'Statues Crumble for Me': "Melissa"

verywhere I go statues crumble for me ... who knows how long I've loved you?" I heard that over and over in my dream last night; it sounded like part of a song. Maybe it is. I don't know. All I know is that I dreamt I was back in that office at St. Clair Shores staring in fascination at a mirror someone had hung on the wall. I was startled, to say the least, because it was the same mirror those demon cats held in that dream from a long time ago - the one with Medusa.

Before I could figure out just why the mirror would be in my St. Clair Shores office I saw Medusa herself appear in the mirror and stand with her back to me, looking into an identical mirror. A mirror within a mirror. Medusa asked the mirror, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the foulest of them all?" All I could think was that this was certainly not the way I learned the "Snow White" story when I was little. My mouth dropped open - I must have looked like some landed fish! - when the mirror told her a name just before she stepped into the mirror and walked between two rows of beds in some amazing room in a gothic church or castle of stone. It reminded me of the children's story "Madeline" ... twelve little girls in two straight lines. I counted them as I watched.

She was utterly silent and wasted no time singling out one of the sleeping forms on one of the twelve beds. A pair of worn out shoes with battered soles lay at the foot of each bed and each princess - for I recognized the twelve dancing princesses asleep on those beds - had dropped on top of the bed covers in her ball gown.

Twelve times Medusa questioned the mirror and twelve times she went into that vast room on the other side of it, to touch a princess and turn her to stone. I have no idea why she asked her question of the mirror repeatedly, but she did. I remember it vividly.

I stood there staring at the sight of those twelve immobilized princesses lying there in that vast space - effigies, it seemed, atop their tombs. Answers, I wanted answers, but I wasn't sure where to begin. I did receive a happy answer, of sorts. My Crow arrived just then, along with young Ham and his buddy, Sam. They flew in on a pig, the pig from the 'Lost and Found' bin, right behind my Crow.

Ham called out to me that we had to go break the spell on the princesses. I started to climb onto my Crow's back, but suddenly remembered something. I shouted "Wait!" and ran out of the room. The next thing I knew I was digging through the 'Lost and Found' bin, pulling out shoes, their tongues flapping. I shoved the shoes into a bag and climbed on my Crow's back, then we flew - boy, girl, and woman, pig and Crow - through the mirror into the princesses' sleeping chamber.

Ham leapt from his pig and ran from bed to bed, kissing each statue as I ran from bed to bed leaving shoes for them. I could not hear what Ham said to the princesses because the sound of crumbling and falling stone became a bit loud, and we hurried away because the Crow said it was time to go, time to leave.

Back at St. Clair Shores Ham, Sam and I snacked on animal crackers and cocoa in the office. The Crow joined us after flying around a bit, and he gave me a puppet he found somewhere. The puppet was LOVELY - a medieval king in beautiful robes with a crown on his head. His robe was embroidered with a myriad of stars among shields decorated with a gold lion of the coat-of-arms of King Richard I, King Richard the Lion-Hearted.

I slid my hand into the puppet then picked up my pen. I wielded it like a sword and tapped Ham first on one shoulder, then the other. "In the name of King Richard the Lion-Hearted I knight thee Sir Ham, for your courageous and loving service to the Order of the Heart. I hereby knight your loyal and steadfast steed also. Rise, Sir Ham."

"Lost and Found": "Melissa"

nock, knock, they're here! I sent them," said the voice at the window, a lovely sprite smiling at me as I sat in the office of St. Clair Shores. I'd been researching some mythology when a shadow fell across the desk and I looked up to see her enchanting face peeking in through the foliage of the tree. "I didn't send that woman, though." A battle-axe of a woman marched down the hall past the office declaring loudly and definitively that, "This place is filthy!"

I know it was a dream, and therefore not bound by 'logic,' but these appearances totally baffled me. I leapt up from the desk chair to forestall the woman stomping down the hall. My attention was diverted, however, by the sight of a number of women and children gathered out on the lawn, between the water and the front entrance, looking longingly toward the inn. When I turned back to the window, hoping for information from the sprite, she was gone.

Before I could stop the battle-axe and ask who she was or why she was there she marched back out the door. I was baffled. There was nothing filthy whatsoever about the inn and I wanted to argue that point with her but decided I'd better turn my attention to the women and children on the lawn. They seemed hesitant to speak, but I was patient with them and eventually learned that they had nowhere to call home. 'Home' was a blessing lost to them. So I invited them into the inn - there was plenty of room.

I urged them to make good use of the toiletries and robes and linens in the rooms. When they had wandered slowly away I realized that there were two little ones, a boy and a girl, standing alone in the lobby. Unlike the other children, who were there with their mothers, this boy and girl were alone. They were not even siblings, but friends who'd met during their wanderings. The little boy spoke for both of them and informed me, "My name is Ham and her name is Sam." They stood there, small, hungry, dirty - thoroughly vulnerable.

The only thing I could do was to lead them to one of the rooms and move between entertaining one and bathing the other. Eventually the pair were clean and wrapped in those over-sized, but very warm, terry robes. I led them downstairs to the office and snuggled them in the chair at the desk with some pencils and paper. I told them I would go to the kitchen to find some food and hot chocolate and be back as quickly as I could. While the milk came to a simmer on the stove, and some of the women shyly entered the kitchen, I searched a box of items labeled "Lost and Found" to see if there were anything for Ham and Sam.

When I returned to the office, tray of goodies and a 'found' item in hand, I nearly cried out to see their shining tousled heads nestled close together as they whispered to one another. I felt sweetness, unutterable unbearable sweetness pierce me - a bolt of lightning - when I introduced Ham to the small cuddly stuffed piglet I'd found in that box. "I think he's been waiting in that box just for you, Ham," I whispered. My throat choked and my eyes filled with tears when he offered Sam the chance to hold the piglet while he finished his drawing.