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rewove the very fabric of my heart.
    It still beat with a trip and a hammer, for that is the way a heart must go. But, whereas before it had woven only dark things when it dwelled upon my cousin, now within the fabric of my heart there ran, for him and him alone, one single strand of pure, untarnishable gold.

Chapter 4
    The years that followed were the happiest of my life. Though I suppose I should say the happiest until now. But the now that has but so lately come to pass was then so far away as to be almost invisible. The thinnest wisp of white cloud in a sky the same color blue as Maman's favorite china cups. I couldn't yet even imagine that now would ever be.
    So I'll say it again:
    The years that followed were the happiest of my life.
    Oh, I still did plenty of things I didn't particularly want to, such as painting trees and wildflowers, for instance. Though even I had to admit this was an improvement over the never-ending parade of fruit still lifes. And there was one area in which as far as I was concerned Maman took Oswald's words a bit too much to heart. She now insisted that I learn to embroider, reasoning that the more familiar I was with my needle the less likely I would be to jab myself and so draw one bright drop of blood.

    28

    But, on the whole, things were so much better there is really no comparison.
    Except for the nightmare, of course.
    I suppose I should have expected there would be a price to pay for my newly acquired freedom. But I didn't. You don't really stop to consider these things when you're only ten years old. I didn't yet perceive the way everything that happens is connected— didn't realize that opening a door that led to outside exploration would inevitably open a door to the unexplored places inside myself.
    And, just as exploring the outside world brought new words to my vocabulary (hyacinth, chamomile, mugwort), so did exploring my inner world give me new terms to ponder. Fear, confusion, and ambiguity above all else. For, though I had certainly heard these words before, I didn't truly understand them until the nightmare began.
    The dream was always the same, and I had it once a month.
    The day of the week varied, but the date stayed constant. The twenty-eighth. The same date on which I had been christened.
    This might not seem so bad to you. Just twelve nights out of a possible three hundred and sixty-five. But believe me, those twelve were more than enough. And the fact that the dream was always the same didn't make enduring it any easier. It actually made it worse, more inescapable, somehow.
    From the time I was eight until I turned sixteen, the thing I dreamed every month, year in and year out, was this: I dreamed that I was someone else.
    It unfolded gradually, like swimming through deep water, the way dreams so often do. In images that, from the moment they first occurred, always reminded me of a kaleidoscope. Clear one moment, distorted the next, until they finally settled into clarity again, having rearranged themselves into something else entirely.
    I begin the dream by walking through the palace. A thing I've done every day for as long as I can recall. But a new, keen-edged sense of wonder and anticipation fills me. A sense of discovery seems to beckon me on. This is how I first come to realize that I am not myself in the dream. For I have never felt these things about the place where I grew up. For me, it has never been new, but always, simply, home.

    29

    No sooner do I realize I am not myself than the kaleidoscope of my dream performs its first revolution. The wonder of discovery begins to distort. It becomes a need, an insatiable hunger so strong I must obey it. And what it wants me to do is to run. As I do, I begin to weep. For it comes to me suddenly that I am searching for a thing I have lost. A thing that, though I cannot name it, I know in my heart matters more than anything else. But even as I wear myself out in the search for it, I know that it is lost forever. I