Patty Liu - Silent Reflections

The images in the puddle had scattered seeds in them, covering small portions of the image. Melody tried her best to see through it as clearly as possible. She had sent her pet dove out into the kingdoms to see if it would encounter anything useful. She had told the dove to fly towards the Fourth Kingdom, but she didn't think the bird understood her, anyway. So she just let it fly aimlessly.

She saw trees of all colors fly by in the puddle on the ground. There were men in fields and small cottages with smoke billowing out of their chimneys. The dove flew in and out of tree branches and flew high up into the sky. Looking down at the kingdoms below in a bird's-eye view made Melody a bit sick to the stomach.

"Come on, Dove, show me something interesting," she mouthed to herself. As if the bird had heard her it began to descend lower until Melody could see the green hills quite clearly below. Trees dotted the landscape and here and there were scattered lakes and ponds. Soon a large palace came into view.

"That's the House of White!" Melody exclaimed. She had never seen it herself but her mother had always conjured up images through her magic mirrors to show Melody where she had lived before. Melody was getting excited and she urged the dove to fly into the palace as closely as possible. Oddly enough, the bird actually complied and flew in closer. It snuck into an open window on the side of the palace and Melody found herself looking at a huge banquet hall with a large table that stretched from one end of the room to the other.

"Oh my! Is that where they eat? Who in the world would eat all that food that is covering that huge table?"

She got her answer. The dove flew closer and perched itself onto a chair at one end of the table. Melody could see quite clearly three people sitting down and eating. One man especially was gobbling down food like there was no tomorrow. Melody was surprised he wasn't choking on the food he was shoving into his mouth at a mile a minute. The dove then turned towards the other two dining people and she saw a girl. The girl was so familiar but Melody couldn't place her. She had dark hair cropped nice and short and her eyes were a startling blue. In her lap was a baby who was just as eagerly grabbing at food that obviously his toothless mouth could not chew.

Melody became entranced by the girl sitting at the table. She wished she could hear what they were saying. Immediately voices began echoing from within the puddle. Melody was so surprised she stepped backwards and almost knocked over her mirror. She quickly steadied herself and caught her reflection once again.

"That girl, she looks almost just like me!" Melody exclaimed. She studied her image in the mirror and then looked down at the puddle to study Virginia. "Yes, she looks just like me. Almost the spitting image. Who is she?" she muttered beneath her breath. She leaned down closer to the puddle to listen carefully to the people that were dining.