Another Short Story

Grace's Dream

Bedtime in the sleepy Texas border town of Luz Oscura would almost always find me lying awake, listening to the disembodied sound of the dogs barking in the distance. Outside, the parched desert wind blew fiercely, scraping an orange tree’s branches against the wall and window of my brother Frank’s and my bedroom. Above me in the top bunk, Frank contentedly (I imagined) snored away. I was always envious of his ability to fall asleep the minute his head hit the pillow. For me, sleep was usually a carrot dangling just out of reach.
My baby sister Grace’s room was next to ours and almost every night I would hear our father tell her a story in efforts to send her on her way to dreamland. If anything, that blessed state was even more elusive for her than for me.
I could always hear my father’s light baritone just above the lonely howl of my canine companions in the distance. And those rare nights when the wind didn’t blow, the story came through almost word for word.
There was one story in particular I remember. I have no idea why. I also don’t know if time and imagination have enhanced or changed it substantially. It concerned a mighty and benevolent king named Alontius or Alonshus, his beautiful and infinitely clever wife, Verita and their two children, Grachine and Theobald. (I’m just guessing at the spelling of these names.)
King Alontius was very wise and beloved by all his subjects. He adored his wife, who was his chief advisor and confidant. His daughter Grachine (Grashene?) was an accomplished artist at the ripe old age of twelve. Theobald, two years his sister’s junior, had already shown a precocious (I doubt my father used that particular adjective) ability as an equestrian and was quite the musician considering his tender years.
You might think that Alontius would have been thoroughly contented. He had riches, the devotion and wise counsel of his adored wife, the loyalty of his subjects and the love of his children. He and his family lived in a glorious palace on a mountaintop where the air was pure and the weather ever pleasant.
But if you thought so you would be wrong. There was a strange feeling of emptiness that haunted Alontius. It was a prodigious yearning that, try as he might, he could give no name to. Oftentimes, Queen Verita would find her husband staring out a palace window so far in the distance and with such a look of absence that it would trouble her. “Husband, what seek you in the distance?” she would ask.
Alontius would react rather self-consciously and quickly try to assuage his queen’s worries. “Oh, nothing, nothing my dear…just admiring the beauty of the valley below and…and hoping it may be preserved for all to enjoy in the future.” And he would quickly return to affairs of state and catechize his wife concerning the annual budget or some question of property and the law.
Verita remained suspicious, but out of a sense of discretion, did not insist. I suppose these are things one must accept in a marriage, she thought to herself. Even between wife and husband there are personal thoughts and issues one keeps to oneself. But she remained unsettled.
One particularly spectacular spring day, the king went riding. He actually snuck out to avoid any of his guards accompanying him. He needed to be alone. He rode for hours on his horse, Champion, over the far corners of his kingdom. Down into the valley below he rode and came upon a particularly dense stretch of forest. From there he wandered out of curiosity into the woods outside the limits of the palace grounds.
He came upon a copse so thick that all was cast in shadow. A dense fog arose that seemed to encompass only the area of lush woodland where he presently rode. And, eerily enough, it seemed to follow him as he guided his mount in different directions. He suddenly felt drawn into a space of wonder and imagination. So unusual were his surroundings that he slowed Champion to a crawl. I have no idea where I am, he said to himself with a dose of apprehension seasoned with excitement.
Then suddenly, on a low branch of a tree he could not identify, a huge white owl appeared. He stopped, astonished. “What on earth…!” he said out loud. And to his greater befuddlement, the owl replied. “Perhaps not.”
“You…you speak!” the king replied.
“A decidedly keen observation,” the owl dryly replied.
For a moment the king was struck dumb with wonder. Finally, he regained the power of speech. “What…what are you?”
“What I am is beyond your powers of understanding. I appear only to those whose emptiness calls me to life. I feel that profound ache within you. What is it you seek?”
“I…I’m not sure.”
“Then I cannot help you. Good day.” And the monstrous owl began to fade to transparency.
“Wait! Please!”
The owl returned to substance.
“I…I wish to be the soul of virtue—the image of all that is good and wholesome.”
“And are you not virtuous: faithful to your wife, a loving father to your children? Do you not administer justice as impartially as you can for your subjects?
The king hesitated, uncertain. “I…I have temptations. I’m sometimes cross with my wife, the queen, impatient with my children. I have ruled sometimes in favor of those who were not deserving. I have made war, sent subjects to their deaths, and I have killed in battle.”
“All the faults of men.” The owl paused to see if his comment would have any effect. “But still I can feel you are unsatisfied. I can grant your wish, if you can live with the consequences.”
“Wha…what consequences.”
“Who can say? There are consequences good and bad to any of life’s choices.” The owl waited. “Well…? Do you accept the terms?”
The king faltered, but his desire was overwhelming. “I do.”
The owl spread his wings which grew to an enormous size, and a single flap raised such a powerful wind that the king was blown off his horse. When he rose from the ground the strange bird was gone.
As he dusted himself off, he had a wonderful feeling of lightness. He rather flew onto his saddle, and Champion was for his first few steps unsure of his rider. But the fog had suddenly lifted, and the king and his horse found their way back to the palace.
The queen found him in their bedroom looking out over his kingdom. She was immediately alarmed. “My Lord, are you feeling well. You look pale!”
“Never better,” he replied. And catching sight of himself in the mirror, where indeed his reflection looked rather swarthy, he continued. “You are deceived, wife; I am robust!”
In the following days, weeks and into months the king went about the business of state with renewed vigor. He passed many laws, often by decree, against the advice of the queen and his counsel. He refused to meet the threat of those opposing his reign or of foreign powers invading outlying areas of his kingdom. “No, no,” he assured, “I will send word to convince them that we mean them no harm. Once they understand that, they will become our friends and we will live together in peace.”
He began to spend more and more time isolated in prayer and meditation. And from his chamber would issue decrees without consultation, spending the resources of state in order to offer more and greater services for the people.
Queen Verita and his advisors tried to warn him of increasing imbalances in the kingdom’s accounts, debts and serious deficiencies in the realm’s army. But the king blithely ignored such warnings, passing notes through his chamber door that read, “It will all work out in the end,” and “We shall defend ourselves with reason and good will.”
Meanwhile, out of the view of the queen and his children, the king grew paler and paler. But when he would look in the mirror, he would see his reflection growing darker. He wondered at that but had grown so carefree and brimming with optimism that he eventually simply turned the mirror aside and continued in his wonted vein.
The queen was growing increasingly desperate. The king had not suffered her nor their children’s presence before him for weeks now. The coffers were empty, debts were mounting, and foreign invaders were conquering more and more of the kingdom’s territory.
One day she defied the king’s order and forced her way into his private chamber. With her were Granchine and Theobald, as the queen hoped that sight of his family might bring Alontius to his senses.
When she finally saw him, the sight horrified her. Alontius was white as snow and almost transparent. She stood with her mouth agape. “Wife, what do you here?” Alontius demanded. “You have violated my order to not be disturbed.”
“My husband, what has happened to you?”
“Why, other than having my meditations disturbed, nothing at all. Why do you ask?”
But the children were equally aghast and began to cry. So the queen approached and tried to embrace her husband. To her horror, her arms passed right through him. “Oh, my Lord, what has happened to you?”
“I…don’t know.” Now Alontius was himself frightened and tried to embrace his children. But again, he had lost all substance and his arms went through them. “Oh my God in Heaven, what can I do, Verita?” he exclaimed.
When the king had flown across the room to his children, Verita had seen just a flash of his reflection in the mirror the king had turned aside. But it was a terrifying image. It was almost completely black with jack-o’-lantern eyes and fangs that exited his mouth.
The king cried out, “Wife, help me. What has happened to me?”
On an impulse, Verita turned the weighty mirror framed in gold around. She told her husband, “Quickly, Alontius, approach the mirror!”
“The mirror? Why? I will not go near that beast!”
“Husband, please. I don’t know why, but I know you must approach the mirror. Now, before it’s too late!”
Doubtfully, Alontius took a step in the mirror’s direction. He felt a painful pull from it as his horrible reflection seemed to bulge out of the mirror toward him. “Verita, Verita, it’s coming toward me! It is so horribly painful! It will consume me!”
“You must approach, husband. I don’t know how I know, but I know you must approach your reflection!”
The king took another step and was drawn with greater force toward the mirror. Now the horrible reflection bulged farther toward him. He had no need to take another step. He was pulled as though by magnet toward the reflection. It seemed to grow lighter and less fearsome and he more substantial as he neared it.
The pain was excruciating, and he let out a deafening scream that was heard to the far reaches of the kingdom.
Then finally, he collapsed before the mirror, now whole and substantial as he had been before. His wife now could hold him in her arms and his children ran to him and kissed his face. Alontius held the three of them in an embrace of such power and devotion as he had never before.
And so, the kingdom was set to rights and Alontius would be forever wary of what he might wish. Under the careful guidance of his wife and counsellors, he rescinded many of the profligate laws and decrees he had passed. He attended once again to his army, and waged war against those who had violated his kingdom and his subjects, careful never to indulge in needless brutality.
But, most important of all, he gave thanks for all his many blessings, and learned to live with his very human flaws.
As my father started from my sister’s bed, I heard her ask, “Papa, why wasn’t the king happy? He had a wife and children who loved him, and he was king over all the land. Why wasn’t he happy?

I never heard an answer.