beside her, yet she doesn’t mind them. To her, the house hummed over the swamp in the distance like a medieval castle, sentinel of the old. That magnificent facade of the Fackwerkhaus. Its exterior is wrapped in ivy vines and framed by orange-barked pine trees.

When her feet hit the ground, the dogs are already barking, the sound of them fleeting in the foggy autumn air. She inhales the wet smell of the earth and dying leaves. Her sister laughs on the other side of the car.

Her Grandfather emerges, with an upheld hand. He smiles, saying their names. He embraces her mother and shakes her father’s hand. Misty watches in awe as the man gazes back at her, his tired, scarred, stretched face only making his bright blue eyes gleam more. He wears plain pants and a sweater, he has little to no blond-graying hair. His back slouches, the way that old men do. Despite her hesitation, she still feels safe enough to run to embrace him with her sister. He beams down at them and pats both of their hair, kissing their foreheads.

“Come on inside, warm up ...” he says, leading them all through a fluorescently lit garage, toolboxes, and workbenches occupying the space. Upon the far end of the wall were posters, advertisements for beer, and vintage pictures of near-nude women. Misty’s eyes passed over them a moment, the strange notion that her grandfather had collected them. The back basement entrance gives way to the grand staircase. They all take off their shoes and coats.

“Go on!” he calls to the girls, “explore a little bit. It's not every day you’re here!”

“Are you sure Dad?”

Grandfather’s boisterous laughter echoes hauntingly up the stairs. “Nonsense! Go, let them have their fun.” He lets the dogs inside, which have been barking at the door. They run in and circle about them all. “Oh stop that racket!” he calls. The dogs yip and run up to them, following the girls up the staircase, their little claws scratching the wood.

On the ground floor, the girls run along two stretches of Persian rugs, past a painting of their great-grandfather and his belongings left in a rotting trunk. Past old graying German books stacked upon a larger wooden trunk. Its endless wood, encircling the walls and floor and ceiling, would make anyone feel small. Misty looks out the diamond-shaped glass planes into the crooked-looking three-season porch. The way the glass obscured it made her think of the title of a book she read but didn’t understand. Through the Looking Glass, is this what they had meant?

“Misty!” her sister calls from the parlor.

“Coming!” Even as she turns, her eyes leave the dead beasts of the dining room at the last second. She, being still fearful, may come alive, searching for revenge.

Misty wanders past the kitchen, noticing an old telephone that hangs on the walls and nick-nacks on dusted shelves.

Her little sister is at the piano, bouncing on the bench. “Play something.”

Misty muses, “You know I’m no good.”

The girl's blue eyes plead.

Sighing, Misty goes to sit. She tucks her skirt under her. “What should I play?”

The girl shrugs, still holding her plushie toy.

Misty smiles and gazes at her, brushing her hair aside before returning to the piano. “Okay.” Her eyes travel to the sheet music in front of her. “Puff the Magic Dragon,” she smiles to herself and reaches up to the crisp but worn pages. She feels the scratchiness of the parchment and the cold keys beneath her fingertips. She blows off some dust and nods to herself; she knows how this song goes. She looks down at the keys and finds them.

“Hurry up.” One of the dogs barks at the turkey-shaped shadow through the lace curtains. Her sister hops from the piano. “Stop it,” she says, trying to grab the pup.

“What are you two doing?” It’s her father, with a bit of a chuckle.

“Isla wanted me to play ...”

He smiles and sits. “What are you trying to play?” He leans back to read the music, making the chair squeak. “‘Puff the Magic Dragon,’ huh?”

She nods.

He places the paper back down, “Did you find the first note?”

Again she nods and points to a key.

He nods, “Okay, the next one.”

“This one?” she asks, hovering over it with her middle finger.

“Next one over,” he points. “Okay, then this one.”

She locates her next finger over the key. “Hmm ... okay. Try the first part.”

The sound rings out through the parlor; it sounds more like bells than piano.

“Good.” he says, “Then ...” he moves to press down her second finger. “Again.”

She presses the first, then together presses the second key, “One, two and ...”

The third key bangs down. One of the dogs barks in response.

He laughs slightly, “Yeah. Good. Be gentler, but you got it.”

She smiles.

“Now with the words, I’ll help you play.”

She sings as he moves her fingers, “Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea/And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee ...” She laughs, “That’s a silly name.”

He grins at her. “It’s not a real place, Mist.”

Misty nods, the song still plays in her head, “A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys.”

“What are you all doing?”

Misty looks up, putting the papers back. Her grandfather stands before her, and her mother behind him. She freezes and panicks since she isn’t supposed to touch most things.

He frightens her with a laugh, “Who wants to go fishing?!”

“Me!” calls Isla.

Misty follows her grandfather, watching his silhouette get enveloped in the dusty daylight as he walks slowly forward towards the lawn, aged and frozen in time.

*     *     *
The lake’s outline of ice silhouettes the black water. They walk together onto the boat deck, the framed wood frosted and the balls frozen to the pool table therein.

“Are you sure fishing is a good idea?” Misty asks, turning towards the icy lake.

His loud chuckle echoes, “There’s still fish, aren't there?”

Their feet clamor along the floating dock until they reach its end.

Across the water, through the reflected golden light of the sun off the ice, she can see the lily pads frozen in place. An eastward wind still blows down the orange and red leaves. Misty shivers, but she likes the cold wind, feeling like ice on her ears and face, and hands.

“Margret,” her grandfather’s voice breaks her from her trance. “Look here.”

Misty looks into the murky water as catfish, sunfish, and walleye breach the surface.

“Here.” Her grandfather hands her small bits of diced cheese. “Feed them.”

Behind her, the dogs bark at the fish, and she kneels on the mossy wooden dock. She lays one of her cheese bites at the dog's feet to calm them.

“No, the fish.” her grandfather corrects, bending to her level with an aged sigh.

Misty watches the black water as a fish emerges to grab a piece, as she tosses her pieces.

Isla turns and runs to the muddy shore. “I’m going to look for frogs!” she says.

He looks up at her, laughing, then rises with a groan and chases after her sister.

Misty feeds the fish and dips her bare, pale hands into the ice water. It’s always cold and crystal clear as the winter day itself. She looks up into the graying sky, gazing at the clouds moving in across the lake. She shivers as she rises and turns, walking back to the cat-tailed shore.

“Isla,” she says.

The younger girl turns.

Misty smiles, “Wanna play hide and seek?”

Her sister nods energetically.

She laughs, “You’re it!” Misty bounds up the hill into the front yard, following the path of stones littered with pine needles. Rushing over the peeking hillside, her feet sink into the turned-over reeds and grasses. She turns about; where was she to hide? She looks at the prairie garden, the flowers dying and fading brown, and some of the wheat stems still blowing in the wind. The gazebo looks empty and haunted, its white paint peeling. She shakes her head. She likes the garden, bees buzzing upon snapdragon flowers, peonies, and tiger lilies. The pups run and yip at the butterflies and hummingbirds. In the warm months, it’s her slice of wonderland. Yet now all are vacant and dead. She breathes in the sodden frost of winter. She still loves when the earth dies, yet she mourns for a moment, wishing for a summertime youth that she lives in but cannot recall, nor sustain.

She steps along the path, following it toward the cobblestones and three-season porch. She walks to the front of the house, where upon the terrace stands a hollowed-out oak tree.

“Ready!” her sister shouts from the shoreline.

Jumping slightly, Misty runs up upon the terrace, not bothering to look down at the dead tree roots that uphold the stone staircase that leads to the second floor. She bends and crawls into the fairy door at the base of the tree. She crosses the threshold and embraces herself, snuggling into the grassy dirt and the hollowed home of the tree. Here she waits, looking up at the princess tower on the third floor. Its stoney exterior is wrapped in ivy, with wilting red leaves. It's a black top, a spire that pierces the sky and dares to meet the stars. She squints her eyes at the prospect; it seems impossible, but here the impossible seems possible. Her shivers distract her from her thoughts. The wind blows, circling about her chosen enclosure. At least the eaten-away walls provide warmth. Looking up through the tree, she sees the gray clouds swirling above her. Above her the branches stretch out to reach the sky, yet are never quite able. She feels like if she were to climb the old oak, she could surely touch it. As she lifts her head to gaze out again, she sees the white, obscured mist falling. The perfectly crystalline shapes hit the dirt at her feet and stick together. Snow.

“Hey, Misty!” her sister calls.

Misty emerges from the tree and looks back towards the door where Isla and her grandfather already are. “Inside,” he says. “It's snowing.”

Misty nods, dusting herself off, and follows them inside.

*     *     *
Beyond the Austrian travel trunks that hold secrets, she runs up the rugged staircase with the pups chasing behind her. Yet she pauses at the first landing, her hands still gripping the wooden banister. The wood feels cool but loose in her grip as she releases it and takes another cautious step forward towards the beast laid out before her.

Its large eyes are black and looking forward to nothing. It is too massive, too bare; its white coat and lined claws frighten her. Her small stocking feet creak on the floorboards as she draws closer. Beside the corpse of the bear lies a silvery gray spiked helmet, carved masterfully. Above the helmet and beast, a massive, aged flag hangs. Its white, yellowed and red dimmed. It was Der Vaterland’s flag; holding it from the ceiling are dusty toy ships in bottles. They were of the adventures her grandfather had, their clan had. If she inhales she almost smells the memory of them, the mud of the trenches, the dirt on a carried flag.

“Don’t touch that,” her grandfather says sternly. “You can’t touch that ... yet.”

“Why?” She looks after him as he moves up the next set of stairs.

“You’re not old enough.”

“What is it?”

He shakes his head, silhouetted by a particular painting. “Your great-grandfather’s helmet. Now come, your Grammy is ready to see you.”

Isla giggles beside him and stomps up the hollow stairs, all following.

Yet Misty turns to the painting on the adjacent wall. It depicts a winded wheat field, a beautiful brown mare, and a bare-skinned woman, both facing the sunset. Misty reaches up and touches her wind-blown hair. The faceless woman she did not know, but she always imagined being her real grandmother. Closing her eyes, she calms her breath and attempts to commune with the portrait of a stranger. Perhaps Misty recognizes a false wind and a grip upon that black hair. Though unsure, she parts and begins up the stairs. She loves her Grammy, yet she is always damned to wonder about the woman who got away.

Misty’s feet reach the fluffy green carpet of the top floor, mainly a bedroom and lounge area. Her Grammy sits there, absentmindedly. Isla plays with the dogs on the floor. “Girls!” She embraces them, particularly lifting Isla from the ground. She kisses them and brushes aside their hair. “You have grown.”

Grammy leans down, smiling, “Would you girls like to organize my hats?”

Misty smirks, wide-eyed, and nods.

Her Grammy reaches out and takes Misty’s hand.

Misty rises and follows, already inhaling the aged lace and false dust-covered flowers. Isla rises from puppy play and follows. Together they walk along the fluff rug and behind a massive mahogany armoire, a silver shining mirror within it. As her Grammy begins to remove frilly hats from the hanging wood contraptions on the ceiling, Misty cannot keep her eyes from wandering.

Across the room, beyond where the banister merges into the wall, lies the circular tower. Its walls have faded and cracked yellow paint and more velveteen lounges within. Misty pauses her curiosity and turns back to the thin profile of her Grammy. A businesswoman, dressed in an angelic white power suit. Her honeysuckle hair is silhouetted by the sun, in her own effeminate glow. Pursing her lips and releasing them, she looks from her Grammy to the hats. Misty loves the hats, loves the clothes, but when she looks back at her Grammy she is confused about loving or admiring the woman whose beauty, even to Misty’s young eyes, is so clearly a facade. Though she simultaneously longs to be who she is, as a future woman ought to be.

“Grammy?”

“Hmm?” She was still pulling down hats.

“Can I go to the tower?”

Grammy Lidya looks up and she slowly nods, “Okay, but don’t touch anything.”

Misty nods and slowly turns; she holds her hands behind her back in promise.

“Here Isla ...” Grammy says, pointing to the hats, but her voice falls away.

Misty crosses the green carpet threshold onto another wooden floor, her feet creaking upon it as the rest of the world falls away. The sunlit dust becomes a darkened mist in the tower room. The silence makes Misty tense up like something else is here. Misty turns about herself, taking a shallow breath, and more black-painted eyes meet her gaze. Yet some are colored, blue, green, brown, or iridescent. Their pale porcelain faces glared at her with the utmost perfect reflections, mirrors for herself. Their bare glass bodies are adorned in daytime tea dresses, stockings, gloves of lace, church hats, or bows. Misty gasps looking up at the blackened point of the tower, her chest heaving with a vision of certain apprehension. She slowly catches her breath and calms. As she lowers her head and closes her eyes, her dark hair drapes over her face. She wonders why she had been so afraid, why she felt as if she was going to be sucked up into the black floor. Gazing again at the dolls and in the center, she spies across from her a doll in a pink dress. The doll is unmovable porcelain. Misty edges closer, looming over the ghostly doll, shadowing her white face. It is something she recognizes subconsciously, and draws ever nearer as if to take control of it. Seeing her appearance reflected in the doll's dead eyes, could she ever be so beautiful, so dead?

“Margret.”

Misty jumps.

“I told them not to touch them.” It was her Grammy, her voice flat.

Misty shakes her head frantically, “I didn’t, I wasn’t gonna-”

Grammy muses, “It’s okay.”

Looking back at her, “Why do you have so many dolls, anyway?”

“It's good to collect things, I've had them since I was your age.”

She knew her grandparents loved things. “Why do you collect so many things?”

Her Grammy shrugs, “To remember ... a time before.”

Misty glares at her but changes the subject. “This one looks like me.”

“It does.” She takes her granddaughter's hand, “Come on, help your sister,”

Together they begin to turn, “Do you think I’m that pretty?” Misty asks.

Grammy nods, “Far more.”

*     *     *
In the guest room, surrounded by the dim yellow light, Misty fidgets with her skirts and looks up at a near-nude photograph in black and white of Marilyn Monore. She poses, smiles, and looks coyly into the camera. A photograph, still, ageless, yellowing, and frozen. Behind her sister whines and cries as her mother tries to slip Isla into her stockings.

“Do you know who that is?” her father asks, approaching behind her.

Misty nods, “Marylin Monore.”

“What’d she do?”

“She was a movie star.”

He gazes down at his daughter. “Do you wanna be a movie star?”

“I wanna be like her,” Misty answers with certainty.

“Well, you’re going nowhere dressed like that.” Her father steps into the library, “C’mon, your cousins will be here soon.”

Misty stays a moment, looking up at the portrait. Another icon, another unknown. Misty knows not the diva’s voice nor has even seen a whole of one of her movies, yet she likes the way she was, the way she looked, the beauty she had, or so Misty thinks. Its falseness is slowly revealed in the girl's mind.

She walks through the library after her father, taking a moment to pass her hands by the warmth of the fireplace and its flickering flames. Her eyes cast upwards and she inhales, the dust swirling in the air about the brown books of old. They lay in wait, on rotting, timeless shelves for her one day to retrieve them. As she draws closer to one of them, wiping the dust on her fingertips, she gazes at their hidden yellow pages. She flicks the parchment with her nails, disturbing them slightly. Her eyes pass to the other books, attempting to make out titles in undiscovered languages and undecipherable words and fonts. Pulling back, she looks about the room, wall to opposing wall, shelves with gray books. She thinks of how the books and the nick-nacks in her grandfather’s home are landscapes, and in a home, in a world without maps, she is a cartographer.

“Misty! Come help set the table!” her mother’s voice calls her across from the house.

It pulls her forcibly from her vision and the bookshelves. She turns and lets her stocking white feet carry her out of the room and down the hall.

The dining room is overseen by the massive figures of beasts on the wall and their black eyes. It is dipped in the scent of roasted meat and vegetables, spices rising in the air and encircling the room. Rosemary rotting the air and cinnamon sickening it with a pepper-sweet aroma. Her mother stands in the yellow light of the banging kitchen. “Here,” she says, stepping forward, placing a large stack of white, painted china on the table. “Be careful. Don’t break them or we’ll have to pay for them.”

Misty looks up at her mother and nods.

Her mother wipes her brow, “Let your sister do the silverware and napkins.”

Again Misty nods.

“I have to help Grandpa,” she says with a final turn.

Misty approaches the table, which is just below eye height for her. She instead pulls out a chair and sits on its cushion with her knees and begins passing the dishes out to the placements around her. Yet the strict straightness of her spine never fades and every few plates, she takes a cautious glance at the beasts above her, not only fearful of their possible life but also their stampede across the dining room.

“Need some help?”

Her Grammy stands silhouetted in darkness, haloed by the dim candlelight glow.

“Mom wanted Isla to do the silverware.”

Her Grammy pushes the younger girl on and follows.

“You both look beautiful.” Her father’s voice announces his entrance.

Misty smiles.

“Your cousins are here,” her father says.

“I’ll get it, Adrian!” Grammy shouts from the dining room into the kitchen.

“Alright-right ...”

Isla has already squealed and jumped from her placement of the silverware, leaving the last few in a pile on the table. The dogs are yipping and running after her to the downstairs door. Misty moves to finish the table places when her father holds out his large hand. “It's okay, I’ll finish it, go.” Then she runs downstairs, catching a glimpse of him smiling.

*     *     *
After kicking off all the outside snow, the smells of salt and wetness chase the girls and their uncle and aunt upstairs. The pups barking announce their arrival to a now brighter, richer, decorated dining room. The centerpiece is a large roast, adorned with vegetable trays, mashed potatoes, hot dishes, wine, and beer. The vivacious scents slip Misty into a trance, and in slow, tired blinks, she watches her family smile and embrace. Misty licks her lips, drawing to the threshold betwixt the dining room and kitchen. Her eyes glazing over, she feels separated, as if she doesn’t know the people before her. And she enters into a great dollhouse of her alternative life. Where her family isn’t her family, and where her trembling hands display an uneasiness, not excitement.

“Come kids, let's sit. Eat,” her great uncle proclaims with a flourish. He is an elderly, strong, gray-haired man. And Misty’s eyes wander upon him, she does not really know him.

The patriarch sits at the north side of the table flanked by his first, only, and favorite granddaughters, her parents on either side of them. Her cousin's parents, her cousins, and on the other side of the table, her granduncle and aunt. They all settle. Her grandfather clinks his crystal and gold-rimmed glass with a fork. Slowly he rises, clears his throat, and begins.

Misty gazes up at him, his shadow looming over her like a wavering ghost.

“Ein Prost.” He lifts his glass and gazes around at the disjointed family he built. “To us, to our Kinden und Frauleins ... beautiful as their mother. And thank you Kristine for bringing us together this night.” He lowers his glass and clears his throat again, shortly.

Misty can see through the age in his sandy skin at this moment; it is like the earth beneath seawater. She can see the exhaustion in his red-rimmed blue eyes. Nervously, she takes her hand to comfort him.

He turns and smiles down at her. He whispers, “It’s okay, Misty,” and pats her hand.

He turns, recomposing, “To my lovely wife, and to my brother, for making the trip.”

Her cousins giggle.

“I thank you all for comforting this old man and giving me more than what anybody can wish for, my family and their future. To us, and to the future!” he finishes. “Prost!”

“Prost!” all echo before they polish off their first glass and bang it on the table.

To the future ... Those words echo for a minute and she looks at her grandfather.

He turns to her and smiles. “How old are you?”

“Ten.”

He nods, then, groaning, reaches across the table to an open wine bottle. “Here,” he says, as he uncorks it and begins to pour her a meager glass. He grins, “You’re old enough to get a taste of the family business ... to drink.”

Misty looks from the drink to him. She swallows, her eyes catching him.

“Go ahead.” He pushes the glass towards her, with the nobility of an old friend. Maybe he reminds her of someone.

Delicately, she lifts the glass. Taking in the estranged scent of berries and sour grape juice from the violet liquid. With her eyes upon him, she pours a taste in through her lips and feels it dance across her tongue before swallowing.

“What’s it taste like?”

Misty takes a moment and swallows again. “Grapes, sour grapes, and ... wood.” She licks her teeth and lips, confused by the taste.

“Do you like it?” His face is aglow, and he grips her forearm as it rests on the table.

Unsure, Misty shrugs and sort of nods.

He leans back, grinning. “Told you,” he smirks. “Savor it, that’s all you get.”

And as the meal begins to be passed around, she does savor her first taste of wine. Often licking her lips, and taking small sips as if not to ruin it. To hold onto the taste of hickory and smoke and grapes, the scents of salt and spice, of candied fruits, of the snow falling outside, and the rot of fabric. The beast's black eyes don’t scare her. The sweetness of food, the drink, and the company keeps her smiling until her cheeks are hot, red, and sore. Yet her mind does not escape her grandfather’s words; to us and to the future, when she is old enough to drink ... to drink ... and now at this moment, beside the dying man, she feels suspended in time, and untouchable in space. Nothing could hurt her here.

Her sleep comes before the flames of the fireplace die, and there is where it really traps her. And she begins to ache and wrestle in her dreams, for within her, her china doll skin is breaking and her dollhouse, shattering.

*     *     *
When she awakes, turning on her side and blinking, she clears her eyes and looks up at the photo of Marilyn Monore on the wall. Her beauty melted away, sinking beyond the frame. Her smile reshaped into a frown, her pretty face and lovely curves, slipping away. It liquefies into a Picasso and falls until her sepia colors meet the floor.

Suddenly she sits up breathing heavily, turning about the darkened guest room and gripping the soft cotton sheets. The mound of her sister sound asleep breathes slowly. She glances back around at the photo. It was normal again, Marilyn smiling in her lovely little pose. Everything is unchanged.

Sitting up she sighs, now realizing how thirsty she is. Her throat is dry and rough. She releases her grip on the cotton sheets, her bare feet falling to the icy wood floor. She steps towards the shadowed dusty doorway into the library. Here she pauses and gazes solemnly up at the painting. She inhales the scent of burning candles, wafting from the next room. Hesitantly, as she stands in the doorway by the photograph, she reaches up and runs her forefingers across the image. When she pulls away, she rubs her fingers together, looks at them, and looks back at the painting. Waxy wetness, as if not-quite-yet-dried ink. She shakes her head and turns, with a breath, walking beyond the threshold.

In the center of the library, the low-light golden candlelight burns from a multitude of them, and their colors vary. Almost all of them are over-running and dripping beyond their golden holders and onto the parchment below. Books are strewn about, unaged. The ink sits unstill in a vial, and a feather pen lays wet with the black ink but untouched in the center. Misty draws closer, her eyes cross the page, in Germanic cursive, it's written: “To us, to the future, to death ...” like poetry.

Then behind her, she hears books fall and a trail of cackling, much like her grandfather. “Anybody there?” she whispers. Holding her breath, she turns about herself, “Hello?” Behind her the library is trashed, books shaken from the shelves and thrown onto the floor. Parchment laying out, torn and rotten. “Isla?” she whispers still. “Are you there?” Misty shakes her head and continues to look about. Her eyes gaze into the blackness of the next threshold. She swears she sees someone standing there, a gray figure silhouetted in black. Yet then she blinks; her eyes are just playing tricks on her. Still, returning her gaze to the table, she wonders how the books all came out of place and who had written such things. “Well, whoever you are ... I’m taking a candle.” Misty slowly bends and retrieves the carrying piece of the candle holder. Then with a swish of her nightgown against her ankles, she turns and walks beyond the next threshold and into the hall and staircase landing.

Momentarily, she lifts her candle, so that its golden light passes over a still polar bear and silver war helmet. With her breath, she relaxes, then turns beyond the stairs and into the long hall. It seems to grow in the darkness, the ceiling feeling higher and the kitchen ever-more distant. Yet with a steady heartbeat, she walks on, her toes digging into the very strands of the Persian rug. She lingers again, gazing at her reflection in the distorting diamond glass. Alice in Wonderland, now she truly felt like her. Before she passes by the dining room, the smell of the holiday supper still lingering, she takes a deep inhale and begs herself not to look at the beast's black eyes above the table. Slowly she steps on, a creaking of the floorboards, and that distant echoing laughter radiating through the house. A sound that stills her pace, nerves shooting up her spine. She agonizingly turns her head, to see the buffalo head, half encircled by the gold light. His deep black eyes, staring at her, reflecting her, angrily meeting her. She slaps her hand over her mouth to muffle a scream, startled by the very idea of the beast. Stumbling back, she bangs lightly into the glass doors of the three-season porch.

Her heart stops. She glimpses the tea parlor, and she hears the piano banging, as she did in the morning. It radiates out in an unwelcoming, eerie vibrato. She drops the candle, in fear, extinguishing it. Quickly she turns into the parlor, her skirts nearly chasing her. In the moonlight darkness, she sees no one. Reaching out of the piano, another key is hit loudly, causing her to pull back. No one hits the keys, yet they move. Before she can turn and run, the melody begins in earnest. “Puff the magic dragon, lived by the sea” ... It is not her own voice, not her father's. And the melody feels as if it came from another place. Someone sings it, on the other side of the glass. She doesn’t know where it came from.

Frightened, she stumbles into the bar. The song plays on, “A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys ...” but the ring of a telephone interrupts it. Misty jumps and looks at the antique telephone beside her, wall-mounted, gray with dust, and with a mouthpiece to talk into. She glares at it, her face pale and distorted with confusion. Why, how is it ringing? It rings again. Slowly she grips the mouthpiece and puts the earpiece to her ear. “Hello?” the distant voice says; it is clearly female but faded. “Margret?” it speaks with a southern drawl. Misty looks at the mouthpiece before her, and her hands shake. There was only one southern-voiced woman in the family. And she was long dead. “It’s me. Can you hear me?” Her fingers are sweating. “Margaret? Darling? Are you there-I-” she drops the pieces of the phone and slips onto the floor. The faceless woman’s voice still echoes in her head.

Her whole body, trembling, her chest hurting as it heaves. Sitting against the cool mahogany wall and floor, she can feel a shiver of panic down to her bare feet. She pulls her knees up to her chest, wanting to only weep. What is happening? Why and how is her grandmother calling her? Who are these ghosts ...

Up the hall, the wooden floor creaks. She rises, “Hey, Isla ...” she says, rising. “That’s enough.” She hugs her sides as she stumbles down the hall along the rug, lightless now. “Mom, dad ... I get it. ...” Then Misty’s eyes catch a glimpse of that figure she saw earlier on the threshold she had previously crossed. Yet now Misty can see the young woman’s face. Her soft features look beautiful in the ghostly moonlight, and her dark hair cascading reminds her of something. “Grandpa?” she asks, gazing at the second half-apparition of the old man appearing beside the woman.

“Is this really ours?” the ghost woman asks, looking up in awe at the high ceiling.

Her grandfather nods.

Misty draws quickly closer, gripping the sides of her silky nightgown still. She sees that the ghost woman leans over one of the rotten, dusty travel trunks of old. And as she turns to her grandfather and rises, Misty sees that she grips in her hand a book made only of yellowing parchment and black printer ink. Deutsch-zu-Englisch Wörterbuch. Misty gasps, rubbing her forefingers, almost able to feel the feather-light parchment in them. The ghost woman flips open the first page. Inside it reads Eigentumsrecht 1938. The ghost woman runs her fingers over the number. And as they both look up at the smiling face of her grandfather a thought feels translated into her mind.

“The year they invaded Austria,” Misty speaks softly.

Her grandfather nods.

“The year we left,” the ghost woman finishes.

“Be careful with it.”

Misty’s eyes are wide and her heart is banging against her chest. She reaches out to touch the parchment book before all dissipates in the air. “Wait no-I-” she falls through the air, onto the threshold of the darkened undisturbed library. She blinks in disbelief. Confused, she pushes herself up from the floor. Turning to look back up at the still staircase, blackness entrapping her. Maybe she should go get her Grandpa, maybe he knows what’s happening.

Creeping up the stairs, she passes by with a glare at the polar bear. Pausing, though, for a moment at the helmet he guards. She thinks again of her grandfather’s toast, which was finished so kindly by the ghost, “to death,” to drink. She fidgets, rubbing the silk of her nightgown together to calm the goosebumps licking her skin. She turns up on the landing and up the next stairway. Her eyes meet the painting; its golden glow, its warmth of a grassy field. Yet looking closer she sees the faceless woman gone and missing. Panicking, she bites her lip; she wants to scream but not to wake the whole house. She begins to run up the stairs, but freezes. “To death,” it says. Her shoulders tense, her heartbeat throbs in her head, and slowly she turns. “To the past, the present, and the future, Margret Misty May ...” She watches wide-eyed and horrified as her worst nightmares are personified. As its wet-looking black lips move, as they speak her name with an infernal tongue and its dead black eyes stare at her. The mounted deer turns its head, its coat ruffling and matted with preserved decay. “To death ... because we all die, we just choose how.” It speaks matter-of-factly. “Pursue death, pursue time, rather than be frozen in it.” She scoots back into the green carpet of the third floor; she can swear the murdered deer almost smiles. “Welcome to the looking glass.”

Pushing herself further and further back, she’s fully panting again and her stomach has escaped her as if she were falling. Her back hits the armoire, her gray eyes flash into a wall-mounted full-length mirror across the room. Yet she sees not herself in the mirror, digging her nails into the green carpet.

Instead, the older woman returns, her ghostly form wrapped in a floor-length, long sleeve, lace gown. The woman smiles, yet there is a sadness in her empty eyes that Misty cannot recognize. The woman sways side to side with poses, like Marilyn Monore, but this ghost does not melt. “You look just like her,” he says, also in the reflection, yet distanced behind the woman. Her grandfather’s voice is gruffer, more barren than before. “Beautiful ...” he says, his voice now echoing in Misty’s mind, dripping with melancholy. “And you’ll kill yourself too, just like her.” Then he threw his head back in that terrible echoing laughter, its menacing sound bouncing back through the perfect acoustics of the massive home.

With his last syllable, Misty watches the false joy drain from the woman’s face. The tears begin to fall down her shadowed, pretty face. Misty expects her to scream, to cry, like the woman wanted to, but no. The woman takes a breath, and with all the force in her body, arches her back and slams her head into the mirror. Shattering it, bloody. It comes crashing down like a frozen tower before Misty. What she sees is all broken glass and blood. The woman’s fingers are entangled with her bloody dark hair, scratching her face. The woman turns to Misty, too, laughing. Laughing, laughing, laughing. Now Misty screams in terror, pulling herself back from the snowy shattered glass.

Yet no one hears her, Misty is alone in the darkness. The ghosts disappear. Now she begins to weep, gasping and heaving through her hollow body. Trembling betwixt gasps, she wipes her eyes and refuses to give up; she rubs her lips, and slowly, with all the terror and pain of time and legacy, she lifts herself up.

And stumbling again through the third floor of eternity, she comes again to the dusty threshold of the tower. Therein her eyes catch, in the single glimpsing specter of moonlight, the broken china doll. Her porcelain cracking, paint chipping. And Misty falls, her knees banging on the floor. She takes the doll and holds it in her arms. “It's okay,” she says. “I got you.” Misty looks down, her tears falling onto the doll's unmoving face, and with trembling hands she reaches up and pushes the doll’s dark hair from her face. “Everything’s okay ...” Misty rocks the doll in her arms like an infant. “It's okay if we’re broken.” She weeps, pulling the doll in closer to herself and embracing it. Then she hears a crack, like the ice caps. Misty slowly pulls the doll away from her chest, and the doll's face, reflecting her own, is snapped in half. As she reaches up again with one hand, the arm of the doll shatters, breaks, and falls to the floor with another bang. “No, no ...” Reaching into the fractured porcelain, the cracks spread across the doll’s body, “Please don’t do this!” she shrieks to the gods as they break off the leg, then the opposite arm, and the crown of her head. The porcelain mangled, like a body on the floor, “No, no-Please!” until she had nothing to hold onto at all. She sinks into herself then, glaring helplessly at her hands, bloodied by the glass. Her head is lowered, weeping.

“Time, death,” a voice says.

Yet Misty doesn’t turn to see this time. Her eyes go wide, and her head rises. “I gotta get out of here” is all she says. Breathless, with her trembling bloody hands. She stands, turns, and moves out into the blackened hallway, passing no one.

She comes to the great windows of the Fachwerkhaus and, catching her breath, she looks about through the frozen moonlight. One window creaks open with the wind. Misty looks back into the blackness for a moment and makes a choice. Opening the icy metal frame of the window, and stepping out beyond its threshold of frost onto the small overhang, the cold hits her. Snowflakes move through her body and freeze her bare feet. Yet she steps on, sliding lightly along the windowsill until she steps across the precipice to the stairwell of the tower. She nearly slips, her foot almost missing the leap, yet her cold red fingers are gripped so tightly to the window frame they turn pale. And once her foot is steady she swings onto the first stair, landing on her hands and knees. Gasping and then sighing in relief, she begins to climb the twisting stairwell to the top of the tower and roof of the manor. Her hands and feet are frozen, but she finds a seat amongst the shingles and the stars.

She catches her breath, gasping in that crisp, cold night air. She hugs herself for warmth, yet the cold matters little to her relief. Finally, something she knew, she recognized; the star-speckled sky and its ever-welcoming light in the darkness, its painted Milky Way. She relaxes, gazing out at the frozen lake, surrounded by that untouched arctic forest, and blinking out the frosted tears from her eyes. There was nothing to be afraid of out here. Below her, the garden lays sparkling, beautiful, and icy still, undying, ungrowing. The earth beneath is silent and still. The snow around her that danced as it fell calms her with its silence, and perhaps now, she could sleep. So, she lay her head down to breathe with the world and finally rest.

“Misty!”

She sits halfway up.

“You come down here!”

Misty shakes her head, thinking it is her mother now calling her. “Just a little longer,” she says. “You gotta see this.”

“Misty!” the voice grows louder, closer. “Come down here! You’ll freeze.”

Misty’s eyes do not part from the vast sky to look at the source of the voice. “Maybe ...” she says between a frozen yawn. “I wanna just freeze out here.”

“Misty ...”

“Be frozen in time, nothing to worry about out here then.” A tear falls from her face as she begins to lie down. She wishes the snow would blanket her and keep her warm and safe so nothing could hurt her out here.

“Misty,” the source of the voice grips her arm.

Misty looks up, a fogged breath escaping her. The ghost woman stands before her, with beautiful, warm, and unharmed flesh.

“You’re freezing,” she says, pulling the child into an embrace. “Let's get you inside.”

“No,” Misty says, pushing against her, “I don’t wanna go back. I’ll die in there. I'd rather die out here. At least when I’m dead ... I’ll be beautiful.” Tears fell salty and freely on her cheeks now.

“We will all die,” the woman says, “it is not what makes you beautiful. And plus, Mist, this is not where you’ll die.”

The girl turns towards herself, “How do you know?”

“Well,” she smiles, “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

Misty nods slowly.

“You were right about the stars,” the woman says, “I shoulda seen them.” She exhales, “They’re beautiful. We’re beautiful.”

Misty looks back at the woman, “What about Grandma and Grandpa, the dolls-I ... ?”

“It’s not about that.” The woman meets her eyes.

Misty was so sure, somehow, that this place was the answer. It was what could save her.

“Don’t make the same mistakes I did ... you can never freeze time or freeze your life, it's always growing and changing. Past, present, future, they’re all just mirrors of each other, but don’t leave yourself back there, you’ll get stuck and die there, Mist, never moving forward.''

Misty shook her head in disbelief.

“You think that’s what you want, to freeze out here, but you’re afraid. You got out of there, right? And you came out here,” she gestured to the wilderness beyond them. “Beauty isn’t in stillness ...” she pauses, watching the falling snowflakes, catching one as it cascades through time, and she smiles to herself.

Nodding, Misty wipes her eyes and smiles too.

“Hold on kid.” The woman takes her hand.

“To life.”

“To life,” the woman says. “Come on, let’s get you inside.” She picks up Misty and heads down the stairwell. There she knocks on the door and places Misty before it.

Misty gazes up at her, not wanting to release her small hand from the larger one.

The woman smiles, “I’ll see you on the other side.” She steals her ghostly hand away.

Misty nods, tiredly and sadly. She looks at the door, and when she looks back to where the woman stood, silhouetted by the snowy woods, she has disappeared.

Within a moment the door opens. “My god Misty!” her mother exclaims, quickly pulling her inside. “What are you doing outside?!” Her mother takes her night robe and wraps it around her. Its thick, woven wool warms her.

“I let the dogs out and they came to this door.” The pups are yipping around her feet.

“Don’t go outside when you do that,” she scolds. “Come on, let’s get you warmed up.”

Her mother leads her upstairs where they are all gathered around the fire, sipping hot chocolate. Misty’s eyes hop from the fire to the replaced books upon the shelves, to her grandfather, and she breathes, thinking of the woman’s words. He is frozen in time, surrounded by the reminiscence of the past, and he knew would die with it, in this big empty house, this wonderland entrapped with legacies that he himself could not remember. He is the dead little boy and the lost lonely Puff. Her eyes pass back to the fire, where she warmed her feet and hands, and she knows she will live on. Instead of dying in the darkness of worlds she could not know, she looks towards the future, the light, the life she would have and the garden she might grow, and how she would love to watch the seasons change.