I found her in the forest
Barely alive
A deer
Panting uneasily
Lying on the ground
Broken
Her eyes gentle and kind
And pained
On the back of her neck, there was a wound
A deep cut
I knelt down beside her
And carefully – gingerly – not knowing how she would respond –
Reached out, and stroked her brown and white speckled fur
She sighed gratefully
There was a sort of melody to the sound
Beautiful and sweet

I stayed with her until the stars came out
Listening to the beat of her heart and the pace of her breath
Praying that they both kept on
I fell asleep in the grass beside her, curled up just like she
With the wind wrapped around us as our blanket

In my dreams I was with her too
I dreamt I carried her to a river
An aquamarine river
And in its healing waters
I soothed her heart
And mended her skin
And shaped and re-shaped her form
Until she was whole again
Until she could breathe

When I awoke the next morning
Blinking, taking in the morning light,
I found –
That she was gone.

I felt a pang of fear, then sadness, then regret for having closed my eyes
I should have stayed awake
I should have protected her
I looked all around me
Desperately
I searched the nearby trees
I called for her as I walked
But in all my desperate seeking
I could not find her

How could it be?
Had she passed in the night?
Had her body simply turned to dust and evaporated in the wind?
Or –
How dreadful
How unbearable
Had she been scooped up in sharp jaws
Underneath the dark and unforgiving cloak of night
And devoured by another larger, stronger animal?
Even the thought of it was too cruel

But what if –
A thought came to me excitedly
bouncing all the way from the synapses in my brain to the pulse of my heart
What if she had gained back her strength?
What if she had healed?
What if she had opened her eyes in the morning, renewed in spirit, and lifted herself up onto steady feet?
And left to re-join her herd?

As I wondered and hoped, I felt another pang of hurt
This time, a physical kind
Coming from the back of my neck
I reached back and felt the spot with my hand,
How strange –
There was a cut there
A wound
A scab
It must have been an old injury because it felt like it was almost ingrained in the skin
But I had never known it to exist
Until – now
And as I touched the old wound, I somehow knew it was in the process of healing
And so was I

– Lucy Schwartz

Every full moon at midnight
In the dark, pine, forest
Through an especially dense thicket of trees
Behind a rickety, old, abandoned house, that looks as if it’s been swallowed up by vines…

It appears
A ladder
As tall as the sky itself

And every full moon I climb
Up, up, up, to the heavens
Through the thick pillows of clouds
Holding onto the rough wooden slats
One hand in front of the other
Never looking down
Until night becomes day
And I find myself in The Enchanted Room

I meet the most wonderful people there
Figures from history, Marilyn Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, Frida Kahlo,
They are all dressed in masks for the dance,
Marilyn Monroe wears a rabbit mask, Frida, a colorful feathered one with the symbol of a monkey on the forehead, Abraham always looks dapper in a simple black Venetian frame

You see, each night is a party,
A sophisticated black-tie affair,
A masquerade ball of cloaked spirits,
A rotating blur of clasped-hand-dancers spinning across the floor

And there I am –
A guest to the most extraordinary festivities
Feeling both fortunate and a fraud
Who am I to be here?
Why was I – the only living mortal – invited? Led here that first fateful evening by the light of the moon?
Beneath my mask, I am not someone of note, I am not in the history books, I am not exceptional in any particular way. I am just an ordinary person. The only thing extraordinary about me, is that I’m here, in this enchanted place.

All these people, these spirits,
They have such wisdom, so many stories, and I – well, I have my ears to listen – but no stories of great measure. But oh, how their stories thrill me!

After a night of dancing and fascinating conversation, I climb back down the ladder
Down, down, down, to solid ground
To earth, to things familiar,
To things mundane,
To memories, and worries, to little pains that prick at the heart, to a running list of things undone and things to repair and things to do, to hopes and quiet dreams, and wordless fantasies, to the steady rhythm of my heartbeat, and the beauty of the forest surrounding me, to thoughts of friends and family, and all those living on this ground that make me happy to return, back through the forest and to my house, where I slip inside the front door quietly, careful not to wake the others. My family. How I love them.

How lucky I am to share a life with the ones I love here on Earth.

And I think…“Perhaps the ordinary is extraordinary.”

Maybe that’s the story I bring to the party. Maybe that’s why they picked me.

-A story written by Lucy Schwartz