The best place to start is where we keep the forgotten relics of our past—in the Museum. The Museum is a low, round building, shaped like a wheel with twelve spokes. Outside of it, on the steps, you will meet the dreaming Curator. Ask to see Titania, Queen of the World.

In The Museum

I'm sorry, but I don't go there much anymore. Too much dust and tears.

Well, if you really must, let me tell you what to expect.

The exhibit you want is in the Tenth Corridor. At the entrance there's a large stone block holding up a rotting goat's head. On the goat's forehead, there's an up-side-down, five-pointed star. A stubby black candle burns in its center, dripping hot wax that flows like tears from the goat's eyes. Imbedded in the front of the stone is a huge iron ring with a heavy chain running through it. The ends of the chain hang in loose loops across the shoulders of a naked man and a naked woman. They hold the chains in place. They wear them proudly.

Are you really sure that you want to visit the Museum? I know—my experience counts for nothing. You have to feel it yourself.

There are five rooms on the Tenth Corridor, one for each point on the star. They have names: Fear, Silence, Loneliness, Heartbreak and Despair The exhibit you want is in the room named Loneliness now, but if you wait, it will be moved to the fourth or fifth room. That might be easier for you. You can avoid looking at the earlier exhibits, but once you've stopped, there's almost a compulsion to see what follows. It's easier to get back out of the Museum if you wait until it's too late.

In the room named Loneliness, you will see a dark cliff. Ocean waves break silver against its base. The waning moon reflects iridescent blue and green across the rippling water. At the top of the cliff, teetering on emptiness, is a glass bubble. It shields two tiny figures.

Inside the bubble, blue and green flashes shimmer on the butterfly-wings of Titania, Queen of the World. She huddles on the ground, her wings folded about her. She weeps. Near her, the winged horse kneels.

Look beyond them—through the bubble—to the moon on the sea. Outside, there are only formless dark shadows, hidden in smoke and mist.

A silver feather falls from the wing of Pegasus. It floats silently to the ground in the still air. His wings lift softly and fall back as he sighs. He is dying. He cannot live and be bound.

Around the base of the bubble there are diamond-cut scratchings: names, and dates, and deeds. One says Mother, another Father: Others say Rape, Brutality, Neglect. Titania, Queen of the World created the bubble to keep them out. Like diamond-cut scratchings, they are graven in everything she does.

Titania holds her head and weeps. She has long-ago given up flying. Her head aches constantly from beating on the glass, trying to escape. Her freedom is a broken dream. Her wings were strong. Crusted salt tears have made them stiff. When they are quite useless, she will move to the next room: Heartbreak. And when at last it is too late, and when she understands why her dreams have died, she will move a final time, to the permanent collection, in the last room: the room named Despair.

She has forgotten why she built the bubble. She has forgotten that she continually creates it. She has forgotten the secret key within herself that will break the bubble, lift the chains, and shatter the stone.

She reaches out, wet with tears, to wash away the dust. Where her tears touch the glass, the salt crystallizes, shutting out still more of the gray moon and the gray sea. I have spent forever, on the outside of the bubble, dying to show her the hidden key. She cannot hear; she does not understand the gray shadows that she sees. Her own name within is the secret key. Freedom so simple, so impossible.

I don't go to the Museum much anymore. My tears have washed away enough dust. It always comes back.

So go, if you must, to the room called Loneliness in the Tenth Corridor. Go and be damned!

But on your way out, stop for a minute. Think of your children and the thing rotting on the stone. The shield she built to keep you out traps Titania within.

Then turn and look back at the stone by the entrance. There is written in blood, the name of the Capricorn Key.

Preconception
The Devil
Self-Imposed Bondage

Fear is the Gatekeeper

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Warning!

You have met the Gatekeeper who would chain you outside the gate: Go back now if you are not prepared to drop your chains. Go back now if you are not prepared to accept the consequences of the Forbidden Knowledge. Go back now if you are not prepared to accept the consequences of freedom. Go back now or you will learn things that you really don't want to know. The Devil's name is Fear Fear is the Gatekeeper