I looked around the room again, taking it in now that I could see better. The chairs were beautifully upholstered in a mahogany-red, the coffee table and end tables of a rare dark wood. Patterned rugs warmed the hardwood floors and there was a hearth of gray stones, maybe slate. My impression was that of a well furnished sitting room in a manor.

But it was eerily still and quiet. Maybe it was from a lack of lighting, but the room had an empty feeling to it. I didn’t like to think of my mind as ‘empty.’

“Well if this is my mind, I would have imagined I’d have more lighting. This place gives me the creeps.”

Grace laughed and then gestured towards the mantle. “I think your light source is over there, Lanon.”

I walked to the mantle and took a silver candle holder from it. Using a flint I lit the yellow candle and turned back to Grace.

“My mind shines bright as a candle,” I said, enjoying the irony.

“I find the choice appropriate,” she replied, “If not as a representation of your intelligence.”