The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of paraheliotropic trees

She stands alone, staring into the mirrorstone that occupies the far wall of the gloomcave where I’ve placed her. Even so, the terror and anxiety that stir her features are sometimes betrayed by the ghost of the girl as she adjusts the image’s hair by smoothing her own. I watch her, invisible, tracing her with my mind’s eye, each young line, absorbing the white color of her skin, the dark browns of her hair. She is my prisoner, yet she enchants me with her presence, with the song of those hands upon her hair.

Just like this, I watch her for a minute, or an hour, or a century.

In the halls of death, as on the edge of a lightbeam, time loses meaning.

I am old and eternal, all calcium and bone, thick and gristle — and I know that there is at least a cold fire that burns within me, that while it might not heat it may still bear light and in these subterranean caves that are merely the true rendering of the world above, such light is not unwelcome. All who have walked before and all who will ever walk must stand before that light — cold light, shadow light, but light nonetheless — is such light, such truth, capable of love? Deserving of it? Blood flows in her veins. She is the flower of the spring, and I am the memory of winter.

Out of shadows, I appear, startling her, stretching the edges of her pale eyes.