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The fountain behind them murmured in the language of water as he tried to find the right words. He spoke slowly. “I have always loved artifice more than anything in the world. The painted backdrops and the lights on the stage, transforming the ordinary into a land of wonder. And it was like that with her. I met her in Frotnac, one summer. I had never seen anyone that lovely, of noble family, with fine manners. I imagined her a princess and ours a fairy tale. I’d spent my youth in the gutter and suddenly there was a chance for enchantment.”
“She did not love me as I loved her, what I wanted she could not give. Ardor she might grant me, yes, but that is not the same as love. I did not understand that then, too lost in flights of fancy, but I see it now. I was enamored of an illusion for years on end, living on memories half-remembered and half-fabricated. At Oldhouse, something gave away. Even a sleepwalker must open his eyes at one point.”
“All we ultimately have to do is believe. We focus our mind on one single point, one single purpose, and we push. We grasp. We manipulate wood and glass and iron. However, the greatest trick is the belief. Belief is what makes it real.
he had also been drifting toward her since the beginning, magnetized, a compass that had spun wildly and then gently settled upon a true north. Not love at first sight, because those fancies were best left for books and songs, but she had extended her hand and invited him to follow her into a dance, and he had found after a few steps that though he had never danced it before, he did not want to stop.
He knew that in the years to come, even when they were old and gray and their spines were bent by the weight of time, he would remember her as she was in that moment, with a couple of stray yellow flowers in her hair, her lips parted. He stood still, holding the moment against his heart. Then she turned her head and smiled at him.
