House of Mirrors.

"Trust me", she said as she led
me down a padded path,
padded by moss, and loamy oak leaves,
down to the river side.

Down to a clearing, a circle of saplings,
ivy spiraling up their smooth trunks
leaves touching leaves of separate kinds,
looking like love, but only Time
knows that such closeness is poison.
It is not the closeness that is poison itself,
but the sort
of closeness which Time has beheld
which wraps itself around the tree,
leaves touching leaves,
choking the life from her, shading her canopy
until no sun can reach
the leaves of the tree.

Past the trees she leads me, closer to the river
the bank of which is up and black from silt
and old oak leaves, from rot
and there upon the river's edge a
Fairy Circle
as some call it, a ring of wild mushrooms there
how strange that they should form a ring...
What cause have mushrooms to display such humane
characteristic.  Why the ring, of course, certainly must be thus,
that some poor creature perished there, and the mushrooms
gathered round its corpse to mourn, and mourners these remind the
Fenn of that which it has lost.

She has no care for discourse-her only recourse this:  "Trust me".
And there from out of nowhere
or perhaps there all along, my senses being stealed away
by moss and trees and other natural things,
caused me to miss this erection of shimmering glass,
a circle of mirrors.
I am surrounded on all sides, save for the side of the river,
this cold, brown slug of a river.
She says to me, "Trust me". 
But I say, "Let me out".

"They only way out, dear one, is the River".

This I see clearly.  "You have had me, you temptress!  I know
this river's name, it is not Jordan as one might suppose,
no, it is Styx".

"There is no other way out, dear one.  Trust me, therefore, and come to me".

I despair, even unto life.  For her charm is deceptive, her beauty is fleeting.
I know this.  But compared to death, and with her my only choice, her
beauty begins to overcome me. 

But I look up.  There, above, is the branch of an oak tree,
a tall tree, rising to the sky, unhampered by the winding ivy
of the glen outside this Ring of Tricks, this
House of Mirrors.

And so I leap, and the branch catches in my hand, and the rough bark scrapes,

and she screams.

But the branch cracks, and breaks, and I fall hard to the ground! 
And the branch lands square on my shoulder, crack, breaking it,
I know.

and she laughs.

Then I laugh, and through the pain, I lift the branch, and swing wide,
smashing one of the mirrors
and I step out into the clearing,

And I run.