“before he died, my grandfather used to bring me to your palace so that i could see it for myself. there was a party and dancing one night, and the palace was full of people. i went to the kitchen garden to hide because it should have been empty, but once i was inside, the door opened from the flower gardens, and you came in by yourself. i watched you walking between the rows of cabbages and then dancing under the orange trees.  i was above you, in one of the trees.”

he’d seen her in a pale dress dancing in the moonlight, pretending an entire troupe of dancers danced the harvest circle with her, her arms open to embrace the sisters and friends who existed only in her imagination, and he’d never seen anything so beautiful or so sad.