Cricket201901

“The enchantment decides, taking into account how fast your legs,
how nimble your fingers. You’ll find things challenging, yet not impossible.”
A crystal goblet of mulled wine appeared in his hand, filling the air with
the scents of nutmeg and cloves. “No more chatter. Begone!”
Anger welling, Pegeen turned away. Instead of walking meekly to the
door, she retreated as far back as she could amidst the riches. In a running
start, she pelted through the doorway and down a candlelit corridor whose
walls were hung with musical instruments made of gold. Tralalee! Fiddles,
drums, pipes, and whistles spun out a reel.
Moments later, a door emblazoned with a scrolled map of a faerie
province blocked her path. She sorted keys quickly, opened it on her
fifteenth try, and passed through eleven similar doors not long after.
The keys, the running, the magical reel might have seemed like a
dream. They didn’t. She stubbed her toe,
and her boots lost buttons, and the smell
of melting beeswax made her think of
time slipping away.
At each door, she turned keys faster,
fingers dancing as deftly as if she were
playing one of the gleaming faerie whis-
tles. She discovered as she went along
that certain keys unlocked several doors.
Pegeen marked two of these with threads
torn from her skirt’s hem. Regretting the
time it took, she resolved to memorize
true keys’ places.
On she ran and opened dozens of
doors; on ran the reel. After she leaped
through the fifty-ninth door, the drum-
sticks froze, then the fiddles’ bows. Next,
the pipes’ music ceased, leaving only a
few scattered whistles playing slow, sweet
melodies.
Boots clattering in the sudden hush,
Pegeen raced up to the sixtieth door—
and a forgotten danger. To her left, light