I am thirteen years old, and I wake to the sound of someone beating on glass.
I do not open my eyes, but I know that I am not sleeping anymore. It is dark—my eyes are closed—but I have no sense of standing or lying down. I am, apart from anything else, and it is dark, and I want to go back to sleep. The sound comes again, ringing and echoing around me, and though I try to look I cannot see anything. The sound shakes me, vibrating the very air, filling the space like thunder after a lightning strike. But I do not know where it is coming from.
I try to say something, but my voice has no power here—wherever I am. I try to walk, to wave my arms, but they do not respond. Somehow I am awake and yet asleep. I am not in my house, but neither am I unconscious. I do not know where I am.
Again the world rings, a pure pitch with bass rumblings as the shakings catch up. The fourth time I hear it, I see a glint of light. I strain to see the light, willing myself to find its source—and suddenly I am before a wall. I struggle to focus on the dull brownish light coming through the wall—it is a clear wall, ridged and uneven, and on the other side there are shapes, brown and unfocused. I will myself to touch it, but there is no sense of feeling here. Sight and sound disobey the normal rules. I can see that the wall is endless, a boundless boundary, stretching on forever to either side of me, trapping me in the nowhere I am. It is straight and flat, so nowhere must go on forever, too. This does not make sense to me. I probably should stop trying to make it make sense.
There is someone on the other side of the wall.
I watch as the person moves—there is movement, somewhere, just not nowhere—and then the wall rings again, no louder or softer than before. Are they trying to knock it down? I do not know how one person could hope to succeed against the endless wall. I would like to help, but I am helpless.
I see funny shapes as the person moves again, and I start to pick out colors—black, white, deep red—and then they shift and through the ridges I see Mother, her face stretched and her body squat, like looking at her reflection in ripples. She looks silly. I wish I could see her expression, but then she moves again and now her face is squashed like a wrinkled tomato and her arms are twice as long as they should be. I laugh.
She goes still, and I can tell she is trying to look through the wall, trying to see me laughing. I cannot wave or do anything to let her know that I am here. She is trying to reach me, but she cannot. I hope this does not worry her.
I can laugh! I have no words, but I can laugh. Mother knocks on the wall again, but this only makes me laugh harder. My laugh is like the ringing of the wall itself. It mocks her. It warns her away. I do not do these things myself, but I do. The wall is my doing. The wall is my prison. The wall keeps me safe. I want to tell Mother these things. I want to tell her to leave the wall alone. I laugh instead. It is my laugh (I am thirteen, and my voice is the same as it has always been) and it is Flemeth's laugh (I do not want to be cruel) and it is a laugh that crawls out of the ground and hangs low like fog, like slowly sinking into a bog.
Mother stares through the wall. One of her eyes is huge and unblinking and the rest of her face is cut into the tiny faces of crystal. From the part of her face that I can understand, she looks scared. She is slow to back away, but once she does she runs, until I can no longer see her. But the wall still rings and the laughter continues and light floods the nowhere land. I open my eyes to dawn.
Mother is gone.
I do not leave the house all morning. I stoke the fire and wait. I eat bread when I am hungry. I sit on my stool. I am taller than I used to be, and the stool is too short for my legs. I sit on the table. The sunlight grows brighter and whiter as the day passes. I am not afraid.
It is past midday when a crow flies through our window. Before I can chase it off there is a change in the air, and Mother is standing where the bird once stood. The crow was Mother, and I cannot decide if I am confused or surprised and she says, "Morrin, don't sit on the table."
I am standing on the ground and staring at her, twisting as she walks past me and starts searching her shelf. Her hair is loose and tangled. This is unusual, but I do not know what to say.
"Morrin," Mother says, her back to me, her voice annoyed, "do you have nothing better to do then stand in the middle of the room?"
"I saw you," I say, because nothing else matters. "While I was sleeping. I saw you."
Her back is still to me, but I can tell that she has stopped moving. A bird tweets outside. A wind rustles a few loose papers by the window. "Aye," she says. "No doubt dreaming is new to you."
"Was it a dream?" I have never had a dream.
She turns and looks at me, not as if I am Morrin, but as if I am a spell that does not do what she intends. "No," she says, "but yes. 'Twas a test that failed. We shall have to try different methods."
"What are you trying to do?" I ask, as she paces to the mantle and peers into the pot of lyrium. "Can I help?"
"Doubtful," she says, sounding distracted, "as you are the problem, and therefore 'tis unlikely you are the solution. No," she says, with a sigh, turning back to me with her arms crossed, "you may continue as you are. I am sorry to have disturbed your rest."
She sounds strange when she says this, but I am tired of wondering. I want things to be as they have always been. "It won't happen again," I say.
"No." She shakes her head. "No, I think not. I will try something else. And you..."
We stare at each other, and under her gaze I feel like a puzzle, a problem. I stand perfectly still. I know she can see—for she is Mother and Mother always sees—that I do not want to be a problem. Now I am afraid. I am afraid of myself, because I do not know why I am a problem.
"Don't fret," Mother says. Finally I move. I run to Mother and throw my arms around her, and she hugs me, her hands holding me close without digging in her fingers. "All will be well, boy. All will be well."
I forget my dream and my fears. I cling to Mother and to her promise. The sun is warm and Mother is soft and the world is waiting for me, and I am late.
I squeeze Mother and she releases me. "Be home in time for supper," she says, and I smile at her and run towards the door and remember something.
"Mother," I say, turning back, "can you teach me to be a bird, too?"
"You're no mage, Morrin," she says, but she sounds amused and not angry. "Best to stay on the ground."
I nod and run outside, but the thought comes to me, unbidden: I would dream of flying.
