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Beckah sat on the couch, wrapped in blankets, watching the snowfall behind the menorah on the windowsill.  The tiny flame of one candle reflected in the glass.  She snuggled down into the couch as her family moved around her.  Her little brother opened a gift and hugged their mom with thanks.  Her father banged around in the kitchen, warm fresh scents lingering in the air from the oven as he cooked.

But to her, these noises and people and shapes and smells became more like the reflection and less like the flame.  Her eyelids grew heavy.

As she slipped into her dreams, where she lived more often than not, Beckah heard her mother’s voice. 

“There she goes again.  I’m so worried about her.”  Her mother sounded far away, more like a lilting song than spoken words.

* * *

Beckah stretched her arms, reveling in the slippery soft silk sheets beneath her.

“Good morning, Princess.”

She said, “Good morning, Aster.”

A woman in a long dress and apron was setting a little silver tray on the nightstand. 

Aster said, “I trust you slept well?”

Beckah smiled.  “I had the dream again.”

“Ah, the strange family in the other world?”

“Yes.  This time there was a candle in the window and I was watching it glow,” she said as she pulled her hair up off the nape of her neck.  “It felt important, but I can’t imagine why.”

“Perhaps it was your mind working.  Trying to help with our situation here.”

Aster turned her toward the window set in the stonewall opposite Beckah’s bed.  She moved toward it and pulled back the heavy curtains.

The light that streamed in was not beautiful, not crisp and bright as it had been for as many mornings as Beckah could remember.  It was instead milky and gray, seeping through the window like a heavy, melancholy fog.

Beckah gasped and called to her handmaiden as she climbed out of bed.  “Aster?  What has happened while I slept?”

“It took seventeen more families in the night.  The darkness is moving in, Princess.  Soon it will be here in the castle.  Even these solid walls cannot stop it.”

Tears formed in Aster’s eyes, but she bravely willed them back.

Beckah pulled a dressing gown around her body and went to Aster’s side.  She said, “There’s more that you’re not telling me.”

Aster took a deep breath.  Her eyes were wide and full of pain.  “She was so young, and now…”

“No.  No, Aster!”  Beckah shook her head in disbelief.  “Your family?  Your sister?”

Aster nodded.

Princess Beckah’s heart swelled with grief.  She leaned against the stone by her window and stared into the square below, where her subject moved slowly along the street.  Clothed in black, for the loved ones that were gone but could not be buried, the darkness touched even where it could not reach.

Anger grew inside the princess.  She had to do something!  She wished her father and mother were there to help her.  They would have known how to fight the horrible, evil beast.  But she was all that remained.

It was up to her.

She touched Aster’s arm and felt the sorrow running through her, a vibration all its own. 

The princess said, “We are going to stop it, Aster.  I will think of something.  I must dress and go into the village.”

Aster smiled, a sad, apprehensive motion.

When Aster had finished her duties, Beckah sat on her bed with her winter cape spread across her lap.

Her mind spun.  How could she fight something that had no shape, no form, only hatred?

A blanket of despair lay over the village.  The people did not smile.  They did not stop and bow to her.  They did not ask about her wellness, or offer her a cake or a trinket as they once did, simply to be able to say that their princess enjoyed their wares.  Instead, they moved away, walking from one point to another without purpose.

She mourned for her lost happy world.

Beckah stopped in front of the candle maker’s shop.  She looked into the window where she saw the craftsman melting wax in a heavy kettle over a hot fire.

An image flashed into her mind.

She saw the candle from her dream.  She heard the kind voice of the dream-mother.

* * *

“I’m worried, Sal.”

“It’s Kleine-Levin’s Disease, Deborah,’ said her father.  “Worrying will only wear you out.  There’s nothing else we can do.”

“I know, but it’s still hard.  I wonder if she’s suffering but can’t tell us.”

Then Beckah was shaking, her eyes fluttering.  Her throat felt parched; her tongue was thick and swollen.  She rubbed at her face with ill-coordinated hands.

The candlestick burned on the sill.  Four candles lit.  Four reflections in the glass.

Suddenly, her bladder felt very full.  Her mom and dad clutched her under the arms.

“C’mon, princess.”  Her mom’s voice was soft, but worried.  “Let’s get you down to the bathroom.”

There were pictures on the walls.  Children, grandparents, a dog with white fluffy fur.  Her little brother ran through the hallway, crashing into her side and then barreling onward.

“You’re up?”  He hollered from the living room, “I’m going to keep your presents if you go back to sleep!  But I won’t do your homework!”

“Stop it, Andrew.”

Beckah’s dad shut the bathroom door. 

Her body was sluggish, weighed down by blood that felt too thick.  It took everything she could muster to move her legs at all.

She took a drink of water from the sink.

She wasn’t sure how she made it back to the couch, but she was under the blankets again when she heard her mother whispering.

“I just want to keep her here on the couch, Sal.  Then at least I can watch over her.  I know it’s silly, too, but I keep hoping the candlelight will guide her out of this… darkness.”

“It’s not silly.”

* * *

Beckah stood in front of the gaping castle door with Aster at her side.

“They’re all coming, Princess.”

“Yes.”  She could see the villagers as they shuffled along the cobblestone paths, black figures lining the road like shadows.

“They have no choice,” Aster offered.

Beckah placed a hand on her handmaiden’s shoulder.  She said, “It will be all right.”

They stood together, watching the villagers walk just ahead of the darkness that now shrouded their homes.

No lamps would light.  No candle held flame.  No sun warmed the cheeks of rosy-faced children. The darkness simply moved closer to the parade of lost souls.

Beckah said nothing as they filed past her.  Some nodded.  Most walked with their heads down, hung with the heaviness of their hearts.

The last to pass through the doors was a child. He turned his eyes up to her.  They were bright and full of hope.  He took her hand in his small one, and looked to the sky above the castle where the darkness had not yet touched.

It startled the princess that, when the child spoke, his voice was not small, but that of her father.

“Barukh atah Hashem, Eloheinu, melekh ha’olam.”

It was a prayer.  A blessing.  One she knew.

He continued, “She’asah nisim la’avoteinu bayamim haheim baziman hazeh.”

A single word slipped from the princess’s mouth, barely a feather of a whisper.  “Amien.” Let it be so.

The boy kissed her hand.  She closed the door behind them.

The huge hall was full of people, though completely silent and still as statues.  Aster stayed by the door as Beckah floated through the procession like a ghost in a graveyard.

She couldn’t explain how she knew it, but their hope was there, somewhere deep inside, and it made her strong.

In the center of the room was a single table, holding nine tall candlesticks.  Only one was lit.

Beckah lifted the tapered wax stick, and held it in front of her.  Its warm glow illuminated her face.

“Good people,” she said, her voice lifting through the hall.  “The darkness is upon us.  We have all suffered.  But now, it will all end.”

Mothers, fathers, children, aunts, cousins, elders, all turned to one another and murmured their questions and fears and hopes… their uncertainty.

“I have had a vision,” the princess proclaimed.  “A great dream.”

Murmurs again.  A baby cried. 

Beckah stayed strong.  She lit the first candle, then glanced out over the bowed heads of her people.

She lit each candle from left to right. To her relief, they remained lit.

Before the last candle, she paused.  Her eyes moved through the villagers, searching for one.  She found the boy.  His head was not bowed.  His eyes sparkled, even though the room was lit only by the small candle flames.

She knew that, with the eighth candle, they would become pure again. 

She took a deep breath.

When the flame touched the waiting wick of the eighth candle, the room lit up with an incredible light, like a burst of summer sunshine.  It washed over the villagers.  Some cried.  Some smiled. They embraced one another. 

Aster flung open the doors of the hall.  Warm light spread across the landscape, washing it in the pure vibration of life.

Birds began to chirp, and a breeze rustled the leaves in trees that were just waking from their slumber.

Princess Beckah’s heart pounded a joyous rhythm that brought color to her pale cheeks.  She closed her eyes, and listened to the music of laughter around her.

* * *

Her eyes were only closed a moment, but when she opened them again, she was snuggled in the blankets on the couch.

Eight dancing flames reflected in the glass.

She stretched her arms and pushed back the blankets, leaving them in a pile on the floor as she stood and walked down the hallway.  She recognized the faces on the wall.  Her mother, her Grandma Denise, her dog Candy.

When she stepped into the kitchen, her mother jumped up from the table where she was reading.

“Beckah!  Oh, my princess!” She rushed over, wrapping her arms around her.  She smelled like lilacs and honey.

Beckah hugged her back.

Her father came into the room.  He said nothing, but joined in their embrace. 

Her brother Jacob was on the floor putting together a Lego castle.  He looked up at his family, hugging.  His eyes sparkled, and he smiled.