The Court Remembers Its Own

She finds them at the edge of things—

where the old oak splits the moonlight

into something that breathes,

where the grass grows silver

when no one is watching.

They do not knock.

They arrive the way music arrives

through a wall—

felt before it is heard,

older than the house it moves through.

She is nineteen and ordinary.

She does not know

that the flowers on her windowsill

lean toward her while she sleeps,

that the sparrows outside her door

have been keeping count of her days.

The first sign is small.

A moth with eyes on its wings

that blink.

A puddle that reflects

a sky from somewhere else entirely.

She blinks.

It blinks back.

She thinks: trick of the dark.

She goes inside.

But something has shifted.

Candles light themselves in her presence now.

She hums without meaning to

and the rain changes direction.

When she is sad

the roses in the park

drop their petals all at once

like they are mourning with her.

She dreams of courts made of moonstone and mist.

She dreams of a name

that tastes like river water,

like starlight caught in a jar,

like something too sacred

to have been forgotten.

They come on a Tuesday—

ridiculous, ordinary Tuesday—

stepping out of the treeline

like they had simply been standing

just behind the visible world

all along.

Their eyes hold centuries.

Their hands carry light

the way hands carry warmth.

They say her other name

and the whole night

leans in to listen.

Every candle for a mile

lights itself.

The stars rearrange

just slightly.

She does not run.

Something ancient in her blood

rises to the surface

like a song finally given

enough silence to be heard.

She opens her mouth.

And answers

in a language

she never learned

but has always

known.