She often sits up late at night,

when the house breathes softly and can rest, with no voices ringing off of its walls nor feet trampling its floors. The family wonders little that she naps frequently in the day, attributing it to old age alone, but she lets them continue in their illusions, for Heaven knows they would protest and insist it is not healthy for her. As if at this time of life, she cares two figs about what is healthy! In any event, this is the time she keeps to herself, and basks in as a cat in a warm sunbeam. The shadows drape around her as a comforting shawl, and the rich silences soothe her ears. Things move with a comfortable slowness at night, a pace she quite likes. She is no longer in any rush to reach the rest of her life - it has passed, and she is content, feeling no need to press ever-forward, but enjoying to its fullest each moment which comes.
     She sits for a time on the chaise beside the window, looking out past the heavy curtains to see the silvery landscape the moon has painted, with trees stretching dark fingers up to mingle among the stars. Smiling to herself, she remembers when she would have climbed the branches, unladylike as it might have been, just to get a little nearer to the alluring brilliances scattered over the night sky. Yet now, she feels far closer to them than that could ever have brought her - she has learned that the soul and imagination may travel many places the body cannot.
     Getting slowly to her feet, hardly noticing the stiffness she has long grown accustomed to. Crossing the room, she stands before the bookshelf, a thin frail figure, but yet retaining some of the grace it is clear she once possessed. The pale rose of her dressing gown and white of her hair stand in sharp contrast to the richly hued bindings of the books, particularly when an outdoor breeze brushes aside a tree's leafy branch, and a moonbeam falls further into the room to tangle in the shimmering silk of the dressing gown. Gently, she pulls from the shelf three books, setting them quietly down on a bit of empty shelf. She reaches back into the opening they have created, and pulls from the shadows a simple green-bound book, a navy blue ribbon marking a page. She folds this small book beneath her arm, and replaces the other three books, before stepping away and sitting in the rocking chair, which rests beneath the window nearer the bookcase.
     Setting the book in her lap, she reaches to the side, where an ornately-carved end table sits. On the lower shelf of the table is a wooden box with a prettily embroidered handkerchief laying atop it. Reaching inside, her long frail fingers fumble for a minute, then draw out a pencil, letting the box close again as she removes her hand. Turning her eyes back to the still-closed book resting in her lap, she lets her gaze linger, tracing lightly over the subtle entwinings of light and shadow on her silk dressing gown, and the contrast of the deep green suede-jacketed book against the soft rose. Smiling, she runs her fingertips tenderly over the time-softened forest tones, enjoying the pleasure of a nicely-bound journal in which to write. Opening the book, she flips slowly through the warm cream-colored pages fill with small, clear handwriting, written with the careful grace of many years spent in practice. Stopping every now and again to neatly cross out and change a word or phrase, or add a note in a margin, she continues through the pages, not in the least aware of the time which passes. At last, she reaches the end of the writing, and pauses, holding her pencil over the paper a long moment, before lifting her eyes and setting the pencil down to rest.
     She closes her eyes for a time, then slowly opens them. Though the light is dim, it is yet clear that time has not dulled their color, nor their sense of beauty. Again her eyes follow the moonlight, but now as it spills into the room, as a gently breath from the heavens. The golden wood of the floorboards is turned silver, and all the room is paled, coated in the brilliant dusk of stardust. She breathes deeply, sighing in contentment. She has never know another room which captures the beauty of night nearly so well as this. The moon makes graceful the room's age, turning the scars and abrasions of years passing into silver filigree. There is an ever-present sense of substance to the shadows and grey places, and she feels that if she only looks close enough, she will see the translucent figures of those who sat in the room long before herself. But her eyes have grown weak, though they yet shine with interest - she does not call the unseen forms aloud, for she knows that if she is silent and willing, they will whisper soft stories onto the pages before her.
     She gazes for a long moment on a particularly bright patch on the floor, her eyes tracing the outline of the light beside an area of slightly darker shadow, the light seeming to almost shy away from the old stain. After a long moment, her eyes grow brighter, and she immediately sets pencil to paper, nodding and smiling to herself as the words flow with hardly a thought from inspiration to inscription.
     Silently, her thoughts glide between the years, sifting through insight and memory and impressions, faces and voices, things both seen and dreamed. And as her mind finds things useful or especially pretty, it sets them aside, readying them for consumption by the every-flowing words. A lifetime of experiences seen and felt by one in constant sensitive wonder are funneled and channeled between the lovingly worn green covers.
     The light of stars and the moon lap softly against the draping folds of her dressing gown, which shimmers and quivers as she rocks slowly in the chair, and tangle gently in her hair pale as the light itself. All things shimmer quietly in the silence, as if touched by evening dew and then frozen into place, the only movement is that of her hand and the chair, yet neither is any more than that of branches in an evening breeze. All is still, yet filled with life, though it is contained, as breath hushed and excited. For a moment the peace is broken by a clock somewhere chiming the late hour, but even that seems muffled by the dusk, and she does not hear it.
     She writes, and her senses are bound within the world she creates, not in the least aware of things physically around her. She sees in dreams now, painting them real from corner to corner, in fantastic colors and extraordinary details granted to the senses. Each word is lovingly and perfectly chosen, her hand moving far slower than her thoughts, for in this way, by the time she comes to write a word, it has been revised many times and she is certain it is the right one, when it is written in all the clear beauty which it is deserving of.

     The time passes, the moonlight slowly moves on, gracing in turn each corner of the room, lingering a long while before leaving the room altogether. It is dark for a time, then dim but heavy with promise. The light holds back as long as it may, until the anticipation can be contained no longer, and the brilliance of morning light fills the silent room. Gradually the light warms, from new white to golden, bringing an opposite but equal beauty to the furnishings and decorations of the room, bringing the colors to fill saturation, rich and deep. There is a prolonged pause - and then sound arrives.
     Light footfalls outside the room, a few quiet clatters from another room, perhaps the kitchen, and later heavy steps from sleep-hazed feet stumbling from bed. Smell enters in next - bacon and eggs, rich and salty, floating lightly over the underlying sizzle as they cook; coffee a thicker cloud between the two, pungent and percolating. A distant hum of voices, the ringing sound of dishes and utensils, and finally the softer sounds and louder voices as people move into the day.

     Now:
     A figure in prim simple dress enters the room, moving toward the window to further open the drapes, but starts back suddenly, seeing the sleeping form in the chair. "Oh! I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't see you there, you surprised me... Ma'am?"
     Two other figures enter the room, older than the first but younger than the one just beginning to stir. "Oh, Mother! Whatever are you doing in here? You'll catch a death of a chill, sitting out here through the night, and really it can't be good for your back, you know how stiff it gets, now really, Mother..."
     Her eyes gradually open, slowly focusing on the anxious and frustrated faces in front of her. Smiling softly, she folds her hands discretely over the book in her lap. "Oh dear, did I fall asleep here again? Oh dear. Do give an old woman a minute to collect herself. Have I missed breakfast, then?"
     "There's some we kept warm for you, ma'am. Shall I set it out for you?"
     She nods graciously and smiles. "That would be lovely, thank you. Oh I don't need help getting up, do stop fussing!" she laughs softly, shooing the others out of the room.
     Though reluctantly, and not without further admonitions and words of concern, they are soon out of the room, and she is again alone. Smiling, she stretches, looking around her and drinking in the warm splendor of the fresh sunlight, noting with interest how complete a transformation the room undergoes with a change of light. Now, the long-used furnishings look lived-in and comfortable - though they have lost the ethereal delicacy the moonlight wrought of them, they now feel solid and reassuring, quite friendly really.
     She slips the pencil back into its box, then slowly rises to her feet, holding first the to chair arms and then to the bookcase for support. The stiffness is set deeply in her joints, muscles and bones, and though she has long since grown accustomed to them she is still aware of the various deep-seated aches throughout her body. Yet they do not by any means overwhelm her - she will not allow them to - and gradually she stands before the bookcase. Again pulling out the three books, she sets them aside, and holds her small book to her breast a moment in tenderness of affection, before placing it against the back of the shelf and replacing the other books as before. Taking a step back, she nods in self-approval, for there is no hint of her hidden book to any eye which might perchance scan the shelves.
     "Rest well, my little book," she murmurs softly, a light smile playing about the corners of her lips and in her eyes. "For some day, you will be held by the hands of many others instead of only mine. But for now, rest and keep silent your dreamy secrets."
     Chuckling softly at an old woman's whimsy, she begins moving toward the kitchen, fingers and eyes yet lingering on every detail of the room, ever searching for new tales to spin.