Nimue's Confession — Part Four
By Lorraine Schein
Though some of the buildings at the Institute are unusual, the tower would stand out if people could see it. I stop in front of the wavering glass building, rap softly on the door and say, “Myrrdin?”
“Go away,” says a muffled voice.
He finally opens the door. I look around the familiar room. Nothing has changed. I did a good job. Everything in the room is made of glass.
From one window, you can see the road through the forest; from another, the tennis courts, where two people lazily lob a ball over the net. I lean to look out of the window next to me and see a swirling mist and a faint scattering of stars. Some of the windows hold only a tinkle of music or a faint scent or the inside of a mind. Some hold views of other planets and galaxies.
I remember building his observatory around him, the sleeping man with the long beard and flowing starred robes, making it of glass descended from moonlight, not sand. Entranced moonlight that I had transfixed into matter by the spell he had taught me.
Fairy-glass is what I built it of, that most ambiguous of elements. Walls shimmered up around him, windows whistling through the air, some concave, some convex. The doors whirled into place next-- the Sufis’ door between worlds that only opens at twilight, grand carved wood and gilt throne-room doors, revolving doors from department stores, the clang of heavy chained prison doors, the tubular metal hatchways of interstellar rockets.
Some of them only opened onto other doors.
“Nimue, my dear,” he had said to me, “I am ready now. Build my refuge as you promised and I hope to see you when I awaken.”
He opened his eyes again one last time to remind me, “And don’t forget the telescopes.” His sandaled feet stuck out from under his robe. He closed his eyes again with a sigh, and started to snore gently.
The sleep had come over him, but though I had expected only the light trance from my spellwork over me, I slumped to the ground in front of the door, the forest dimming.
And next thing we knew we woke up in America, in another forest, on this campus--not far from the tennis courts, and heard the balls’ repetitive thwacking in the distance.
Lorraine Schein is a New York writer and poet. Her work has appeared in VICE Terraform, Strange Horizons, Scientific American, and Michigan Quarterly, and in the anthologies The Unbearables, Wild Women and Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana del Rey & Sylvia Plath. The Futurist’s Mistress, her poetry book, is available from Mayapple Press. Her newest book, The Lady Anarchist Cafe, was published by Autonomedia and available on Amazon.
Copyright © 2025 Lorraine Schein