Was there only one world after all, which spent its time dreaming of others?

Philip Pullman

Cedar Eyes

I made my bed

Tucked the corners of my sheets

Six feet underneath

Laid down my head

And sighed in sleep

Wearing the night like a cloak

Over my shoulders

Diamond freckles on my cheeks

Body ransomed

By the shadows

Stapled lips and bloodied feet

But you saw me

Wrapped me up in sunlight’s skin

Mended me with gold

And traced the cracks

And healed me from within

Offered me your blood

Sweet ambrosia on my lips

Climbed down into my grave

To lie beside me

Hold my hand

And teach me how to live

My midnight turned to morning

Your breath into my own

You cast my name

Into the stars

And hid my heart within your bones

And day was never sweeter

My sleep undone

Because you saw me

And knew that I deserved the sun

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I don’t hear music anymore

Remind me what it sounded like

Before all the birds had gone

Before the trees stood still

And ceased to sing of morning

Of the sun to follow darkness

Of a world where you still smiled

And I could hear it

I could hear it

Reverie

Call out into the cliff-borne wind

With murmured prayer beside the sea,

And wait among the salt-worn stones

Until that whisper summons me.

For I was meant to run the roads

Of far-flung dust, unhindered sun—

And lie in beds of daisy heads

Until my days on Earth are done.

I wish to see a storm-wrought sky—

To walk within some waking dream

Of faeries on a misted moor

And moonlight on a sylvan stream.

Where rain holds fast to cobbled streets

And shines like silver in the night

Beneath a castle’s turrets high,

As lanterns set the dark alight.

The Last Place We Belong

Sit next to me

Gift me your dreams

I’ll write mine on a secret note

And have you guess the whole night through

And we can play pretend

Build caverns out of sheets

And crown ourselves with paper rings

And we’ll laugh in our little corner

This place we’ve put aside

For a moment

Just a moment

Ghost

You found me in a sea of stars

In silver-speckled skies

And plucked me from that field of night

Of a thousand diamond eyes

You kept me close to give you light

Beside you, I was bound

To walk the earth without my wings

My feet fettered to the ground

And once, I turned to watch the sun

With whom I used to dance

And twice, I reached to touch the moon

With nothing but her porcelain glance

And thrice, I screamed and screamed and screamed

With silence in return

For that world that I had loved and lost

That blue heaven for which I’d yearned

Was too far—oh so far—to hear my doleful cries

And so, I stayed, no longer bright

To shine for you, and only you

Because you told me it was right

The Verdant

Tofaer closed his eyes and raised his face toward the golden light of the sun, leaning into the gunwale and the wind that swept his hair from his cheeks. He could taste the salt that gathered on his lips—feel his stomach lurch with the waves that bobbed beneath his feet.

In all his life, the ground had never been so unsure. There had always been an armful of branches to catch him. As if the trees that raised him truly watched him grow in maternal silence. It was difficult to leave—his eyes could still conjure the turrets of the sylvan kingdom as they disappeared behind the bronze sheen of the ocean. But the trees still spoke to him here—however far he ventured from Saian’s shore.

“What do you suppose we’ll find out here?” He turned away from the water to listen.

“I’m hoping for a mermaid.” Bylor replied from his seat on a cask of Tinnabirian wine yet to be moved below deck, smirking between bites of the apple he cradled in his hands. “Maybe a faerie or two.”

“Moved on from vying for human affection, have we?” Dorien prodded. “Were you doing that poorly?” Tofaer’s gaze flew to Bylor in time to watch the man give the other a rude gesture involving his fruit.

“It makes you wonder, though—doesn’t it?” He let his laugh trail away into the thoughts he spoke aloud, once more staring out at the endless horizon of blue upon blue. “What are we looking for so far from the mainland?”

“Perhaps a better motivated crew.”

His heart skipped a beat at the voice; and by the smiles that fell instantly from his shipmates’ faces, he didn’t have to look at the woman dressed in cyan and emerald silk to know who she was.

“What are you three doing trading hopes and dreams when there’s a ship to be looked after?” There was a moment of silence as they remained where they were, as if they’d been encased in stone at the mere sight of her; and crossing her arms, she shooed them away like the maddened shepherds he’d encountered in the Meadowlands. “Off you go.”

“Yes, Cap’n.”

His companions scurried in opposing directions as he answered, to inspect the rigging or otherwise make themselves look busy. And Tofaer darted back to the gunwale to retrieve the satchel he’d forgotten at his feet a few minutes earlier. Bending his knees, he crouched to lift the leather strap from the ground to place it over his shoulder—only to rise to a gale much stronger than before.

And seasoned men shouting as they pointed at the sky.

Tofaer lifted his head as a shadow cast the starboard in darkness and staggered backwards, catching himself before he stumbled overboard and into the water below. And he blinked, desperate to be sure that he hadn’t imagined it.

Two dark wings—awash in scales that shimmered silver as they captured the sun’s light before blotting it out entirely. There was no sun to speak of in their midst—only the chill left behind in its absence.

The crew recoiled as it swooped overhead, as if simply ducking would shield them from the primordial creature’s lethal breath.

“That’s not what we’re looking for, is it?” Tofaer exhaled in the torrent of wind left in the dragon’s wake, watching as it reared up and vanished into the west like a phantom of iridescent light.

“No.”

He turned at the word that left Captain Naresa’s tongue, and she sighed as she tore her gaze from the vast expanse of a wild sky to settle it somberly on his face.

“Something bigger.”