ASH-GIRL: I don’t mind the ashes. HAZEL TREE: ASH-GIRL: No, really, I don’t. They’re warm. It gets cold, you know, in the servant’s quarters. But the ashes, The ashes are warm and white and soft Like some strange snowfall. I don’t mind them. HAZEL TREE: ASH-GIRL: I do miss my bed, sometimes. HAZEL TREE: ASH-GIRL: It’s warm in the ashes, but it’s lonely. I don’t know why that matters, why in the dark When I am curled in the un-snow and waiting For sleep to pull me down into the place Where Mother lives still, And I—you will forgive me—have never met you, It matters that I am alone. It never bothered me in my room. Perhaps it is the laughter Of the girls who once called me mistress and now Call me what all of them call me. HAZEL TREE: ASH-GIRL: I think I am forgetting my name. HAZEL TREE: ASH-GIRL: They haven’t forgotten it. They choose to call me that. Every time, they choose. HAZEL TREE: ASH-GIRL: There are times, in the hearth, in the amber bath Of firelight in its dance like your leaves in autumn, When I allow myself a dream. HAZEL TREE: ASH-GIRL: You mustn’t laugh. You mustn’t tell. HAZEL TREE: ASH-GIRL: I close my eyes and I sink Down into the heat, the ashes, and let The bone-white bury me, Let the light paint me, and dream. HAZEL TREE: ASH-GIRL: I dream the ashes into glory. I dream myself a gown of smoke and flame, Bold and wild as the death of the year, As the crown you wear before you let it fall Down onto me. I dream the ashes into stars in my hair, I dream them Into silken slippers on my feet. I dream myself a dancer sending sparks across the floor, And in my hand another, holding tight, And in my ear a whisper, soft as the evening’s embrace, And in my chest a burning. And in the midst of it all— I, the flame, am free. HAZEL TREE: ASH-GIRL: I dream. And then I wake. And the ashes Are only ashes, and I am only a girl. But still. I dream. WHITE DOVE: Ask instead.
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Seek the forest. Feed the wolf. Be brave, be clever, be kind.
I love this!