Every end has a beginning.
Dead she was of invisible wounds, yet far lovelier than the living women who gathered at the river s edge to gape and wonder. More beautiful even than I, Arthur s queen, who am famed and cursed for beauty. I see her face still, as if it were etched in fairyfire against the darkness that gathered about me that long-ago night utter darkness, though I remember my old nurse stroking my hair and crooning that dawn was near. The long-faced women in my room were mere shadows, less real to me than the image of the dead maiden. Throughout that long, long night the Lady of Shalott haunted me, though not half so painfully as the memory of Lancelot s eyes as he beheld the doomed fairy woman who knew his past, and ruled his heart.