Excerpt from The Dragon and the Rose

Sair had never felt so hopeless. All she could see or feel or touch or taste was darkness. All she could hear was the darkness saying, “This is all there is: coldness, dying, death.”

She found herself dreaming, of a little circle of light.

The darkness roared but then, seeing what was in the circle, withdrew in contemptuous laughter.

A group of old Mer, crippled and weak.

The darkness had nothing to fear from THEM.

“Come sit beside me, dearie,” said an ancient female Mer with little hair but a pleasant face.  “You must be worn out from all that running.”

“Plenty of room,” said another Mer.

“That’s right,” said a third.

Sair opened her mouth to respond, but “All is darkness” and “Evil is all there is” was what came out of her mouth.

The Mer didn’t seem bothered.

The first Mer patted Sair’s hand. “We all feel like that sometimes.”

“That’s right,” said another. “The pain talks pretty loudly, don’t it?”

The group of Mer were all, now that she saw them, wounded in some way. One was blind. The legs of the one beside her were withered. All of them had decrepit scales and age-worn faces.

But, amazingly, they all seemed cheerful.

“How do you keep smiling?” Sair wanted to ask, but instead when she parted her lips, “Life is pointless” came burbling out.

The second Mer nodded to her encouragingly. “What we do is look at the fountain,” she said, as if she had heard what Sair had wanted to say.

But there was no fountain, only a cracked mosaic floor, in the center of their circle.

“Use your other eyes, dearie,” the first Mer said.  “Like this.” She squinched her eyes closed and tilted her face upwards, looking so comical that Sair couldn’t help but laugh.

Too late, the darkness rushed in, roaring.

But Sair had already closed her eyes and was seeing what the Mer saw: a fountain, flowing freely in the sunshine, in the courtyard of the Stone Haven castle.  

“Ah, don’t that sun feel good?” said the fourth Mer.

Was this real?

Sair opened her eyes. The fountain disappeared and the darkness came rushing back.

“Look again, quickly dear, and be grateful,” said the third Mer.

“Grateful!” Sair could not believe her ears.  “For withered legs and arthritis and blindness and—”

“Oh, that’s just stuff.” The first Mer smiled encouragingly, putting her arm around Sair. “Stuff happens.  But life—Life— ah, that’s a precious thing.”

Sair sat again in the sunshine by the fountain, listening.

“Such a sunny day.”

***

Warmth and sunshine surrounded Sair. The darkness within her began to melt.

***

The first Mer touched Sair’s arm gently. “Life always has its problems, but just being alive, that’s a wondrous, beautiful gift.  Don’t throw it away, dearie.”

Oddly enough, a door had appeared in the middle of the fountain.  From behind the door, Sair heard Joe’s voice.  “Sair! Come back, we need you!”

Sair sat up straight. “How do I open the door?” she asked.

“Gratitude,” said the blind Mer.

Bursting into Sair’s heart came a flood of memories, dispelling the last of the deadly darkness.

Laughing together with Joe.

Harriet, with that intent look on her face when she was thinking hard.

Enchandrel, with the breeze blowing through his leaves in the summer sunshine.

Jumping up, Sair ran for the door.

The darkness grabbed at her.

‘Friends!” Sair shouted. “My father! Books! My mother’s garden!”

The darkness was still reaching for her as she wrenched open the door. “Sunshine!” she shouted, and fell through the opening.