She stood on a bluff high above the churning sea, the rays of sunshine trapped as her hair blew haphazardly around her cherubic features. A lone figure on the cliff she was tall and broad shouldered, with no cloak to shield her from the biting winter wind coming off the angry Cardinal Sea. A single tear ran slowly down one cheek. Surprised she had tears left she thought a thought she had thought a hundred times in the months preceding this bitter January. A tear rolling down one’s cheek is the most sorrowful feeling in the world.

“You should come inside,” a soft but strong and deep voice called behind her.

No answer.

The young man, handsome with a long face and large almond eyes, was the son of the family she was staying with this month. He held a black cloak and as he stepped up to put it around her shoulders she sidestepped avoiding his concerned and loving gesture. Eight months ago her heart would have sung at the thought he cared for her at all. But now, her home world shattered with its mirror-joint-point to this one, she could do nothing at all. The joint-point was more than the entryway to her world but it held the existence of that world in its gleaming reflection of the castle where she was born in. The wind blew like a bitter giant pushing her towards and then away from the high cliff above the violent sea churning around sharp rocks.
The mirror was not just any mirror for it did not reflect the image around you. Rather it reflected a different one and, at the right moment, one could step through it from the dark tower room in which it resided into a fantastic world of magic and wonder. Above you would be a towering and exquisite castle made of sparkling, stark, white stone. Behind you not the mirror you stepped through but a wall of mirrors rising as high and as far as the eye could see on both sides on a flat plain of spring grass and flowers.
The mirrors did not reflect the image of the castle nor the tower room; they reflected nothing, nothing at all, and one could mistake it for the wall at the edge of the world made of pure silver. But now this world of perennial spring was gone forever and the lone angelic figure on the cliff was stuck for eternity in the dismal world of reality, alone. Her parents’ lives shattered with the enchanted mirror. She was alone in every way, in every world she knew.

“Catherin.”

“Go away,” she said void of emotion.

“Catherin, I can’t just stand here and watch you suffer.” The young man’s name was Blake. “Catherin whatever you think you are not alone, we love you,” he paused and softly added close to her ear, “I love you.”

Catherine stood dazed and confused her mind on all the times she and her parents had visited Blake’s family and she had spent the time moping about how Blake didn’t like her and not with her parents and now it was all for nothing. But most of all, finally more than her grief she felt something more, she was actually happy. There was a twinge of excitement that was stronger than the remorse, if only for a moment.
A cloak now slipped over her shoulders and a hand slipped in hers. She closed her eyes tight and tears came. A soft thumb gently wiped the hot tears from her cheeks the hands they belonged to cupped her face.

“Stop crying Catherin. Stop. Come live in the present and not in the past. I beg of you. For no one’s sake but my own, come back to the present.” Blake pleaded.

Catherin opened her eyes and Blake’s sea green ones were filled with tears, their noses just inches apart. Somewhere her heart leaped. He loved her; she was standing this close to him. She felt the warmth from his body and the smell of apples that seamed always to linger on his breath. The eyes got closer and soft lips pressed against her cheek and the voice of gold she had fallen in love with whispered “Please.”
His lips still on her cheek he took both her hands.

Her lips just brushing his ear, she whispered, “Take me home Blake. Take me home if you’ll have me.” Strong hands grasped her sides and as the sun tore through the gray clouds she was lifted into the air and spun around and came down to two big sea-green eyes and a smile, so contagious it made her laugh. And with that laugh again she flew with the wings of love.