I stand beneath smokey and flickering candelabras, amid silent, masked and costumed dancers. This masquerade ball is a swirling time of celebration and indulgence, of the elite revelling in their wealth and power. Yet they dance in silence. No, an orchestra plays but I cannot quite hear their performance. I feel the Baroque metre, tune, harmonies … it is all there … but I discern them only individually, not the music as a whole.

A voice! “You are not here to dance.” 

The unknown speaker is masculine, but breathy and high pitched; their half voice, half malevolent whisper comes from nowhere and yet everywhere. It is distant, yet right in my ears. 

It fills me with dread. My hackles rise as I shudder at its qualities. 

Why am I here, if not to dance? 

I must find the Countess Marianne, and the need is urgent and imperative.

Finding her among the whirling eddies of the elite is impossible. I am short; the gambolling nobles are inches taller than me. I feel small, diminished.

Revellers ghost around me. Glorious costumes block my view, each finer than the first; the finest silks and satins, lace and layers of ruffles; intricate hairstyles, adorned with jewels and feathers; male companions, wigged and hatted; embroidered jackets and breeches.

But their masks transfix me: leering, grotesque and unsettling caricatures of faces and animals, hiding identities and intent. Not eyes but dark voids examine me, judge me, and find me guilty.

Am I masked too? Costumed? I don’t know. I do not check;  I can brook no distraction from … 

There! 

Two ghastly masks separate momentarily, revealing the masked Countess. Hers is a most exquisite assemblage: an expressionless porcelain doll’s face, with gold makeup and ruby tears; lace and silver filigree suggest an eldritch hair style. I do not recognise the mask, and it entirely hides her face but, I am certain. 

It is she.

I gather myself, intending to leap forward and force my way through the press, sweeping gentry aside in my mad desire to reach the Countess. 

I cannot move. I strain my will, but my legs are immobile; I cannot even lift my feet. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I …?

“I will allow it.”

I spin around, seeking in vain the source of that dreadful voice. Nothing but dancers, everywhere that I … 

Oh … my feet are free now!

I surge ahead, hopefully in the direction of the Countess. I am rebuffed. Barging through proves fruitless – I do not have the strength. Momentarily, I am a blade of grass attempting to divert a stampede. 

In human form again, I try to slip between gyrating aristocrats, but my legs tangle in silk gowns, I careen off wooden mannequins in braided military dress uniforms. Slippered feet scythe across the floor and I trip.

I make little progress. 

Eyeless masks of carnivores stare down at me, gauging this prey for weakness, ready to strike.

I burst clear from … No. The dancers and musicians are gone. The ballroom echoes with sudden silence. Only two figures in black garb bar my way, sporting identical cloaks, wide-brimmed hats, and masks … rubber gas masks, from which sharp beaks thrust out a yard or more.

No dancers, these. By turn, they lunge back and forth, sliding and stamping. Hands behind their backs, they thrust and parry with elongated bills by body movements alone. Their ferocity is deadly; both are bloodied.

I must dodge between and below these duelling titans, for I am suddenly tiny and fear they might crush me underfoot. But the need to reach my Marianne is overwhelming. I run full tilt between them, ducking beneath clashing steel peckers as colossal boots stomp and blood rains from above.

But I am through! Under a starless black night, I see her before me at the end of a pier. Her mask and costume glow, reflecting off an oil-black sea. She is almost within reach, yet infinitely far away. 

“Enough!” It is the same voice!

I jerk, wrenching my face from tear-streaked pillows. Hot and sweating, I cast constricting covers away into darkness. My nightclothes stick to me as I lift myself on an elbow, trying to pierce the stygian gloom.

Blessed relief! It was all a …

“Dream? Oh no. Just the beginning.”

With a metallic ‘schwinnnng!’, a thin blade is unsheathed in the dark.