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PROLOGUE — DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
Once upon a time, there was an impossible day.
You are being pushed helplessly towards a singular bright light. You close your eye. You thought you’d never see it again. The air— The air— Is thick and making your head hurt. The air.
It is blindingly awful.
It smells of tile and dirt, chemicals and grass.
It is a great, horrifying ball of fire.
You reach out, over shouting and the horrible broken breathing. The gasping for air. You are afraid you cannot see it.
It's red.
All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.
You are crying, maybe. A singular tear. A shred of defiance as you are lifted up, up, up. The light, it bleeds through. It bleeds and bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. It bleeds.
Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?
The light would almost be hideous, if it weren’t so inherently heavenly.
It is red.
Scratching, kicking, wailing—
You find what might as well be a bloody rag.
Hissing and snapping—
A scrap, searching for flesh, searching for anything.
Seeing—
Millet’s eyes flutter open.
All in the golden afternoon
It was beautiful.
Millet shudders and heaves, groping for your hand. It finds it, stabilising itself. Someone you refuse to look at is ushering it forward. Behind you, Filigree claws at steel and screams. It screams, and you cannot possibly find the words to comfort it. Maybe you had left them back there; The room. The coffin. You were being forcefully ripped from your final resting place.
It was so, so beautiful.
Millet is staring into the sun.
Holding the red-hot poker,
And it smiles.
It comes inside out.
It’s red.
And all so suddenly, down.
The light becomes a sliver, then a shadow of a glow filtering through tinted glass. Millet chuckles, a wet and horrible sound. Filigree begins to hyperventilate.
Down, down, down.
It’s dark.
It was too dark to see anything.
It is so dark that the writhing body disappears and the things with hands disappear and everything, everything in the world disappears.
Filigree stumbles forward, small and beastly. It curls up around your wheel like it would one thousand years ago and it feels around for anything.
Everything disappears.
You feel around for anything.
Hands grabbing in the dark. The hand, the cage— The dark— It is a horrible horrible black stain.
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
The bleeding thing.
In friendly chat with bird or beast—
And half believe it true.
The breathing, breathing thing.
With what little light you have, as the ground begins to rumble,
Full leisurely we glide;
You can see the vague outline of two shaking bodies.
The terribly alive thing.
Millet coughs— Once, twice— Millet speaks of nonsense and clings desperately to Filigree, who does not move.
It is cold. It is red and blue and white and so incredibly dark.
All in the golden afternoon
Millet laughs heartily, this time
And closes its eyes.