Enchantment

Pink champagne flowed freely from the crystal cruets that graced every tuxedoed waiter’s silver tray.  Strains of laughter mingled with whispered lines of romantic poetry as masked lovers exchanged sultry glances.  The thickening twilight danced outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the great hall, echoing the enchantment that enveloped the scene on the other side of them.  And there he stood in the midst of it all, feasting his senses on every ounce of it—a boy, not quite an adult, but far from a child.  His lanky form swam in the tuxedo that was too big for him.  A dark mask concealed his face, wrapping elegantly across his hollow cheekbones, the black swirls beautifully contrasting his pale complexion.  Across the expansive dance floor he watched as beautiful women twirled, their skirts billowing across the golden marble.  Greens, blues, scarlets, and deep purples painted a rainbow that pulsed throughout the ballroom. 

The boy looked above him.  Chandeliers the size of small rooms were suspended above the scene, dimly watching the party-goers from their vantage point high in the ballroom.  The boy could not count how many there were exactly, for they seemed to stretch endlessly on into a world behind the mirrors that graced the ceiling and far walls.  As the boy staggered around the hall, he noticed paintings between the mirrored sections of wall and ceiling.  Above him, the crystal chandeliers illuminated depictions of God and angels and replicas of the artwork of the Sistine Chapel.  The cherubs and seraphim gazed down upon the revelling party guests, laughing along with their cacophony of merriment. 

The orchestra that played reminded the boy of heaven itself.  Deep cellos complimented the harpist and violinists as dancers swayed and twirled to the ¾ waltz that was piping throughout the ballroom.  The boy’s eyes fleetingly met with those of a dancer—a slender blonde woman draped in a copper gown, her ringlets swept gracefully into an effortless arrangement on top of her head.  Her face shimmered with a faint sheen of glitter, and a mask of crimson ribbon and golden feathers hid the rest of her beautiful face from sight.  But her fiery green eyes pierced through the mask and met the boy’s own dark ones for a split second.  That second was all it took for him to see, in those glowing pools of emerald, things he’d never seen in the world before—beauty, enchantment, and forbidden things.  Then, just as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone again, twirling into another man's arms.