The Mapmaker's War (25 page)

YOU WEREN'T DISTRACTED WITH WEI. NO OTHER WORRY OR DUTY gnawed for your attention. Had you wished to, you soon could have resumed your work in the bakery. She could have slept near you. She could have stayed with tenders in the nurseries. Instead, you chose to be with her day and night those first weeks. Your friends taught you how to wrap her against your chest. Wei rested with contentment. You experienced deep peace, unexpected and welcomed.

She was a calm, cheerful infant. She enjoyed being with others and hearing their voices. In the evening, Leit built steady fires and gave her his full attention. He soothed her skin with ointments and massaged her tiny limbs. Wei lay between her father and Makha and played with her toys.

You watched him with her. Your spouse, a man of extremes, so gentle with his child. He loved her with a fullness of heart. You didn't linger, but you wondered if your own father had looked at you, or touched you, the way Leit did with Wei.

You wanted no more than you had in those moments. Loving spouse, beloved child, a safe and peaceful place to live. Your needs met, your wants granted. You sensed this would not change but somehow would be shattered.

THE DREAM FROM WHICH YOU ROUSED WAS NO DREAM.

You were no longer asleep, yet not quite awake. Clearly, you heard the unmistakable singing of notes. A melody high and sweet as birdsong. You were alone in bed. At the window stood Leit. His naked branded back and shoulders were rounded. You knew he held Wei. Yet you couldn't discern the song's source.

You called his name. He turned with your daughter against his bare chest. The song quieted to silence.

What do you know of your mother's mothers? asked he.

What do you mean? you asked.

What were you told of them?

Little. Nothing. My grandmother died before I was born, you said.

How?

I was told she was found dead one day.

What was she like?

My mother said she was clumsy and quiet. She often left for long periods of rest.

Come to the window, said Leit.

You wrapped yourself and stood next to him.

Our daughter is a Voice, said he. See for yourself.

Wei seemed unchanged. You stroked her cheek. She blinked and lifted her face.

Her eyes turned to here in the night, 
said he.

A baby's eyes don't set color for some time. She's far too young, you said.

Hers will not change.

How do you know?

Sing for your ahpa, Wei, said Leit. He 
cleared his throat and strangled forth the melody you had heard. His tone was thin, wavering, but the sounds were on pitch. Wei pursed her pink lips.

The song trilled through her alone. Wordless and beautiful.

You reached for your infant. She quieted at your breast. She rooted for her morning meal. You sat in a cushioned chair to feed her.

You have Voices in your blood, said he.

Leit told you there were women in your past who'd had the gifts your daughter would soon reveal. They knew the father of such a child must have Guardian blood as well, but no one had determined how thick it had to be. The mother's bloodline held the promise.

He tucked a quilt around you and the baby, then dressed himself. He placed a kettle on the hook in the hearth. He stoked the embers that had survived the night.

My daughter is a Voice, whispered he, through tears.

YOUR FAMILY MOVED TO A LARGER HOME WITH AN EXTRA ROOM FOR Aza. You remembered the Voice from the settlement far away and the little girl in her care. So it would begin for your daughter, a life you couldn't imagine.

Soon after she began to sing, she started to babble in a way unlike any you had heard from a baby. Aza explained those were the languages coming through. You were to speak to her as you would any other child. She would learn which tongue to use with those around her.

Wei grew well and happy. For years before she was born, you had watched others with their children. You tried to learn from observation. You wanted to be a loving mother.

You had come from a place where people thought children were animals to be tamed. Willful savage creatures who required sternness and punishment. The Guardians treated their children with love and guidance. They believed them to be born full of joy, compassion, and kindness. The brutal part of human nature wasn't denied. There was patience given for the dark moods and nurturance for the light ones. They were shown how to treat others by what the adults did and said, and didn't do or say.

Despite your embarrassment, you asked friends to help. I wasn't born among you, you said. Please show me how to raise a peaceful child.

So often it was a matter to pause and breathe. Think before you act. Consider how new the experience of life is for the child. Understand she must test her will to discover what it is. Wei was an older girl when you finally realized she wasn't yours to control but to love.

WEI SAT UPRIGHT BY HERSELF. YOU RECLINED NEAR HER. HER HANDS explored what you gathered along the way to find rest in a forest glade. Stick stone leaf petal. She burbled quiet sounds. Streams of language converged. She chose one.

Ma ma ma ma, said Wei. She patted your knee.

Wei Wei Wei Wei, you said. You clapped her feet together. She laughed.

The story returned as you played with her. Your mother had told you few as a child. One you had long forgotten resurfaced when Wei began to babble. You sensed a connection no one in your family remembered.

An ancient tribe wished to have a weapon so powerful that they could not be defeated. So one of the leaders made a ring of stones surrounded by a shallow circular trough filled with dried grasses and burned it. His wish was to have spear points that seared like fire through an enemy's flesh. Another leader arranged an elaborate pyre in the shape of a tree and burned it with the hope that the spears and clubs made from wood could bend like boughs and never break. Another leader drew the shape of a man against the face of a hill and wished that the warriors were strong as the forces of nature. The stones were left alone, the ashes allowed to mix with the wind, and the shape on the hill to blend into the grasses. The shape remained as clear as the day it was dug into the hill. In summer, along its head, draping from its crown to below its shoulders, were beautiful yellow wildflowers. On the morning that the leader noticed that the drawn man now looked more like a woman, a girl child was born to his wife.

A great drought forced them out of their village two years after the child was born. They began to travel to find a new place to live. It was during this time that the girl child began to speak strangely, not a baby babble, but another tongue altogether.

A sickness fell upon the tribe the following year, which all blamed on the strange new child. But on their travels one evening, the child approached an old woman and spoke to her in a language that no one could understand. The old woman nodded and spoke back to her in the same tongue. As the old woman gathered the women and began to point to plants they were to harvest, the child's father realized that their wish had been granted. The weapon was words.

WEI LEARNED TO CRAWL. HER MOVEMENT WAS UNPREDICTABLE. SHE collided with obstacles as if she had no awareness of them. Other instances, she stopped as if startled. Her coordination seemed delayed.

You wondered about her unusual gaze. Wei looked through or past what was in front of her. She followed a moving object with ease one day, difficulty the next. You didn't remember the twins' development this way.

You shared your observations with Aza. Her response shocked you.

Wei is blind, as you understand it, said she. We Voices don't see as you do.

Some mothers feel sadness for their children, said Aza. I understand they wish their children could see as they do. I assure you, Aoife, Wei sees the same world but with different senses.

She explained her experience of vision and her sensation. With her physical eyes, Aza perceived broad gradation of light and dark and movement of shapes. She touched the skin between her eyebrows. Her point of focus was there. She received images within that space. Colors were distinguished by temperature. Wherever she was, she noticed flows of air currents and sounds. Both gave her indications of space, what was near or far, what was open or closed. All physical objects vibrated. Those that were inert, such as walls, furniture, clothing, or tools, were less intense. She said you might have noticed that she moved slower than most people. She did so to accept the sensations around her. She had to orient herself to act with purpose. She could move with ease among water and rock, plants and trees, animals and people. Those vibrations were stronger. Her awareness received more feeling.

But some see the unseen as well, you said.

Aza nodded.

Tell me of my daughter's mystery, you said.

She sat next to you.

The Voices announced themselves with singing before they could talk.

They spoke languages they had never heard.

Most had the gift of insight into hearts and minds.

Some had the gift of foresight into what could be.

All had a gift to heal. Some were great listeners. Some sent light through their hands. Some used sound and song.