In the Forests of the Night

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night :
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears :
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger, Tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night :
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

And looming at the bottom, the tiger itself. Reading this poem made Astra wonder: who had made that strange and lonely room with the staircase, and why? Had it been built by human hands, or was it as ancient as the world? And how had she gotten there? She remembered vividly her childhood, her loves, her bold and daring quests. She remembered the long unchanging months of loneliness in the Staircase Room. But she did not remember how she had come to be there.

She felt a cold wind blowing, and realized that she was elsewhere. She was still alone, but she was no longer in the Staircase Room. This place was a dark forest shrouded in mist, through which she glimpsed thick jagged branches bare of leaves. The hooting and cries of animals surrounded her, but she could see nothing clearly. She turned around and saw behind her an old, weathered Victorian (there was that strange word again--where had it come from?) mansion. On the door was a knocker with a face like a leering demon.

1. Astra slowly knocks on the door.
2. Then she hears a twig snap behind her. She is not alone.
3. Then she feels a savage hunger rising within her, and starts to change...
4. Astra glimpses what looks like a battle in the sky...

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